Cenotes

The Yucatan Peninsula is a limestone plain, with no rivers or streams. The region is pockmarked with natural sinkholes, called cenotes, which expose the water table to the surface. One of the most impressive is the Cenote Sagrado, (also known as the Sacred Well or Well of Sacrifice), which is 60 meters in diameter, and shear cliffs that drop to the water table some 27 meters below.

The Cenote Sagrado was a place of pilgrimage for ancient Maya people who would conduct sacrifices during times of drought. Archaeological investigations support this as thousands of objects have been removed from the bottom of the cenote, including material such as gold, jade, obsidian, shell, wood, cloth, as well as skeletons of children and men.

Architecture

Chichen Itza contains many fine stone buildings in various states of preservation, and many have been restored. The buildings are connected by a dense network of formerly paved roads, called sacbeob.

The buildings of Chichén Itza are grouped in a series of architectonic sets, and each set was at one time separated from the other by a series of low walls. The three best known of these complexes are the Great North Platform, The Ossario Group and the Central Group.

Great North Platform

El Castillo, Chichen Itza

El Castillo (Spanish for "The Castle") is the nickname of a spectacular Mesoamerican step-pyramid that dominates the center of the Chichen Itza. Built by the Maya civilization sometime between the 11th and 13th centuries AD, "El Castillo" served as a temple to the god Kukulcan (the Maya name for Quetzalcoatl).

It is a step pyramid with a ground plan of square terraces with stairways up each of the four sides to the temple on top. Great sculptures of plumed serpents run down the sides of the northern staircase, and are set off by shadows from the corner tiers on the spring and autumn equinoxes.

The Mexican government restored the pyramid in the 1920s and 1930s, concurrent with the Carnegie Institution’s restoration of the Temple of Warriors. Archaeologists were able to reconstruct two sides of the pyramid in their entirety.

Mesoamerican cultures periodically built larger pyramids atop older ones, and this is one such example. In the mid 1930s, the Mexican government sponsored an excavation into El Castillo. After several false starts, they discovered a staircase under the north side of the pyramid. By digging from the top, they found another temple buried below the current one. Inside the temple chamber is a Chac Mool statue and a throne in the shape of jaguar, painted red with spots made of inlaid jade. The Mexican government excavated a tunnel from the base of the north staircase, up the earlier pyramid’s stairway to the hidden temple, and opened it to tourists.

Each of the structure's four stairways contain 91 steps. When counting the top platform as another step, in total El Castillo has 365 steps, one step for each day of the approximated tropical year recorded by the portion of the Maya calendar known as the Haab'. The structure is 24 m high, plus an additional 6 m for the temple. The square base measures 55.3 m across.

The overall structure has nine levels, which may be a parallel to the Maya cosmological view of there being nine levels in the Maya 'Underworlds'. We are led to believe this because of the staircase in the center of the pyramid having 13 levels, the number of levels in the "upper worlds".

Today "El Castillo" is one of the most popular and recognized pre-Columbian structures in present-day Mexico.

Great Ball Court, Chichen Itza

Archaeologists have identified several courts for playing the Mesoamerican ballgame in Chichén, but the Great Ball Court about 150 meters to the north-west of the Castillo is by far the most impressive. It is the largest ball court in ancient Mesoamerica. It measures 166 by 68 meters (545 by 232 feet). The imposing walls are 12 meters high, and in the center, high up on each of the long walls, are rings carved with intertwining serpents.

At the base of the high interior walls are slanted benches with sculpted panels of teams of ball players. In one panel, one of the players has been decapitated and from the wound emits seven streams of blood; six become wriggling serpents and the center becomes a winding plant.

At one end of the Great Ball Court is the North Temple, popularly called the Temple of the Bearded Man. This small masonry building has detailed bas relief carving on the inner walls, including a center figure that has carving under his chin that resembles facial hair. At the south end is another, much bigger temple, but in ruins.

Built into the east wall are the Temples of the Jaguar. The Upper Temple of the Jaguar overlooks the ball court and has an entrance guarded by two, large columns carved in the familiar feathered serpent motif. Inside there is a large mural, much destroyed, which depicts a battle scene.

In the entrance to the Lower Temple of the Jaguar, which opens behind the ball court, is another jaguar throne, similar to the one in the inner temple of El Castillo, except that it is well worn and missing paint or other decoration. The outer columns and the walls inside the temple are covered with elaborate bas-relief carvings.

In Classic Maya, the ballgame was called pitz. The rules of the ballgame are not known, but they were probably similar to racquetball or volleyball, where the aim is to keep the ball in play. the Maya began placing vertical stone rings on each side of the court, the object being to pass the ball through one

Tzompantli

Of all the monuments, the Tzompantli is the closest to what one would find in the Mexican altiplano region. This monument, a low, flat platform, is surrounded with carved depictions of human skulls.

Chichen Itza Links

Mesoamerican ballgame

Mayan Pyramids of Chichen Itza