Saturday, January 9, 2010

Pyramid of Kukulcan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pyramid of Kukulcan
Called The Pyramid of Kukulcan (Castillo, Chichen Itza: Mayan word for Quetzalcoatl), also called El Castillo, situated in the ruined city of Chichen Itza in Yucatan (Mexico).

Younger pyramid
The pyramid is 30 meters high, has a base side length of 55 m and rises in nine Pyramid steps. The steps include alleged 365 steps. This number should be composed as follows: Each of the four flights of stairs is 91 steps), together 364, plus the base of the temple building (1 step resulting 365th This calculation, which should refer to the days of the year, has been reviewed already by earlier writers as pure speculation. In fact, the number of steps are always the result of restoration: the north and west by the Mexican Dirección de Antropología (from 1923 under Jose Reygadas Vértiz), east side by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (1979 by Peter J. Schmidt). The south side is unrestored. The number of stages we reached varies from 91 to 93, if only because the site slopes slightly to the south.

The temple building has an unusual plan: Behind one of the width of the temple engaging wide entrance with two pillars in the shape of snakes with back erect, his body, which include the doorpost, there is a smaller, nearly square room, whose vault is additionally supported by two pillars to the width of the space with two vaults spanning parts to. To this room leads to three sides of the deal, which has doors to the three remaining steps down. The side surfaces of the doors are carved with life-size depictions of Toltec warriors in costume and armed with a bundle of spears and spear throwers.

Predecessor
Inside the pyramid is an older, much lower buildings with similar floor plan (33 meters side length, 17 meters) up to the highest platform, also nine Pyramid steps, but only one staircase on the north side of 61 stages and a temple building with two rooms . Exhibits include the victims figure of a Chac Mool and a jaguar throne. The facade above the entrance shows two vertically intertwined in each other snakes, like the west building of the complex Monjas at Uxmal. On both sides of a procession of jaguars, which strive towards the middle, between and above them oversized rosettes. Rosettes are also found in the third volume of the middle and upper-membered cornice. In the second volume of the upper cornice alternately inclined stab, as he is often in the late Puuc styles. The Dachkamm over the front wall extends to just below the floor of the temple of the later pyramids. The early pyramid is obtained the prize for the jacket through the pyramid and later in the 1930s by J. Erosa Peniche was investigated by means of tunnels, the associated stairway was completely excavated until the 1950s. The interior is also a platform appear even earlier, which could not be investigated further.

Dating
For the dating is to use wooden door bar to the upper temple, the doors and arches in the interior of the temple were late. There are only two conducted early 14C datings, the calibrated average from 875 AD have shown, in a statistical deviation (2 sigma, 95% probability of adequacy) between 660 and 1050. The deviation of these data makes the results for the dating of the building unsuitable. Hieroglyphic inscriptions with data are not available in this structure.

Spectacle of the Feathered Serpent
Of note is the "spectacle of the feathered serpent." This is in every year (equinox to March 21 and 23 September admire) to. The shadow of the stepped pyramid edge falls on the cheek of one of the staircases. This gives the impression as if there wind down a snake. The stairs end is decorated accordingly through a stone snake head.

The pyramid can to ensure the preservation of the building no longer be climbed, the early access to the temple is also no longer allowed.

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