Sayil is best known for El Palacio, the huge three-tiered building that has an 85m-long facade and is reminiscent of the Minoan palace on Crete. The distinctive columns of Puuc architecture are used here often, either as supports for the lintels, as decoration between doorways or as a frieze above them, alternating with stylized Chaac masks and ‘descending gods.’
Taking the path south from the palace for about 400m and bearing left, you come to the temple named El Mirador , whose rooster-like roofcomb was once painted a bright red. About 100m beyond El Mirador, beneath a protective palapa, is a stela bearing the relief of a fertility god with an enormous phallus, now sadly weathered.
Grupo Sur is a bit further, and offers beautiful jungle-covered ruins with tree roots twisting through the walls.
The ruins of Sayil are 4.5km from the junction of the Ruta Puuc with Hwy 261.
