November 26, 2022
Description
🇲🇽 Welcome to Yucatán!
The Ancient Ruins Collection - Mesoamerica is a dedicated sub-collection about the legacy of past civilizations in parts of what is present-day Mexico and Central America.
This model was designed by Dany Sánchez, available in two versions:
The Palace of Masks is the most famous and unique structure in the ancient Mayan city of Kabáh (ka-BAAH), in the Puuc region of the Yucatan peninsula of southeastern Mexico.
This palace's extraordinary feature are the hundreds of stone masks of the long-nosed rain god Chaac that decorate its façade. The building is also known as “Codz Po'op” (codz-poh-OP) in Yucatec Mayan language, meaning "Rolled Matting", because the repeated pattern of the stone masks resemble a traditional mat of woven fibers used for sleeping, think of an ancient yoga mat. The architecture of the Puuc region is unique within Maya culture, but this massive repetition of a single module is unusual.
The Palace of Masks sits on a large man-made platform along with other buildings. It has a long rectangular shape, with five frontal doors on one of the long sides, and one door in each short side. All doors lead to a double chamber, they do not connect from the inside. There are other structures behind that are accessed to by going around. Above, it had a roof comb, a typical feature of Maya buildings.
The façade is clad in faces of the rain god Chaac, depicting its curved nose, curved sharp teeth, and facial jewelry. Each face is made of carved stone blocks of different depths, mounted with pegs on the wall. Each Chaac face module repeats stacked 7 times vertically: one at the base, three at the level of the doors, and three above. Each stack repeats horizontally as needed to fill all the space in each of the three visible sides of the building. A variation of the module appears in the corners.
In present day, both ends of the rectangular building have collapsed, allowing to partially see the double chambers. Most of the mask modules from the top 3 rows have fallen off, with only a section near the second door from left to right still in place. This exposes the structural wall and the peg system used to mount the masks. Red paint traces suggest that the entire building was painted in bright colors. The mask directly below each door has its nose modified to function as a step, allowing people to climb into the chambers.
Kabáh is one of the many small cities that the Maya civilization built in the Puuc region of Yucatan, known for its low hills landscape, in contrast with the rest of the peninsula, which is very flat . Other cities in this region are Uxmal, Labná, Sayil, and Xlapak, all located within a few miles from each other. It is believed that Kabáh means “Strong Hand” in the ancient Yucatec Mayan language, and written with the glyph of a clenched fist. Most of the architecture now visible was built between the 7th century and 11th centuries CE.
MiniWorld 3D is excited to bring this historical model to life as a homage to all the people of Mexico. This model was created from scratch by hand and brain in parametric software to ensure printability, using photographs and blueprints to create a beautiful and stylized version of your favorite landmarks. Please give credit, it's all about spreading culture!
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Photo credits: 0.2mm layer height, using SpiderMaker matte PLA frosted almond and Galaxy Universe black PLA, hand-painted with acrylics by Dany Sánchez.
Yellow background renderings: Artemio García
Real location photo credit: Dany Sánchez.
The reconstructed model is based on the drawings and hypothetical reconstruction by Tatiana Proskouriakoff , a Russian-American Mayanist scholar and archaeologist,
Drawings by John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood were also consulted.
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Suggested parameters:
For better details, print slow, such as 15 or 20mm/s for outer perimeters.
Fine-tune retraction to avoid stringing.
Perimeters: 2
Top layers: 3
Infill: as low as 12%
No supports needed, this has been optimized to eliminate all overhangs.
License:
Creative Commons — Attribution — Noncommercial — NoDerivatives
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