Ricardo E. Valenzuela Ruiz : Ricardo E. Valenzuela Ruiz Chichen-itza 2 E-mail varr1947@yahoo.com
Slide 2 : Steam bath
Observatory : Observatory
The Observatory : The Observatory
Nunnery temple : Nunnery temple personage in high relief in the center of a circle of beams or feathers. "The Nunnery", a colossal fortification with a foundation of 70 by 35 meters and a staircase divided into two bodies, in the northern part it gives access to a structure with a rectangular base made up of two large parallel halls. Its decoration of tapered medial moldings, is pure Maya style without Toltec influence. On the east side, an annex is found. This construction has two richly ornate facades; The one on the north side has three doors with stone lintels and masks of the god Chaac in its corners; the other facade on the east has extremely complicated ornaments. It has masks and a cornice on which there is a series of noses of the god Chaac. On this is a panel with medial molding.
Nunnery Anex : Nunnery Anex The Nunnery Annex is located immediately adjacent to the Nunnery and while it is from the early Maya period of Chichén Itzá, it shows some influence of later residence. This building is of the Chenes style, which is a local Yucatan style. It has a lattice motif on the roof comb, complete with Chac masks, but it also includes an undulating serpent running along its cornice. The decoration begins at the base and goes up to the cornice, with the façade completely covered with several rain god masks with a central richly clad human figure over the doorway. A hieroglyphic inscription is on the lintel. But the best thing about the Nunnery Annex is that, from a distance, the whole building is a chac mask, with the human figure as the nose and the doorway the mouth of the mask.
The Church : The Church This building was named la Iglesia (the Church) by the Spanish, probably simply because it was located right next to the Nunnery. This rectangular building is of classic Puuc construction with an overlay of central Yucatan styles (Chenes). This is probably one of the most freqently drawn and photographed buildings at Chichén Itzá; famous 19th century drawings were made by both Frederick Catherwood and Desiré Charnay. The Iglesia is rectangular with a single room inside and an entrance on the west side. The outside wall is completely covered with veneer decorations, which extend clear up to the roof comb. The frieze is bounded at ground level by a stepped fret motif and above by a serpent; the stepped fret motif is repeated on the bottom of the roof comb. The most important motif of the decoration is the Chac god mask with a hooked nose standing out on the corners of the building. In addition, there are four figures in pairs between the masks including an armadillo, a snail, a turtle, and a crab, who are the four "bacabs" who hold up the sky in Maya mythology.
Masks : Masks One of the Puuc characteristics seen in architecture of Chichén Itzá is the presence of three-dimensional masks of what was traditionally believed to be the Maya god of rain and lightning Chac or God B. This god is one of the earliest identified Maya deities, with traces back to the beginnings of the Maya civilization (ca. 100 BC-AD 100). Variants of the rain god's name include Chac Xib Chac and Yaxha Chac. The earliest portions of Chichén Itzá were dedicated to Chac. Many of the earliest buildings at Chichen have three-dimensional Witz masks embedded into their veneers. They were made in stone pieces, with a long curly nose. On the edge of this building can be seen three Chac masks; also take a look at the building called the Nunnery Annex, which has Witz masks in it, and the whole facade of the building is constructed to look like a Witz mask.
TZOMPANTLI : TZOMPANTLI The Wall of Skulls is called the Tzompantli, which is actually an Aztec name for this kind of structure, because the first one seen by the horrified Spanish was at the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan. The Tzompantli structure at Chichén Itzá is a Toltec structure, where the heads of sacrificial victims were placed; although it was one of three platforms in the Great Plaza, it was according to Bishop Landa, the only one for this purpose--the others were for farces and comedies, showing the Itzá's were all about fun. The platform walls of the Tzompantli have carved reliefs of four different subjects. The primary subject is the skull rack itself; others show a scene with a human sacrifice; eagles eating human hearts; and skeletonized warriors with shields and arrows.
