Was Chichén Itzá a Maya city or a Mexican colony, and does its snake shadow mark the equinox?
Chichén Itzá borrowed styles from central Mexico, and its famous serpent shadow is probably not a calendar.
▶ Start the storyMost archaeologists today answer: a Maya city, not a foreign colony. It was a large pre-Columbian city built by the Maya people of the period, and its mix of building styles, some reminiscent of central Mexico, was once thought to prove migration or even conquest from central Mexico. Its Temple of the Warriors, for instance, closely resembles Temple B at Tula, the capital, but most contemporary interpretations now see such parallels as and contact rather than conquest. The city may have had the most diverse population in the Maya world, which could explain the variety of architectural styles.
The name says where it began: "Chichén Itzá" means "At the mouth of the well of the Itzá". The northern Yucatán has four visible , natural sinkholes that could have provided plentiful water year round, making the site attractive for settlement. The city became a major regional capital late in the Late Classic and early in the , and its rise roughly correlates with the decline of the southern lowland centres. Archaeological data now indicates it declined as a regional centre by 1100.
The city is famous for El Castillo, and for a popular belief. Around the , triangular shadows on the staircase evoke a serpent wriggling down, which some scholars suggest represents the deity Kukulcán. Many people believe it was designed to record the equinoxes, but that idea is highly unlikely, since the effect can be seen for several weeks around them. Chichen Itza also has the largest and best preserved ball court in ancient Mesoamerica.
Popular belief
- The shadow was built to mark the
- Shadows look like a serpent wriggling down the staircase
What the evidence says
- The idea is highly unlikely
- The effect appears for several weeks around the
- So it cannot pin down a single date
The site is one of the most visited in Mexico, with over 2.6 million tourists in 2017.
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Recap
Chichen Itza was a Maya city that borrowed styles, and its snake shadow is a spectacle, not a precise calendar.
💡 A trick to remember it · The snake on the stairs lasts weeks, not a day: pretty as a show, useless as a clock.
Surprising fact · The serpent shadow appears for weeks around the equinoxes, so it cannot mark a single date.
Connects to
- 📡 How did lasers reveal tens of thousands of hidden Maya buildings under the jungle?
- 🔤 How did scholars finally learn to read Maya glyphs?
- 🛕 How did Tikal become a great Maya kingdom in a rainforest with no river?
- 🏀 What was the Maya ball game, and did the losers really die?
- 🍫 Why did the Aztecs use cacao beans as money?
- Classic maya collapse
Sources (1)
No source, no claim. Every fact in this lesson (18 claims) cites at least one of these.