Читать книгу The City of the Sacred Well онлайн

47 страница из 66

For nearly a hundred years, to quote from the Chronicles, “the Itzas lived in exile and great distress under the trees and under the branches.” Then, some of them reëstablished Chi-chen Itza in 950 a.d., while others founded the city of Uxmal or went to Mayapan. The second residence lasted for some two hundred years. About 1200 a.d., the Itzas, under the ruler Ulumil, invaded the city of Mayapan and at about this same time Chi-chen Itza was attacked and depopulated by foreigners—in all probability the Nahuas (Mexicans), who came down from the north. The last event alluded to in the Chronicles is the coming of the Spaniards under Montejo, who found the Mayas already decadent and their cities long ruined and abandoned.

We have no authentic description of the actual condition of Chi-chen Itza when the Spaniards came, but it is known with certainty that Tiho (place of the five temples), one of the ancient cities, the site of the modern city of Mérida, was in ruins. The temples were dilapidated and overgrown with vegetation and great trees were rooted in the walls. The few inhabitants living around these ruins knew virtually nothing of the founders of the city, nor of those who had lived there when it was in its prime.