El Caracol, or the Observatory, Chichen Itza (Mexico)

El Caracol, or the Observatory, is a remarkable structure of the pre-Columbian era that nestles at the very heart of the ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza on the eastern Yucatán Peninsula, nowadays southeast Mexico.

Bird’s-eye view of El Caracol, facing northeast

Its name means ‘snail’ or ‘spiral-shaped’ in Spanish apparently due to the winding staircase that spirals up the interior of a cylindrical central tower, atop two nestled platforms on a trademark Mayan superimposed pattern.

The structure, almost 23m high, is estimated to date back to around 906 AD in the so-called Postclassic Mesoamerican age and is reckoned to have served as a space observatory, hence its other name, for the Mayas to track the movements of Venus in the night sky in particular.

Mayan astronomers, who doubled as priests, knew that Venus appeared on the western and disappeared on the eastern horizon on the far ends of a 225 day spell at different times round the year while five such cycles⁽¹⁾ amounted to eight solar years.

Sight lines of about 20 astronomical events of interest to Mayans, such as solstices, eclipses and equinoxes, can be found within the tower there has got to be said.

For that matter, the structure doesn’t look that different from modern observatories as it features that domed tower, comprising two concentric walls that enclose a pair of circular chambers in its lower level, in the middle with relatively small aligned windows on the side.

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(1) The so-called ‘Five Petals of Venus.’

Taos Pueblo, New Mexico

Taos Pueblo (or Pueblo de Taos) is an ancient pueblo (town, village drawing on Spanish ‘pueblo’), probably founded around the late 14th or early 15th century AD, that belongs to a Taos-speaking (Northern Tiwa, a branch of local native American dialects) tribe of Puebloans.

It is located about a mile north of Taos, northern New Mexico, either side of Rio Pueblo de Taos (or simply Rio Pueblo, a tributary of Rio Grande) in the backdrop of the Taos Mountains, within the range of the Sangre de Cristo Range, and presents a fine example of Puebloan communities of the pre-Hispanic era stretching as far as our days.

The pueblo features two multi-storey stacked step-back adobe dwellings, reaching as high as five storeys in the north and south wings, surrounded by a low defensive wall and further comprises seven kivas (underground ceremonial chambers), four middens, a foot-race track and the San Geronimo Catholic Church.

Immediately east lie the ruins of the original pueblo, a sacred site referred to as ‘Cornfield Taos,’ laid down around 1325 AD but remains unknown why it was abandoned so soon. The original settlers were apparently Anasazi (Ancestral Puebloans) driven away from the Four Corners⁽¹⁾ either through a long drought or a violent struggle.

Taos Pueblo quickly established itself as a trading hub between the natives along the Rio Grande and the Great Plains whilst it held a trade fair every fall following the harvest before the first Spaniards arrived in the form of conquistadores under the Francisco Vásquez de Coronado expedition, seeking the mythical Seven Cities of Gold, in 1540.

The attempts of Spanish Jesuits to impose the Catholic religion, raising the mission of the San Geronimo de Taos, despite the averse feelings of the natives along with the increased presence of new Spanish settlers in the early 1600s incurred friction that saw the resident priest killed and the church ruined by about 1660.

As usual, the Spaniards responded brutally spilling plenty of blood but soon the Pueblo Revolt followed, under the general leadership of Popé (or Po’pay), in around 1680 where Taos Pueblo uprose to drive away the colonists, destroying the church once again and killing two other priests.

Yet, having been forced out of the entire region, the Spaniards gradually returned after twelve years under Diego de Vargas to regain the upper hand over the region by the end of the 1690s, with the mission re-established in Taos Pueblos for a third time.

The original pueblo had very few windows and no conventional doorways, apparently for defensive purposes, as access to rooms was gained through square holes in the roofs and the use of wooden ladders, with no interconnections between the houses.

The northern side (picture), apparently intended mainly towards defensive ends, is among the most photographed and painted structures in North America made of adobe walls that can be several feet thick.

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(1) A region that takes in southwestern Colorado, southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico.

Uxmal, Yucatán (Mexico), virtual tour

Chichén Itzá, Yucatán (Mexico), virtual tour

The Sarcophagus of Pacal the Great

This is the cover, or lid, of the large sarcophagus of Pakal (also Pacal the Great) that lies in his tomb in the Temple of the Inscriptions in the ancient city of Palenque, state of Chiapas in southernmost nowadays Mexico.

Pacal (Kʼinich Janaab Pakal in Mayan) was a great Mayan ruler (‘Ajaw’ or ‘Ahau’ in Mayan, meaning ‘Lord’) of the city-state that reigned for a long 68 years (615-683 AD) having ascended the throne at the mere age of 12.

As regards the Temple of Inscriptions, or Bʼolon Yej Teʼ Naah in Mayan that spells ‘House of the Nine Sharpened Spears,’ it shapes the largest Mesoamerican (eight-)stepped pyramid in Palenque and is situated at the namesake Court and at a right angle southwest to the Palace.

