| Chichen Itza | |
| BorisVM | [img]http://www.bbc.co.uk/50/destinations/mexico_50/images/1.jpg[/img]
Best time to go: The plateau and high mountains are warm for much of the year, while the Pacific Coast has a tropical climate
Found in the heart of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico and surrounded on all sides by a vast rain forest, Chichen Itza is a ruined ancient city occupying an area of four square miles (10 square kilometres), which was first populated around the sixth century AD by the Mayans. They were famed for their advanced mathematical knowledge and incredible understanding of the solar system.
El Castillo, the most famous structure in Chichen Itza dominating the site, may be a simple looking building, but it is in fact the Mayan calendar, made in stone. It is a square structure rising in nine receding terraces to resemble a staggered pyramid.
Each face has its own monumental staircase, and each staircase has 91 steps, which added to the single step at the main entrance to the temple amounts to 365.
At the top of the pyramid is a carving of a plumed serpent representing Quetzalcoatl, a Mayan deity.
Other structures to explore include the Akabtzib (House of the Dark Writing), the Chichanchob (Red House), the observatory El Caracol (The Snail), The Iglesia (Church) and the Casa de las Monjas (Nunnery).
The city has hundreds of buildings, many of them partially restored, but some still covered with jungle vines and bushes. A stroll through the city will give you a fascinating insight into Mayan culture, but the best view can be found at the top of El Castillo, if you are brave enough to attempt the climb.
http://www.chichenitza.com/ |
| BorisVM | Tour Of Chichén Itzá Deep within the jungles of Mexico and Guatemala and extending into the limestone shelf of the Yucatan peninsula lie the mysterious temples and pyramids of the Maya. While Europe was still in the midst of the Dark Ages, these amazing people had mapped the heavens, evolved the only true writing system native to the Americas and were masters of mathematics. They invented the calendars we use today. Without metal tools, beasts of burden or even the wheel they were able to construct vast cities across a huge jungle landscape with an amazing degree of architectural perfection and variety. Their legacy in stone, which has survived in a spectacular fashion at places such as Palenque, Tikal, Tulum, Chichén Itzá, Copan and Uxmal, lives on as do the seven million descendants of the classic Maya civilization The Maya are probably the best-known of the classical civilizations of Mesoamerica. Originating in the Yucatan around 2600 B.C., they rose to prominence around A.D. 250 in present-day southern Mexico, Guatemala, northern Belize and western Honduras. Building on the inherited inventions and ideas of earlier civilizations such as the Olmec, the Maya developed astronomy, calendrical systems and hieroglyphic writing. The Maya were noted as well for elaborate and highly decorated ceremonial architecture, including temple-pyramids, palaces and observatories, all built without metal tools. They were also skilled farmers, clearing large sections of tropical rain forest and, where groundwater was scarce, building sizable underground reservoirs for the storage of rainwater. The Maya were equally skilled as weavers and potters, and cleared routes through jungles and swamps to foster extensive trade networks with distant peoples. Around 300 B.C., the Maya adopted a hierarchical system of government with rule by nobles and kings. This civilization developed into highly structured kingdoms during the Classic period, A.D. 200-900. Their society consisted of many independent states, each with a rural farming community and large urban sites built around ceremonial centers. It started to decline around A.D. 900 when - for reasons which are still largely a mystery - the southern Maya abandoned their cities. When the northern Maya were integrated into the Toltec society by A.D. 1200, the Maya dynasty finally came to a close, although some peripheral centers continued to thrive until the Spanish Conquest in the early sixteenth century. http://www.mysteriousplaces.com/mayan/TourEntrance.html |