Ticimul

Ticimul (pronounced "Tikimul") is a Maya farming village in the municipality of Chankom, in eastern Yucatán. It lies about 6 km northwest of the village of Chankom, the municipal seat, and about 22 km southeast of Chichén Itzá; Valladolid is roughly 40 km to the northeast. With 882 people in the 2020 census it is now the largest community in the municipality, ahead of Chankom itself (772). Don't confuse it with the other Ticimul, a former hacienda near Umán, south of Mérida.

There are pre-Hispanic Maya remains at Ticimul, and archaeologists link their construction to the period when Chichén Itzá was at its height. The state lists the Ticimul archaeological site among the municipality's points of interest, together with X-Cocail, Cosil and Kochilá, but none of them is set up for visitors. The village also figures in the history of the Caste War, the Maya uprising that emptied this whole area in the mid-19th century: a carved stone telling of an episode of the war that took place at Ticimul is kept in Mérida's Parque Zoológico del Centenario.

The surrounding municipality was resettled only around 1890 and became a municipality in 1935; its seat, Chankom, became famous through the anthropologist Robert Redfield's studies of Maya village life in the 1930s and 1940s. Ticimul itself has no tourist services. It makes sense as a quiet back-road detour for travellers based in Valladolid or Pisté who want to see everyday life in a Maya village, combined with a visit to Chankom.