Temple of Kukulkan

20.6294°N, 89.4606°W.

The Temple of Kukulkan at Mayapán in the central Yucatán of Mexico is a four-sided radial pyramid with stairways on each face, deliberately modeled on the more famous Castillo of Chichén Itzá to its north. The pyramid was built around 1200 CE when Mayapán emerged as the dominant capital of the Postclassic northern Yucatán under the Cocom lineage. The pyramid rises approximately 15 metres in nine receding terraces of rough limestone faced with stucco — a smaller and less precisely engineered version of its Chichén Itzá prototype. Mayapán was sacked and abandoned around 1450 CE following the Xiu revolt against the Cocom, and the temple was partially destroyed during the conflict. Carnegie Institution excavations under Tatiana Proskouriakoff and Harry Pollock from 1949 to 1955 mapped the site.

The Temple of Kukulkan at Mayapán is a copy of an earlier pyramid built by people who knew exactly which building they were trying to imitate.