Mayan Ruina: Toninâ

I should be able to tell you something cool about these ruins without the help of Wikipedia, but

1. I'm too cheap to hire a guided tour, and
2. even if I spent the money on a guide, I still don't understand spanish well enough to do anything more than smile and nod at large stacks of rocks.

So, here are some fun Toninâ facts provided by Wikipedia.

Toninâ means "House of Stones" in the Tzeltal language, but this is an adaptation from the original name of "the place where stone sculptures are raised to honor time." The name was changed for marketing reasons among Tzeltal tourists as well as ease in directing the Cambi driver of your desired location. Also, around 1970, a group of wayward deconstructuralists boycotted the original name claiming that stone sculptures could be raised to honor time in many different locations and therefore the name was ambiguous. After a large campaign among the locals, the interpretation was shortened in 1972 to "House of Stones" and it has remained that way since.

The ruins were a series of pyramid temples built around a ball field. The nation of Toninâ mostly warred with Palenque until eventually they became the dominant city. Really, this means that when the wars were all said and done, Toninâ had more Palenque warriors to brutally sacrifice in the "House of Stones" than vice versa.

There were many different rulers of Toninâ, all laid out in a spectacular graph should you care to look at the Wikipedia sight. Most of them were made of stone and most of them looked something like the man pictured below. My favorite, by far, is Ruler 7. View his reign of terror here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonina
Here is his biography, Wikistyle "He (Ruler 6) was succeeded by Ruler 7, about whom even less is known. Around 764 Toniná defeated Palenque in battle." Thank you, Ruler 7 for the downfall of an incredible civilization!

Some really smart people have been writing about Toninâ since the 17th Century. There are lots of structures on the premise, all made out of stone. You can also visit the Museum and use the bathrooms for completely free! This may seem like a given to most of you, but spend a little time in Mexico and you will see how precious public restrooms become. If you feel tired after scaling the ruins, you can ride horses back the quarter of a mile instead of walking.

So there you have it. Toninâ is super important and the grounds are really beautiful too. Should you find yourself in the area, visit the ruins of the glorious civilation that once dominated Palenque before Ruler 7.