Some days ago we travelled to Chichen Itzá to see the famous Mayan ruins.
We hired a fenomenal guide which explained in detail the history behind the ruins.
We learned that every detail about the famous temple had a purpose. For example the four sides of the temple have 91 stairs because multiplied by 4 equals aprox. 365 days, like a year.
The temple was also build on top of a cenote since they believed that cenotes were the door to the underworld. This however was only discovered a few years ago.
The other ruins were the ball game field Mayans used to play, a kind of theater where music would be played and sacrifice kind of buildings.
These ruins also had some interesting details which showcased how much thought was put into building these.
For example they carved skulls into the stone of the ‘theater’ to show how many people were sacrificed.
Other carved stones helped archeologists understand how they played the ball game.
Although I forgot to take a picture of the ball game area, I did take a picture in Coba (another city with Mayan ruins). It is not exactly the same type of pitch, but it’s the most common pitch used by the Mayans
As you can see it’s quite steep and that’s because the team captains had to get up the steep wall to score. The captain from the winning team was then sacrificed.
Overall, this tour was an eye opening experience since I truly understood how capable humans were back then.