Chichen Itza

Chichen Itza

            Chichen Itza is the first site we have been to that dates to the Terminal Classic time period of 800 AD to 1100 AD. However, Chichen isn’t one of our normal sites; it has recently been named as a “new wonder of the world” which of course gave it a lot of prestige and tourists. I was extremely disappointed in this site, we have been to quite a few sites before this one, and all of them we able to climb the temple pyramids and see the entire city. Chichen was much different. Not only were we unable to climb almost anything, but towards the middle/end of the day the crowds got so large it was hard to walk let alone take pictures of anything. I think the popularity of this site took away its beauty for me; however it is a catch-22 since I know that the tourism Chichen brings into the area is one which the community direly needs.

            However, another thing that really took away from the site was the fact that there were vendors all around the pathways within the site. INAH (the national institute for anthropology and history) owns all of the ruins in Mexico. However, the land the ruins are on is not owned by INAH, and in this case is owned privately. The private owner of this land has stated he will allow vendors on his site because the vendors pay him a small fee to sell their things there. Lots of people go through Chichen Itza every day, and this number has increased greatly with its new title therefore this is a very profitable deal for the owner of the land. However, I don’t think the owner understands how much it really takes away from the site. Constantly being asked to buy things while you are trying to look at the landscape around you, or constantly being hassled by people saying “everything is basically free” is a very frustrating thing and made me excited to leave Chichen Itza. Regardless of all of the annoyances I felt while I was in the site, looking back some of the things were actually pretty miraculous.

            When you first enter the site (after you pass the many annoying vendors) you look up to see the HUGE Castillo in front of you. The Castillo is about 35 meters high and a really cool event happens at the equinox. If you look at the picture attached at the bottom of the pyramid you can see a feathered serpents head at the bottom of the stairs. At the equinox the light shines just so that it looks like there is a snake (feathered serpent) slithering down the side of the staircase. Although we weren’t there on the equinox the pictures I have seen of it are pretty amazing. Another interesting thing was that while we were standing on what I thought was grass looking at the Castillo, we were actually standing on a platform. In fact, much of Mayan cities were raised on platforms.

The pictures to the side are me and some people on the trip waiting to go into Chichen Itza. Allison and I in front of the CASTILLO, the largest building at chichen, Cindy and I in front of the building behind the skull rack (whose name I cannot remember).  Cindy, Allison and I in front of the Sacred Cenote at Chichen Itza talked about Below. Also the Caracol, named so for the winding stairs inside that lead to the top. It was probably used as an observatory at Chichen.

            There are many ball courts at Chichen Itza; however the really big one was by far the largest ball court we have ever seen. It is likely that this ball court was not actually played on since it was so big and was more of a ceremonial center. I definitely agree with that because as you can see in my picture the rings (where you “shoot” the ball) are so high up it seems absolutely impossible to be able to get the ball in there without using hands or feet (those were the rules).  Around the side of the ceremonial ball court at Chichen Itza was a wall called a Tzampanti (or a skull rack) on which it seems the skulls of people (captives?  Wall was intended to frighten enemies) were placed in victory. This skull rack also had depictions of skulls all along as you can see in the picture below.

            The sacred Cenote at Chichen Itza is something I have learned A LOT about in my Mayan class; however in reality I really was not all that impressed. It is a dead cenote which means that it hasn’t had a constant mixing of water with the rest of the underground city therefore as you can see in my pictures it is green. Hugo informed us that the cenote was dead when the Mayans inhabited Chichen as well, so it was never used for drinking water or bathing, rather as the ceremonial place I have learned about. Offerings and people were thrown into the sacred cenote by the Mayans at Chichen.

            So all of these grand buildings were erected at a time called the Terminal classic which was plagued by drought in Mexico. Although, since Chichen is in the north, the effects of the drought hit the people there much alter than the south. While Chichen was flourishing, other places such as in the Petén (Guatemalan) area were disintegrating. I still don’t quite understand why Chichen is so much better than any of the other sites we have seen, or will see. I suppose it may have something to do with the fact that everything is big, the ball court is larger than normal, and the Castillo is huge. It seems to me that the people living in Chichen were trying to prove a point. However, I guess we will never know.

We went to a restuarant and Cenote after Chichen and below is a picture of the cenote. It was beautiful but like most of chichen very crowded and fake looking.

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            Tomorrow we go to Ek Balham, a city with a double wall who in some paintings may be linked to fighting with the people of Chichen Itza. Ek Balam has much less tourism, and therefore should be much more enjoyable than Chichen was today.