The Ruined Mayans City of Chichen Itza continue… September 22, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Central America, Destination, Hotels, Mexico, Museum, New York, Sightseeing, Tour, Trails, Trip , trackbackThe Caracol (the name means ’snail’ because of the structure’s appearance and interior winding staircase) exemplifies this involvement with Venus in particular and the heavens in general. The structure consists of a cylindrical tower on a two-tiered rectangular platform, and it was probably Mayan originally with later Toltec- influenced additions. The upper part of the tower has crumbled, giving an appearance coincidentally reminiscent of modern domed observatories. This probably helped speculation over a long period about possible astronomical aspects to the building. Some of this speculation has been shown by fairly recent research to be wrong, but Anthony Aveni can now claim that Chichen Itza is one of ‘the most secure examples of the incorporation of a horizon-based astronomy in architecture’:
Particularly impressive are those sight lines achieved through a set of horizontal shafts that feed into a sealed rectangular chamber at the top of the tower. The extreme northerly and southerly disappearance points of Venus over the western horizon give a nearly perfect match to the measured directions of the azimuth of the shafts. . . .3
Additionally, the diagonal of the slightly asymetric upper platform on which the tower stands gives summer solstice sunrise in one direction and winter solstice sunset in the other. There are possibly other astronomical lines embedded in the building.
In AD 987, a breakaway group of the fierce Toltecs arrived at Chichen Itza and took over by force. They began constructing new buildings about a mile northeast of the older city. The Castillo, the Great Ball Court and the Temple of the Jaguars show their influence. ‘A complex mix of Mexican and Mayan traditions . . . merged into a system with new artistic and political styles.”
The Castillo is a stepped pyramid, a temple to Kukulcan, the Mayan version of Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent. It stands on a line connecting the two great cenotes of Chichen Itza. Cenotes are natural wells formed by the collapse of subterranean caverns revealing the groundwater in this arid limestone country. The two at Chichen Itza are probably what attracted the first settlers. One is called the Cenote of Xtoloc, the other the Cenote of Sacrifice, which is nearly 200 feet (60m) across its opening at the top and 60 feet (18m) down to the water, which itself is another 40 feet (12m) deep. This was the sacred well (that of Xtoloc being used as the water supply), and was worked into a circular form at the top. (`Chichen‘ means mouth of the well.) Votive artefacts were thrown into the water as were, apparently, human sacrifices. A ceremonial way links the cenote with the plaza containing the Castillo, on which its western edge seems to be aligned (through the Platform of Venus).
An interesting light-and-shadow play is created at the Castillo each equinox. On each side of the pyramid there are cermonial stairs. In the last hour before equinox sunset, the northwest corner of the pyramid throws a serrated shadow onto the west-facing balustrade of the northern staircase. This produces a pattern of sunlight and shadow similar to the markings of Yucatan’s indigenous rattlesnake. At the bottom of the balustrade are stone-carved serpents heads to which the shadow ‘attaches’ itself.
This dramatic effect producing the symbol of the `feathered serpent’ was presumably used in a ceremonial capacity by the Mayans or Toltec- Mayans. The spectacle certainly attracts several thousands onlookers today! It is thought that the Pyramid may also be aligned to sunset on the day of zenith passage. The four stairways plus the platform step give 365 steps in all, possibly representing the days of the year, and each side of the pyramid has nine terraces divided into three segments by its stairway, creating 18 terrace units, the number of months in the Mayan year. Finally, some of the temples at Chichen Itza have remnants of sacbeob aligned to them. These are Mayan sacred ways, and while their existence within ceremonial complexes has long been noted, it has been only relatively recently that awareness has developed that such stone ways linked one centre with another. This system of straight sacred ways is known at present only from fragmentary discoveries, and a full picture is nowhere near being assembled.
Certainly northern Yucatan contained systems of sacbeob — the region around Uxmal, another important Mayan centre about 100 miles (160km) southwest of Chichen Itza, for example. One of the earliest accounts of a sacbe was that of Thomas Gann in 1925, who stumbled across one between Coba (about 56 miles (90km) east of Chichen Itza) and Yaxuna. He describes ‘a great elevated road or causeway 32 feet wide, and varying, according to the configuration of the ground from 2 to 8 feet in height . . . the sides were built of great blocks of cut stone, many weighing hundreds of pounds; the central part was filled with unhewn blocks of limestone, and the top covered with rubble which . . . was cemented over. It . . . ran as far as we followed it, straight as an arrow, and almost flat as a rule.’ This 60-mile long segment of a sacbe is the longest known, and was one of 16 roads which originated at Coba.
Remnants of straight roads linking sacred centres have also been discovered on the island of Cozumal off the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. There are doubtless many more Mayan roads to be discovered.
Clearly, the Maya, like so many pre- Columbian Amerindians, had an obsession with old straight tracks that would have done Alfred Watkins and his ley theory proud!
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