Chichen Itza Observatory

Slowly eroding in world-famous Mayan town of Chichen Itza, the El Caracol “observatory” stands as a monument not only to the architectural skill regarding the ancient Mayans and for their surprisingly advanced level understanding of the heavens.

El Caracol, which means “spiral-shaped” or more literally “snail” is named after the winding staircase that rounds the interior of this main tower. The stacked degrees of the building look like a pocked rock wedding dessert with staggered stairways leading to the central tower whose collapsed dome impressively comes even close to the look of modern-day observatories.

El Caracol’s crumbling viewing tower rises above the rich Yucatan jungle in order for old astronomers could see the movie stars in 360 levels, and track solstices, equinoxes and eclipses. Many delighting may be the alignment of this continuing to be watching windows, which be seemingly created particularly to track the looks and disappearance of Venus into the evening sky. Along with assigning the next planet some religious relevance, the Mayans had the ability to keep track of the moves of Venus and so measure longer intervals of this Earth’s orbit.