Templo del Sol

Water Beneath the Earth

The water that sustained this stone city flowed beneath the ground. Limestone underlies the northern Yucatán Peninsula, allowing rainwater to seep underground rather than form extensive surface rivers. Groundwater dissolves the rock, creating cavities. When their roofs collapse, the water below is exposed to the sky: a natural well, or cenote. The name Chichén Itzá itself means “at the mouth of the well of the Itzá people.”

Layer upon layer of rock surrounds the green water. Trees reach out from the walls, and deep shadows fall along the far shore. Even in bright light, the bottom remains hidden. For the Maya, cenotes were sources of water for daily life, as well as places of passage to the gods and the underworld.

Gold disks and other offerings have been recovered from the Cenote Sagrado (Sacred Cenote) at Chichén Itzá. Precious objects lying beneath the water are part of the site's real history, too.

In the game's “Southern Spring,” something also gleamed beneath the water. If you tried to retrieve the golden flute while carrying the gold pedestal, you would drop the pedestal into the spring. It could never be recovered, making the game impossible to finish. In Japanese, we called such an unwinnable situation *hamari*. Finding something did not mean you could happily reach for it. More than the details of the solution, it is that unforgiving quality I remember.

A cenote enclosed by limestone walls

The Hall of a Thousand Columns

Serpent-shaped columns stand on either side of the entrance to the Templo de los Guerreros (Temple of the Warriors). At the top of its broad staircase reclines a Chac Mool, a stone figure with its upper body raised and its face turned to one side. A vessel for receiving offerings rests on its abdomen.

Templo de los Guerreros (Temple of the Warriors), with a Chac Mool visible at the top of the stairs

In front of the temple stretches the Grupo de las Mil Columnas (Group of a Thousand Columns), the area I knew as the “Hall of a Thousand Columns.” Rows of stone columns extend across the ground, their height and spacing forming a regular pattern when seen from a distance.

Grupo de las Mil Columnas (Group of a Thousand Columns)

Closer to each column, I can see the thickness of the stacked stones and the smaller pieces packed into their joints. Dark patches spread over their surfaces. These columns now stand beneath the open sky, but they once supported roofs, forming parts of temples and colonnades around a plaza. Members of the ruling elite and priests are thought to have gathered here and performed religious rituals. Looking at the surviving rows, I imagine how far the buildings once extended and how people moved and gathered within them.

Columns built from stacked stones

The game's Hall of a Thousand Columns contained a puzzle linked to El Caracol. Light entering from that distant building illuminated one column among the rows. Digging at its base yielded an item needed to continue the adventure. But the puzzle did not end there. The phases of the moon mattered, and the gold pedestal was needed as well. If you had dropped it into the spring, you could no longer obtain all the necessary items. With puzzles so intricate, it is hardly surprising that the Sun Key remained far beyond my reach.

Power Carved in Stone

Turning to the walls of the buildings, the stones begin to tell more of their stories. The reliefs depict a spotted jaguar and an eagle with a large beak. Both face sideways, their outlines and the lines of the eagle's feathers still visible on the weathered surfaces. Look closely at the jaguar's forepaws and the eagle's talons, and each can be seen grasping a heart.

Reliefs of a jaguar and an eagle grasping hearts

Across Mesoamerica, including the ancient Maya world, animal forms embodied divine power, the workings of nature, and the authority of rulers, though their meanings varied by place and period. Gods took on animal features, while kings wore costumes and masks shaped like animals to express their ties to sacred powers.

The pair carved on the Plataforma de Águilas y Jaguares (Platform of Eagles and Jaguars) is one such expression. These two animals grasping hearts have also been interpreted as representations of warrior groups. The eagle seizes its prey from the sky; the jaguar brings its prey down on the ground. Their sharp talons, beaks, and fangs must have seemed fitting emblems of a warrior's strength. The platform, too, is thought to have been used for religious rituals. The jaguar held a special place among the Maya. A powerful predator active in the forest at night, it was associated with darkness, the underworld, and warfare, and its features appeared in depictions of gods. Kings wore jaguar skins and sat on thrones fashioned in its image.

