Photo album: "Mexico, Yucatán: Chichén Itzá (2)"

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We continue our visit of Chichén Itzá with the Temple of the Warriors, the Group of Thousand Columns, the Convent and the Observatory.

From the top of the Pyramid of Kukulkán, we dominate the Temple of the Warriors. This temple is a four-step pyramid flanked on the south- and west-sides with 200 round and square columns. Bas relief carvings, on the square columns, represent Toltec warriors.

We are now walking towards the large access stairway to the Temple of the Warriors.

Detail of bas relief carvings of Toltec warrior on each side of a square column.

On top of the stairway, in front of the main entrance, we find again a Chac Mool statue. Behind, two columns, representing serpents (the head put on the floor and the tail raised toward the sky), enclose the entrance and supported, in the beginning, a wooden lintel. The columns inside the temple supported a roof, once.

Along the south wall of the Temple of the Warriors a series of columns, called the Group of Thousand Columns, is supposed to have supported an extensive system of roofs, now disappeared.

This stone table could have been used for sacrifices…

We are now inside the temple, in the main alley surrounded by several columns which, once, supported the roof.

At the top of the stairway, on either sides, the head of a serpent topped by a statue which, in the beginning, would have handled a banner.

People are stepping down cautiously. This demonstrates a common characteristic for all the monuments we visited in Mexico: the extreme steepness of the stairways.

This building had been called the "Convent" by the former Spanish. It is a typical Mayan monument.

Near the "Convent" this small temple had naturally been called the "Church".

Another view of the "Church". Its façade is decorated with masks representing Chaac, the Mayan long-nosed god of the rain (well visible at the corners of the building).

We are now approaching the Observatory, called "el Caracol" by the Spanish, which means the "Snail", and that refers to the spiral staircase inside the building.

It is thought this monument was used as an astronomical observatory by the Maya who used windows and doors oriented in such a manner to permit to distinguish particular positions of celestial bodies, chiefly the planet Venus.

Those astronomical observations permitted the Maya to elaborate a very accurate calendar. They were used, too, to determinate the date of different events of the everyday life, particularly those regarding the agriculture. We are now climbing the stairway leading to the platform which supports the actual structure of the observatory.

We have both climbed to the top of the dome. My colleague Jacques is now beginning to step down the spiral staircase.  Here ends our visit of Chichén Itzá.

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