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a cast. Heading

1:38

into. Chichen.

1:41

Itza was a city built by the Maya

1:43

of Middle America in what is today Mexico

1:45

and it is best known of course for

1:48

it's famous step periods. You probably recognize pictures

1:50

of these things that could They steep staircases

1:52

running down each side. I'm it was one

1:54

of the biggest my cities either build it

1:56

takes all the way back to the mid

1:58

a century. See a. and is found on

2:01

the Yucatan Peninsula. If you think of Mexico as sort of

2:03

being a lopsided crescent,

2:06

it's at the crescent's lower tip. And

2:08

today the city is uninhabited, but I don't know how

2:10

fair it would be to call it a ruin, as

2:13

most of the structures seem to be in incredible

2:16

condition. And thousands and

2:18

thousands of tourists flock there every year. It's

2:20

one of the most popular tourist destinations in

2:22

all of Mexico. If you search for

2:25

anything tourism related when it comes to Mexico,

2:27

and you'll see pictures of two things. One,

2:29

beautiful beaches, and number two, the

2:31

temple of Cuculcarnal el Castillo, the

2:33

most famous of all the buildings

2:35

in Chichen Itza, that

2:37

iconic step pyramid. So let's

2:40

get underway here. Let's talk about this famous

2:42

monument, the old Maya city of Chichen Itza.

2:44

Let's talk about why and how it was

2:46

built, talk about its rise and its fall,

2:48

and we'll also talk about its place today

2:50

in the 21st century. And the story of

2:52

Chichen Itza begins, as I mentioned, in the

2:55

mid-8th century. Although the region

2:57

was already inhabited before the city proper was built,

3:00

so we can go back a little bit further. We

3:02

don't know exactly when people settled this area,

3:04

but we can have a very good guess

3:06

as to why they did. Because

3:09

Chichen Itza is built on

3:11

a land form known as

3:13

cast, that's K-A-R-S-T, which

3:16

is created by water eroding limestone

3:18

often below ground. Some

3:20

castic regions have spectacular rock

3:22

formations above ground, but

3:25

many castic areas look pretty normal and

3:27

boring on the surface, flat ground ranging

3:29

from, you know, green fields to rocky

3:32

barren ground. But if

3:34

you dig a little deeper, very literally,

3:36

you will find castes to be full

3:39

of enormous cave systems below the surface,

3:41

often with underground lakes and rivers. Now I have

3:44

to be honest, before making this

3:46

episode, I didn't even realise that an

3:49

underground river was a real thing. I

3:51

thought this was something out of, I

3:53

don't know, fantasy and fiction, something almost

3:55

magical, but no, they exist.

3:57

Underground rivers are a real thing. and

4:00

the plentiful underground water supplies that

4:02

they bring is one of

4:04

the reasons that Chichen Itza ultimately came to

4:06

be. Because the people who lived there before

4:08

the city was actually founded properly were known

4:10

as the Itza. One of

4:12

the Maya peoples who at the time lived on

4:15

the Yucatan Peninsula and the word Itza means water

4:17

sorcerers or enchanted water. So actually maybe

4:20

I wasn't that far off thinking that

4:22

an underground river is something you know

4:24

you know that you'd associate with wizards

4:26

and spells and everything. Anyway the

4:29

Itza they lived in this area they

4:31

had ample access to water through the

4:33

use of cenotes or sinkholes that exposed

4:35

these underground water sources that ran beneath

4:37

the surface. And without

4:40

the cenotes and the water that they that

4:42

they gave to the region this

4:44

area would make for very very hard living. It's

4:47

pretty arid along this part of the Yucatan

4:49

Peninsula but with with large

4:51

cenotes nearby this spot ended up

4:53

being the perfect place for a

4:55

mighty city. And there

4:57

are two chapters two distinct chapters in

4:59

the history of Chichen Itza's actual construction.

