The ‘Rainbow City’ of Ch’el

Best known by its contemporary name Sihunchen, the site’s original name is thought to have been Ch’el, sometimes spelled Che’el or Chéel, which translates to “rainbow” in the Yucatec-Mayan language.

Visiting a site like Ch’el requires a good deal of imagination and knowledge of Mesoamerican architecture, as, for the most part, its collapsed structures do not look like much more than piles or rocks to the untrained eye.  Several of Ch’el’s architectural groups were likely built in the second century CE.