Almanac of the Gods
Chichén Itzá
Photo: Daniel Schwen · CC BY-SA 4.0 · cropped and resized

Place No. 19 of 44

Chichén Itzá

Mexico (Yucatan) · 20.683° N · 88.569° W

Twice a year, late-afternoon sun paints a rippling serpent down the steps of a Maya pyramid, and thousands gather to watch a god seem to come to Earth.

El Castillo height
about 30 m, including the 6 m temple on top
El Castillo base
about 55 m on each side
Steps
91 on each of 4 stairways, plus the top platform, for 365
Great Ball Court
about 168 m long and 70 m wide
Peak of the city
about 800–1100 CE
Children in the 2024 DNA study
64, all boys, including 2 sets of identical twins
Sacred Cenote dredging
1904–1910, by Edward H. Thompson

What it is

Chichén Itzá is the ruin of a great Maya city in the flat, dry scrubland of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, between Mérida and Cancún. The name means roughly 'at the mouth of the well of the Itzá,' a nod to the natural sinkholes, or cenotes, that gave the city fresh water in a land with no rivers. It grew into a regional power in the Late and Terminal Classic periods and was at its height from about 800 to 1100 CE.

The center of the site is El Castillo, also called the Temple of Kukulcán, a stepped pyramid about 30 meters tall with a stairway on each of its four sides. It honors the feathered serpent god known to the Maya as Kukulcán and to the Aztecs as Quetzalcóatl. Inside it sits an older, smaller pyramid holding a red jaguar throne studded with jade. Beneath it, scientists have mapped a water-filled cenote.

Around the pyramid lie other big works. The Great Ball Court is the largest known in ancient Mesoamerica, with stone rings set high in its walls. El Caracol, a round tower with a spiral stair, is widely read as an observatory for tracking Venus and the sun. The Temple of the Warriors is lined with rows of carved columns, and a raised road leads north to the Sacred Cenote, a deep sinkhole where offerings and people were thrown.

The city mixes classic Maya building styles with features that echo central Mexico, which has fed a long debate about Toltec influence or trade. Today it is one of the most visited ruins in the Americas and was voted one of the 'New Seven Wonders' in 2007. For Ancient Aliens, it stands for Maya sky knowledge and for the feathered serpent, a god the show recasts as a visitor from space.

The ancient-alien case

The famous shadow is the heart of the case. In Aliens and Mysterious Rituals, Erich von Däniken argues that the serpent of light that appears on the north stairway at the equinoxes acts out a story: in spring the god Kukulcán comes down to people, and in autumn he climbs back to the sky, promising to return. For von Däniken, the ritual keeps alive the memory of a real being who came from above, taught, and left.

Theorists also point to the pyramid as a stone calendar. The four stairways of 91 steps plus the top platform total 365, the days in a year, and the terraces and panels are said to encode other Maya cycles. Nearby El Caracol tracked Venus with notable accuracy. The show asks how a people without telescopes gathered this knowledge, and suggests it was handed down by sky teachers.

The feathered serpent itself is the third pillar. Giorgio Tsoukalos argues that flying serpents appear in myths across the world, and that ancient people may have described spacecraft, and the beings leaving them, as sky snakes. Ancient Aliens has called Kukulcán an alien in a spaceship and presents him as a teacher who brought knowledge such as writing and the calendar.

Some theorists add the site's hidden layers: a pyramid inside a pyramid, and a cenote under both. To them, building a sacred mountain over a gateway to the underworld suggests the Maya knew more about the site than archaeologists can explain.

What archaeologists say

Archaeologists say El Castillo is a Maya temple built in stages over several centuries, a normal practice in Mesoamerica where rulers enlarged older shrines. The 365 steps and careful orientation reflect the Maya's well-documented skill in watching the sky, a tradition recorded in their own books such as the Dresden Codex. That knowledge came from generations of naked-eye observation and record keeping.

Scholars still debate how deliberate the equinox serpent is. The large serpent heads at the base of the north stairway suggest the builders at least valued the effect, but some note that the pattern appears for several days around each equinox and depends on later restoration. Critics of the show add that the shadow does not reverse direction in autumn, as von Däniken suggests.

Kukulcán is a well-studied god of Mesoamerican religion, linked to wind, rulership and renewal, with roots going back to earlier feathered-serpent imagery at Teotihuacan. No text or artifact describes him as a flesh-and-blood outsider. Recent science on the site is about people, not visitors: the 2024 DNA study showed that children sacrificed near the Sacred Cenote were boys, often close relatives and twins, echoing the Maya myth of the Hero Twins.

