Chichen Itza Timeline

Chichen Itza entered the popular imagination in 1843 with the book Incidents of Travel in Yucatan by John Lloyd Stephens, with illustrations by Frederick Catherwood.

Image source: Frederick Catherwood

In 1860, Désiré Charnay surveyed Chichen Itza and took numerous photographs that he published in Cités et ruines américaines (1863).

Image source: Désiré Charnay

In 1875, Augustus Le Plongeon and his wife Alice Dixon Le Plongeon visited Chichén and excavated a statue of a figure on its back, knees drawn up, upper torso raised on its elbows with a plate on its stomach.

Image source: Augustus Le Plongeon

In 1894, the United States Consul to Yucatán, Edward Herbert Thompson, purchased the Hacienda Chichén, which included the ruins of Chichen Itza. He received a constant stream of visitors thereafter.

Edward Herbert Thompson dredged the Cenote Sagrado from 1904 to 1910, recovering artifacts of gold, copper and carved jade, as well as human remains and the first-ever examples believed to be pre-Columbian Maya cloth and wooden weapons.

Edward Thompson and Alfred Tozzer visited the cave in 1905. Thompson had excavated it in the late 19th century and, having found skeletons and jade beads, named the structure The High Priests' Temple.

Image source: High Priest of Israel

In 1913, the Carnegie Institution accepted the proposal of archeologist Sylvanus G. Morley to conduct extensive excavations at Chichen Itza.

Image source: Carnegie Institution for Science

In 1923, the Mexican government awarded the Carnegie Institution a ten-year permit, later extended by another ten years, to allow U.S. archeologists to work at the site.

In 1926, the Mexican government charged Edward Thompson with theft, claiming he stole artifacts from the Cenote Sagrado and smuggled them out of the country.

Thompson wrote about his research and investigations of the Maya culture in a book, People of the Serpent, published in 1932. He died in New Jersey in 1935.

Image source: Edward Herbert Thompson

In 1944, the Mexican Supreme Court ruled that Thompson had broken no laws and returned Chichen Itza to his heirs. That same year, Barbachano Peón purchased all of the Hacienda Chichén, including Chichen Itza, from the heirs.

There have been two later expeditions to recover artifacts from the Cenote Sagrado, conducted in 1961 and 1967.

Image source: Sacred Cenote

INAH completed a restoration of the building in 2007.

In 2015, scientists determined that there is a hidden cenote under the Temple of Kukulkan, which has never been seen by archeologists.

Image source: El Castillo, Chichen Itza

Recent 3D modeling and multimodal scanning in 2025 revealed an earlier pyramid substructure, deemed 'Castillo-sub', enclosed within the larger El Castillo pyramid structure.

Recent gamma-ray spectrometry analyses of the building stone material of the North Temple of the Great Ball Court in 2025 revealed important aspects about materials used during its construction and its deterioration process.

In 1972, Mexico enacted the Federal Law over Monuments and Archeological, Artistic and Historic Sites, putting all the nation's pre-Columbian monuments, including those at Chichen Itza, under federal ownership.

Climbing access to El Castillo was closed after an 80-year-old American woman fell to her death in January 2006.

In 2007, Chichen Itza's Temple of Kukulcán (El Castillo) was named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World after a worldwide vote sponsored by a commercial enterprise, embraced by Mexican government and tourism officials.

The ensuing publicity over the New Seven Wonders vote re-ignited debate in Mexico over the ownership of the site, culminating on 29 March 2010 when the state of Yucatán purchased the land upon which the most recognized monuments rest from owner Hans Juergen Thies Barbachano.

The Great Museum of Chichen Itza is an archaeological space inaugurated on 28 February 2024, located in the municipality of Tinum, Yucatán.