Maya City

The Mayan city of Chichen Itza was abandoned during the 15th century and had not been rediscovered until the Spanish discovered it after it had been abandoned for centuries. Discovering it allowed new opportunities to earn money for the citizens of Mexico when it became a tourist attraction. It also helped the Mexican culture, Bringing back a beautiful and important city. Chichen Itza is now a very large tourist attraction with over one million visitors each and every year. Many tourists come on day trips from nearby cities like Cancun, which is also part of the Yucatán Peninsula. The most amount of people come on the equinoxes so they can see the infamous “snake” in person (as the sun begins to cast shadows) without just seeing pictures.

The pyramid has had many visitors over the years who have been able to observe the great structure and the beautiful artwork surrounding it. This is a building that had a lot of work put into it by the ancient Mayans and still stands to this day.

During the fall or spring equinoxes, the pyramid has a very special look as seen on the previous page. It has what looks like a serpent running down the side of the stairs. There are 365 stairs, each representing a day of the year. This occurs only on the equinoxes (which occur in March and September), and no other days. This was built by the Maya who had to carve out all of the intricate details on the pyramid. The size of the structure is 55.3 square meters at its base and is 30 meters, tall including the temple at the top. The city itself took up 4 square miles of the Yucatán Peninsula. Over centuries it has been worn down by wind, rain, and other natural weather but still stands tall. They may eventually renovate the stairs back up to how they used to be when it was originally built but they are not sure yet. Most if not all of the pyramid was made out of limestone which in turn means they used a lot of limestone on the pyramid and

Many of the people who worked in Chichen Itza were skilled craftsmen such as, weavers, sculptors, jewelers, and people who were potters. In Chichen Itza they had sacrifices to their gods in hope for the gods to like them more and give them better years for farming and hunting. They sacrificed animals but the most sacred blood was the blood from humans. The people of Chichen Itza were great astronomers who even built their own observatory and also showed off their skills. One way they did so was that they were able to predict solar eclipses. When they used the observatory, they observed the planets but they mostly observed Venus. The people here did not have a super easy way of getting water like we do today but instead got their water from a cenoté which is a big natural cavity which holds water.

For the people of Chichen Itza, there is a court in which the skilled warriors of Chichen Itza would compete on. In order for their team to win they had to hit a solid rubber ball that weighed about 9lbs. with their hips through a hole that was just big enough for the ball to fit through that was suspended in the air 30 ft above the ground by a wall. These games were rare and sacred to the Mayans. When a team won the match, the captain of the other team would be sacrificed to the