I spent an extra ten days in Mexico after my housesit in Mexico City finished in order to explore some of the Mayan sites in the Yucatan. Although I wasn’t totally in love with Merida, it did provide a convenient base to accomplish my touring agenda.
For those readers unfamiliar with the Maya, a short introduction might be useful. I can, alas, provide only the most cursory of overviews. The Maya civilisation was vast in time, area, and complexity. A lifetime’s study would hardly encompass it all.
Okay, yes, I find the Maya seriously hard.
Every time I begin to delve into that world, I quickly become overwhelmed by the effort needed to understand, even in a cursory way, the calendar calculations, the architecture, the glyphs and the intricate carvings. Looking at some of them makes my eyes hurt.
What’s the deal with those two? A woman and a man? Two men? One of them is holding a jaguar’s head. What possible rational explanation can there be for that? The other looks like it’s all perfectly normal. His body language says, “Cool accessory bro’. Where did you get that?” It looks like he’s stretching out a lazy finger to tickle the curlicue on the jaguar’s head. Sure. Because, why not?
No doubt the Mayan writing (they were one of the only Mesoamerican civilisations to have a fully developed written language; the Aztecs didn’t) would explain it all to me, but that sucker is so hard it took about 300 years to even come close to fully deciphering it. By comparison, Egyptian hieroglyphic was cracked in 23 years. Of course, that was 23 years after the Rosetta Stone was found. That stone conveniently had the same text in three languages, one of which (Greek) was known. Attempts to decipher hieroglyphic writing before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone date back to 500 B.C. Still – I’m trying to make a point here.
Mayan. Hard.
According to the Gran Museo del Mundo Maya, here’s my name in Mayan glyphs:
And here’s John’s:
Am I being seriously asked to believe the Mayans can spell “Griffiths” with what looks like parrots’ heads? Or – I’m gonna say a guy wearing glasses (the top right glyph)? The only differences between John’s and mine are that “Heather” is apparently spelled with a skull in a TV set, plus crossbones in the microwave oven in the glyph below, and “John” has a little girl peaking out of the TV, while the bottom glyph is a radio sporting a pretty bow on top.
Of course this could all be a big joke by the museum on unsuspecting tourists. They could just be making stuff up and we wouldn’t know the difference now, would we?
The actual glyphs were elegant and artistic. But no way could I have learned to draw those in public school for spelling class.
The Mayan’s depth of knowledge of scientific, engineering and mathematical subjects was profound. I can’t even begin to explain all the mathematical and calendar correlations embodied in the great pyramid ‘El Castillo’ at Chichen Itza for example.
The Mayans were science nerds.
I’m going to try to give a little bit of background anyway, to put things in some sort of context.
Central and South America are characterized by numerous pre-Columbian civilizations, most of which endured for a few hundred years at most. The huge exception to this generalization are the Maya. Not only did the pre-Columbian Mayan civilization endure for thousands of years, it survived the Spanish invasions and depredations.
About 6 million Mayan people still live in the areas developed by their remote ancestors, and Mayan is still a spoken language.
Mayan city states and vassal areas covered about a third of Central America, including what are now the entire countries of Guatemala and Belize, the whole of the Yucatan peninsula, the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador, part of northern Central America and southeastern Mexico. Unlike the Aztecs in the Valley of Mexico and the Inca in Peru, the Maya never sought to unify the entire area of Mayan influence into a single political entity. Instead, the Maya ‘empire’ was more a matter of cultural dominence and ethnic commonality, with various centres rising and falling in power through war and trade over the centuries.
Mayan city states were subject to rapid catastrophic collapse from time to time as well, for reasons which are not well understood. As with Teotihuacan, many Mayan sites were already in ruins by the time the Spanish arrived, bringing the ultimate catastrophe.
Archaeologists and historians divide Maya history into three main periods – Preclassic (2000 B.C to 250 A.D.), Classic (250 to 950 A.D.) and Postclassic (950 to 1539 A.D.). I can’t even keep those straight in my head.
Looking at maps in the various museums and sites I visited, I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of Mayan cities. One study has documented over 4400 Mayan sites.
In addition, styles in art and architecture changed over the 2,500 years or so that the Maya lived, learned and built in Central America. Chicken Itza includes both Puuc style architecture and Chenes style.
