Height30 m
20Blue whale hearts
98.4Subway Footlongs
100Lily pad diameters
30 meters from base to temple top
Photo from Wikimedia Commons
Chichen Itza — El Castillo
A Mayan pyramid that puts on a serpent light show twice a year/Ancient Structures
El Castillo (the Temple of Kukulcan) at Chichen Itza is a step pyramid built by the Maya civilization around the 9th-12th century CE. It stands 30 meters tall on a 55-meter base. During the spring and autumn equinoxes, sunlight creates a shadow pattern on the north staircase that resembles a feathered serpent descending the pyramid. The structure encodes astronomical knowledge: 365 steps (one for each day), 52 panels (one for each year in the Maya calendar round), and 18 terraces (one for each month).
Measurements
Base length55 m
3.8 tenthsGreat Pyramid heights
167Hammer lengths
183 millionUV-B wavelengths
55-meter square base
Estimated mass100 million kg
192 millionWater bottles
2.7 tenthsEmpire State Building masses
About 100,000 tonnes of limestone
Base area3,025 m²
15.5American houses
605,000Business cards
521,552Sticky notes
55 m x 55 m square footprint
Step width2.6 tenths m
2.5 thousandthsSoccer pitches
2 tenthsBathrobe lengths
91 steps per side, 364 total plus the temple platform = 365
Age34.7 billion s
15.1Human lifespans
16.7 millionthsDinosaur extinctions ago
About 1,000-1,100 years old