Architects of the thousand–year–old city of Kabah in northern Yucatán simultaneously created both palaces and privacy for their ruling noble families. The partly reconstructed East Group of ruins, shown here in part, embodies the elegant simplicity of Puuc architecture in the variety of its entryways, some columned, some not, marking both levels of the two–story buildings. The great “flying facade” above the roofline of the far building served both as adornment and as the backdrop for carvings of people and gods proclaiming the power of those who lived within.