5:02

The first beginning as I mentioned the mid eighth century mid

5:04

eighth century around 750 CE

5:07

and while we don't have the clearest picture

5:09

of what this initial period of growth and

5:11

development looked like it

5:13

seems that Chichen Itza very quickly emerged

5:15

as a regional power as its population

5:18

expanded and built larger

5:20

and grander buildings. And this

5:22

in no small part was due

5:25

to easy and plentiful access to

5:27

water in an otherwise somewhat arid

5:30

region of Mexico not necessarily

5:32

arid but maybe water was a

5:34

little little scarcer than you'd like when when

5:36

attempting to build you know a great big

5:39

city. And with

5:41

access to water Chichen

5:43

Itza became a regional trading hub

5:45

and with trade came wealth and

5:47

with wealth came growth. Chichen

5:50

Itza expanded as

5:52

ruling courts and temples and housing

5:54

and even observatories shot up built

5:57

in what is known as the puk style.

6:00

and all the while its population and power of course

6:02

only grew and grew as the city did. And

6:05

these construction efforts did take some doing. I

6:07

will say this, the area around Chichen Itza

6:09

is quite heavily forested, the terrain under the

6:11

forest is rugged and rough and so its

6:13

people first had to clear the land of

6:15

trees and then flatten the ground out before

6:17

quarrying and dragging stone into place to build

6:19

these buildings. In any case after

6:21

all this hard yak within a century or so

6:24

Chichen Itza was more or less a regional capital.

6:26

It traded by both land and by sea it

6:28

had a port city that it controlled on the coast 100

6:30

kilometers to the north. And

6:33

the people of Chichen Itza, they

6:35

traded water and salt and cacao

6:37

and in return they received valuable

6:39

materials like gold and obsidian which

6:41

flowed through the city and

6:44

made its population more wealthy and more

6:46

prosperous than ever. Its buildings became more

6:48

grand and more opulent than ever.

6:51

However, there was another

6:53

factor in the rise of Chichen Itza

6:55

as a regional power. It

6:58

wasn't just for economic reasons

7:00

but also political reasons that

7:02

saw the city flourish. The

7:05

Maya civilization never saw the rise

7:08

of one large single central authority

7:10

unlike some other nearby civilizations such

7:12

as the Aztecs. We talk about

7:14

the Aztec Empire, there never really

7:17

was a Maya Empire. Instead the

7:19

Maya were divided up into distinct

7:22

city states often with their own languages

7:24

their own cultures while still falling under the

7:26

broad category of the Maya. And these

7:28

city states like Chichen Itza like Palenque, history's

7:31

longest range, episode 200 you get across it,

7:33

they had fortunes that waxed and waned over

7:35

the years and one

7:37

of the reasons that Chichen Itza

7:39

flourished is because some, well

7:42

because some neighboring city states didn't

7:44

really is the long and

7:46

the short of it. For instance the

7:49

neighboring the neighboring city of Coba,

7:51

it suffered invasion and conquest, it lost

7:53

much of its territory and has caused people to leave and

7:55

seek their fortunes elsewhere and why not go to this central

7:57

trading hub where there's so much wealth on offer so they

8:00

headed to Chichen Itza. Consequently another

8:02

neighbouring city, Yachuna, which had very

8:04

close links with Coba, it also

8:07

went into decline along with its

8:09

ally and once again Chichen Itza

8:12

was there to fill the void.