Ball court : Ball court This photograph shows the south 1/2 of the ball court, the bottom of the I and a portion of the game walls. The tall game walls are on both sides of main playing alley, and stone rings are set high in these side walls, presumably for shooting balls through. Reliefs along the lower parts of these walls depict the ancient ball game ritual, including the sacrifice of the losers by the victors. The very large building is called the Temple of the Jaguars, which looks down into the ball court from the east platform, with a lower chamber opening outside into the main plaza. The second story of the Temple of Jaguars is reached by an extremely steep stairway at the east end of the court, visible in this photo. The balustrade of this staircase is carved to represent a feathered serpent. Serpent columns support the lintels of the wide doorway facing the plaza, and the doorjambs are decorated with typical Toltec warrior themes. A frieze appears here of a jaguar and circular shield motif in a flat relief, similar to that found at Tula. In the chamber is a now badly defaced mural of a battle scene with hundreds of warriors laying siege to a Maya village. The crazed explorer Augustus Le Plongeon interpreted the battle scene in the interior of the Temple of the Jaguars (thought by modern scholars to be the 9th century sack of Piedras Negras) as the battle between Prince Coh leader of Moo (Le Plongeon's name for Chichén Itzá) and Prince Aac (Le Plongeon's name for the leader of Uxmal), which was lost by Prince Coh. Coh's widow (now Queen Moo) had to marry Prince Aac and she cursed Moo to destruction. Afterwards, according to Le Plongeon, Queen Moo left Mexico for Egypt and becomes Isis, and eventually is reincarnated as--surprise! Le Plongeon's wife Alice.
Ball court : The ball court at Chichen Itza sits below the Temple of the Jaguar shown in the below picture. The court at Chichen Itza is the largest one found in the Mayan area, and all of Mesoamerica for that matter. It's dimensions are 480 feet by 120 feet with ball rings twenty feet from the ground. The ball court was one of seven courts constructed in the city. "This one is so much larger then those found in Uxmal and Palenque and other Mayan sites that it raises the question whether it was designed for the same game." Ball court
Ball court ring : Ball court ring This photograph is of the stone rings on the inside wall of the Great Ball Court. Several different ball games were played by various groups in similar ballcourts throughout Mesoamerica. The most wide-spread game was with a rubber ball and, according to the paintings at various sites, a player used his hips to keep the ball in the air as long as possible. According to ethnographic studies of more recent versions, points were scored when the ball hit the ground in the opposing players' part of the courtyard. The rings were tenoned into the upper side walls; but passing the ball through such a ring, in this case 20 feet off the ground, must have been darned near impossible. Ballgame equipment included in some cases padding for the hips and knees, a hacha (a hafted blunt axe) and a palma, a palm-shaped stone device attached to the padding. It is unclear what these were used for. The sloping benches on the side of the court were probably sloped to keep the ball in play. They are carved with reliefs of the victory celebrations. These reliefs are each 40 feet long, in panels at three intervals, and they all show a victorious ball team holding the severed head of one of the losers, seven snakes and green vegetation representing the blood issuing from the player's neck. This is not the only ball court at Chichén Itzá; there are at least 12 others, most of which are smaller, traditionally Maya sized ball courts.
Slide 13 : The heart of Chichén Itzá is the Sacred Cenote, dedicated to the Chac God, the Maya God of rain and lightening. Located 300 meters north of the Chichén Itzá compound, and connected to it by a causeway, the cenote was central to Chichén, and in fact the site is named after it--Chichén Itzá means "Mouth of the Well of the Itzas". At the edge of this cenote is a small steam bath. The cenote is a natural formation, a karst cave tunneled into the limestone by moving groundwater, after which the ceiling collapsed, creating an opening at the surface. The opening of the Sacred Cenote is about 65 meters in diameter (and about an acre in area), with steep vertical sides some 60 feet above the water level. The water continues for another 40 feet and at the bottom is about 10 feet of mud. The use of this cenote was exclusively sacrificial and ceremonial; there is a second karst cave (called the Xtlotl Cenote, located in the center of Chichén Itzá) that was used as a source of water for Chichén Itzá's residents. According to Bishop Landa, men, women and children were thrown alive into it as a sacrifice to the gods in times of droughts (actually Bishop Landa reported the sacrificial victims were virgins, but that was probably a European concept meaningless to the Toltecs and Maya at Chichén Itzá). Archaeological evidence supports the use of the well as a location of human sacrifice. At the turn of the 20th century, American adventurer-archaeologist Edward H. Thompson bought Chichén Itzá and dredged the cenote, finding copper and gold bells, rings, masks, cups, figurines, embossed plaques. And, oh yes, many human bones of men, women and children. Many of these objects are imports, dating between the 13th and 16th centuries AD after the residents had left Chichén Itzá; these represent the continued use of the cenote up into the Spanish colonization. These materials were shipped to the Peabody Museum in 1904, and repatriated to Mexico in the 1980s. Cenotes
CENOTES : CENOTES
Slide 15 : Jaguar Devouring A Heart Kukulkan - Sun Symbols Gold From Chichén ItzáSacred Cenote Gold From Chichén Itzá Sacred Cenote
Gold From Chichén Itzá Sacred Cenote : Gold From Chichén Itzá Sacred Cenote
Slide 17 : Wall House
Slide 18 : Pottery