El Caracol Conundrum: Secrets of Chichén Itzá’s Famous Maya Observatory
Standing unique among ancient structures, Chichén Itzá’s enigmatic “Observatory”, El Caracol, may be the world’s most mysterious and distinctive stone monument. It was built by the Maya of the Yucatán, Mexico, over a millennium ago, as part of a larger city, but when the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, they found it abandoned and overgrown by jungle. They made Chichén Itzá their first base in the Yucatán interior, taking over the imposing stone buildings. Sadly, they left no descriptions of them.
Lithograph of El Caracol. Views of ancient monuments in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan. London: Published by F. Catherwood, (1844)
The first proper description of the Observatory came in 1843 by the American explorer John Lloyd Stephens. In his famous book Incidents of Travel in Yucatán, he called it “El Caracol”, Spanish for the snail, because its internal form resembled a snail shell. He found it in even worse shape than the Spanish had, crumbling and barely resembling the magnificent building it had once been. He summed up his experience with the Caracol: “The plan of the building was new, but, instead of unfolding secrets, it drew closer the curtain that already shrouded, with almost impenetrable folds, these mysterious structures.”
