When visiting Central American temple mounds, I am frequently puzzled that, while all of them have a set of stairs leading to a small building at the top (and a sacrificial alter, in many cases), those stairs simply don't look practical to climb. At the few sites where visitors are allowed to do so - Coba - the climb is a steep, dangerous one, with the level change between one step and the next being far greater than any household or office stairwell. One of them even had a rope descending the stairs for people to hang on top when climbing up and (especially) down. At Coba, there is a side plaza attached to the pyramid where routine daily sacrifices and such like were carried out, and the three or four stairs up to it are constructed on a completely different scale, about like the ones you find in North American city plazas. Now, the common assumption is that the Mayan priestly class ceremonially mounted the temple stairs to meet the Gods at the top. However, I am pretty sure that the Mayan priests would not have wanted to risk the humiliating and possibly fatal tumble that would have been likely had they actually tried to use those over-sized, over-steep stairs. I think it very possible that they had another route up, and the central steps were symbolic. At Coba, only the front of the temple mound had finished terraces, and the sides had what looked to me suspiciously like gentle ramps leading up to the top. So, here is my question: Do we have accounts of the Mayan ceremonies involving those temples? Did those accounts specify that the priests or anyone actually mounted the central stairs at the front that faced the plaza?
To make these sacrifices in the courts of the temples there were erected certain tall decorated posts; and near the stairway of the temple there was a broad, round pedestal, and in the middle a stone, somewhat slender and four or five palms in height, set up; at the top of the temple stairs there was another similar one. Apart from the festivals which they solemnized by the sacrifices of animals, on occasions of great tribulation or need the priests or chilánes ordained the sacrifice of human beings. For this purpose all contributed, for the purchase of slaves. Some out of devotion gave their young sons. The victims were feted up to the day of the sacrifice, but carefully guarded that they might not run away, or defile themselves by any carnal acts; then while they went from town to town with dances, the priests, the chilánes, and the celebrants fasted. When the day of the ceremony arrived, they assembled in the court of the temple; if they were to be pierced with arrows their bodies were stripped and annointed with blue, with a miter on the head. When they arrived before the demon, all the people went through a solemn dance with him around the wooden pillar, all with bows and arrows, and then dancing raised him upon it, tied him, all continuing to dance and look at him. The impure priest, vestured, ascended and whether it was man or woman wounded the victim in the private parts with an arrow, and then descended and annointed the face of the demon with the blood he had drawn; then making a sign to the dancers, they began in order as they passed rapidly, dancing, to shoot an arrow to the victim's heart, shown by a white mark, and quickly made of his chest a single point, like a hedgehog of arrows. If his heart was to be taken out, they conducted him with great display and concourse of people, painted blue and wearing his miter, and placed him on the rounded sacrificial stone, after the priest and his officers had annointed the stone with blue and purified the temple to drive away the evil spirit. The chacs then seized the poor victim and swiftly laid him on his back across the stone, and the four took hold of his arms and legs, spreading them out. Then the nacon executioner came, with a flint knife in his hand, and with great skill made an incision between the ribs on he left size, below the nipple; then he plunged in his hand and like a ravenous tiger tore out the living heart, which he laid on a plate and gave to the priest; he then quickly went and annointed the faces of the idols with that fresh blood. At times they performed this sacrifice on the stone situated on the top step of the temple, and then they threw the dead body rolling down the steps, where it was taken by the attendants, was stripped completely of the skin save only on the hands and feet; then the priest, stripped, clothed himself with this skin and danced with the rest. This was a ceremony with them of great solemnity. The victims sacrificed in this manner were usually buried in the court of the temple; but it occurred on occasions that they ate the flesh, distributing portions to the chiefs and those who succeeded in obtaining a part; the hand, feet, and head went to the priests and celebrants; and these sacrificial victims they then regarded as sainted. If they were slaves captured in war, their masters kept the bones and displayed them in the dances, as a mark of victory. At times they threw the victims alive into the well at Chichén Itzá, believing that they would come forth on the third day, even though they never did see them reappear. http://www.indiana.edu/~dmdhist/diegodelanda.htm
Hmm... I'll keep that in mind next time I criticize modern religions. Pretty messed up culture. So do you think the stairs are designed that way to facilitate the body rolling to the bottom? Because if you used regular stairs, some of the bodies wouldn't reach the base I would think.
Probably, yes. I have read somewhere that the priests and sacrifices came to the top of the pyramids through tunnels inside, which makes a lot more sense than hauling struggling or semiconscious sacrifices up what is really a rather difficult and dangerous ascent, it would be a lot more impressive to the onlookers too. Some researchers in this area have theorized that the Aztecs ate so many people at these rituals that at least for some, it may have been an important protein supplement to a diet and culture particularly lacking in large meat animals. Isn't religion wonderful?
Having difficult to navigate stairs may have made it harder for your human sacrifices to escape and for enemies to charge up to boot. Hard to say, but I doubt their bathrooms were Americans With Disabilities Act compliant either.
Thanks to all who replied. The quote provided by ThirdTerm is very interesting. It seems to imply that most of the sacrifices took place in the plaza, and only when they wanted to have the victims roll down the steps did they work from the top. But are we sure the Friar de Landa (or his informants) meant the actual pinnacle of the pyramid? Or are they describing the top of the ceremonial platforms that are located at the base of the pyramids, but raised above the plaza. It seems to me, if I were a priest intending to impress the crowd, I'd want all the bloodletting to be close to the assembled host in the plaza. Also, while the steps (at Coba, at least) are very steep, they are also wide enough that I would not be confident the sacrifice would in fact reach the bottom. I did some additional digging myself which came up with nothing conclusive; at least, no authoritative online source discusses the practicality and actual use of the stairways. However, its worth observing that: - The Mayans often built impractical structures due to religious constraints. Some temples have been noted to have a total of 365 steps (counting those on the stairwells on all sides), so they may have had to have been un-climably large to fit the numeric requirement. - A lot of ceremonies were conducted in the plaza at the base, or on low side platforms, so the occasions requiring a ceremonial mounting of the temple steps may have been rare. - We don't know a lot about the use of the buildings. Even the presumed "palaces" flanking the plazas are laid out in ways that don't suggest practical or comfortable occupation. So, the jury is still out, but I remain almost certain that those little temples buildings with the hat-like roof at the temple top didn't see much actual use.
I always just assumed that they revered midgets as spiritually important and only midgets were worthy of going to the actual top of the structure.
