| Whether you travel to mexico and want to visit | | | | and a throne in the shape of jaguar, painted red |
| El Castillo, Mexico amazing ancient Pyramid Built by | | | | with spots made of inlaid jade. The Mexican |
| the pre-Columbian Maya sometime between the | | | | government excavated a tunnel from the base of |
| 10th and 13th centuries AD, El Castillo served as a | | | | the north staircase, up the earlier pyramid's |
| temple to the god Kukulkan, the Yucatec Maya | | | | stairway to the hidden temple, and opened it to |
| Feathered Serpent deity closely related to the | | | | tourists. |
| deity figure Quetzalcoatl known to the Aztecs | | | | In recent years, the National Institute of |
| and other central Mexican cultures of the | | | | Anthropology and History (INAH), which manages |
| Postclassic period. | | | | the archaeological site of Chichen Itza, has been |
| It is a step pyramid with a ground plan of square | | | | closing monuments to public access. While visitors |
| terraces with stairways up each of the four sides | | | | can walk around them, they can no longer climb |
| to the temple on top. Great sculptures of plumed | | | | them or go inside their chambers. Climbing El |
| serpents run down the sides of the northern | | | | Castillo was halted in 2006 after an 80-year old |
| staircase, and are set off by shadows from the | | | | woman fell to her death. At the same time INAH |
| corner tiers on the spring and autumn equinoxes. | | | | closed the public access to the throne room. |
| The pyramid has 91 steps on three of the sides | | | | When counting the top platform as another step, |
| and 92 on the north staircase, which adds up to | | | | in total El Castillo has 365 steps, one step for |
| 365 steps, or days of the year. | | | | each day of the approximated tropical year |
| The Mexican government restored the pyramid in | | | | recorded by the portion of the Maya calendar |
| the 1920s and 1930s, concurrent with the | | | | known as the Haab'. The structure is 24 m high, |
| Carnegie Institution's restoration of the Temple of | | | | plus an additional 6 m for the temple. The square |
| Warriors. Archaeologists were able to reconstruct | | | | base measures 55.3 m across. |
| two sides of the pyramid in their entirety. | | | | The overall structure has nine levels, which may |
| Mesoamerican cultures periodically built larger | | | | be a parallel to the Maya cosmological view of |
| pyramids atop older ones, and this is one such | | | | there being nine levels in the Maya 'Underworlds'. |
| example. In the mid 1930s, the Mexican | | | | We are led to believe this because of the |
| government sponsored an excavation into El | | | | staircase in the center of the pyramid having 13 |
| Castillo. After several false starts, they | | | | levels, the number of levels in the "upper worlds". |
| discovered a staircase under the north side of the | | | | Today "El Castillo" is one of the most popular and |
| pyramid. By digging from the top, they found | | | | recognized pre-Columbian structures in |
| another temple buried below the current one. | | | | present-day Mexico. |
| Inside the temple chamber is a Chac Mool statue | | | | |