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Ghosts of the Maya

Author: James Y. Bartlett
Every morning, dozens of buses leave the hotel zone in Cancun to make the two-hour drive out across the Yucatan to the Maya ruins at Chichen Itza. On both sides of the railroad-flat highway, the jungly growth extends as far as the eye can see in all directions, and one is left to wonder how a civilization that so flourished just a thousand years ago disappeared so rapidly and so completely.

It is a question that is asked many times as one wanders around the roughly 4 square miles/10.4 sq. kilometers of the Chichen Itza reserve, only small portions of which have been excavated by archaeologists, because what they have uncovered from the jungles is amazing.

Chichen Itza, believed to have been more of an important political and religious site than a huge population center for the Maya, was built beginning around the eighth or ninth century, which puts it in the "Decadent Classic" period of Maya civilization. Much of the most impressive building at Chichen Itza took place beginning around the 10th century.

The famous pyramid-like "Castillo" so named by later Spanish explorers is also called the Temple of Kukulcan, named after a strange mystic priest who arrived in the Yucatan with a large band of followers late in the 10th century.

Wandering around the grounds of Chichen Itza climbing the Castillo, testing the acoustics of the Ball Court, straining to catch a glimpse of the Chac Mool reclining figure atop the Temple of the Warriors, wandering amid the thousand stone columns there are more questions than answers. Despite the Maya's apparent advancement in construction, political and civic ceremonies, astronomy and mathematics, they did not leave behind a language, nor much of a written record. Much of their history is merely surmised.

The scale and the skill of these buildings are arresting. And the archaeologists tell us that all these temples and observatories and stone carvings were likely painted in bright and colorful hues. Imagine the towering platforms of the Castillo painted in fiery reds and deep indigos!

One has to imagine the ceremonies that took place at the edge of the Sacred Cenote, that deep, water-filled sinkhole with precipitous limestone walls where human sacrifices were thrown to beg the gods for rain for the crops or to keep an invading army at bay.

It's a fascinating place, well worth a day out of one's vacation. Just be prepared to come away with more questions than answers.

A visit to the ruins at Chichen Itza can be arranged through Cancun hotel guest-service desks. A cost of around US$50-$70 will include the bus ride, admission to the park and the services of a bilingual guide to explain what facts, or surmises, are known. It's an all-day trip: The ride takes about two hours each way, and the ruins themselves take at least three hours to see.

Those with rental cars can drive themselves. Tolls on the highway run about US$11 each way.

The government-operated park has a restaurant, restrooms, gift shops and a small archaeological museum.

Posted online 02/01/98.

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