The Temple of the Bearded Man is located at the north end of the Great Ball Court, and it is called the Temple of the Bearded Man because of the several representations of bearded individuals. There are other images of the 'bearded man' in Chichén Itzá; and a famous story told about these images was confessed by the archaeologist/explorer Augustus Le Plongeon in his book Vestiges of the Maya about his visit to Chichén Itzá in 1875. "On one of the [pillars] at the entrance on the north side [of El Castillo] is the portrait of a warrior wearing a long, straight, pointed beard.... I placed my head against the stone so as to represent the same position of my face... and called the attention of my Indians to the similarity of his and my own features. They followed every lineament of the faces with their fingers to the very point of the beard, and soon uttered an exclamation of astonishment: 'Thou! Here!".
Not one of the high points in archaeological history, I'm afraid. For more on the wackiness of Augustus Le Plongeon, see Romancing the Maya, a terrific book on 19th century exploration of Maya sites by R. Tripp Evans, where I found this story.
Mayanist Falken Forshaw adds: "The thinking now is that this court is not a place to play ball, being an "effigy" court for the purpose of ceremonial political and religious installations. The locations of the Chichen I. Ballcourts are set in the alignments of the windows of the Caracol's upper chamber (this is contained in Horst Hartung's book, Zeremonialzentren der Maya and very ignored by scholarship.) The ballcourt was also designed using sacred geometry and astronomy, some of the latter being published in journals. The playing alley is aligned using a diagnonal axis that it N-S."
Not one of the high points in archaeological history, I'm afraid. For more on the wackiness of Augustus Le Plongeon, see Romancing the Maya, a terrific book on 19th century exploration of Maya sites by R. Tripp Evans, where I found this story.
Mayanist Falken Forshaw adds: "The thinking now is that this court is not a place to play ball, being an "effigy" court for the purpose of ceremonial political and religious installations. The locations of the Chichen I. Ballcourts are set in the alignments of the windows of the Caracol's upper chamber (this is contained in Horst Hartung's book, Zeremonialzentren der Maya and very ignored by scholarship.) The ballcourt was also designed using sacred geometry and astronomy, some of the latter being published in journals. The playing alley is aligned using a diagnonal axis that it N-S."
