Tulum, QR., Conceived in parallel with the Maya Train project, this Saturday the El Jaguar park was inaugurated – made up of a thousand hectares for environmental preservation – and, inside it, the new Museum of the Eastern Coast, considered the largest museum on the route of the new railway. A work destined to historical memory and to honor the greatness of the Mayan civilization that has lasted three millennia.
The director of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), Diego Prieto Hernández –main person responsible for the conception and construction of the new museum–, highlighted that Today it is proven that the Tren Maya project is not just a train, but is also the vindication of the southeast of Mexico and the Yucatan peninsula, a work of justice and balanced development, a work of progress with equality and recovery of historical memory. We inaugurated the largest museum of the Tren Maya system
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Despite its relevance, the inauguration by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, was private: only the directors of all the departments involved attended, including the Secretary of National Defense, Luis Cresensio Sandoval.
As part of the last tours of his administration, which this time he dedicated to supervising the final stage of one of his most iconic projects, López Obrador praised this new museum – associated with the works of the Mayan Train, because It is one of the most beautiful in the world. When you visit it you will see what a beautiful thing it is, one of the best in Mexico, the Museum of the Eastern Coast
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The El Jaguar park complex comprises a thousand hectares of cultural, historical and environmental conservation, in which 2.7 billion pesos were invested. Its planning sought to connect the route of the Maya Train with the archaeological zone and the new Museum of the Eastern Coast, in the heart of the park
. Sighting towers were built at one end of what was an airfield, from where the jungle area can be observed.
In the park, routes and trails were built to explore along the seashore, while another viewing point was built at the southern entrance.
Prieto highlighted that the entire territory where the Mayans settled It is a unique cultural region for its history, its styles, its architecture, its economy and its interurban network, which goes from Tulum to Cobá, and from Cobá to Chichén to Mayapán.
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There the first encounters with The strangers who came from the east, from the place where Gonzalo Guerrero was shipwrecked and entered the Mayan world
Prieto pointed out. Without a doubt, he added, there is a great civilizing trunk, the most continuous and extensive in all of Mesoamerica
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Although the Spanish invasion cut short the Mayans’ path as a relatively autonomous nation, the genocide was not consummated and today, the director of the INAH pointed out, in the 21st century, The presence of the indigenous peoples and cultures of Mexico, in particular the Mayan civilization, is not only alive and well, but also offers us references to leave behind the neoliberal horizon, to confront the civilizational crisis marked by inequality, wars and global warming in order to deepen the transformation.
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Threatened heritage
In order to achieve this parallel development to the route of the Maya Train, the Secretary of Agrarian, Territorial and Urban Development, Román Meyer Falcón, said that without the railway project, El Jaguar would have been difficult to conceive, a work associated with the comprehensive vision of historical and cultural recovery in the Yucatán peninsula.
He pointed out that in parallel to the Mayan Train, 71 urban development plans were designed, among which was Tulum, whose archaeological zone has become the third most visited in the country, only behind Chichén Itzá and Teotihuacan. However, Tulum It is a heritage threatened by rapid urban growth; it required a project to protect it, organize it and rehabilitate it. The Maya Train is not only a means of transportation, no, it is a vision of regional planning to bring employment, well-being and works with special attention to environmental protection.
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Meyer Falcón said that when the reorganization began, a chaotic and worrying situation was found within the park, since territories were being ceded to real estate developers, but the park began to take a new direction when 300 hectares of forest were recovered.
Later, López Obrador, accompanied by his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, inaugurated the Historical Museum of the City of Felipe Carrillo Puerto, a community that was founded with the name of Noj Kazakhstan Santa Cruz Baalam Nan as the headquarters of the Mayan resistance against subjugation and slavery.
It is a site dedicated to narrating 174 years of history, forged with the struggle of the Macehualob Mayans, since they took up arms for the land and dignity of their people until the present.
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