What is Chichen Itza ??

Chechen Itza was one of the largest cities of Maya civilization (Today's USA), city was inhabited on area of around 2 square miles (5 KM)............

In ancient pre-Colombian times, Chichen Itza was a vibrant city with a diverse population of Mayan people extending well into the tens of thousands.

The city was built upon broken terrain, which was artificially levelled in order to build the major architectural groups.

Roughly all sources agree that from approximately 550 AD to 800 AD, Chichen Itza existed mainly as a ceremonial center for the Maya civilization.

The area was then largely abandoned for about a hundred years (no one knows reason ), to be resettled around 900 AD again.

** Chichen Itza is added into the list of new 7 wonders of world.

The term Chichen Itza means 'the mouth at the well of Itza'. It is believed Itza means 'water magicians', deriving from the Mayan Itz for 'magic' and á for 'water'.

The land under the monuments had been privately owned until 29 March 2010, when it was purchased by the state of Yucatán.

Associated with the cult of the rain gods, called Chacs, it was the site of regular offerings that included such precious objects as jade, gold, and copper as well as humans.

There is a cenote. cenote is a natural pit, or sinkhole, resulting from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater.

This cenote connects to the numerous underground rivers and caves under Chichén Itzá's limestone bedrock, a geological formation called a karst.

On every equinox, the sun of the late afternoon creates the illusion of a snake creeping slowly down the northern staircase. Symbolically, the feathered serpent joins the heavens, earth and the underworld, day and night.

At Chichen Itza, Kukulkan ceased to be the Vision Serpent that served as a messenger between the king and the gods and came instead to symbolise the divinity of the territory.

Itzaʼ was the language of administration across much of the Yucatán Peninsula during the supremacy of Chichen Itza.

We know that Chichen Itza was being built between 832 and 998 CE, and we also know that people were living near what became Chichen Itza for centuries before.

Archaeologists have discovered a cave filled with hundreds of artifacts beneath the ruins of the Mayan city of Chichen Itza in Mexico.

The fall of Mayan civilization is widely attributed to the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492, and the European colonialists that followed the famous explorer.

Chichen Itza may well have lost its place as an important city in the region long before then.

El Castillo—in Spanish, “the castle”—looms at the center of Chichén Itzá, a 79-foot pyramid of stone. Also known as the Pyramid of Kukulkán, the structure embodies Mayan myth along with natural astronomical cycles. The phenomenon that El Castillo is famous for occurs twice each year, at the spring and fall equinoxes.

Maya priests in the city of Chichen Itza in the Yucatan peninsula sacrificed children to petition the gods for rain and fertile fields by throwing them into sacred sinkhole caves, known as “cenotes.” 

The caves served as a source of water for the Mayans and were also thought to be an entrance to the underworld.