San Gervasio Archaeological Zone

San Gervasio is the largest Maya settlement on Cozumel. It was founded around 300 CE as a small community, expanded significantly after 1000 CE, and by about 1200 had become the largest settlement on the island. It remained so until the Spanish arrived in the early 16th century, and was abandoned between 1520 and 1600.

The site is not one building but several architectural groups spread through low jungle — among them Manitas, Chichan Nah, El Alamo, Nohoch Nah, Murcielagos, Ka'na Nah and El Ramonal — connected by sacbeob, the raised paved roads the Maya built between settlements. Two of these causeways, Sacbe 1 and Sacbe 2, are still clearly visible and walkable.

Cozumel was a major pilgrimage destination in the Maya world. One Spanish bishop recorded that the Maya held the island in the same veneration as Christians held Jerusalem and Rome.

You will read almost everywhere that San Gervasio was a shrine to Ix Chel, goddess of fertility and childbirth, and that Maya women travelled here at least once in their lives. The pilgrimage is well documented. The specific link to Ix Chel is not: archaeologists David Freidel and Jeremy Sabloff proposed that the structure Ka'na Nah may have been dedicated to her, but no archaeological evidence has been found tying any building at San Gervasio specifically to Ix Chel.

The site was investigated in the early 1970s by Harvard University and the University of Arizona. Excavation of El Ramonal began in 1997 as part of an INAH project.

Open daily, 9:00am to 3:45pm. Roughly 15 to 20 minutes inland from San Miguel along the Carretera Transversal. Admission is charged at the gate.