8:14

In fact Chichen Itza very likely

8:16

contributed to the downfall of cities

8:18

like these as a wealthy and

8:20

prosperous and very powerful city state,

8:22

it swooped in to capitalise on

8:24

its neighbours bad luck. However,

8:28

Chichen Itza may have then fallen victim

8:31

to this process itself as we

8:34

enter now into the second chapter

8:36

of the city's development. I

8:38

talked about how it was something of a regional

8:41

capital, I talked about how it was a very

8:43

very wealthy city and while that didn't

8:45

necessarily change in what was about to

8:47

come along in the next chapter of

8:49

Chichen Itza's history, the city all

8:51

the same underwent

8:54

quite a drastic shift in its

8:56

culture and in the nature of

8:59

the people that lived there. All

9:02

throughout the 10th century Chichen Itza remained a

9:04

regional powerhouse, again the de facto capital I

9:06

think it's there to say, but

9:08

then into the 11th century it underwent a

9:10

sudden and somewhat mysterious change. Once again we

9:12

don't have very full records of what happened

9:15

and so a lot of what we're going

9:17

to talk about now is educated guesswork, but

9:19

one thing I can tell you with certainty

9:21

is that from the 11th

9:23

century onwards Chichen Itza's architecture,

9:26

the buildings that were built,

9:29

aren't in the traditional puk

9:31

style associated with the region,

9:33

instead they are built in

9:35

the Toltec style. The

9:37

Toltec people were another, they were another

9:39

member of the Maya civilization just as

9:42

the Itza were and the

9:44

question here is why was there this

9:47

cultural takeover by the Toltec, but much

9:50

more importantly how did this cultural takeover

9:52

actually happen and the reason the how

9:54

part of the question is so interesting

9:57

is because the Toltec

9:59

people was centered in their

10:01

capital city of Tula, which is

10:03

over 1000 km away from Chichen

10:05

Itza. How

10:09

did Toltec architecture end up

10:11

not just present but dominant

10:14

in a city over 1000 km away?

10:19

Well, I don't have a definitive answer

10:21

to offer you here. There are competing

10:24

theories and none have ever really been

10:26

conclusively proven or disproven, and even today

10:28

archaeologists and historians are working to untangle

10:30

this mystery and attempt to find any

10:32

evidence whatsoever that can put this question

10:35

to bed. There's

10:37

one theory that suggests that this

10:39

cultural takeover was the result of

10:41

exchange through trade links between the

10:43

two powerful cities, between Chichen Itza

10:46

and Tula, and this is certainly

10:49

possible, we've seen this in other parts of the

10:51

world, but it would take quite a

10:53

lot of cultural exchange to get to

10:55

the point that your cultural output is

10:57

entirely eclipsed by someone else's culture. Certainly

11:00

there can be a level of amalgamation

11:02

or adaptation of certain elements of another

11:04

culture, but we're looking at a

11:06

period of cultural output with a new culture more

11:08

or less completely eclipsed the old culture, and that's

11:10

not something that generally happens through cultural exchange. So

11:12

I'm not sure about that theory, it's one put

11:14

forward by people who know a lot more about

11:17

this than I do, so I'm not going to

11:19

completely say that it's nonsense or anything like that,

11:21

but it doesn't seem to be all that convincing

11:23

from first blush. More

11:25

or less convincing than another theory that suggests

11:27

that the Toltec people just expanded their territory

11:29

and influence so far that they were able

11:32

to subjugate Chichen Itza. The

11:34

Toltec were a mighty civilization, very powerful indeed,

11:36

one of the most prominent of all the

11:38

Maya peoples, and so it

11:40

is possible that their realm expanded

11:42

to include Chichen Itza and that

11:44

they brought this powerful city-state to

11:47

heel either politically, economically,

11:49

or indeed militarily. The city could

11:51

have been invaded and conquered by the Toltec

11:53

based all the way over in Tula. Alternatively,

11:57

Chichen Itza could have been invaded

11:59

and conquered. by told take who

12:02

wound actually part of the toxic

12:04

people to sniff this might sound

12:06

confusing the bay with me here

12:08

because this third theory proposes rise

12:11

that after a period of internal

12:13

strife or even civil war in

12:15

the Celtics heartlands, they may have

12:17

been a mess expulsion of the

12:19

defeated section. The

12:21

Celtic people having lost the civil war

12:24

if there was one magazine migrated all

12:26

the way to teach. It's a having

12:28

heard of it's wealth and prosperity and

12:30

of course still am for war in

12:33

the wake of this internal strife just

12:35

marched on the city and took it

12:37

over again. There's no definitive proof one

12:39

while the other, But whatever the cause,

12:42

From the eleventh century onwards, Chichen Itza

12:44

was dominated by tilting culture and the

12:46

most obvious consequence of this cause, this

12:48

topic cultural dominance is still around today.

12:51

The great buildings constructed in a

12:53

toll textile and most famously ball

12:56

of course the step pyramid known

12:58

as El Castillo or the Temple

13:00

of Cuckoo com. This

13:02

is the pyramid that you'll see pictures

13:04

of when looking up anything about teaching.

