If I haven't yet boored you with all this information,,,,well I am about to boor you with more. This entry is about Chichen Itza,,some of it technical but this place left an impression.
Mario, our guide drove us to Chichen early. He left us at the entrance already filling up with a variety of people from all over the world forming lines to enter the restrooms. First vacate then afterwards archaeology. The Maya name "Chich'en Itza" means "At the mouth of the well of the Itza (people)". It is a harsh sound for me "Chichen Itza",,,,sounds like the noise made by Loni Anderson when she is removing her bra. Although this was the usual name for the site in pre-columbian times, it is also referred to in the ancient chronicles as Uucyabnal, meaning "Seven Great Rulers" (perhaps Chichen Itza is easier to pronounce).
Chichen" contains many fine stone buildings in various states of preservation; the buildings were formerly used as temples, palaces, stages, markets, baths, and ballcourts. It's a big city,15 square kilometers, and all the major structures are separated,,,like Washington D.C. which always has reminded me of an oversized cemetary. The Yucatán has no above-ground rivers, so the fact that there were three natural sink holes or cenotes providing plentiful water year round at Chichen made it a natural spot for a center of population. Two of these cenotes are still in existence, the most famous being the legendary "Cenote of Sacrifice", which was sacred to the Maya rain god Chaac. Offerings of jade, pottery, and incense were thrown into the great well as offerings to Chaac, and occasionally during times of desperate drought a human sacrifice -- however there is no confirmation in either ancient chronicles nor the archeological dredging of the cenote to confirm the lurid tales of some tour guides claiming that great numbers of beautiful, young, virgin women were regularly cast into the well. Better to save your ass and sleep around than be a precolumbian saint with cement feet .
The sacred Cenote
El Castillo
El Castillo is basically a three dimensional calendar. Each of the four faces incorporates a broad, steep staircase consisting of 91 steps that ascends to the top platform. Counting the top platform as an additional step gives a total of 365 steps, one step for each day of the year. The nine main platforms of the pyramid are thought to represent the 18 months of the haab. The Haab is a 365-day solar calendar which is divided into 18 months of 20 days each and one month which is only 5 days long (Uayeb). 52 panels on the pyramid represent the number of years it takes for a date to recur. Below is an illustration using gears to demonstrate the mayan calendric system. It was not invented by the Maya for this system was in use in most of precolumbian Central America before the mayan civilization.
These gears represent the Haab calendar.This calendar counts days not years. Days and months are represented by glyphs that are like characters with personalities.
Arrows and Boomerangs:
One notices immediately that it is represented by circles and is cyclical. Our calendar reveiws a solar cycle but it also seems lineal in character,,, year following year. Western culture tends to see time as a line with blips that represent collective or personal events. For indigenous culture time is measured not so much by a string of historical events but by a repetition of characters. Whether they be symbols for ceremonies or planting cycles the nature of the time beast was circular. Meanwhile the western calendar seems to eulogize "The Road". Not that each culture did not consider certain dates important, whether or not they were in the past or to be. Perhaps I am splitting hairs but circular time characterizes concepts in eastern thought. Death may be viewed as just one part of a giant slow spinning wheel. To many a westerner death is something almost apart from life and no matter how much the after life is sold to the people and in whatever form, death is frightful and fraught with uncertainty. The moon-sun imagery that oft pops up in mexican crafts is just another reflection of the inescapable cycle of which you are a part. Linear time,, like a highway, offers escape and if only we step on the gas we can leave the past behind in order to find a better town with a better hotel,,, and of course a better wife and family. This is not to say that western culture is not still influenced by cycles,,, it may mean that these cycles have been overshadowed by a greater trust in movement straight ahead until you run out of asphalt. The two cultures have been deeply aftected by their didstinctly different perceptions of time. Westerners place emphasis on the future and easterners are immersed in the ceaseless eddy of time
The pyramid, El Castillo, is oriented in such a way that at the equinox one of the staircases is blocked in shadow except for the light that illuminates the edges of the stair rails. It creates a delicate diamond pattern like that of a rattlesnake that ends in a large carved snake's head. During the equinox the plaza in front of the pyramid fills with people to witness the snake's appearance and with hopes to glean some mesoamercan energy. Additionally, when one looks at the western face during the winter solstice, the sun appears to climb up the edge of the staircase until it rests momentarily directly above the temple before beginning its descent down the other side.
