Southern façade of the House of the Turtles. This small building has always charmed visitors with its elegantly simple ornamentation but subtly pleasing proportions. Its junquillo-ornamented frieze, framed between two geometric cornices, is narrower than the plain lower wall but balances the whole very well. The name House of the Turtles stems from the fact that stone effigy turtles go around all the upper cornice of the building. Turtles were important symbols in Mesoamerica. For example, the Earth's crust was believed to be a huge turtle carapace. Also, the three stars at the belt of our constellation Orion were believed to form a turtle. Additionally, turtles were associated with water and therefore the Underworld. What the effigy turtles in this particular context once meant we will probably never know, but it seems reasonable to think that their presence in this building would have conveyed information about the building's use.