Timeline

  1. c. 600–800 CEChichén Itzá grows from a local town into a major center in northern Yucatán.
  2. c. 800–1050 CEHeight of the city's power; children are buried in a chultún cistern near the Sacred Cenote over this span.
  3. c. 9th–12th centuries CEEl Castillo is built in stages, with the final pyramid covering an older temple.
  4. c. 1200s CEPolitical power in the region shifts to Mayapán, though Chichén Itzá stays a pilgrimage site.
  5. 1904–1910US consul Edward Thompson dredges the Sacred Cenote, pulling out gold, jade and human bones, many later taken to Harvard's Peabody Museum.
  6. 1920s–1930sExcavation and restoration projects uncover the inner pyramid with its Chac Mool and red jaguar throne.
  7. 1988UNESCO lists the pre-Hispanic city of Chichén Itzá as a World Heritage Site.
  8. 2006–2007Climbing El Castillo is banned after a fatal fall; the next year it is voted one of the New Seven Wonders.
  9. 2015Electrical scans reveal a cenote beneath El Castillo.
  10. 2024A Nature study of ancient DNA shows sacrificed children were boys, often related; the Gran Museo de Chichén Itzá opens in February, tied to the Tren Maya rail line.

Still unanswered

  • Was the equinox serpent designed on purpose, or did it become sacred after the pyramid was built?
  • How strong was the link between Chichén Itzá and the Toltec city of Tula, and did it involve conquest, trade or shared ideas?
  • What is the full sequence of building phases hidden inside El Castillo?
  • Why did political power move away from Chichén Itzá around 1200 CE?
  • What role did the cenote under El Castillo play in how the Maya chose and used the site?

Did you know?

  • The top of El Castillo covers an older pyramid whose temple still holds a red-painted jaguar throne with jade spots.
  • A water-filled cenote lies directly beneath El Castillo, detected with electrical scans in 2015.
  • Ancient DNA shows that the children buried near the Sacred Cenote included two pairs of identical twins, echoing the Maya Hero Twins myth.

On Ancient Aliens

  • S03E05 Aliens and Mysterious Rituals Erich von Däniken reads the equinox shadow as Kukulcán descending in spring and returning to the sky in autumn.
  • S20E11 Mysteries of the Maya Ends with the Chichén Itzá shadow-serpent segment, largely reused from an earlier episode, and calls Kukulcán an alien in a spaceship.

Episode numbers follow Wikipedia's episode list; History and some reviewers number a few seasons differently.

Visiting

Getting there. Near the town of Pisté in Yucatán state, about 2 hours by road from Mérida and about 2.5 to 3 hours from Cancún; the Tren Maya also stops at a station near the site.

What you can see. Visitors can walk the main plazas, the ball court, El Caracol, the Temple of the Warriors area and the path to the Sacred Cenote. Climbing El Castillo and entering its inner temple are not allowed. The equinox days draw very large crowds.

Tip. Stop at the Gran Museo de Chichén Itzá first, where finds from the site and from Tren Maya digs help the ruins make sense.

Sources

  1. Chichen Itza (Wikipedia) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Chichén Itzá: El Castillo (Exploratorium, Ancient Observatories) annex.exploratorium.edu
  3. History of Chichén Itzá written in DNA (Harvard Gazette, 2024) news.harvard.edu
  4. Inauguran el Gran Museo de Chichén Itzá (Forbes México) forbes.com.mx
  5. Digging Up Ancient Aliens, episode 28: Mysterious Rituals diggingupancientaliens.com
  6. Review of Ancient Aliens S20E11 'Mysteries of the Maya' (Jason Colavito) jasoncolavito.com
  7. Review of Ancient Aliens S04E01 'The Mayan Conspiracy' (Jason Colavito) jasoncolavito.com
  8. List of Ancient Aliens episodes (Wikipedia) en.wikipedia.org
Research notes: what we could not confirm
  • The old entry listed S6E5, S16E6 and S22E11 as Chichén Itzá episodes; I did not confirm their content.
  • Colavito says the S20E11 shadow segment was borrowed from a 2022 episode; I could not identify which one.
  • Tsoukalos's flying-serpent argument comes from S04E01 'The Mayan Conspiracy', which discusses Kukulcán but, per Colavito, not Chichén Itzá itself; it is used here as a general theorist claim.
  • The claim that Kukulcán 'taught writing, mathematics and science' comes from the old entry's S9E3 synopsis, which I did not check.
  • Wikipedia mentions 2025 3D modeling of an earlier 'Castillo-sub' phase; I did not check the underlying study.