Pyramids of Kukulcan offers an impressive ruin of Chichen Itza
Pyramids
of Kukulcan
The famed
pyramids and temples of Chichen Itza are the Yucatan Peninsula's
best-known ancient monuments. Walking among these stone platforms,
pyramids and ball courts helps you to better understand and appreciate
this ancient advanced civilization. Pyramids of Kukulcan is important
because they are some of the largest, most grand and best restored
monuments of this age. It is located 179-km (112 miles) west of Cancun;
120-km (75-miles) east of Merida.
Led by Quetzalcoatl (who the Mayans called Kukulcan), the Toltec came
here from their capital, Tula, in north-central Mexico in roughly 987 AD.
Along with Putun Maya coastal traders, they built a magnificent
metropolis, Chichen Itza, constructing it using Puuc Maya methods and
embellishing it with Toltec motifs including the feathered serpent,
warriors, eagles and jaguars.
Chichen Itza became the most powerful place in the Yucatan peninsula, a
centre of pilgrimage and worship of the Mesoamerican Feathered Serpent
deity, who had the same name as their leader, Quetzalcoatl.
Overgrown with jungle and slowly decaying, the massive structures of
Chichen Itza were first seriously explored by archaeologists in the
1920s. Many of the ancient structures have been restored, including the
temple known as El Castillo, or the Pyramid of Kukulcan.
