call the Itza foreigners and tricksters and portray them as “lewd” and unable to speak fluently. This depiction clearly indicates that they were foreigners—but whether they were Toltecs from Tula (the traditional view) or some other group has remained a subject of debate. Much evidence points to the southern Gulf of Mexico region where Mexicanized Maya groups lived and honed their skills as some of Mesoamerica’s greatest long-distance traders. More recently, evidence has arisen to indicate that the Itza might have been refugees from the internecine warfare of the southern Maya lowlands in the late-classic period. The name Itza, in fact, shows up in classic-period texts from Motul de San José, a site not far from Tikal, so we know that some Itza lived and ruled there. Maya chronicles describe a long series of migrations from the Itza homeland until these people founded and settled in Chichén Itzá.

Dominating the site of Chichén Itzá are the buildings arranged on a huge platform that is 450 by 600 meters in area. Near the center of this platform is the so-called Castillo, or Castle, the tallest temple-pyramid at the site. On the western edge of the platform is the largest ballcourt in Mesoamerica. The Great Ballcourt is richly decorated with imagery symbolizing the Mesoamerican mythology of creation and the sacred charter of government, as well as murals that document the wars of conquest that gave the victors the right to rule.

Chichén Itzá is also famous for its Sacred Well, which was used as a place of ritual offerings by the Maya even after the site was abandoned. The well has been dredged several times, and thousands of archaeological pieces have been recovered. These include huge numbers of carved jade artifacts; wooden objects such as scepters, weapons, and idols; ceramics; balls of resin incense; human bones; and bells, disks, and figurines of gold. Chichén Itzá in general and the Sacred Well in particular were used as places of pilgrimage well into the Spanish colonial period, much to the consternation of the Spanish priests and administrators.

According to legend, the city fell through sorcery and trickery, but almost certainly its demise was due to fighting among rival lineages. Maya chronicles from the Spanish colonial period say that in a.d. 1221, the ruler of Chichén Itzá was defeated by the ruler of the nearby, emergent city of Mayapan and that the Itza were driven from their capital. Today Chichén Itzá is one of the most frequently visited archaeological sites in Mexico. It is a dramatic location, with broad vistas punctuated by some of the most grandiose pyramids and decorated temples in the entire Maya area.

Peter Mathews

See also

Maya Civilization

Childe, Vere Gordon

(1892–1957)

vere gordon childe, the most celebrated archaeological synthesizer and theorist of his generation, was born in North Sydney, Australia, 14 April 1892. He graduated from Sydney University in 1913 with first-class honors in Latin, Greek, and philosophy. At Oxford University in England, his interest in European prehistory was aroused by a desire to locate the homeland of the Indo-Europeans. He returned to Australia in 1916 and became involved in anticonscription and Labour politics, serving from 1919 to 1921 as private secretary to John Storey, the Labour premier of New South Wales.

After the defeat of the Labour government of New South Wales in 1921, Childe returned to the study of European prehistory, paying special attention to the Balkans. In 1925, he published The Dawn of European Civilization, a milestone in the development of culture-historical archaeology. Childe combined the concept of “the archaeological culture,” refined by the German archaeologist gustaf kossinna to try to trace the histories of specific peoples in the archaeological record, with the diffusionism of the Swedish archaeologist oscar montelius. Montelius believed that in prehistoric times technological skills had spread to Europe from their place of origin in the Middle East. Like his Oxford mentors, arthur evans and john myres, Childe stressed the creativity with which Europeans had utilized this knowledge.

Childe was the Abercromby Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh from 1927 to 1946 and professor of European