The thick Mexican Jungle of the Yucatan peninsula holds a timeless treasure. The strange and mysterious echoes of a once vast, powerful and culturally advanced people known as the Maya.
Originating in the Yucatan around 2600
B.C. the Mayan culture developed and spread over much of present day southern
Mexico, Guatemala, northern Belize and western Honduras. At the height
of their prominence around 250 AD they had developed hieroglyphic writing
and had developed an amazing understanding of astronomy and mathematics.
They used these skills to develop a very accurate calendar and used it
to track the changing of the seasons. Their tracking of the phases of
the moon was so precise that modern day technology has only improved upon
it by thirty-three seconds. The changing of the seasons was so important
to them that the Maya built it into their culture and have vast ceremonies
which hinged on key days of the year like the Spring Equinox and the Autumn
Solstice.
Over a period of several hundred years all the Maya abandoned their cities and returned to the jungle to lead an agrarian lifestyle which their descendants still lead to this day. The Spanish invaded Mexico in the 1400’s and in their attempts to convert the Mayan people to Catholicism they dispelled the remaining Mayan cities and destroyed thousands of Mayan hieroglyphic books. Most of what we know today about Mayan life and culture has been deciphered from the glyphs on all the stone structures left intact during Spanish rule.
One of the finest examples of the Mayan culture at the peek of it's development is the city of Chichén Itzá. The vast ruins of this city hold a number of very significant structures which were all carved from the jungle without the aid of metal tools or even the wheel.
The most massive structure in the city is the pyramid of El Castillo(the
castle) of the pyramid of Kukulkan. This building is built and aligned
with the sun so precisely that it serves as a giant sun dial which shows
the Spring Equinox and the Autumn Solstice. 
Druing the Spring Equinox the large layers of the pyramid form sunlit
triangles on one side of El Castillo starting at the top. As the day goes
on more and more triangles start to appear working their way down the
pyramid. Finally the sunlight hits a large snake head at the bottom of
the pyramid forming a giant sunlit snake. During the Autumn Solsitce the
shadowing starts at the head and works back up to the top of the pyramid.
This snake known to the Mayan people as Kukulkan, the Feathered Serpent
worked it's way down from the heavens to deliver prosperity to the Mayan
people. In present day over 40,000 people make the trek to Chichén
Itzá in order to witness this event.
Another interesting point of Mayan culture depicted by the architecture
in Great Ball Court is their dedication to organized sports. They played
a team sport which involved getting a ball through the circle in the upper
center of the court. The wall in the playing field had a carving which
depicts the winning and loosing teams. In this carving the winning team
captain is shown holding the severed head of the captain of the loosing
team. The acoustics in this ball court are so precise that modern day
architects have come here to study them in hopes of coming close to duplicating
them in modern day buildings.
Send Someone a Postcard from Chichén Itzá
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