Research History

Castillo, 1843, in a drawing by Frederick Catherwood
Alfred Maudslay 1889 at Chichén Itzá

In 1533, before the final conquest of Yucatán by the Spaniards nearly a decade later, Francisco de Montejo the Younger built a small settlement under the name of Ciudad Real in the ruins of Chichen Itza, where he built homes. He could, however, believe at this point and had to retire in secret, such as Diego de Landa reported. Landa is also a fairly detailed description of some buildings in the center of Chichen Itza, from the Castillo and the two small platforms, as well as the broad road to the Sacred Cenote and objects that he found there. Just a short note on his visit to the ruins on 26 July 1588 leaving Antonio de Ciudad Real.

Among the earliest modern visitors was 1840, Baron Emmanuel of Friedrichsthal, then first secretary of the Austrian Embassy in Mexico, also received daguerreotypes, but not published its report. In 1841, John Lloyd Stephens was accompanied by Frederick Catherwood long as a draftsman and architect in Chichen Itza, which he described in detail and illustrated with drawings. The report prepared by Stephens made the Central American ruins, including Chichen Itza with the interested parties in North America and Europe known. They suggested, among other expeditions to the French, Désiré Charnay, where he visited Chichen Itza in 1860 and then received numerous photographs.

The initial research and excavations made the New York amateur archeologist Augustus Le Plongeon since 1875. He was followed in quick succession Teoberto painter, bought by the Englishman Alfred Percival Maudslay and the American diplomat Edward Herbert Thompson, is the 1894, the Hacienda Chichen Itza on the ground, where research into the 1920s. Among other things, he dredged since 1904, the deposits from the Sacred Cenote, also undertook diving expeditions. He was accused of many valuable objects illegally taken out of the country, but this charge was later dropped as unfounded. Since 1924, the Carnegie Institution of Washington has taken under the direction of Sylvanus Griswold Morley, together with Mexican government agencies Excavations and reconstructions. The Carnegie Institution in particular, worked at the Temple of the Warriors, Caracol, Monjas, Mercado, Temple of the Three Bar door, while Mexican authorities the Castillo partially restored, and the big ball game, which Tzompantli, the platforms of the Eagles and the Jaguars and Venus.

After Thompson's death in 1935 his heirs sold the hacienda on the 19th since the Century, influential family yukatekische Barbachano, which is still legal owner of the site of Chichén Itzá and operates two hotels there. Recent excavations and restoration work by the Mexican Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia since the 1980s, usually under the guidance of German Peter J. Schmidt, focused on check-ups and consolidations in the center of Chichen Itza (completion of the Castillo, the Temple of the small and large sacrificial table, Osario) and Neugrabener in the south (Grupo de la Fecha). Excavations in the vicinity of the Castillo began 2009 under Rafael Cobos.