The authorities at Chichén Itzá asked us to be at the gate at 7 am for a special admittance to the Group of the Initial Series, which has been under reconstruction for several years and is still off limits to regular visitors. We arrived first at the main gate and were then directed to the gate of the archaeological camp. There policemen stopped us and told us to return to the main gate and it would be opened for us. It wasn’t. So we went back to the encampment gate and were given two contradictory stories. One, that without written permission we couldn’t get in, and the other that the people in charge were still sleeping. I think the latter is true.
So we went into Piste for students to eat breakfast while I looked for an internet facility that would be open early, where I could print out the email with our visiting arrangement. Meanwhile Bill went with the drivers to leave our luggage at the Posada Olalde, where we would stay for two nights thanks to the help of
anthropologist Quetzil Castañeda who has researched in Piste and Chichén Itzá for many years. We came back to Chichén Itzá and Bill went to the INAH office to explain what had happened. They were very gracious and arranged for a guide, Carlos, to take us to the Group of the Initial Series, as well as forgiving us their half of the entrance fee (the other half goes to Yucatán state). We met Carlos near the Castillo Pyramid, and with him was the director of Chichén Itzá, Eduardo Perez, to greet us. We would be seeing both gentlemen several times over the next few days.
The kilometer walk to the Initial Series group was beautiful, and the restoration of the group was stunning. We entered through the remains of a small portal arch that culminates a sacbe or paved causeway leading into the group. Another, much larger portal arch was visited west of the first, also ending a sacbe.The students were thrilled with the ability to go through reconstructed chambers, columned halls, climbing to a second story structure. We enjoyed seeing the distinctive personalities of the structures, marked with representations of a specific animal to become the House of the Snails, Temple of the Owls, and Colonnade of the Monkeys. Also impressive was the House of the Phalli, with the huge stone phalluses sticking out of the wall over the bench-type beds. All of these structures also featured upper facades entirely covered with low relief narrative designs. We then went on to view the large round masonry altar designed as the effigy of a turtle. The balustrades of the front and back stairs are decorated with the four legs of the turtle. The head is a separate stone projecting from the top of the front stair, and the tail from the back stairs. From class lectures in San Cristobal, were all primed to think of the turtle not just as an image of the earth but also as the earth from which the Maize emerges at creation and annually thereafter. The archaeologist working on this restoration, Peter Schmidt, did not want any photographs taken of this group.
Carlos was generous with his time in this group, and even offered to take us to the nearby Southwest Group, even though none of this group has been cleared. I remembered it as being easier to get around and climb over when I was doing my dissertation research in 1973.
But it wasn’t over yet. Carlos asked what else we might like to see that is off limits. We asked for the Akab Dzib, the Caracol, and the Monjas second storey. Carlos took us to the Akab Dzib right away and then made arrangements for us to see the other two buildings at 8 the next morning. Would there be anything else? Yes, indeed, How about the Temple of the Warriors and the Temple of the Big Tables (none of these are likely temples; these are just names). This was arranged with Eduardo Perez for 5pm, when visitors have to leave the site.
I took the students by a few more buildings, and then we went back to Piste to check into our rooms. Students were told to meet us by the Castillo at 4 for a lecture on the Castillo, and any who wanted to could come with me earlier for a tour of some out-of-the-way buildings. I showed these to the Osario, the Xtoloc Cenote and its nearby residence, and the 1000 Columns group. By that time the students had arrived and we discussed the Castillo, then watched the events developing around it. This was the day before the official equinox but it was being celebrated by new agers dancing and drawing energy from the stone. We had been told that the Light Serpent effect on the Castillo stair that happens on the equinox is also visible the day before, so we did watch it before meeting Don Carlos for our next special admittance.
We waited for Don Carlos at the usual place, as the regular visitors left, we went on to climb the Temple of the Warriors, where Eduardo Perez came to greet us again. The sun was setting as we looked around the building, discussing the plan of columns and arches, of benches and atlantean table. I also noticed that even the serpent heads of the doorway columns had curtain tie-offs in back. The sun then was nearly setting behind the Castillo which left the students enchanted. But there was more. We went with the archaeologist Gabriel Evan Canul into the closed-off chamber of the structure underneath the Big Tables and viewed two columns with colours beautifully preserved, showing standing male figures with the image of cosmogenesis (Maize deity emerging from the earth turtle) flanking them above and below. In the last bit of light, we ascended the later structure covering it, looking at the atlantean table and the columns, with students increasingly mesmerized by the atmosphere.
As we descended and headed back towards the entrance, Eduardo Perez again greeted us and invited us to stay for the sound-and-light show which was due to start in less than an hour, inviting us to take the front row seats. I really have to thank Eduardo for making me look good: the students spent some of the waiting time chanting cheers to me. The mood did decline somewhat during the sound and light show, which was not only hokey (ball players projected on the Upper Temple of the Jaguars to the sound of grunting athletes) but drew on all the possible stereotypes, drawing out descriptions of sacrifice with what were presented as speeches delivered by the victims before their death.
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