The Snake that appears at the equinox
Tourists, as of early 2006, can no longer climb El Castillo, the giant pyramid, after a 52 year old tourist from the United States fell to her death. I missed my chance to climb because of this lady. I can see her,,,Agnes from Akron in her straw hat, white turned down socks, oversized shorts, lime blouse, and baby fat legs encouraged by her usually level headed husband Arnie, wanting a good shot with his new digital camera. Arnie who must have been energized by this mesoamerican moment ,,,he who was moved to action by the ancients,,,,urged Agnes,, "come on Agnes you won't come this way again". That was for sure the truth. She took the fatal dare and Chaac was pleased for it rained heavily that year.
The Market or at least that is what the Spanish thought it resembled
Columns in the Temple of a Thousand Warriors
Ossuary with another snake.
The Church
The Observatory
The French say the nose is the organ of intelligence
If one stands in the plaza in front of Kukulcan one can make the pyramid chirp like a bird. There seems to be a design element that transcribes a hand clap into a "chir-roop" sound that first ascends then falls, like the cry of the native quetzal.The dimensions of the steps indicate this was a purposeful design element.The lower steps have a short tread length and high riser—tough to climb but perfect for producing a high-pitched "chir" sound. The steps higher up make a lower-pitched "roop."
"It seems that the steps of the temple form a Bragg diffraction grating. Diffraction is what happens when a wave hits an object and spreads out. Bragg scattering refers to a particular pattern of wave scattering, which shows up acoustically in the sound coming from the pyramid. The two major features of the scattered sound from the pyramid are the extension of the sound, and the fact that the sound is tonal. The echo lasts longer than the sound, bounced off many steps, each at different distances from the original clapping sound. The scattering also lets lower frequencies lag behind higher frequencies, meaning that each of the "bird calls" starts out high and ends slightly lower."
Seven courts for playing the Mesoamerican ballgame have been found in Chichén, but the one about 150 meters to the north-west of the Castillo is by far the most impressive. It is the largest ballcourt in ancient Mesoamerica. It measures 166 by 68 meters (545 by 232 feet). The sides of the interior of the ballcourt are lined with sculpted panels depicting teams of ball players, with the captain of the winning team decapitating the captain of the losers.This is an incentive to win. Someday perhaps sports will return to this method given the direction of "reality T.V". Joe Montana is decapitated on live television at the superbowl by the Pittsburgh Steelers who parade about the field hepped up on testosterone, lofting their bloody prize instead of a silver football. 
While the site was never completely abandoned, the population declined and no major new constructions were built. The Sacred Cenote, however, remained a place of pilgrimage.In 1531 Spanish Conquistador Francisco de Montejo ,,,,him again,,,,claimed Chichén Itzá and intended to make it the capital of Spanish Yucatán, but after a few months a native Maya revolt drove Montejo and his forces from the land.
Various people have "explored" and sacked the site. In 1895 the United States Vice Consul to Yucatán, Edward H. Thompson, one of my personal favorites, " bought the Hacienda Chichen, which included the ruins of Chichen Itza, and spent some 30 years doing amateur archeology there, including dredging the first artifacts out of the Sacred Cenote. Many consider Thompson a rapist of sorts. He mined the Sacred Cenote of its artifacts and sent them out of the country. Now they rest at Harvard University and The Smithsonian.
Chichen Itza is today a World Heritage Site and is a very popular tourist destination; it is the most visited of the major Maya archaelogical sites. Many visitors like myself make a day trip to Chichen Itza, usually with time to view only a portion of the site.
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