Tzompantli - Chichen Itza, Mexico
| General Attributes |
DOI| 10.34946/D6D889 | |
| Project Name | Tzompantli - Chichen Itza |
| Country | Mexico |
| Status | Upcoming |
| Citation |
| Dominique Meyer, Travis Stanton, Scott McAvoy, Jose Francisco Javier Osorio León, Francisco Pérez Ruiz, Arianna Campiani, Esteban Miron Marvan, Jeremy Coltman, Jesus Gallegos Flores, Luis Alberto Catana, Falko Kuester, Cultural Heritage Engineering Initiative (CHEI), Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia (INAH) 2026: Tzompantli - Chichen Itza - Photogrammetry - Terrestrial, Photogrammetry - Aerial, Short Range Scan. Distributed by Open Heritage 3D. https://doi.org/10.34946/D6D889 |
| Download |
| Spatial Data | Coming Soon |
| