Who Built Chichen Itza?

Chichen Itza was built by Maya communities of northern Yucatan. The Itza became its leading people between the sixth and ninth centuries CE. Builders, artists and craftspeople shaped the city over many generations.

The city is usually said to have been founded in the sixth century CE. Another account places the first settlement in the early to late 400s CE. These are different accounts, not one agreed founding year.

The name means “at the mouth of the well of the Itza.” It links the people to the cenotes they lived beside. The city stayed Maya as its rulers, people and buildings changed.

Founding, rule and building are different parts of the story. The Itza gave the city its name and political weight. The full history of Chichen Itza follows the phases in order.

The Itza are a Maya people, not a separate civilization from outside the Maya world. They rose to power in northern Yucatan between the sixth and ninth centuries CE. Chichen Itza carries their name.

An existing name explanation describes Itza as “water sorcerers.” The name links the people and their city with water. The water-related name is not a claim about supernatural powers.

Their capital became one of the most powerful Maya cities. It was known as both a warrior capital and a city of palaces and temples. From 987 CE it belonged to the League of Mayapan, with Uxmal and Mayapan.

Maya communities live across Yucatan today. People of Maya tradition live near and gather daily at Chichen Itza. The buildings belong to a living heritage. Maya culture did not end with the city.

Chichen Itza had around 50,000 people at its height. Its residents included farmers, builders, craftspeople, rulers, artists and priests. People also came from Uxmal, Coba, Chacmultun and distant Tula, so its population was not one closed group.

One account places its height between about fourteen and eight centuries ago. Another puts peak power in the tenth to thirteenth centuries CE. These ranges describe different times of growth, not one census year.

Chichen Itza was built on ground that workers leveled before raising temples and palaces. They laid one layer after another over the limestone plain to form a large raised platform. The Great Plaza buildings stand on it.

Maya builders worked limestone with stone tools, without metal or wheels for transport, and used lime mortar and stucco. Ruling elites and priests organized the work.

Thousands of workers helped raise a Maya city. They quarried and shaped stone, dug sascab, burned stone to make lime and carried water. Sascab is powdery limestone earth used in building; people moved materials without pack animals.

Many buildings grew over older ones. El Castillo stands over an earlier temple with its own stairway. El Caracol took its present form through at least six remodelings.

The same method let later builders make an older monument larger. A temple could keep an older core while gaining a new outer shell. Each monument has its own stages, rather than one date for the whole city.

Chichen Itza has Puuc, Chenes and Maya-Toltec building styles. Puuc buildings use carved masks, stone patterns and small columns. Las Monjas combines Puuc and Chenes features; its masks represent the rain god Chaac in Maya tradition.

El Caracol continues an old Maya tradition of round buildings. The Great Plaza uses a different form: tall square or rectangular pyramids and long stairs. Heavy stone rails, rows of columns and serpent designs frame those spaces.

The style called Maya-Toltec joins Maya forms with those from central Mexico. Both groups of buildings belong to the same Maya city and use the same local limestone. Their order is clearer than their exact dates.

Chichen Itza was a Maya city influenced by the Toltecs rather than a Toltec city. Its buildings have clear links with Tula in central Mexico. Warrior columns and feathered serpents once led scholars to suggest a Toltec invasion.

Today many experts see a shared Mesoamerican culture spread by trade and alliances. Another account describes Toltec warriors moving south in the tenth century CE. The identity of newcomers remains debated: other Itza, Maya with Toltec ties, or Toltecs themselves.

The Temple of the Warriors recalls Tula and blends Maya and central Mexican building methods. The Thousand Columns recall Tula's temple of Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, the Lord of the Dawn. In Maya tradition, Kukulkan is the feathered serpent, known in central Mexico as Quetzalcoatl.

The photographer Désiré Charnay noted the resemblance in the nineteenth century. One account links the styles to conquest. Another sees two cultural regions sharing ideas between about 800 and 1100 CE; neither route of influence is settled.

El Castillo was built by the Maya of Chichen Itza over an earlier temple. One account places it in the Terminal Classic period. Each monument has its own phases, so its age is not the founding date of the city.

Kukulkan may also have been a ruler in the tenth century CE. A traditional account describes his later role as a deity linked with the spring and autumn equinoxes. El Castillo is also called the Temple of Kukulkan.

The Temple of the Warriors and Great Ball Court share the plaza's Maya-Toltec style. The city's greatest building period ran from the ninth to the twelfth centuries CE. No major monument appears to have been added after the thirteenth century.

You can see the builders' work in the Great Plaza and the southern buildings. Our local team is at Chichen Itza every day. Comparing the styles on the ground helps you follow the changes from one group to another.