Photos

Mexico, Yucatan, Chichen Itza

Central America abounds in pre-Colombian ruins, featuring the vestiges of city-states, such as Tikal (Guatemala); Copan (Honduras); Chichen Itza, Uzmal, and Palanque (all in Mexico), and numberless others. Listed here are just the ruins associated with the Maya, and do not even include the ruins of other civilizations such as the Olmec, Mixtec, Zapotec, Toltec and the Aztec (the latter was subjugated by Hernan Cortez in the early 16th century).

The Maya — a race of gifted artists, architects, mathematicians, astronomers, … — were astride their classical period (between the 3rd and 10th centuries) when much of Europe was immersed in its ‘Dark Ages’ (with apologies to modern ‘Medievalists’ who claim there was no dark age).

In the photo is seen the remnant of the Mayan Observatory in Chichen Itza, on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Deeply devout people, the Maya worshiped the God of the Sun, the Moon, the Rain, … But Time had a special place in their hearts, they measured it with uncanny accuracy. Their calendar was far more accurate than the Julian Calendar (which served most of Europe until the late Renaissance), and far more accurately than the Gregorian Calendar (which was introduced in 1583, and that is still used now). The Julian Calendar was based on a year of 364.250 days; the Gregorian Calendar was based on 365.242 5 days. In distinction, the Mayan Calendar had 364.242 2 days. The exact length of the year, determined by modern atomic clocks is 364.242 199 days.]

It was Mayan observatories that reckoned time and the calendar with such precision. The one in Chichen Itza, was a rectangular structure, features a cylindrical part on top, and the inside the cylinder there is a concentric cylindrical part again. The outer cylindrical part has four portals: at the summer and winter solstices, sunlight enters and exits through a pair of portals. The rest of the year, it just fingers its way around the cylindrical walls — which, based on the symmetry of a circular cross-section — can be constructed with virtually perfect accuracy.

I took the photograph on New Year’s Day (Jan. 1) in 1976, when the ship on which I had been giving guest-lectures (on art, archaeology, astrophysics) visited Playa del Carmen on the coast of the Yucatan, and I took a shore excursion to Chichen Itza. In revisiting this photograph, I was initially disappointed that it included visitors marring the view, but then I noticed that the fifth person from the left (a man dressed in light brown clothes, walking toward the right) was German Prince Ruprecht von Hohenlohe. I had sat with “Ruppi” on the bus trip to Chichen Itza. Although a very young man in his thirties, he passed away a year or two later. Needless to say, the photograph was scanned, and not too successfully, as it has some noise that I was unable to eliminate. I apologize for the very long “lecture,” which is meant to add to the geographic element of TrekEarth.