Some interpret Pacal’s lying stance on the cover of the sarcophagus, which measures about 3.6x2m (12x7ft), as a sign of rebirth into a deity according to the Mayan tradition underneath what is the Ceiba (or ya’axché), the tree of life as an axis mundi that connects the different planes of the world (universe).

Intriguing is also that the tree appears to have two sort of ‘niches’ in the middle occupied by what look like crystals. In various studies around, Ceiba is called a ‘shiny jewel tree’ but have got a sneaky feeling that the proper rendering could be ‘shiny crystal tree’ instead.

Incidentally, at the top of Ceiba appears Itzam-Yeh, the Serpent Bird of Heaven, that is associated with the four corners of the world as well as the Big Dipper asterism in the constellation of Ursa Major (Great Bear).

San Francisco de Asís Mission Church, Ranchos de Taos (New Mexico)

The San Francisco de Asís Mission Church, completed after 43 years in 1815, lies in the historic district of Ranchos de Taos Plaza at the census-designated Ranchos de Taos, just south of Taos Pueblo in central Taos County (north New Mexico).

A Spanish mission was established in the early 1700s there and construction commenced around 1772 by the Franciscan Fathers as the center of a fortified plaza, which afforded protection against Comanche attacks, in a time that New Mexico was part of New Spain.

It is a large trademark adobe structure that measures about 37m in length and features a brace of bell towers either side of an arched entrance at the front looking on an enclosed courtyard.

It underwent a number of restorations with the last carried out in 1967 that saw a new roof placed over the structure where the ceiling beams, most corbels and the doors were replaced with copies of the original design.

El Castillo, Chichen Itza (Mexico)

This is the north side of El Castillo (‘the Castle’ in Spanish), also known as Temple of Kukulcán or simply Kukulcán, which commands the center of the ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza on the peninsula of Yucatán, westernmost Mexico.

It is a Mesoamerican step-pyramid that served as a temple to the serpent deity of Kukulcán, meaning ‘plumed/amazing/feathered serpent,’ and was built in phases between the 8th and 12th century AD.

Kukulcán is a deity of the Pre-Colombian Yucatec Maya, closely associated with Qʼuqʼumatz of the Kʼicheʼ people (modern Guatemala) and Quetzalcoatl of the Aztecs, that originates in the Maya of the Classic era (250 – 900 AD) known therein as Waxaklahun Ubah Kan, which translates as the ‘War Serpent.’

The pyramid comprises several square terraces on top of one another as staircases climb up each of its four sides to the top with sculptures of plumed serpents rolling down either side of the north balustrade.

Interestingly, there are roughly 91 steps on each side that along with the platform of the temple at the top add up to 365 overall that matches the number of days of the Haabʼ year, which is made up by eighteenth months of twenty days each.

Archaeological research suggests that Kukulcán was fashioned on the concept of Axis Mundi (also called Cosmic Axis or World Tree), which represents the connection between ‘higher and lower realms’ of the cosmos.

Axis Mundi is the Latin term for the axis of the Earth (rotation) between the Celestial Poles in astronomy.

The pyramid further stands right above a cenote (water cave) aligned at the intersection of a further four; the Sacred Cenote (North), the Xtoloc (South), the Kanjuyum (East) and the Holtún (West) that render Kukulcán as an axis mundi itself.

Over the spring and fall equinoxes, late afternoon, the sun strikes off the northwest corner of the pyramid to cast a series of triangular shadows on the north balustrade shaping an illusion of the feathered serpent crawling down the pyramid.

As a matter of fact, the temple seems to simulate the chirping of the Quetzal (bird) at the clapping of people around, which is probably not accidental, through the echoing effect of its shape and structure.

The Governor’s Palace, Uxmal (Mexico)

The Governor’s Palace is a long low building on a large terrace that is located just south of the Pyramid of the Magician in the central quarter of the ancient Mayan city of Uxmal in the Puuc region of the Yucatán Peninsula, easternmost nowadays Mexico.

The structure comprises three sections where the middle is elevated to about 20m and links to the other two lower flanking equivalents through vaulted corridors oriented towards the main pyramid of Cehtzuc southeast.

Furthermore, the decorations of the facade of the building contain nearly 400 glyphs of Venus in masks of rain god Chac while it features eight bicephalic serpents over the main entrance.

A glimpse at Machu Picchu, Peru

Chetro Ketl (Chaco Canyon, New Mexico)

This is the great kiva of Chetro Kelt, an immense great house of the Ancestral Puebloans (Anasazi), which lies on the north rim of the Chaco Canyon in the Chaco Culture National Historical Park within San Juan County, southeastern New Mexico (facing north/northwest).

Chetro Ketl was built between roughly 990 and 1075 AD and was considerably revamped early next century displaying a D-shape structure that measures about 470m in perimeter while the north wall is 140m long and the south as good as 85m.

It comprised nearly a good 400 rooms and was the largest of its kind across the Chaco Canyon covering roughly three acres in area.

The arrival of a severe drought saw most Chacoans leave the canyon by 1140 AD and Chetro Ketl itself was entirely deserted by around 1250 AD.