Why go
Look at the Sacred Cenote alongside Xtoloc to understand the city’s setting. The former has yielded offerings and human remains; the pair also explains why a major city could grow where interior rivers ran below ground. Their different roles are essential to understanding this landscape.
The full story
The northern Yucatán Peninsula has little surface water because much of its drainage passes through porous limestone. Natural sinkholes, or cenotes, expose that underground water. Two large cenotes at Chichen Itza could have provided water through the year, making the place attractive for settlement. The Sacred Cenote, also called Cenote Sagrado, had a different significance from an ordinary water source. Post-conquest Maya and Spanish accounts describe offerings of objects and people there in worship associated with the rain god Chaac. Edward Herbert Thompson dredged the cenote between 1904 and 1910. He recovered gold, jade, pottery, incense and human remains. Study of some remains found wounds consistent with human sacrifice. That evidence supports ritual use, but it cannot by itself establish every detail given in later accounts. The cenote is a place of difficult history and archaeological evidence, not a recreational pool.