chichen itza

Billed as one of the new 7 world wonders this ancient Mayan city is truly impressive. Rediscovered in the early nineteen Hundreds after being lost to the jungle for all out a thousand years you can thank chewing gum for what we see today. It and other Mayan cities were found when the jungle was  cut down in part to access chickle.  The sap that made gum thus chiclets.


A fascinating site featuring an amazing pyramid calendar setting out the Mayan calendars.
My favorite was the royal ball court. Mayan royalty would play some sort of game with a rubber ball as a semi religious political event. Either using only feet etc as in soccer or in some eras a bat, to win you had to get the ball through a stone ring perched a few stories up the side of the arena. It's a lot harder then it sounds and I would imagine would have to be spiderman to succeed.

at the end of the game either the loser or the winners were sacrificed. Archeologists are not sure which.

the maya museum noted that the a erase life expectancy of a Mayan peasant was 35. However this didn't mean it was all roses for the royalty. The museum pointed out that if you were royal you also had a limited life expectancy. In their cases it due to death in battle,kidnapping and best of all sacrifice. Wonder if prince William would have gone in for. Harry  yes but not so sure about William and kate.