Chichen Itza

Our tour of the Mayan Ruins at Chichen Itza picked us up on our hotel early on Tuesday morning. It was a nice big chartered bus and wasn't close to full. It was about a 2 hour drive inland to the ruins. Our tour guide was Rafael. He was witty and knowledgable, and we learned a lot about the Mayan culture and ruins from him. 

Chichen Itza actually means "at the mouth of the well of the wizard". You can imagine that any source of water in that area would be a valuable asset to the people who controlled it.

The large temple is the centerpiece of the area, surrounded by other platforms buildings, and structures to create a wide city center. The temple has 4 sides representing the 4 seasons. Each corner has 9 platforms corresponding to the 9 months of gestation in the birth of  a child. Each side has 90 steps, with the 91st step being the top platform, to represent the days in each season. Each side is also aligned perfectly north, south, east, and west, according to the poles of the earth. And all this was built without use of any modern tools. In fact, scholars have no idea how they managed to build it.

When our guide was asked about the Mayan calendar ending in our year 2012, he responded that the Mayan people didn't mean for that to indicate the end of the world. They understood that life comes in cycles and seasons. Mathematically they came up with some 5000 plus years when creating their calendar. That signaled a changing in life cycles, or a significant event in the life of the people after that. It didn't mean the end of the whole world. Phew.... I was scared there for a moment.

The serpent head and jaguar appear as symbols on the structures and in their writings.

The skulls in the picture above are on the walls of a large platform. This platform is wear the king would display the decapitated heads (impaled on sticks) of enemies or slaves as a warning to any who would try to cross him. He would do this at times when visiting peoples were coming for trade or for games.

Yes, games. The ring in the picture above is in a large rectangular field with a high wall and ring on an opposite wall as well. The object was for the two teams of men to get the ball made from a rubber tree through that ring without using their hands. The legend has it that the winning team would then be given the "honor" of being sacrificed to the gods. I'll take the losing team any day...

The acoustics were amazing in there. Each sound echoed off the four walls bouncing around and around. And you could whisper at one end and be heard clearly all around.

These are some well preserved hieroglyphs under a ledge on one of the walls in the games arena.

Much of the Mayan culture, religion, science, mathematics, and architectural knowledge is lost to us today because the Catholic church burned many of their manuscripts in an attempt to wipe out the paganism. I think that's why much of what we see and hear about them is just the savagery that was part of their survival as a strong people. They are a people of peace now, and the crime is very low where the Mayan descendants live.