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Chichén Itzá, Mexico

Chichén Itzá, is the most impressive Maya site on the Yucatán peninsula, lies about two and a half hours from Puerto Morales. Its famous pyramid offers a challenging climb and a breathtaking view over the jungle. This ruined city has several hundred buildings, of which about 30 have been fully restored. Some have been partially restored and others are still covered with the vines and bushes of the jungle.

The city was founded around 850 AD and it flourished during the following two or three centuries. Chichén Itzá was the most cosmopolitan of Mayan capitals. During the few centuries that this city was at its height, the Mayan built temples with influences from Puuc, Toltec and Mixtecan architecture. An all over Mexicanization can be seen also in art and ceramics throughout Chichén Itzá, proving international trade and cultural exchange. The Itzaes, rulers of Chichén Itzá, were a Maya-speaking tribe from Central Mexico – the periphery of the Mayan realm.

The city was still inhabited at the time the Spanish were conquering the country. The declined had begun and the city was just a shell of its former glory.

The people here practiced Human sacrafices as part of worshiping their gods. The Temple of the Skulls is covered with carvings of human skulls. This platform shaped structure is believed to have been used to display the heads of captured warriors and human sacrifices. This habit of displaying heads, sometimes on poles, was still in use when the Spaniards arrived, leading them to judge the Mayans as savages.

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