Main Plaza

The Main Plaza Although the Pyramid dominates the central plaza it is surrounded by a variety of other impressive ruins. This page and the next one (Temple of the Warriors) show some of those structures...
The Ball Court This is the largest known Ball Court in the Mayan world. Most of the other ball courts discovered (including several here at Chichen Itza) are much smaller in scale than this one. The field here is over 500 feet in length and the rings on the walls are over 20 feet high. The sheer size alone implies that the games conducted here were of great importance (playoffs maybe!). The tall structure in the front middle is the Jaguar temple (also seen on the Yucatan page) and there are temples on both ends. The photo on the left below is the temple on the north end of the field (obscured by trees in the photo above).

The photo on the left is from the wall of the playing field and is one of many with a skull motif. Others apparently depict players of one team holding the severed heads of their opponents. Ceremonial Platforms These two pictures are from the sides of the two ceremonial platforms that you can see in the right foreground of the top picture of the ball court above. The low flat platform that you see is shown in close-up on the left below. It is called Tzompantli and the relief is an image of human skulls repeated hundreds of times. Since this platform also contains a panel that depicts a winning ball team decapitating the loser, it has been suggested that this platform was the place where sacrifices associated with the ball game were carried out. Another version has the place a platform where stakes where the heads of enemies were displayed.

The photo on the right is from the Platform of Eagles and Jaguars, seen in the photo at the top of the page as the smaller square platform with steps on each side. It depicts the two animals devouring a human heart.
The Sacred Cenote A pathway, one of the original network of roads (or sacbe's) goes to the north of the Pyramid some few hundred yards to the Sacred Cenote. The cenotes are natural sinkholes that likely provided the main water supply to this and other settlements. In this case however the site was also used for ceremonial purposes. Early dredging of the cenote uncovered numerous artifacts (including jade, jewelry, figurines, pottery, etc.) that had apparently been offerings to the rain god Chaac.
At the same time the remains of around 50 human beings, mostly children, were turned up. Many say that this is conclusive evidence of human sacrifice, but the alternative opinion asks why people would pollute their water supply with human remains. They also point out that the site was occupied for over 500 years and given the populations levels here an occasional accidental drowning would not be unusual.