Chapter 6: Chichén Itzá

There are good days to visit places, and there are bad days. Usually this is because of the weather. But for visitors to Chichén Itzá, there are two days in the year that are the best days to visit. And this is not because of the weather; it is because of the earth and the sun.

The city of Chichén Itzá was built by the Maya people of Yucatán in Mexico over a thousand years ago. The Maya were very interested in numbers and in astronomy (learning about the stars). Their buildings were beautiful, and very clever too. In Chichén Itzá there is a temple called the Pyramid of Kukulcan. On two special days every year thousands of people come to Chichén Itzá. While they watch, a large snake climbs down

the pyramid, from the top to the bottom. Of course it is not a real snake – it is a snake made of sunlight and shadows.

It works like this. At about 3.00 in the afternoon, some of the light of the sun comes onto the steps on the north face of the pyramid. This light makes triangles on the west side of the steps – and it looks like the body of a snake that is moving. At the same time, the sun lights the stone head of the snake at the bottom of the steps. The

snake god Kukulcan is coming down from his temple.

This only happens twice a year, on the days of the equinox. This is when the nights are as long as the days, around March 21 and September 22.

It is not easy to make a building like this today -but the Maya did it without computers or other help hundreds of years ago.

The Pyramid of Kukulcan also counts the days of the year. The pyramid has four faces, and there are ninety-one steps on each face. At the top, there is one more step in front of the temple. This makes 365 steps – the number of days in a year.

The Itzas were a group of Maya people, and the name Chichén Itzá means ‘At the Mouth of the Well of the Itzas’. There are very few rivers in Yucatán, but there are natural wells – deep holes in the ground with water at the bottom.

Just north of the Pyramid of Kukulcan is the Sacred Well. This is a very big well. It is 60

metres across, and it is 27 metres from the top of the well down to the green water.

Now the water is still, but this was not always a quiet place. The Maya sacrificed people here -they killed them to please their gods. To do this, they threw men, women, and children into the well, and they died there.

The Maya liked to sacrifice people, and they liked sport, too. They played something like football in the Great Ball Court at Chichén Itzá. This is 166 metres long and 68 metres across, with long walls on each side that are 12 metres high. At the top of each wall, in the middle, is a stone ring with a hole in it. We think that the

players had to hit the ball through the hole – but they could not use their hands or feet! It was important to win. When they finished playing, the winners sacrificed one of the losing players.