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| Yucatan most famous Maya ruins |
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Thanks to its distance from any colonial city, Chichen Itzà was not pillaged and so its many structures were nor destroyed like those of Tiho, the present Merida.
El Castillo (Kukulcan Pyramid).
Sitting alone in the center of the great ‘plaza’ this square base pyramid is the focus of Chichén Itza. The pyramid has a monumental stairway on each face and a temple at the top. Its orientation is skewed by about twenty-one degrees clockwise with respect to cardinal points. Thanks to this orientation during the equinoxes, the sun near sunset cast an undulating shadow on the northern (actually NNE) staircase balustrade making the worldwide famous effect of joining the serpents heads at the foot of the staircase to their tails at the top. The presence of the Venus platform suggests that this orientation may have to do with the heliacal rising of Venus coincided with the equinox.
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Gran Juego de Pelota.
This is the largest ball court known in Mesoamerica. At the sides there are two tall vertical walls with rings mounted 8m above the ground decorated with entwined rattlesnakes. The court is closed at one end by the Templo del Hombre Barbado (Temple of the Bearded Men) and at the opposite by the South Temple.
The east wall incorporates the two stacked temples: the upper and the lower temple of the Jaguars (Templo de los Jaguares). The Upper Temple has an open portico with columns carved as feathered serpents. On the outer side of the wall the Lower Temple has a little portico with a jaguar throne between two pillars. The pillars are carved with images of pawahtuns (the bearers of the sky) with at the base images of the jaguar-serpent-bird, a motif widely found at Chichen Itzá. Inside some badly worn reliefs.
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Chichen Itza
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The Ball Court - friezes of the benches.
The various panels at the base of the walls of the ball court show the bloody ritual of the Game of the Ball. The numerour players, wearing war ornaments, are divided in two teams moving toward the center of the frieze, marked by a skull inside a ball, where is the scene of the human sacrifice: on the right a beheaded kneeling warrior with spurts of blood from his severed neck in the form of six serpents while, on the opposite, a warrior (whether the winner or the looser of the game is subject of debate) holds its freshly severed head.
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Plataforma de Águilas y Jaguares. The balustrades of staircase at each side of the platform represent ascending plumed serpents ending with projecting serpent heads at the top. Bas reliefs of the side panels shows eagles and jaguars holding human hearts.
The Tzompantli platform with its carved impaled skulls is another clear evidence of human sacrifices.
The Plataforma de Venus, very similar to the Plataforma de Águilas y Jaguares, is associated with Quetzalcoatl/Kukulcan in the aspect of ‘Morning Star’. The panels at the sides of the stairway represent the War Serpent: a being part jaguar, snake and bird with a long, bifurcated tongue, while at each corners there is a year-sign, formed by vegetable bundles with at the side a vertical drill stick wrapped with twisted chords, combined with a star sign, commonly interpreted as Venus.
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Chichen Itza
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Temple of the Large Tables and the adjoining columned patio. This small pyramid has on top rectangular altars supported by 'atlases'.
Templo de los Guerreros (Temple of the Warriors) - The complex is formed by a pyramid, climbed by a large stairway, with a temple on its summit and a columned vestibule adjoining the Court of the Thousand Columns. The square columns of the vestibule are carved with figures of warriors, giving to the temple its name.
The temple on the top has two magnificent serpent columns with at the center a statue of a Chac-mol. On top of the stairway small statues of a standard bearers. The temple walls show ‘big nosed’ masks and large panels of a plumed jaguar-serpent-bird with the widely opened jaws from which emerge a human head, a bifurcated tongue swings downwards.
The entrance to the temple is now prohibited, the southern side of the temple can be seen from the adjoining Northern colonnade of the Court of the Thousand Columns, with the bas-reliefs decorations of eagles, jaguars, bears and warriors.
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The Court of the Thousand Columns is a large area at the south of the Temple of the Warriors not entirely cleared by the vegetation. The area is surrounded on three sides by long colonnades and edifices very much in ruins. On the south side is located the Market (el Mercado) a raised portico with in its center tall, rounded columns.
From ‘el Mercado’ the sacbe n.3 leads to the Xtoloc Cenote, the second cenote of Chichén Itzá, with nearby the Xtoloc temple. From the Xtoloc temple the Sacbe 15 leads to the group of el Osario composed by the 'Osario Pyramid', the 'Venus platform' and the ‘Plataforma de las Tumbas’ all disposed along east-west axis.
The Plataforma de las Tumbas is topped with round columns, a frieze with entwined serpents adorns the top ridge of the platform.
The Platform of Venus, very similar to the one of the Great Plaza, features bas reliefs of the jaguar-serpent-bird, and, at the corners, bas reliefs of the ‘Knotting of the Years’ alongside with the ‘Morning star’(Venus).
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Chichen Itza
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The pyramid-temple of El Osario (the Ossuary), also known as the High Priest’s Grave, is very similar to El Castillo with four stairways and balustrades decorated with intertwining serpents. On the ground there is one of the stacked masks of the rain god Chaac in Puuc style that used to decorate the top of the pyramid.
The Chichan Chob or Red House atop its platform.
El Caracol (the Snail) also called the Observatory a round shape building with possible astral associations to the settings of Venus.
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The Monjas (Nunnery) Complex. A large stairway climb the platform with the palace built upon it. we headed directely to the eastern annex and the so called Iglesia (the church) with their elaborate facades with 'big nosed' masks of Chac in Puuc style. The friezes of the church show kneeling dwarfs called 'bacabes' or 'pauahtunes': the four carriers of the sky. The frieze above the entrance of the eastern façade of the annexed building, represents a dignitary seated inside a niche of arched feathers.
The Temple of the Panels preceeded by a colonnade, on the south walls there are sculptured panels with mythological scenes, colourfully interpreted by local guides as Mayan prophecies.
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Chichen Itza
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The famous Sacred Cenote. In Pre-Hispanic times this was considered the dwelling of the rain god, the ancient Maya used to drop inside ritual offerings and even human beings.
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