Chich'en Itzá

Sunlight plummets into an expansive limestone cavern through an opening in the ceiling. The rays fall through a plume of dust and incense and ultimately dive into the emerald colored depths of a subterranean fresh water lake. "Fresh" is the critical descriptor. Although the Northern Yucatán Peninsula is a rainy place, you wont find any lakes or streams to swim in --or to drink from. Here, highly permeable soils quickly drain water to the subsurface. It is this reality that belies the importance of the city "at the mouth of the well of enchanted water," literally, Chich'en Itzá.

Chich'en Itzá archeology and anthropology are intimately related to the Earth sciences of geology, hydrology, and astronomy. The site is literally named after the cenotes, or natural limestone sinkhole-caverns, some of which were used for drinking water and others for ritual sacrifice. The architecture at Chich'en Itzá is famous for its astronomical calibration, allowing, for example, for the illumination of a certain serpentine facade on only the equinox days.

The monumental architecture of Chich'en Itzá is constructed from the same limestone that houses the underground lake we visit, a rock that formed in warm tropical waters millions of years ago. Limestone was the building rock of choice for the Mayans as it was for the Egyptians at Giza. The same rock type is also to be found on the facade of the Empire State Building and the foundation of the Athenian Parthenon. Limestone is heavy, easy to cut, and, --perhaps most importantly to the anthropologist-- preserves both fine-scale carvings and monumental pyramids over time-scales of millennia.

I leave the tour group at Chich'en Itzá, perhaps wanting to feel the aura of the place rather than have it dissected for me. I can always read up later, I figure. I feel a sense of loss knowing that climbing the central pyramid is not longer permitted because it is seen as a liability risk after a California woman fell to her death in 2006. I take an expansive view of the site closures, figuring that my respectful footsteps pale in comparison to centuries of looting and intentional desecration. Wondering in an abandoned section of the ruins, I stop next to an enormous iguana and watch as the forest retakes the curvilinear forms carved in stone. A trail of ants carry away chunks of a tropical plant. I imagine that I am an early explorer, and have just come across these mysterious structures for the first time.

-Blogger of the day, Brad