Coba

Cobá was a major Maya city built among lakes in eastern Yucatán. Its temples, carved monuments and residential groups spread through the forest, joined by raised stone roads called sacbeob. The longest of these ran roughly one hundred kilometres west to Yaxuná, linking Cobá to the centre of the peninsula. The city’s great roads expressed the reach of its rulers as well as providing routes between settlements.

Cobá’s influence changed after the Classic period. Between about 1000 and 1250 it came under Itza influence, and its political power gradually diminished in the following centuries. Nevertheless, the monuments and road network remained part of the landscape of eastern Yucatán, where Maya communities continued to live as new centres rose nearer the Caribbean coast.