Chichen Itza · 1000 AD
What you're walking through
Around 1000 AD, Chichen Itza was the most powerful city of the northern Maya world, in the dry forest of the Yucatán peninsula. At its centre stood the pyramid of Kukulcán, the feathered serpent, which the Spanish later called El Castillo: nine terraces 24 m high, with a stairway up each side to the temple on top.
Beside it lay the Great Ball Court, the largest in the Americas, where teams played a sacred game with a heavy rubber ball, and could win by sending it through a stone ring high on the wall. A white stone road led north to the Sacred Cenote, a deep natural well, where offerings of jade, gold and sometimes people were thrown into the water.
Who lives here
Maya man
A cotton loincloth and sandals · Chichen Itza ruled much of the northern Yucatán
Most Maya were farmers who grew maize, beans and squash in fields cleared from the forest. Others were stonemasons, potters and traders, who carried salt, cotton and cacao along the coast and the white stone roads.
Maya woman
A white cotton dress, the huipil · woven cotton was one of the most valuable things to trade
Women ground and cooked the maize, kept the house and its garden, raised turkeys and dogs, and spun and wove cotton. Their cloth was paid as tribute and traded far and wide.
Dog
Small and short-haired · kept as companions, and raised for food
Dogs guarded houses and went hunting with their owners, and some were fattened on maize for feasts.
White-tailed deer
About 1 m at the shoulder · the Maya's most important game animal
Deer were hunted for their meat and skins, and some were kept tame in villages. They appear again and again in Maya art and stories.
The city is drawn smaller and closer together than it is, and its buildings far plainer: they were covered in carvings and painted, though nobody knows exactly in which colours, so the colours here are a guess. Ordinary houses were of wood and thatch, and none survive. The people and their period clothing are stylized approximations.
How to walk
Press Start walking above. WA SD or the arrow keys move you, the mouse looks around, hold Shift with a movement key to run at 3× walking speed, and Space jumps. Look at someone to see who they are. Esc pauses, and M turns the sound on or off. You're invisible: nobody here can see you.
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