Upper Temple of the Jaguars - Chichen Itza, Mexico
| General Attributes |
DOI| 10.34946/D61304 | |
| Project Name | Upper Temple of the Jaguars - Chichen Itza |
| Country | Mexico |
| Status | Upcoming |
| Citation |
| Travis Stanton, Claudia García-Solís, Dominique Rissolo, Luis Alberto Catana, Arlette Herver Santamaria, Jesus Gallegos Flores, Scott McAvoy, Ashuni Romero Butrón, Jose Francisco Javier Osorio León, Francisco Pérez Ruiz, Falko Kuester, Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia (INAH), Cultural Heritage Engineering Initiative (CHEI) 2026: Upper Temple of the Jaguars - Chichen Itza - LiDAR - Terrestrial, LiDAR - Mobile, Short Range Scan. Distributed by Open Heritage 3D. https://doi.org/10.34946/D61304 |
| Download |
| Spatial Data | Coming Soon |
| Data Type |
Size |
Device Name |
Device Type |
| LiDAR - Terrestrial | Not available | Not available | Not available |
| LiDAR - Mobile | Not available | Not available | Not available |
| Short Range Scan | Not available | Not available | Not available |
| Background |
| Site Description | The Upper Temple of the Jaguars crowns the eastern wall of the Great Ball Court, looking out over the playing field from atop the high vertical wall that supports it. Reached by a steep staircase on its southern side, the temple belongs to the great building program raised during Chichén Itzá's height, roughly the tenth to twelfth centuries.
Its entrance is framed by two massive columns carved as feathered serpents — Kukulcán — with large serpent heads set at their base and bodies rising to carry the now-fallen façade. Chaac rain-god masks line the exterior walls, while inside a long bench is supported by sculpted Atlantean figures.
The temple is celebrated above all for its murals, among the finest surviving examples of Maya wall painting. Though much damaged, the largest depicts a sweeping battle scene: warriors bearing atlatls, feathered headdresses, and shields, set among houses and hills. Rather than myth, many scholars now read these as actual military encounters between Chichén and its rivals — one reading identifies the destruction of another Maya town — and suggest the chamber served a particular warrior faction, perhaps for rites of investiture. Faint traces of red and blue pigment still cling to the plaster, hinting at the vivid color that once covered the walls.
Throughout the building, the pairing of jaguar and feathered serpent fused emblems of earthly rule and divine authority — a deliberate visual language of power presiding over the ceremonial arena below. | |
| Project Description | Over the course of several field Seasons between November 2022 and December 2025, archaeologists performed a number of 3D captures through a variety of means, capturing exterior and interior (cave) detail. This digital palimpsest contains Drone photogrammetry, high resolution structures light scans, and mobile LiDAR of the interior cave system. The details of these efforts are included in the following field reports:
Mcavoy, S. P, Rissolo, D., & Kuester, F. (2025). Chichen Itza, Mayapan, Coba, Xkukikan - December 7th - 14th, 2024 Yucatan, Mexico. UC San Diego: Cultural Heritage Engineering Initiative (CHEI) at Calit2. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6nn5s6d9
Stanton, T. W, Mcavoy, S. P, Rissolo, D., & Kuester, F. (2025). Chichen Itza, Yaxuna, Ek Balam, Yula, Maya and June 2023, Yucatan Mexico. UC San Diego: Cultural Heritage Engineering Initiative (CHEI) at Calit2. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9666z0dd
Mcavoy, S. P, Rissolo, D., & Kuester, F. (2023). Chichen Itza and Ek Balam, Yucatan, Mexico August 27th – September 2nd 2023. . UC San Diego: Cultural Heritage Engineering Initiative (CHEI) at Calit2. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8qg65087
Mcavoy, S. P, Rissolo, D., & Kuester, F. (2023). Chichen Itza and Merida, Mexico February 6th-12th 2023. UC San Diego: Cultural Heritage Engineering Initiative (CHEI) at Calit2. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1jb1q2fr
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| UNESCO World Heritage Site | Pre-Hispanic City of Chichen-Itza |
| Collection Date | 2018-07-16 to 2025-12-14 |
| Publication Date | 2026-07-05 |
| License Type | CC BY |
| Model Information |
| Reuse Score | A - High-Quality Model with Accurate Georeferencing |
| Curator Notes | Georeferencing is performed through alignment with the following foundational dataset:
Travis Stanton, National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM), Francisco Pérez Ruiz, Jose Francisco Javier Osorio León 2026: Chichen Itza Tourist Zone - NCALM Aerial LiDAR - LiDAR - Aerial. Distributed by Open Heritage 3D. https://doi.org/10.34946/D6NS3R
A report concerning the accuracy of these models is upcoming in 2026. |
| Entities |
| Contributors | Travis Stanton, Claudia García-Solís, Dominique Rissolo, Luis Alberto Catana, Arlette Herver Santamaria, Jesus Gallegos Flores, Scott McAvoy, Ashuni Romero Butrón, Jose Francisco Javier Osorio León, Francisco Pérez Ruiz, Falko Kuester, Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia (INAH), Cultural Heritage Engineering Initiative (CHEI) |
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