They painted murals. They sculpted stone and they carved stucco into friezes.
They carved wood into sculptures and clay into statues.
Everything they did seems to have layers upon layers. I just noticed when I posted the photo above, that there is a little face in the centre of the top of the crown. And what’s going on with the nose? Some kind of little figure is on top of the nose. Or emerging from the bridge? To look closely at Mayan art is to engage in endless digressions.
They used jade and obsidian and other precious metals to create masterpieces.
So, my visits to four different sites in the Yucatan were therefore merely dipping a toe into the oceanic Mayan waters.
I began my exploration of the Mayan world at Chichen Itza. Unlike some other sites, this one has a very well developed visitor entrance, with cafes and gift shops.
Chicken Itza was one of the largest Mayan cities. One of the factors in the choice of settlement at this site was probably the presence of two cenotes, natural sinkholes which would have provided plentiful water in this arid region. One of them was held to be sacred and sacrifices were made there to the rain god Chaac (our old friend Tlaloc in the north). Archaeologists have recovered gold jade, pottery and human remains from this cenote.
Yes, the Mayans practised human sacrifice, something that seems so discordant with this otherwise advanced civilisation.
After 900 A.D. (Classic Maya period for those of you keeping track) the city became a major player; a sort of regional capital. Its decline started about 1200, before the arrival of the Spanish. One of the churches in the nearest town is built from stones taken away from the ruins of Chichen Itza.
The most impressive and famous building at Chichen Itza is called El Castillo or the Temple of Kukulcan (the feathered serpent, aka Quetzacoatl in the north).
This pyramid is 98 feet high, with a temple at the top. You are no longer allowed to climb the pyramid (for which I was secretly thankful, although would have been awesome to look into the temple on top and see the jaguar throne and the chacmool that are still there).
This pyramid was built on top of another. In addition, there are about a million different mathematical and calendar related alignments and calculations embodied in the structure. The coolest of these is that at the equinoxes, the steps on the northwest corner cast shadows that make it look like a serpent is slithering down the side of the pyramid.
My photo was obviously not taken on the solstice, but one can supply the rest from imagination, with the great stone head of the serpent at the bottom.
The ballcourt is one of the most impressive structures here.
It is the largest and best preserved in Mesoamerica, and has all kinds of architectural flourishes like a long feathered serpent extending the length of the court, with its head protruding into the entrance.
There were also trapezoidal shaped referee boxes right over the goals.
Structures that reminded me of reviewing stands were at each end, so that the elite could watch the games.
There were impressive acoustic effects as well. A whisper from the elite platform at one end, could be heard by the people in the elite platform at the other, without anyone else hearing it.
Slanted benches at the base of the interior walls are carved with scenes from the game. One such shows a decapitated player with the streams of blood from his head turning into serpents.
My guide helpfully produced a diagram of this, coloured to highlight the various parts of the scene. Compare this to the photo above, and you can see the blood/snakes.
You could also discern the round carved stone shown in the diagram on the ballcourt walls, now partially sunken below the ground.
Design styles changed at Chichen Itza over the years. This structure shows the influence of central Mexico. I first encountered a skull platform (called a tzompantli), at Tula. The one at Chichen Itza is an absolute mass of skulls.
It even has them wrapping around the corners, in case any viewer was in danger of missing the point.
The Platform of the Eagles and Jaguars, unsurprisingly, features many eagles and jaguars.
What is a little surprising is to look closely and see that they are eating human hearts.
The Platform of Venus is so named because it appear to have been dedicated to the study of the planet (not the Roman goddess or the arts of love).
This was one of my favourites, for the ferocious looking serpent heads at the foot of the stairs.
The next largest complex, after the pyramid Temple of Kukulcan is the Temple of the Warriors.
It too is strongly reminiscent of Tula, although much larger.
Along the south wall are hundreds of columns that would have supported the roof. The sides are bright limestone, bearing the remains of carvings of Chaac.
There were lots of other structures on the 5 square kilometre site, some excavated, some still romantic looking ruins.
We finished our tour at the Caracol observatory.
There were three other whole groups of buildings we didn’t visit, as well as cenotes and caves. We had to get on to Ek Balam. Be prepared – a full tour of Chichen Itza would probably take the best part of a day.