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ThisTenement: Created page with "Photograph: David von Blohn/APThe Temple of Quechula is an abandoned Roman Catholic Church located in the state of Chiapas, Mexico...."

2016-10-16T20:28:58Z

Created page with "400px|thumb|right|Photograph: David von Blohn/APThe Temple of Quechula is an abandoned Roman Catholic Church located in the state of Chiapas, Mexico...."

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[[File:8563745763.jpg|400px|thumb|right|Photograph: David von Blohn/AP]]The Temple of Quechula is an abandoned Roman Catholic Church located in the state of Chiapas, Mexico.

Constructed around 1564 for Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas, the church was used for around 200 years before being abandoned after a smallpox epidemic devastated the region in 1773–76.<ref>Ed Mazza, "[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/temple-of-santiago-mexico_us_56244bcae4b02f6a900cc670 450-Year-Old Church Emerges From Reservoir As Water Levels Drop]", The Huffington Post, Oct 19, 2015, accessed October 16, 2016.</ref> The church lay unused for another 200 years, when the completion of the Malpaso Dam in 1966 created the Nezahualcoyotl Reservoir, flooding the remains of the town of Quechula and submerging its church under 100 feet of water.<ref>Alberto Arce, "[http://bigstory.ap.org/article/4e138c746a5a45ec9dce817349709554/colonial-church-emerges-falling-mexican-reservoir Colonial church emerges from falling Mexican reservoir]", Associated Press, Oct 17, 2015, accessed October 16, 2016.</ref>

In 2015, a drought affecting the watershed of the Grijalva River resulted in water levels in the reservoir dropping by over 80 feet, causing the church to emerge again from the waters. It is the second such reemergence in recent years, a similar drought in 2002 allowed visitors to walk up to and inside the building.<ref>Mazza, "450-Year-Old Church".</ref>

At 183 feet in length and with a bell tower stretching to 48 feet above the ground, the church is grandiose in scale.<ref>Arche, "Colonial church emerges".</ref> Architect Carlos Navarete, who has studied the building, suggests that the church was constructed in anticipation of a future population expansion in Quechula, given the town's location on an important thoroughfare laid out by Spanish conquistadors. The growth in the area failed to materialize, however, and the temple, "probably never even had a dedicated priest, only receiving visits from those from <nowiki>[the nearby monastery of]</nowiki> Tecpatan."<ref>Ibid.</ref>

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Temple of Quechula emerges from the waters - Revision history

ThisTenement at 15:08, 17 October 2016

ThisTenement: Created page with "Photograph: David von Blohn/APThe Temple of Quechula is an abandoned Roman Catholic Church located in the state of Chiapas, Mexico...."