Chichen Itza (3 of 5) - Yucatan, Mexico

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Chichen Itza
Yucatan Pen., Mexico

Museum of Anthropology and History on Paseo Montejo.

Our first destination after touring Mérida's very educational Anthropological Museum was Chichén Itzá. We bought all-inclusive tickets (CAD$40 each) on a modern first-class bus – comfortable, air conditioned, complete with TV and an English-speaking guide.

The highway was in good condition, but we were mighty glad we hadn't rented a car when we encountered the first of many topes , the government's unique solution to speeding in built-up areas. These bone-jarring, axle-breaking triple speed bumps "welcome" you to every town and little village, and I guarantee that if you hit one without first having come to a complete stop your car likely won't survive, and you may not either.

After about 2½ hours we arrived at the information building in Chichén Itzá, and our guide began his very detailed and crystal-clear explanation of everything we would see, plus a lot of interesting cultural matters. For example, we learned that the Mayans valued high, flat foreheads – the flatter the better – so that babies always slept on their back, with a heavy board over their forehead, to gradually flatten their features. The nobility went in for unique adornments, and we saw examples of nobles' teeth, drilled through and implanted with jewels. No cheap baubles for them!

Mayan society was agricultural, with small but powerful noble and warrior classes and omnipotent priests who practised human sacrifice to appease their gods. They had a written language, an advanced knowledge of astronomy, an accurate calendar, and architecture which blended their knowledge with their religion. We were told that they were originally peaceful people, and that the bloodier aspects of their civilization actually came from the Toltecs, who overran and mingled with them around 1100 AD. (Subsequent reading and research leads me to be skeptical about that claim.)

They built astronomical, religious, sports and administrative structures which are marvels even today. Yet for reasons which anthropologists think were related to periodic droughts, they would often abandon a bustling city and build a new one at a different location. Unfortunately the facts were lost when the Spaniards methodically destroyed their libraries. The remaining bas-reliefs on walls and inscriptions on stone stelae give only tiny glimpses into their complex civilization.

El Castillo, the best-known structure.

Chichén Itzá is the best-known and most completely restored of the hundreds of ruins that dot the landscape. Founded in the 5th century AD, it was subsequently abandoned, re-occupied in the 10th, ceded to the Toltecs in the 12th, and abandoned for good in the 13th. Between the 11th and the 13th centuries it was probably the most important Mayan city. Covering an area of about 2 square miles (6 square km), it has both "old" and "new" parts, each having somewhat different architectural styles. Together they show the progression of Mayan building techniques, and the results of later Toltec influences.

Visitors are instinctively drawn to "El Castillo", the imposing pyramid-shaped temple dedicated to the snake-god Kukulcán, from whose summit priests used to hurl sacrificial victims. It has an astronomically-correct total of 365 steps and 52 wall panels. So accurate was its placement in relation to the sun, that at every Spring and Fall equinox as the sun rises it illuminates a series of steps in sequence, giving the appearance of a snake undulating down the side of the pyramid to enter and fertilize the earth. Needless to say, on those dates the site is swarming with tourists.

You can climb the steps to the top, hanging onto a heavy chain, or go by a very narrow interior passageway, open only during cool hours, and entered from a doorway on one side of the base. David wanted to try it, but an extremely "rubenesque" tourist, who had been warned not to, had followed her group up the passage anyway, and was stuck. When we left, attendants were greasing the walls of the passage and trying to pull her out. I guess the morale is "Don't mess with Kukulcán"!

Nearby are the remains of hundreds of stone columns, which form a sort of ceremonial route to the Temple of the Warriors. It is surmised that enemy captives were marched to the top of the Temple, where they were sacrificed on a special altar. No Geneva Convention back then!

A challenge even for Jordan: the arrow points to the goal at main ball court.

There are vestiges of ball courts throughout the area. The "ball game" was a quasi-sacred part of Mayan culture, and children were trained for it through a series of progressively larger fields, culminating in the huge one, which is the largest found anywhere. It is 550 feet (168 meters) long, and its length is enclosed by high walls to which vertical stone rings are attached at a point over 12 feet (4 meters) up. Sculpted stone friezes lead us to

The goal.

believe that the game was something like soccer, but instead of a net the ball had to go through the ring in order to score, and no hands could be used. The games were presided over by priests, who observed from a mini-temple at one end. After the game, either the winning or the losing team captain was decapitated by the High Priest as an offering. The carvings on the walls don't clearly show which one had the "honour".

We visited many more structures, including one which had been dynamited and plundered a century ago by phony archaeologists. (Since then the government has been very particular about who gets a permit.) The most unexpected was "El Caracol" (the Snail), which bears witness to their astronomical skills: it's even shaped like a modern observatory.

Dave at the sacred cenote.

A major attraction is the sacred cenote, a murky 65 foot (20 m) wide and deep sacrificial well. Its water isn't suitable for drinking, so its function was unknown until an American researcher explored it in 1904 and recovered thousands of artifacts, mostly jewelry and skeletons. While we were looking a young, smiling Mayan girl came up and sold us a bottle of water, and I couldn't help thinking that she was about the age of the virgins who used to be thrown in as sacrifices. By the way, a enforced "dip" there wasn't an automatic death sentence, although it certainly was an instant swimming lesson! Any maiden who could remain afloat throughout the day was fished out in the evening, and rewarded by being made a priestess. I don't imagine too many qualified.

At the end of the tour we adjourned to the excellent restaurant, where we enjoyed an all-you-can-eat buffet of delicious Yucatecan food. And then it was back into the bus for the return to Mérida, to get ready for our trip the next day to the equally famous Uxmal.

Read all five parts of Yucatan Byways
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five



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