13:06

It's us. So much so that honestly

13:09

you'd be for getting me be forgiven

13:11

for thinking that it was teaching. It's

13:13

another city as a whole. just the

13:15

single one pyramid. It's thirty made his

13:18

high, fifty, five made a square and

13:20

it is very cleverly constructed with all

13:22

sorts Salva. How. Enough for this. Hidden

13:24

features I guess. Ah things like if

13:27

you clap your hands neither side of

13:29

the temple it makes the saw this

13:31

pinging noise that is said to mimic

13:33

the of the local capsule Bird rights

13:35

are you know on you to and

13:37

find videos of the a tourist? This

13:39

it's incredible. It's a it's a real

13:41

thing and the sound that at Max's

13:43

is is unbelievable because he can the

13:45

ink on you tube and and find

13:47

videos. Very charming videos of these surveys

13:49

to a gods right. Taking to a

13:51

group sisters surrounds El Castillo and demonstrating

13:53

this phenomenon to. them that the whole group will

13:56

stand there like let the hands of the noise that

13:58

comes back is it's really amazing it is not

14:00

what you'd expect at all. So I do recommend going

14:02

and having a listen to or a watch of these

14:04

videos because again, you'll

14:06

be taken aback by this weird pinning noise

14:08

that the temple makes when you clap at

14:11

it. Also, it's not the

14:13

only amazing thing about the temple. The

14:15

temple also has exactly 365

14:17

steps. Now,

14:20

this is not an accident because the temple

14:22

has four flights of stairs, one

14:24

on each of the faces of the pyramid.

14:27

And to make these staircases add

14:29

up to 365, three

14:32

of the flights have 91 steps, but one has 92.

14:37

So it's very obvious here that there is

14:40

one step in the temple per day of

14:42

the year. So there's obviously a level of

14:44

significance to that, obviously a level of

14:47

deliberate design went into that

14:50

aspect of this temple. It wasn't an

14:52

accident, surely, given that there's

14:55

one extra step on one of the flights of stairs.

14:57

But perhaps most incredible of all is

15:00

the fact that around the equinoxes, so

15:02

twice a year, right, the

15:04

sun falls on the temple in such a way that

15:07

it casts a shadow onto

15:10

itself, right, that makes

15:12

it look like a snake is crawling

15:14

along the stairs. It's very difficult to

15:16

describe this to you just by using

15:18

words. So again, go online and have

15:21

a look at these pictures of

15:23

the way that the temple creates

15:26

this almost optical illusion of a

15:28

snake crawling down the stairs with

15:30

a head at the bottom where the snake's head should be.

15:32

It really is something else. There are all these very,

15:35

very intricate and very cleverly

15:37

designed aspects of the

15:39

temple that to make it one

15:42

of the most famous building

15:45

in Chichen Itza, but it's certainly not

15:47

the only building there. There's

15:50

the Temple of the Warriors, another pyramid. There's

15:52

the Caracol, an astronomical observatory.

15:54

And there's also the Great

15:56

Ball Court. The Great Ball

15:58

Court really is great. Absolutely huge, some

16:01

of the hundred and seventy made. as

16:03

long as it's so big that it's

16:05

hard to imagine it actually being used

16:07

for the bowl game that the that

16:09

the My used to play. Ah, the

16:11

goals which it rings. kind of like

16:13

possible rings except that they are perpendicular

16:16

to the ground rather than parallel the

16:18

rings. Ah, eight meters above the grounds.

16:20

I'm so for reference, a basketball ring

16:22

is just over three meters above the

16:24

ground so you have to have a

16:26

you have had a hell of a

16:28

jump to dunk on. The great ball

16:31

court are also along the walls of

16:33

the great ball court. Ah deep A

16:35

depictions of a losing team been decapitated

16:37

by the winning team which is a.

