Chichén Itzá
Maya city in Yucatán with the Kukulcán pyramid, a vast ball court and the sacred cenote.
Chichén Itzá became the dominant city of the northern Yucatán peninsula between about AD 800 and 1100, drawing on both Maya and central Mexican traditions of building and sculpture. Its name means roughly 'at the mouth of the well of the Itzá', a reference to the great sinkhole north of the centre into which jade, gold, copal and human remains were thrown as offerings. The city had declined well before the Spanish arrival, and its ruins were widely recorded by travellers from the nineteenth century onwards.
The best-known structure is El Castillo, the thirty-metre stepped pyramid of Kukulcán, whose four stairways of ninety-one steps and upper platform come to 365 in all. At the equinoxes the late afternoon sun throws a serrated shadow down its northern balustrade, which draws large crowds. Nearby stand the Great Ball Court, the largest in Mesoamerica at some 168 metres, the colonnaded Temple of the Warriors and the round observatory called El Caracol. The site was inscribed by UNESCO in 1988.
Highlights
- El Castillo, the pyramid of Kukulcán, with 365 steps in all
- Serpent-like equinox shadow on the northern balustrade
- The Great Ball Court, largest in Mesoamerica at about 168 metres
- The Sacred Cenote, a sinkhole used for offerings
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