Mayan Culture, A Crash Course: Chichen Itza, A Cenote and Tequila tasting

Yesterday, Thursday, we went on a Chichen Itza tour. I intended to write about it last night. Technology, again, reared its ugly head. Suddenly my phone had difficulties sending photos to Gmail. Then it started to do weird things to Gmail. Some photos got through. Sometimes one of six made it, others none. For hours I worked at getting photos to my blog page, then gave up at 11 before all of them transferred. This morning no difference, missing some photos unfortunately. So, here we go! Below are pictures of the columns from the temple of warriors. Perhaps they represent warriors.

Chichén Itzá is located in the middle of Yucatan state in Mexico. It was one of the largest Mayan cities. The core covers at least 5 square kilometers in area. Residences surrounded the core. It contains multiple stone buildings in in its core, connected by paved pathways. It has several surrounding cenotes, natural sink holes, fed by a underground river system. It is believed that sacred cenotes were used for human sacrifice, even though they were also the water source for the Mayans.

There is a lot of discussion and mystery about the city and its inhabitants. It is believed that Mayans inhabited the city from approximately 500AD until 900AD. It was abandoned at some point and it is believed Mayans returned to Chichen Itza around 1000AD. Another 200 years or so resulted in much of the construction that can be seen today. Then again, around 1200AD it is believed the city was abandoned.

In the early 1500’s Spanish forces tried to conquer this area of Yucatan. At first they were welcomed by Mayans who later turned on them and drove them out of the area. They maintained a small fort at Xaman Ha, coincidentally the exact area the condo we are staying in, before being driven out completely. After a few years Spain sent reinforcements and with the aid of other Mayan tribes they conquered the area and maintained the occupation until sometime around Mexican independence.

During the occupied periods amazing construction was accomplished with incredibly large blocks of stone from the area. That is amazing enough in itself, but the method for sculpting the stone and the materials used to sculpt it are even more amazing to me. All of the tools used to do this were made from obsidian, lava, volcanic rock. There was no obsidian in the area. All of it came either from the Mexico City area, 1000 miles east, inhabited by the Mayan enemy the Aztecs; or 500 hundred or more miles south in Central America. All of this was done without modes of transportation we are familiar with. Then huge blocks of stone had to be transported and lifted hundreds of feet in the air. On top of that, a lot of the stone pictured in this blog has intricate carving, all done with obsidian. There is an old Neil Young song, Cortez the Killer, that has a line; “they built up with their bare hands what we still can’t do today…” There are theories, but I believe it is safe to say we do not know how this was accomplished. The last two pictures are of the ball court/athletic field. It is longer than a football field.  The contests were a battle to the death, but with a twist. It was such an honor to be sacrificed, we are told, that the winner was the only one worthy of being sacrificed. It may have been believed that a loser would not appease the Gods.

What Neil Young sang is not quite true because modern equipment can do the type of construction we see, but, doing it with bare hands is the catch. It is awe inspiring to see Chichen Itza, realize it was built without machinery and that all of the stone was shaped with obsidian tools. That is only a part of the amazing Mayan culture. Their understanding of astronomy, language ideographs, and mathematics Were centuries? Maybe millennia ahead of the European development in these areas of thought. Modern calendars are a less precise version of the Mayan calendar. Morse code utilizes Mayan number figures. The great pyramid is oriented so that a snaking light pattern appears on it or on the warrior temple each equinox and solstice. The snake gets longer for 7 days the disappears, always corresponding exactly to equinox or solstice. That is why on those dates thousands more visitors than usual go to Chichen Itza. Numbers are particularly significant to the Maya, 4, 7, 20, 28, 260, 360, 365, 520 and they all link together in astronomical contexts. Many believe that Arab forms of writing are derived from Mayan.

A lot of what I have written preceding this sentence is knowledge I gained listening to our tour guide Antonio/Toni. He presented lecture information on the 3 hour bus rides. We walked together through the city and he described and explained things. I received so much information from him. Oh, and the price of the tour was under $40 US and was less than the price of admission to the city itself which is a Mexican Government fee. What a money maker. It is said that 5-10,ooo people a day visit Chichen Itza, more near the equinox  and solstice. To me it was a worthwhile educational day. I have come away with an immense appreciation for the Mayan culture.

And, there was more. The tour included a buffet lunch a a cenote and the opportunity to go to swim in the cenote. The lunch, other than the tacos was very disappointing. The buffet was similar to a cheap US buffet. The cenote was somewhat nice to look at, judge for yourself.

The final stop on the tour was in a smaller town, Valladolid for a tequila tasting. That is a nice little perk. The day in total was a 13 hour day. Long, but Chichen Itza is not that close to Playa del Carmen.