16:40

Pretty. Full on we don't say that all

16:42

that often in professional sports. They said them as

16:44

a very imagine imagine Le Bron ripping off some

16:46

on the head after a game. but health. Under

16:50

the influence of the topic culture,

16:52

Chichen Itza continue to expand and

16:54

develop and at it's peak between

16:56

thirty five thousand two, as many

16:58

as fifty thousand people. Called. Teaching

17:00

It's a hive. It really was a

17:02

huge city bus. As with all the

17:05

other My city states, it didn't last

17:07

forever into the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

17:09

Teach It's The Itself began to decline

17:12

just as some of it's neighbors are

17:14

done hundreds of years ago, and this

17:16

time it was another city maria Pan

17:19

that eclipsed at. Teaching. It's

17:21

A was initially politically aligned with

17:23

My Upon along with some other

17:25

cities. It it had been the

17:27

dominant partner in this political relationship,

17:29

but in time My A Pan

17:31

became powerful enough to start to

17:33

call the shots and eventually subjugated

17:35

teaching. It's either politically or. Militarily.

17:38

With not sure. whatever the case by

17:40

the thirteenth century, Chichen Itza was under

17:42

the thumb of my A Pan and

17:44

it's apex as a regional power was

17:46

well and truly behind us. As time

17:48

went on, Paypal slowly but steadily left

17:50

teaching it's of a hans a move

17:52

elsewhere to the point that the city

17:54

became more or less abandoned. No new

17:56

buildings or monuments were constructed from the

17:58

thirteenth century onwards. And by

18:00

the fifteenth century, the city had well

18:02

and truly fallen into decline. By. The

18:05

time the Spanish arrived in the sixteenth

18:07

century teaching it's a was uninhabited, although

18:09

it was still a thought that the

18:11

my have visited all my pilgrimages to

18:13

the Spanish. On the other hand, they

18:15

use the abandoned Play Atlanta grades for

18:17

degrees their livestock until the forests closed

18:20

backing him on the abandoned city as

18:22

the decades toned centuries. And

18:25

in what is becoming a very common

18:27

theme with our monuments so far, the

18:29

city was reclaimed by nature, and while

18:32

not completely forgotten about, it was largely

18:34

forsaken by the people who used to

18:36

live there. But then

18:38

in the nineteenth century, a renewed archaeological

18:40

interest in pre Columbian civilizations resulted in

18:43

Chichen Itza being investigated by explorers and

18:45

researchers. As the time in the mid

18:47

to late eighteen hundreds more and more

18:49

people visited the lost City, which was,

18:51

as I mentioned, completely overtaken by the

18:54

surrounding forest. The gets go online have

18:56

a look at some of the pictures

18:58

from the Place to dice. Chichen Itza

19:00

has been reclaimed from nature, but there

19:02

are photos from the nineteenth century that

19:05

showed just how completely overgrown the city

19:07

had become. Ltcm. For instance, this

19:09

famous pyramid is almost completely covered

19:11

with vegetation, while other buildings have

19:13

trees not just growing all around

19:16

them, but also growing inside them

19:18

as well. Being to the twentieth

19:20

century, the Mexican government's authorized American

19:23

researchers to clear the forest that

19:25

had overtaken Teach and It's and

19:27

restore many of its buildings. and

19:29

while they was of course of

19:32

it a good old fashioned losing

19:34

of artifacts and treasures, those who

19:36

worked on restoring. Teaching it's a

19:39

deed. Broadly speaking, I pretty bloody

19:41

good job. The. City itself

19:43

is considering it's age and Rick and

19:45

it's Ritual. my monitor. in

19:48

very very good condition indeed some buildings are

19:50

in bed in nyc than others but for

19:52

the most part it and it's as still

19:55

really does give you a sense of

19:57

the grandeur and the opulence it had at

19:59

it's peak Thousands and thousands

20:01

of people visit Chichen Itza every single

20:03

day and so conservationists still of course

20:05

work to maintain and protect the site

20:07

but I will say they are doing

20:09

a bloody good job. Obviously the people

20:11

of Chichen Itza built their buildings to

20:13

last so that certainly helps but

20:16

it's very good that today the

20:18

custodianship of this magnificent Maya city

20:20

is being taken so seriously.

20:50

Dive into a world of laughs

20:52

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