Chichen Itza- Archaeological Site

Each year, three million people visit Chichen Itza, best-known of all ancient Maya ruins. Located just off the main highway midway between Cancun and Merida, the ruins can be reached from either city in about two hours.

Chichen Itza is unique among Maya ruins. Its meticulously restored structures feature many columns, inviting comparison with ancient Rome.

Here,too, stands the largest blood sport stadium ever built in pre-hispanic America. Elaborate bas-reliefs and scultures, still bearing traces of paint after a thousand years.

Chichen Itza was founded in 495 A.D. by the Itza Maya people, who migrated from small communities on the island of Cozumel. The name Itza is often translated as "water sourcerers", referring to priests who divined the wishes of the gods from the waters of the cenotes . One of these is the famous Sacred Cenote at Chichen Itza, which was used for ceremonies.

The Itza Maya occupied the original community of Chichen Itza for about 200 years. In 692 A.D., they abandoned the site and moved south into the Peten forest. About 300 years later , in 998 A.D. their descendants returned to Chichen Itza to restore the city's former glory. It became a part of the former League of Mayapan, which reigned supreme in the Yucatan until 1204 A.D., when it was destroyed by a civil war. The Itza people then retreated into the Peten jungle for the final time.

Because of the art and architecture of Chichen Itza appears influenced by the Toltec people of central Mexico, some archaeologists believe that the Itza Maya had previously mixed with the Toltecs before founding the city.

At the entrance to the Chichen Itza ruins area is a large, modern visitor centre featurig a relief map that gives visitors an overview of the ruins as they must have looked in ancient times, with large structures stuccoed and brightly painted and roofs intact. There is also a museum that has preserved some of the site's best sculptures.At the museum you'll also find photographs documenting early archaeological expeditions and excavations at the site.

Inside the ruins area, the first structure to catch your attention, straight ahead as you walk along the pathway from the visitors center, is the Pyramid of Kukulkan, also called "El Castillo" (the castle). This magnificent stepped pyramid, purely Toltec in its design, rises to a height of 79 feet. The main stairway, flanked by giant stone serpent heads, faces the path to the sacred cenote. Only two of their four sides have been restored. The pyramid was built over an earlier, lower temple mound, and a narrow stairway from the top, open to the public during limited hours, leads down to the older temple in the heart of the pyramid, where you'll find a Chac-mool and a throne in the shape of a jaguar.

The Temple of the Warriors, due east of the Pyramid of Kukulcan, originally had a roof made of wood and stucco.While it, too, contains rain god and plummed serpent figures, the temple was apparently dedicated to Chac-Mool , the semireclining, humanlike sculpture at the top of the steep stairway. Rarely seen in Maya culture, Chac-Mool is found more often in Central Mexico, where in latter centuries he was associated with human sacrifice. With his distant countenance, this mythical being held a bowl ready to receive a victim. There is no direct evidence that the same kind of ritual was practiced at Chichen Itza, however this Chac-Mool may have been used as a place to leave other types of religious offerings or to hold an oil torch.

Another unusual feature of this temple is the altar located toward the back, supported by 19 Atlantean figures, each of them individually designed. The figures wear many different kinds of apparel and appear to have different racial characteristics. It is not clear whether they represent real persons, or whether their design reveals some inexplicable Maya awareness of humankind's incredible diversity.

The Temple of Warriors was named for the grid of some 200 square columns that stand in rank and file at the foot of the main stairway. The warriors' eyes were originally laid with pearlescent shells.

The long sacbe, a causeway that was paved with limestone in ancient times, leads to the Sacred Cenote, a large natural sinkhole fed by an underground river, which provided the main water supply for the city of Chichen Itza. The circular cenote is about 197 feet in diameter, with a sheer vertical drop of 73 feet from the rim to the surface of the water. The water itself is about 57 feet deep, with a layer of muck at the bottom . In 1901 were found the bones of 50 human beings giving rise to the legend of virgins being sacrificed in the Sacred Cenote. The reality is that most of the skeletons found were those of young children, who may have fallen in and drowned by accident over the five centuries that Chichen Itza was inhabited

The Ball court at Chichen Itza is the largest in the Maya World. It is larger than a football field - 545 feet- with goal rings 20 feet above the ground. The reason of this very large size, according to some archaeologists, is that the game provided a substitue to the war. Bas relief sculptures along the side walls depict players of a wining team holding the severed, gushed head of a losing team member.

Adjacent to the ball court, the grim Tzompantli ("wall of skulls") is a low platform covered with carvings of hundreds of human skulls. It also has sculptured panels of armed warriors and eagles devouring human hearts. Archaeologists believe that the Tzomplantli was where sacrifices were carried out in connection with the ball games.

The nothern group also includes a number of lesser structures, some of them completely ruined. The Ossuary, a collapsed temple on a burial mound, has an opening in its center that descends into a natural cave beneath the mound.

The central group is believed to be older than the nothern group. Buildings such as the Nunnery and the Temple of the Deer show much less Toltec influence than the nothern ones. The most remarkable structure in the central group is the Observatory , also called El Caracol ("the snail") because of the spiral form of its inner stairway. This round tower was designed to track celestial movements. The partly crumbled upper room, which is not open to the public, contains windows aligned with the positions of the setting sun at the equinoxes and the summer solstice, as well as other marking the four cardinal directions. The large incense burnersin the shape of human heads placed all around the edges of the observatory platform indicate that major ceremonies were held here. Celestial movements provided Maya priests with their only accurate measure of flow of time, the essence of Maya religious beliefs, and this observatory may have helped make Chichen Itza one of the most important cities of Yucatan.