New Monument to Honor Maya Women at Paseo de Montejo

A new monument is coming to one of this city’s most debated public spaces.

A replica of Estela 18 de Uxmal will be installed at the Remate, the entrance to Paseo de Montejo, to honor the role of Maya women in the region’s ancestral history. The announcement from Mayor Cecilia Patrón Laviada came during the launch of “Lluvia y Tierra. La Estela 18 de Uxmal,” a book published by the National Institute of Anthropology and History, or INAH, that documents the monument’s discovery and meaning.

“It’s a shared dream that Mérida has a space where Maya roots are recognized,” Patrón Laviada said, adding that she hopes the site helps pass that knowledge along so that pride in local identity keeps growing.

The original stela was found in October 2022 in the Uxmal archaeological zone. Archaeologists consider it unusual because it’s carved on both sides and doesn’t glorify a ruler’s military conquests, as many stelae do. Instead, it depicts two deities in action: the goddess Chak Chel and the Underworld Jaguar God, tied to fertility, water and rain rituals. The book was written by archaeologist José Huchim Herrera and epigrapher Alexander W. Voss.

The stela will stand near the Montejo monument, a 2010 sculpture of conquistador Francisco de Montejo, “El Adelantado,” and his son, known as “El Mozo,” which has drawn controversy for years. Maya collectives and human rights groups have long argued the statue glorifies figures tied to violence against Indigenous communities during the conquest of the Peninsula.

That debate resurfaced in May, when a federal ruling ordered Mérida’s city government to issue a properly justified response to a 2024 petition seeking the statue’s removal. The petition, backed by the groups Kanan Derechos Humanos and RacismoMX, followed a 2025 city response that cited only cost as a reason not to act. The ruling doesn’t require the statue’s removal, but it does require officials to address the petition on legal and human-rights grounds rather than economic ones.

The same traffic circle is also home to the Antimonumenta, a steel sculpture honoring victims of gender violence that feminist collectives installed there in 2021, after the city denied their first choice of location.

City officials haven’t announced an installation date or exact placement for the Estela 18 replica. The presentation drew several scholars, including Dr. Cristina Vidal Lorenzo of the University of Valencia and Dr. Gaspar Muñoz Cosme of the Polytechnic University of Valencia, along with Eduardo Puga Salazar of the city’s Urban Development Department.

Discussion of who is remembered along the boulevard — founded on the name of its Spanish conquistador — isn’t new. In 1939, then-Gov. Humberto Canto Echeverría briefly tried to rename Paseo de Montejo after Nachi Cocom, a Maya cacique who resisted Spanish rule, though the change never stuck.

Fast Facts

• What: Replica of Estela 18 de Uxmal
• Where: The Remate, at the start of Paseo de Montejo, Mérida
• Announced: July 8, 2026, by Mayor Cecilia Patrón Laviada
• Original stela found: October 2022, Uxmal archaeological zone
• Depicts: The goddess Chak Chel and the Underworld Jaguar God
• Nearby monuments: The 2010 Montejo statue and the 2021 Antimonumenta
• Related book: “Lluvia y Tierra. La Estela 18 de Uxmal,” published by INAH

Including information from Mérida’s city government, El Grillo de Yucatán, POSTA México, Diario 24 Horas Yucatán and Haz Ruido, with additional background from Yucatán Magazine archives.