探秘神奇的玛雅金字塔
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玛雅文明大约发端于公元前1800年，奇琴伊察则始建于公元5世纪，7世纪时占地面积达25平方公里。玛雅人在这里用石头建造了数百座建筑物，这是玛雅文明发展到鼎盛时期的产物。这些建筑不仅高大雄伟，而且雕有精美的装饰纹，显示出古玛雅人高超的建筑艺术水平。
While Europe lingered in the Dark Ages, the splendor of the Maya world was reaching its zenith. Their temple soared hundreds of feet into the heavens. They developed a system of hieroglyphic writing. Works of art and sculpture displayed the Maya’s intricate sense of style. And here in Mexico, Yucatán Peninsula, they built the great city of Chichen Itza.
The city takes part of its name from the large well that was its only permanent source of water. Spanish records reported that live victims were thrown into the sacred well as a sacrifice to the rain God Chaac, who lived in its deaths.
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The Maya also built a circular building believed to be an observatory. By carefully watching the stars, the Maya developed a 365-day calendar, and could even predict solar eclipses.
Chichen Itza was also influenced by other cultures. Around the year 1000, experts believed this famous Mayan city was invaded by foreigners, among them possibly the Toltec of central Mexico and the Itza people. It was the Itza who built the city’s most famous building, a pyramid, the Spanish called El Castillo, or the castle. This 79-foot pyramid has a total of 365 steps, the same number as the days in a solar year. And it guards another secret, testaments of the Maya’s skill at math and astronomy.
Twice a year on the day of the spring and autumn equinoxes, a shadow falls on El Castillo in the shape of a serpent. As the sun sets, the snake appears to wriggle down the steps of the pyramid until it finally joins the serpent’s head at the base of the staircase.
the spring and autumn equinox:春分和秋分
Chichen Itza’s Ball Court is the largest known ancient ball court in the Americas. Here, players with strife to hit a 12-pound rubber ball through the scrawling rings set high on the parallel walls. At the end of this deadly serious game, the losers would be sacrificed.
A bustling trading center passed the year 1000 to train Itza endured, long after other Mayan cities had been abandoned. But eventually it likely found victims of the same courses that failed other Mayan cities. A common nation of prolonged droughts exhausted soils and a top heavy class of royals whose costly wars and lavish rituals overtaxed the Maya people.
Some time in the 1400s, the people of Chichen Itza abandoned their city to the jungle. But today, its imposing ruins still stand amid the rainforest and impressive and enduring monument to the proud Maya civilization that built it.
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（责编：Fionafyy）
