Sacred Cenote

The Sacred Cenote is a round shaft of green water sunk into the limestone at the northern edge of Chichén Itzá, and for the Maya it was nothing less than a doorway to the underworld. The northern Yucatán has no rivers or lakes on its surface; water sits underground, and where a cave roof collapses it appears in these natural wells. This one is about 60 metres across, walled by sheer cliffs that drop to the water table far below, and a raised ceremonial causeway some 300 metres long runs straight to it from the plaza of the great pyramid of Kukulcán.

Offerings were cast into it for the rain god Chaac. In 1566 the Franciscan Diego de Landa wrote that people were thrown in alive in times of drought, together with precious stones and treasured objects, and he mused that if the country had gold, most of it would lie at the bottom of this well. The twentieth century proved the offerings real. From 1904 Edward Herbert Thompson dredged the cenote with a bucket and pulley and even dived to the muddy floor himself; later Mexican expeditions, with the national institute of anthropology in charge, returned in 1961 and in 1967–68. Thousands of objects came up: jade above all, gold, copper bells, copal incense, textiles, wooden sceptres and tools that the water had preserved, and human bones, including those of children. Much of Thompson's haul went to Harvard's Peabody Museum, which later returned part of it to Mexico.

Standing on the rim today, it is the scale and the stillness that stay with you: the vertical walls, the dark water, the silence of the causeway behind. None of the jade, gold or copper was local to the Yucatán, and many pieces were deliberately broken before being thrown in, as if the objects themselves had to be sacrificed. It is a place to look at with some restraint.

Getting there

The cenote lies inside the archaeological zone of Chichén Itzá, about 2 km from the settlement beside the site, and is reached on foot along the sacbe north of the Kukulcán pyramid. The nearest airport by distance is Tulum (TQO), about 110 km away; Mérida (MID), about 115 km, and Cancún (CUN), about 180 km, are the larger gateways.