From its founding sometime around 600 AD through the peak of their civilization in the Yucatn, Chichn Itz was a center of power, culture, and religion for the Mayans. The ritual activities performed within the city's boundaries included human sacrifice, and a special cenote to the north of the city center was reserved for this function alone. A cenote is a hole in the roof of an underground cave or river system, usually filled with fresh rain or groundwater.
Because the Yucatn peninsula is a limestone plain, it lacks natural above-ground waterways like rivers and streams. Therefore, cenotes were an extremely important source of potable water, used for everything from irrigation to bathing to drinking. However, the Sacrificial Cenote (or Cenote Sagrando) at Chichn Itz, despite its size and purity, was reserved exclusively for human sacrifices. Reports from Spanish clergy present during the city's conquest in the 1500s (such as Bishop Landa), as well as Mayan sources, indicate that there was a special chamber inside the city where thousands of slaves and intended sacrificees would be kept.
Those victims were by and large slaves and captives of war, often as not young virgin women, although there is evidence that any regular citizen stood a chance of being selected to make a passage to Xibalba, the Mayan underworld. They would then face a long and terrifying fall past the cenote's 27-meter high sheer walls, which form a hole nearly 60 meters in diameter. The force of impact with the water below was likely enough to make a quick end of nearly all who were chosen to give up their souls in this fashion.
Recovery of objects from the cenote has been ongoing since the early 1900s. The first attempts to dredge the bottom used rather crude steel claw and bucket methods, which may have damaged the well itself; modern researchers must therefore practice both restoration of the cenote's integrity as they continue to probe for artifacts. Diving expeditions have also been fruitful; one of the most impressive elements of the cenote is its ability to preserve even normally perishable materials like wood for long periods of time. Researchers excavating the site have found numerous objects of art and value in the depths of the cenote, including gold, incense, pottery, weapons, tools, statues, and jade, as well as human remains. This indicates that not only were people cast into the cenote as part of ritual sacrifice, but that nobles and citizens alike offered gifts to gods by throwing important or prized items into the well. Often, these items were intentionally damaged " in effect, killing them " belet fore being thrown as part of the sacrifice.
In the Nahuatl language, the name for the sacred cenote is Chen Kul, or Well of the Gods. According to Mayan legends, one could enter Xibalba through a designated series of holy caverns, by passing through the Sacred Cenote at Chichn Itz, or by competition at the city's enormous Great Ballcourt. Most sacrifices at the cenote seem to have been intended for Chac, the Mayan god of rain whose visage adorns a great number of buildings within Chichn Itz. A successful offering to Chac would ensure sufficient rain and a prosperous harvest in the coming year. An unconfirmed but still chilling account of the sacrificial ceremony and it's origins was put down in writing by a Spanish delegation in the late 1500s.
According to that text, the site of Chichn Itz (which literally means "at the mouth of the well of Itz") was named for a Mayan called Ah Kin Itz. "Ah Kin" is usually an honorific for high-ranking clergy. Customarily, the report says, the nobles of that region would fast for sixty days, and during their fast avoid looking up or making eye contact with any other humans, including the servants and wives who brought what little food they allowed themselves to have.
After the fast, the nobles would attend the sacrifice at the Sacred Cenote, and would each personally cast a young woman into the pit, telling her to make all requests for a bountiful year as she passed through the gates of the underworld. If the gods were pleased with the lords, at least one woman would be spared, surviving the impact and avoiding drowning; once drawn out of the cenote and revived by burning incense, she would tell of her meeting with the gods and her reception in Xibalba. However, should the gods be displeased, they would leave no survivors to confirm a passage to the land of the dead, and the nobles would look forward to a grim year full of hardship and misfortune.
Because the Yucatn peninsula is a limestone plain, it lacks natural above-ground waterways like rivers and streams. Therefore, cenotes were an extremely important source of potable water, used for everything from irrigation to bathing to drinking. However, the Sacrificial Cenote (or Cenote Sagrando) at Chichn Itz, despite its size and purity, was reserved exclusively for human sacrifices. Reports from Spanish clergy present during the city's conquest in the 1500s (such as Bishop Landa), as well as Mayan sources, indicate that there was a special chamber inside the city where thousands of slaves and intended sacrificees would be kept.
Those victims were by and large slaves and captives of war, often as not young virgin women, although there is evidence that any regular citizen stood a chance of being selected to make a passage to Xibalba, the Mayan underworld. They would then face a long and terrifying fall past the cenote's 27-meter high sheer walls, which form a hole nearly 60 meters in diameter. The force of impact with the water below was likely enough to make a quick end of nearly all who were chosen to give up their souls in this fashion.
Recovery of objects from the cenote has been ongoing since the early 1900s. The first attempts to dredge the bottom used rather crude steel claw and bucket methods, which may have damaged the well itself; modern researchers must therefore practice both restoration of the cenote's integrity as they continue to probe for artifacts. Diving expeditions have also been fruitful; one of the most impressive elements of the cenote is its ability to preserve even normally perishable materials like wood for long periods of time. Researchers excavating the site have found numerous objects of art and value in the depths of the cenote, including gold, incense, pottery, weapons, tools, statues, and jade, as well as human remains. This indicates that not only were people cast into the cenote as part of ritual sacrifice, but that nobles and citizens alike offered gifts to gods by throwing important or prized items into the well. Often, these items were intentionally damaged " in effect, killing them " belet fore being thrown as part of the sacrifice.
In the Nahuatl language, the name for the sacred cenote is Chen Kul, or Well of the Gods. According to Mayan legends, one could enter Xibalba through a designated series of holy caverns, by passing through the Sacred Cenote at Chichn Itz, or by competition at the city's enormous Great Ballcourt. Most sacrifices at the cenote seem to have been intended for Chac, the Mayan god of rain whose visage adorns a great number of buildings within Chichn Itz. A successful offering to Chac would ensure sufficient rain and a prosperous harvest in the coming year. An unconfirmed but still chilling account of the sacrificial ceremony and it's origins was put down in writing by a Spanish delegation in the late 1500s.
According to that text, the site of Chichn Itz (which literally means "at the mouth of the well of Itz") was named for a Mayan called Ah Kin Itz. "Ah Kin" is usually an honorific for high-ranking clergy. Customarily, the report says, the nobles of that region would fast for sixty days, and during their fast avoid looking up or making eye contact with any other humans, including the servants and wives who brought what little food they allowed themselves to have.
After the fast, the nobles would attend the sacrifice at the Sacred Cenote, and would each personally cast a young woman into the pit, telling her to make all requests for a bountiful year as she passed through the gates of the underworld. If the gods were pleased with the lords, at least one woman would be spared, surviving the impact and avoiding drowning; once drawn out of the cenote and revived by burning incense, she would tell of her meeting with the gods and her reception in Xibalba. However, should the gods be displeased, they would leave no survivors to confirm a passage to the land of the dead, and the nobles would look forward to a grim year full of hardship and misfortune.
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