The Sacred Cenote, Chichén Itzá

A hole in the limestone

The Yucatán peninsula has almost no surface rivers. Rain drains straight through the limestone into an underground water system, and where the rock collapses it opens a cenote — a natural well, sometimes tens of metres across, with water far below the ground.

In a landscape like that, a cenote is not scenery. It is the water supply, and it is also the visible opening of the underworld. The Sacred Cenote at Chichén Itzá is roughly sixty metres wide, with sheer walls dropping to water some twenty-odd metres below the rim. It was never used for drinking. A causeway three hundred metres long runs to it from the centre of the city, which tells you what it was for.

What was thrown in

Dredging and diving from the early twentieth century onwards brought up gold discs and bells, jade, copper, obsidian, pottery, wooden objects preserved by the water, textiles, rubber, and large quantities of copal incense. There were also human remains, of both adults and children.

The offerings were made to Chaac, the rain god. In a place where a failed rainy season means famine, the logic is not mysterious: you give the most valuable things you have to the opening that leads to the god who controls the water. Much of the gold was not local — it came from Central America, hundreds of kilometres away, which means these objects were acquired specifically to be given up.

Early recovery work was itself a kind of looting: Edward Thompson, the American consul who dredged the cenote from 1904, shipped much of what he found to a museum in the United States, and the dispute over its return ran for decades.

Why you do not throw anything

Chichén Itzá is a UNESCO World Heritage site and the cenote is an archaeological deposit that is still studied. Coins thrown in today are contamination in the technical sense — they corrode, they leach metal into the water, and they sit in a stratigraphy that people are trying to read.

Swimming is prohibited. So is throwing anything. Other cenotes across Yucatán are open for swimming and are wonderful; this one is a grave and an archive.

It is worth saying plainly, because the instinct this whole guide describes — see water, reach for a coin — is exactly the wrong instinct here.

If you go

The cenote is at the end of the sacbé, the raised white causeway leading north from the main plaza and El Castillo. The walk takes about five minutes and most visitors skip it, which makes it one of the quieter parts of the site.

Arrive early. Chichén Itzá opens at eight and the tour coaches from Cancún and Mérida land in force from about eleven.

Questions people ask

Can you throw a coin into the Sacred Cenote?

No. It is a protected archaeological deposit within a World Heritage site. Throwing coins contaminates it, and swimming is prohibited.

Was the cenote used for drinking water?

No. Chichén Itzá had other cenotes for water. This one was reserved for offerings, and a ceremonial causeway connects it to the centre of the city.

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