Although the direct translation to English of “El Castillo” from Spanish translates to “The Castle”, this structure is not a medieval castle, it’s actually a pyramid. Nicknamed as a castle by the locals, as so often they do, because it brought to them images of castles implanted in their imagination. Nonetheless the nickname has stayed and it is now by how this structure is identified worldwide. Overlooking the turquoise Caribbean Sea, The Castle lies atop a 39-foot limestone cliff. At one point this magnificent structure served as a lighthouse for incoming merchants from the Mayan island of Coba. The Castle consists of a broad stairway that leads up to a towering double-chambered temple; the two chambers were used as the principle location for religious ceremonies. The façade of the chambers is decorated with mask sculptures, and you can still see some of the remains carved on to the walls of the Castle. The doorway to the temple has columns in the shape of rattlesnakes, with the tails of the snakes supporting the roof, and their heads serving as the base of the columns on the floors of the chambers. The upper temple was built on top of another temple, which can be seen by the naked eye.
The ground level has two small temples, where offerings would have been placed to the deity of Kukulcan, the mythological feathered serpent god. Kukulcan, is the Mayan word for Quetzalcoatl, or feathered serpent, and according to their beliefs, he was a man/god who rebelled against the institution of human sacrifice, and preached monotheism. Furthermore he is described as being tall, fair skinned and bearded. Pure indigenous people do not have dense facial hair as part of their genetic make up; hence why the beard was an oddity for them. From this you can also deduce that he was probably not blonde or blue eyed. Otherwise the description of him would have been more vivid, such as having hair like the Sun, or eyes like a gem, etc, etc…Nonetheless, the man/god was persecuted by the warrior class and the followers of the cult to the god of war. He was driven out of central Mesoamerica, unto the lands of the Mayans. Where he continued to be persecuted until he departed by sea to the east; but prophesized to return on the Mayan Calendar Year of the Reef (approximately 1521 AD). Some archeologists speculate that The Castle was possibly built to foresee his grand return, where a dawn of prosperity would shower the land (or so the legend went). The myth of the feathered serpent was notably well spread in ancient Mesoamerica. There is also a striking similar pre-Hispanic myth in the lands of Oaxaca.
But why was this temple even built to this god Kukulcan? If Kukulcan and his religion were driven out by the people, why did the same people then, built a temple to the very religion they drove out? It is certainly possible that Kukulcan split the population in terms of ideology, and the subsequent turmoil and disunion being a factor in the decline of their civilization. It is also possible, that the Mayans believed one thing, told themselves to believe something else, and practice a different thing altogether.
On the south side of the structure there is the Temple of the Initial Series. This temple housed a stone monument, dated to 564 AD. This date has baffled archeologists, since it is established that the city was built centuries after that. The temple also housed representations of the Mayan people and hieroglyphs. This objects are now located at the British National Museum.
