Towards
the year 400 E.C. the totonacas initiated the construction of the city that today we know as Yohualichan, that in Náhuatl
means “house of the night”, and whose original name was lost with the mexica invasion.
Originally
Yohualichan depended of the great capital of the Totonacapan, the Tajín, distant not more than 60 km. Its architectonic style,
like the one of the great large city, was characterized by its ornamented piramidales bodies with niches.
Seated
on a slope that decreases from south to north, diverse buildings were raised on natural esplanades; thus, the ball game occupies
the highest position in relation to the platform where the ceremonial center is located, which conforms a splendid quadrangle
made up of several constructions that give to the set an impressive aspect.
Yohualichan was presented by the decade of
the twenties. Nevertheless, it was until January, 1978 that the National Institute of Anthropology and History made a true
archaeological work that revealed the magnitude of the site for the first time, which, finally, was explored almost in its
totality during the season of excavations and reconstruction of 1996.