At the entrance to another building stands an animal carved in stone, its body supported on all four legs. The columns on either side are densely covered with geometric patterns and human figures.

A stone animal sculpture and columns covered in reliefs

The jaguar that appeared without warning in the game and brought an adventure to an end survives here as an emblem of the power of kings and warriors. Perhaps it was chosen to threaten the game's adventurer because it was an animal in which such strength had long been invested, and which had inspired such awe.

Animals are not the only things carved into the stone. A low masonry platform bears rows of skulls in relief. Chipped stones, crumbling sections, grass growing from the gaps: among them, the same skull forms appear again and again. It is an unsettling sight, reminiscent of the stone mask.

Skulls carved into the stonework

Spotted jaguars and round shields run in bands across the walls of the Templo de los Jaguares (Temple of the Jaguars). Concentric circles mark the faces of the shields. Above and below them, other bands depict the intertwined bodies of serpents. The repeated animals and weapons create a regular pattern across the wall.

Attached to the ball court, this temple was associated with the rituals of the ball game, and its interior once held murals depicting warfare. Eagles and jaguars grasping hearts, rows of skulls, jaguars walking beside shields: together, these images on different buildings suggest how closely warfare and ritual were connected in this city.

Jaguars, round shields, and intertwined serpents on the walls of the Templo de los Jaguares (Temple of the Jaguars)

The Sky Above the Stone City

From the world carved in stone, I turn once more to the sky. El Caracol, also known as the Observatory, has a round tower that contrasts with the angular temples around it. Its Spanish name, “the Snail,” refers to the spiral staircase inside. The building has been linked to astronomical observation, particularly the tracking of Venus.

El Caracol Observatory

For the Maya, observing the sky and counting time were closely bound to ritual and agriculture. El Castillo, seen at the beginning of this essay, is also familiar through an interpretation that connects its steps to the calendar: ninety-one on each of its four stairways, plus the summit, making 365. Around the spring and autumn equinoxes, triangular patches of light and shadow line the balustrade of the northern staircase. Joining the serpent's head at its foot, they create the appearance of a snake descending the pyramid. That figure is absent from my early-summer photograph. Yet at certain times of year, the movement of the sun gives this motionless stone building a different face.

How far the ancient builders intended this effect remains a subject of scholarly debate. Even so, looking at the buildings makes me want to consider not only the shape of the stone, but also the light falling upon it and the turning of the seasons.

The underground water that sustained the stone city, the animals carved into its walls, the sky changing with the seasons. At Chichén Itzá, they were woven together in people's lives and beliefs. Light falls into the temples, and water lies beneath the rock walls. The age of those who built these structures is distant, but the earth and sky they faced still stretch before my eyes.

Afterword

Of all that I encountered in books about the Maya and ancient Mexico, whether borrowed from the school library or bought for myself, the Maya script made a particularly strong impression. What fascinated me was the thought that people had once been able to read these words carved in stone, yet the knowledge needed to do so had been lost. There was a mystery in that, and at the time I had the impression that decipherment was still proving difficult.

Another attraction was a resemblance to Japanese. I had been told that writing systems like Japanese, which combines kanji and kana, were rare in the world. The Maya script, too, uses both logograms, representing words or meanings, and phonetic signs representing syllables. I felt a curious connection in finding such a similarity in the ancient script of a distant land.

Today, decipherment has advanced considerably. Many inscriptions recording the names of kings, their accessions, wars, and rituals can now be read, bringing the people of that time into clearer view.

Perhaps I chose so many photographs of animal reliefs and decorative patterns because that interest in meanings carved in stone has stayed with me. Returning to the photographs and consulting sources, I began to see the hearts held by the jaguars and eagles, and the shields set between the animals. Forms I had once simply looked at became visible anew as expressions of the beliefs and power of the people who made them. Writing this essay became a way of getting to know a place I had visited long ago through what I know now. However much time has passed since they were taken, the photographs still hold things I have yet to discover.