Friday, 18 July 2014
Chichen Itza was a large pre-Columbian city built by the Maya people of the Post Classic. The archaeological site is located in the municipality of Tinum, in the Mexican state of Yucatan. The Yucatan Peninsula is a limestone plain, with no rivers or streams. The region is pockmarked with natural sinkholes, called cenotes, which expose the water table to the surface. One of the most impressive of these is the Cenote Sagrado, which is 60 metres in diameter, and sheer cliffs that drop to the water table some 27 metres below. The Cenote Sagrado was a place of pilgrimage for ancient Maya people who, according to ethnohistoric sources, would conduct sacrifices during times of drought. Archaeological investigations support this as thousands of objects have been removed from the bottom of the cenote, including material such as gold, carved jade, copal, pottery, flint, obsidian, shell, wood, rubber, cloth, as well as skeletons of children and men. Source
