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El Castillo

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El Castillo
El Castillo
El Castillo
El Castillo
El Castillo
El Castillo
El Castillo
El Castillo
El Castillo
El Castillo
El Castillo
El Castillo
El Castillo
El Castillo
El Castillo
El Castillo
El Castillo
El Castillo
El Castillo
El Castillo
El Castillo
El Castillo
El Castillo
El Castillo
Phone:
+52 985 851 0137

Hours:
Sunday8am - 4:30pm
Monday8am - 4:30pm
Tuesday8am - 4:30pm
Wednesday8am - 4:30pm
Thursday8am - 4:30pm
Friday8am - 4:30pm
Saturday8am - 4:30pm


El Castillo , also known as the Temple of Kukulcan , is a Mesoamerican step-pyramid that dominates the center of the Chichen Itza archaeological site in the Mexican state of Yucatán. The building is more formally designated by archaeologists as Chichen Itza Structure 5B18. Built by the pre-Columbian Maya civilization sometime between the 9th and 12th centuries CE, El Castillo served as a temple to the god Kukulkan, the Yucatec Maya Feathered Serpent deity closely related to the god Quetzalcoatl known to the Aztecs and other central Mexican cultures of the Postclassic period. The pyramid consists of a series of square terraces with stairways up each of the four sides to the temple on top. Sculptures of plumed serpents run down the sides of the northern balustrade. Around the spring and autumn equinoxes, the late afternoon sun strikes off the northwest corner of the pyramid and casts a series of triangular shadows against the northwest balustrade, creating the illusion of a feathered serpent crawling down the pyramid. The event has been very popular and is witnessed by thousands of visitors at the spring equinox, but it is questionable whether it is a result of a purposeful design, because the light-and-shadow effect can be observed, without major changes, during several weeks around the equinoxes. Each of the pyramid's four sides has 91 steps which, when added together and including the temple platform on top as the final step, produces a total of 365 steps .The structure is 24 m high, plus an additional 6 m for the temple. The square base measures 55.3 m across.
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

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