Cantona Archaeological Site

On leaving Puebla we again headed east, in the general direction of the Yucatan. Our first stop was not far away, at a little visited archaeological site called Cantona. All of the literature I had read on Cantona had said that it was an impressive and significant site (true) in a remote and isolated location (bollocks). Cantona is about 60 miles from one of the largest cities in Mexico, and within 5 miles of a good condition toll road down a well maintained road. It may not be on a well-travelled tour route, but the site is easy enough to access to warrant it being significantly more popular than it is. Cantona was the largest single urban development in Mesoamerica, it has a huge area of astonishingly well preserved pyramids, streets and building platforms, and whilst we were at the site, there were only two other visitors there.

Cantona is built into a rugged mountainous area, which made it impossible for the inhabitants to lay the site out in a symmetrical way like their neighbours at Teotihuacan. In addition, the city was linked by a huge network of raised and walled alleyways and roads. These combine to make the site interesting to explore; there are few places where you can see any significant portion of the city, and so around every corner is a surprise. The city is unique in that none of the structures use mortar to hold the stone together, and is unusual in that no plaster, stucco or murals were used for decoration. Many of the walls are built like a traditional drystone wall in the UK, whilst the building platforms and pyramids are all built from square cut stone stacked on top of each other. The area has an abundance of different stone sources, and the builders at Cantona used different rocks depending on the use. The pyramids used different stones for sloping surfaces, horizontal surfaces and for the steps, with another type of stone used for ceremonial platforms.

Even rushing around the small part of the city which has been excavated and restored, we spent more than four hours at Cantona. It is a beautiful site surrounded by cactuses and palm trees, with a great view of the huge Orizaba volcano; its lack of popularity makes it far more pleasant to visit and anyone who’s visited Teotihuacan or Chitzen Itza will appreciate the peace and quiet.