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Location:
Yucatan
peninsula, Mexico.
|
Grid Reference:
20° 40' N,
88° 32' W. |
-
 Chichen
Itza.
(Ceremonial centre).
Abandoned sacred Mayan city, once covering over
six square miles.
Chichen Itza is considered by many as one
the most important Mayan complexes in Mexico.
It is generally agreed that Chichen Itza was first populated between 500
and 900 AD by Mayans and for some reason abandoned around 900, the city
was then resettled 100 years later and subsequently invaded by Toltecs
from the North. There are numerous reliefs of both Mayan gods including
Chac and the Toltec gods including Quetzacoatl. For some reason the city
was abandoned around 1300 AD, although it remained a pilgrimage centre
until the time of the conquest.
(Click here for map of the site)
(Scroll down for more).
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Chitchen Itza:
The Maya name "Chich'en Itza"
means "At the mouth of the well of the Itza."
Much of the reason for the placement and construction of Chichen Itza
is explained in terms of the several 'Cenote's' or 'sink-holes' in the
area. These geological features provided the Mayans (and the city
itself), a unique connection to the underworld, as demonstrated by the
numerous discoveries of skeletons and funerary rights in most of the
nearby cenotes and caves in the region.
The Cenote Sagrado:
(The Sacred Well).
Natural Sink
-holes (Cenotes) - A long, white
limestone road or sacbe, extends north from the base of the north
staircase of the great pyramid, El
Castillo. The road passes the
Temple of Venus and continues for a thousand feet to a large,
limestone sinkhole the Maya call "cenote." This is El Cenote Sagrado,
the Sacred Well, found at the northernmost point of the Chichen Itza
archaeological zone. This large cenote was likely one of the major
reasons why the Maya built such an immense city here. The cenote is fed
by an underground river, and supplied water for the city as well as
served as a location where the Maya conducted religious rites. Almost
perfectly circular, the Chichen Itza cenote is more than 50 meters in
diameter, and its upper rim stands more than 20 meters from the waters
surface. The water itself is almost 15 meters deep with a thick layer of
muck at the bottom that has so far proven too deep to measure, or to
allow for easy exploration of its depths.
It can be seen from this
satellite photo that Chichen Itza lies between two Cenotes: One deemed
'sacred' and the other 'profane'
'In 1894, Edward Thompson,
the United States Consul in Merida, purchased the plantation which
included the ruins of Chichén Itzá. Ten years later he dredged the
cenote, recovering artifacts of gold, copper, carved jade and pottery,
as well more fragile items such as textiles, spears, and rubber
containers that held a form of incense. The artifacts are believed to
have been thrown in as offerings to the Maya rain god Chaak.
(Note* Some were determined to have come from as far away as
Columbia).
Thompson shipped the artifacts to
the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. In 1926, the Mexican
government demanded the return of the artifacts and tried Thompson on
charges of theft. The case went up to the Mexican Supreme Court, which
in 1944 found in favor of Thompson. Beginning in 1959, the Peabody
Museum gave many of the valuable artifacts but some of it remains on
display at Chichén Itzá near a plaque in Spanish that condemns to the
Mexican government, which displays some of them in Mexico City.
Thompson also recovered numerous
skeletons, which lends credence to the early Spanish chroniclers who
said the cenote was the scene of human sacrifice. It is known that the
Toltec influence on the Maya introduced the concept of human sacrifice
to Yucatan.
Chichén Itzá also has a sister
cenote called the Xtoloc Cenote. Unlike the turgid
waters of the Sacred Well, Xtoloc is relatively fresh and pure,
prompting the belief that it served as the major water supply for the
city while the Cenote Sagrado was reserved for ritual purposes'.
(http://www.americanegypt.com/feature/cities/chichenitza/cenote.htm)
There are several other natural 'Cenotes' nearby to
Chitchen Itza, stairs leading down the sides of the natural
'sink-holes' and relics discovered inside testify to their importance to
the Mayans. In
the wells around Chichén Itzá have been found scores of skeletons. Mayan
petroglyphs depict human sacrifices at these sites. many have yet
to be investigated.
'Kulkulkan' - 'El Castillo' (Structure
5B18):
 A
24m high stepped pyramid-temple, which records the equinoxes in a unique
way.
The sun creates a
shadow of a huge 'snake' to ascend the steps in spring, and descend
again in autumn (1). Whether or not this was a deliberate design feature
is speculative, but other astronomical features at the site certainly
lend weight to the idea that it was intentional.
Each step corresponds to a day, each
platform to a Mayan month. (17).
The architecture of the pyramid encodes precise
information regarding the Mayan calendar. Each face of the four-sided
structure has a stairway with ninety-one steps, which together with the
shared step of the platform at the top, add up to 365, the number of
days in a year. These stairways also divide the nine terraces of each
side of the pyramid into eighteen segments, representing the eighteen
months of the Mayan calendar. The pyramid is also directionally oriented
to mark the solstices and equinoxes. The axes that run through the
northwest and southwest corners of the pyramid are oriented toward the
rising point of the sun at the summer solstice and its setting point at
the winter solstice.
