Tahcabó

Tahcabó is a village in the municipality of Calotmul, in eastern Yucatán, about 11 km north-east of the town of Calotmul in a straight line. It had 442 people at the 2020 census, up from 100 in 1900. Until 1910 the census wrote its name as Tahcab.

The place is old. In colonial times it was one of the villages visited by the friars of the Franciscan house founded at Calotmul in 1612, together with Itzabcanul and Espita. Much older traces lie beneath and around the village: the Proyecto Arqueológico Colaborativo del Oriente de Yucatán has studied farming life and the sinkholes in and around Tahcabó, including the cenote in the centre of the village, which holds water all year, and three dry rejolladas (collapsed sinkholes used as garden plots). Pollen, soil isotopes, radiocarbon dates and artefacts from these features point to people living here continuously for more than two millennia. These are research findings, not a visitor site: there is no fenced archaeological zone or ticket office.

Today Tahcabó is a quiet farming village in a municipality that lives mainly from cattle, forestry and agriculture. The nearest larger towns are Calotmul, whose 1749 church holds a gilded altarpiece and an image of the Immaculate Conception celebrated from 1 to 8 December, and Tizimín to the north.