Humanity's ancient past, greatly interests me. I love going to places where my mind's eye could easily visualize what life could have been during those time periods. Perhaps, you're thinking of the movie 'Apocalypto' right now. Haha! I couldn't shake it off either. How about seeing everything with fresh eyes?
But honestly, when I saw the pyramid stairs, my mind could immediately picture severed heads rolling down with the officiating priest on top of it performing some sort of ritual to appease their gods. Actually this is not the building where all these things happen, as gore as it may sound. It's on the temple pictured below.
This actually makes sense. The stairs on this temple are heavily stained compared to the building above. This is what our tour guide, who is of Mayan descent by the way, told us. Yup, this is where the human chest is cut open to extract the heart, place it on a disk on top of the stomach of a statue of a boy and then burned to ashes. Imagine how many hearts they would need?
It's hot y'all! You might want to check out what I wore to Chichen Itza from the link. I don't think our ancient counterparts are anything but dumb. No, not at all. The Mayan civilization was a highly developed culture. They've developed their own writing system, mathematical calculations, literature, art, astronomy, ball games -- mayan calendar anyone? Knowledge is a valuable commodity. Those who can read and write comprised the elite few.
The building pictured above is their observatory called El Caracol.
I'm really impressed with everything so far. One bucket list down baby!