The pyramid was built during the eleventh to thirteenth
centuries directly upon the multiple foundations of previous temples.
Curiously, the same symbolism can be seen on either
side of the huge stairwell leading to the Temple
of Queen Hashepsut, in Egypt.
(More about Feathered
Serpents)
Acoustic
Phenomena at El Castillo:
'If you
stand facing the foot of the temple and shout the echo comes back as a
piercing shriek. Also, a person standing on the top step can speak in
a normal voice and be heard by those at ground level for some
distance. This quality is also shared by another Mayan pyramid at
Tikal'.
Or on a lighter note...
'Handclaps evoke chirped echoes from the
staircases of the Mayan Pyramid of Kukulkan at Chichen Itza. The
physics of the chirped echo can be explained quite simply as periodic
reflections from step-faces. What is interesting is that the chirped
echo sounds arguably like the primary call of the Mayan sacred bird,
the resplendent Quetzal. This magnificent bird, now near extinction,
has for thousands of years represented the 'spirit of the Maya'.
The Great Ball court:
Juego de Pelota Principal
(Principal Ball Court) is the main one of eight ball courts, and the
largest games court in all of Mexico's archaeological sites. Here, you
will see the famous 7m-high stone hoops. It is believed that contestants
of pelota (ball) needed to get a rubber
ball through them during the game. At least one image of a ball with a
skull in it is reported at Chichen Itza (
Accoustic
Properties: Each end has a raised "temple" area. A whisper from end
can be heard clearly at the other end 500 feet away and through the
length and breath of the court. The sound waves are unaffected by wind
direction or time of day/night. Archaeologists engaged in the
reconstruction noted that the sound transmission became stronger and
clearer as they proceeded. In 1931 Leopold Stokowski spent 4 days at
the site to determine the acoustic principals that could be applied to
an open-air concert theatre he was designing. Stokowski failed to
learn the secret. To this day it has not been explained.
(Other
examples of Acoustic phenomena)
The Carocal
(Observatory):
Recent studies at Chichen Itza by archaeo-astronomers have revealed that other structures,
besides the Pyramid of Kukulkan, have significant astronomical
alignments. For example, several of the windows in the unique circular
building known as the Caracol were positioned to be in alignment with
key positions of the planet Venus, particularly its southern and
northern rising extremes on the horizon and with the equinox sunset.
The combined
alignments and orientations of El-Castillo and El-Caracol leave no doubt
as to the importance of astronomy to the Mayans.
(More about Archao-astronomy)
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The Chacmool:
(The Temple of Warriors).
'The Temple of a Thousand
Pillars': This complex is analogous to
Temple B at the Toltec capital of Tula,
and indicates some form of cultural contact between the two regions.
The one at Chichen Itza, however, was constructed on a larger scale.
At the top of the stairway on the pyramid’s summit (and leading
towards the entrance of the pyramid’s temple) is a ChacMool. There
are several other broken Chacmool around the site. |
The Ossario: This step-pyramid
temple dominates the platform, on a small scale. Like its larger
neighbour, El Castillo, it has four sides with staircases on each side.
There is a temple on top, but different from El Castillo, at the centre
is an opening into the pyramid which leads to a natural cave 12 m.
below. Edward H. Thompson excavated this cave in the late 1800s, and
because he found artefacts such as jade beads and several skeletons. The
same phenomena was reported at both
Teotihuacan and the Great pyramid at Giza.
(Other
underground sites)
Chronology - Roughly
all sources agree that from approximately 550 AD to 800 AD, Chichen Itza
existed mainly as a ceremonial center for the Maya civilization.
The area was then largely abandoned for about a hundred years (no one
knows reason ), to be resettled around 900 AD again. Shortly before 1000
AD, it was invaded by a people from the north (The Toltecs).
Mayan historical sources mention that a man who called
himself Kukulkan arrived in Chichen Itza from the west (Kukul means
“feathered” and kan means “serpent”) in the period that ended in 987 AD.
A strong case has been made that Kukulkan and Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl
were most likely the same person, and that he brought the Toltec
practices and beliefs to Chichen Itza, including the practice of human
sacrifice.
It is estimated
that the Temple of the warriors was built around 1,100 AD. (12)
(Return to Top) |
Caves of Balankanche: (Cenote)
Approximately 4 km (2.5 mi) west of
the Chichen Itza archaeological zone are a network of sacred caves known
as Balankanche (Sp: Gruta de
Balankanche).
On 15 September 1959, José Humberto Gómez, a local guide, discovered
a false wall in the cave. Behind it he found an extended network of
caves with significant quantities of undisturbed archaeological remains,
including pottery and stone-carved censers, stone implements and jewelry.
INAH converted the cave into an underground museum, and the objects
after being catalogued were returned to their original place so visitors
can see them in situ.
Note: Climbing the Great Pyramid of Kulkulkan
or El Castillo, is no longer allowed. Neither is climbing up the Temple
of the Warriors. The route into the smaller pyramid inside the Great
Pyramid is also closed.
(Other Mexican sites)
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