The second floor of the palace of Labná dates from a late construction phase
Stephens had himself lowered into the chaltun (underground cistern) in front of this building. He writes:
"The chamber was entirely different in shape from those I had seen before. The latter were circular, and had dome-shaped ceilings. This had parallel walls and the triangular-arched ceiling; in fact, it was in shape exactly like the apartments of the arch.
The walls and ceiling were plastered, and the floor was of cement, all hard and in a good state of preservation. A centipede was the only tenant after the evasion of the iguana.
This chamber was formed in the roof of the lower building. That building contained two corridors, and we had always supposed that the great interval between the arches of the parallel corridors was a solid mass of masonry.
The discovery of this chamber brought to light a new feature in the construction of these buildings. Whether the other roofs, or any of them, contained chambers, it is impossible to say. Not suspecting anything of the kind, we had made no search for them, and they may exist, but with the holes covered up and hidden by the growth and decay of vegetation."
Stephens, John Lloyd. Incidents of Travel in Yucatan. Illustrated by Frederick Catherwood. Dover Publications, Inc. New York 1963. Vol 2, p. 36-38
Chultuns are underground cisterns built by the ancient Maya to store rainwater. A chultun is always surrounded by a plastered area designed to catch rain and fill the cistern.
Edward Thompson writes that he had seen charming representations of birds, turtles, and other figures painted on the interior walls of chultuns.
NOTE: A square modern cap has been placed in the middle of the ancient catch basin.
"The Palace platform complex, also with several patios, has four chultuns, including a room in the lower story that was transformed into a water cistern.
It seems obvious that there is a direct correlation among the number of patios and the number of chultuns in the same platform unit or complex, once the patio acted as a catchment area for the underground cistern."
Manuel Tomás Gallareta Negrón. The Social Organization of Labna, a Classic Maya Community in the Puuc Region of Yucatan, Mexico. Ph.D. Dissertation, Tulane University, 2013, p. 194
"After almost two centuries of a fruitful and multi-faceted evolution, Puuc architecture began to crystalize around certain principles, setting aside some elements and incorporating others.
Thus, for example, in these late phases it tends to discard the use of columns at entrances (the entrances to Rooms 59 and 61 of the Palace of Labná could be among the latest examples of this). On the other hand, it begins to employ embedded columns at the corners of the building."
Paul Gendrop, Rio Bec, Chenes, and Puuc Styles in Maya Architecture, p. 188
