Crusader Gold photo essay: Chichén Itzá and human
sacrifice
David Gibbins
Part of my novel Crusader Gold is set in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, at the great Mayan ceremonial centre of Chichén Itzá. During the 11th century AD – the historical setting of my story - Chichén Itzá was ruled by a warrior class of astonishing brutality, even by the standards of ancient Mesoamerica. They are known as the Toltecs, and are believed to have invaded the Mayan kingdoms and ruled for a few blood-soaked decades before Chichén Itzá fell. Almost all references to the Toltecs derive from Aztec records, and are shrouded in mythology. But even if we discard the historical record completely, the archaeology and the pictorial evidence speaks for itself. The stark fact remains that Chichén Itzá was a factory of death, a ceremonial centre geared around rituals of human sacrifice, ruled by a caste of warrior-priests who would have terrified even the Vikings. Before going to Mesoamerica I had studied many sites associated with human sacrifice. At Carthage I excavated near the tophet, where the Romans claimed the Carthaginians sacrificed children. At the Viking site at L’Anse aux Meadows I reflected on prehistoric ‘bog bodies’, and the possibility of hidden rites of human sacrifice in medieval Europe. At the Oriental and India Office of the British Library I had researched first-hand accounts of meriah, the tribal sacrifice encountered in 19th century India by my great-great grandfather. But none of this could have prepared me for Chichén Itzá. I took these pictures in early 2006.
The
great pyramid-temple of Kukulkan at Chichén Itzá, called by the Spanish
‘El Castillo.’ It rises up nine stepped levels and has four radial
stairways, and was probably painted red – traces of red paint can still
be seen on masonry at the site. Inside the structure is an older pyramid
which rises to a room containing Kukulkan’s Jaguar Throne, set with jade
and painted red. The rituals performed at this temple are unknown, but it
dominates a precinct where ceremonies of human sacrifice were performed at
both of the other main building complexes nearby.
Probably
the most blood-soaked place at Chichén Itzá was this structure, the
Temple of the Warriors. At the top of the stairs you can make out the ‘chacmool’,
a reclining figure with its hands grasping a receptacle over its belly,
where victims were held down for heart-sacrifice. Inside, wall-paintings
showed scenes of conquest: warriors reconnoitring the coast in canoes,
battles at sea and on land with the Maya, and finally the heart-sacrifice
of the Maya leaders. There must have been many occasions when the steps in
this picture were drenched with blood.
On
either side of the Great Ball Court at Chichén Itzá are three relief
carvings, each one showing the decapitation of a man, probably a ball
player. Here you can see the victim down on one knee with a great fountain
of blood gushing from his neck, once presumably painted bright red. A
warrior-priest with characteristic head gear stands to the right. The ball
game may have been brought from central Mexico, where it was later popular
among the Aztecs, though perhaps only at Chichén Itzá was it being
played ‘for keeps.’
From
the ball court, the head of the unfortunate player would have been brought
to this place, the Tzompantli, ‘skull rack’, a huge platform next to
the court where the skewered heads of victims were displayed on stakes.
Just to remind people on those occasions – presumably rare – when
heads were unavailable, all four sides of the platform were carved with
these garish images of skulls on racks. There is no better illustration of
the reality and scale of killing at Chichén Itzá.
From
the central precinct at Chichén Itzá the paths converge towards the
Sacred Way, a raised causeway extending some 300 metres north into the
jungle. At the end is the Sacred Cenote, the ‘Well of Sacrifice’ - a
natural sinkhole in the limestone, its roof collapsed long before the Maya
built the small structures and platform visible here. Soon after the
Spanish conquest, a 16th century Franciscan bishop, Diego de
Landa, wrote that here ‘they had the custom of throwing men alive as a
sacrifice to the gods, in times of drought, and they believed that they
did not die though they never saw them again.’ Other Spanish sources
spoke of ‘Indian women belonging to each of the Lords.’ It was a
haunting image of maidenly sacrifice, yet was borne out when the cenote
was dredged and explored by divers on several occasions over the last
century.
A
victim’s eye view of the Sacred Cenote at Chichén Itzá, looking down
from the sacrificial platform. Whether or not the victims were
‘virgins’ will never be known; as one expert wryly put it, ‘the
osteological evidence does not permit a determination of this nice
point.’ But the hundreds of skeletons found in the cenote included young
women, as well as men and children, and a huge range of artefacts –
including beautiful jades and gold disks, one of them with a relief
depicting two warriors attacking a pair of fleeing Maya. Many of the items
are from the period associated with the Toltecs, though the Sacred Well
continued to be used for centuries along with other cenotes in the Yucatan
where the Maya made offerings and sacrifices.
In
early 2006 I dived in this famous cenote, ‘Dos Ojos’, about 80 miles
south-east of Chichén Itzá. The view here from the dive platform
inspired a scene in my novel Crusader Gold, where Jack
and Costas find themselves trapped deep inside a cenote and must follow a
submerged tunnel into the unknown. My dives here took me under the
overhang through a spectacular tunnel of stalagmites and stalagtites to
‘Bat Cave’, and then deep in the cavern to the edge of the death zone,
where a labyrinth of tunnels extends off for many kilometers under the
jungle. Dozens of cave divers have taken this route and never returned. In
2007 I plan to go back to the cenotes of the Yucatán with my brother
Alan, an underwater cinematographer whose work appears elsewhere on this
website, and we will post pictures from our explorations when we return.
Photos copyright 2006 D J L Gibbins