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Kabah
 The
city can be found just south of Uxmal, and is directly
off the main highway.
In a similar Puuk style that can be found in Sayil,
Labna and Xlapak, Kabah is another example of this construction
style that flourished in the eighth and ninth centuries
throughout the Yucatan.
The best known site south of Uxmal, its' popularity
with tourists is largely due to the existance of the
Codz Poop or Wall of Masks, is a wall made up over 260
Chaak masks, stacked on top of one another in an almost
fanatic configuration. Kabah has been a site that has
experienced a recent surge of re-construction and restoration.
 Recent
excavations have uncovered life-sized statues of a Mayan
King, restored to its position on the upper frieze of
the rear of the Codz Poop.
Though there are numerous representations of the rain
god Chaak throughout Yucatan, nowhere are they as apparently
obsessive as they are in the Codz Poop at Kabah. Measuring
45 meters long with 260 Chaak masks, it has been theorized
that there was one mask built for every day in the Mayan
calendar. The only structure that comes close to this
repetitious use of the Chaak image is on the Palace
of the Governor in Uxmal. Though that structure shows
230 masks, they are not as closely stacked or as "overwhelming"
as the Codz Poop which means "Rolled Mat".
This structure is a true feat of engineering. The building
is almost 45 meters long. In the total area that makes
up each Chaak mask, there are 19 different "blocks"
including the nose. The total blocks needed for just
the Chaak masks were therefore 4,940. Add to this the
smaller blocks that made up the door jambs and other
ornaments on the wall, and we can estimate that in all
the building would require over 6,000 blocks. There
would be different "teams" of masons, each
working on a different section of the wall, all needing
to be coordinated to fit together at the same time.
All blocks carved from stone by hand, and all having
to be within a certain tolerance. If each block was
out even a centimetre, then by the time builders reached
the far end of the wall, that error would have been
so magnified that.the patterns would not match at all.
What this tells us about the Maya, is that in a world
just emerging from the Neolithic period of history,
the Maya had a Mass Production system in place for the
building of such structures. Likely different groups
would be required to perform different functions. Some
would cut the course stone in a quarry, others would
transport the stone to those who roughed them into shape,
finally, the most skilled craftsman would perform the
final carving to the exact dimensions needed to fit
with the other teams to give the final product. All
in an age with no calculators, no sophisticated measuring
devices, and no metal tools.
 
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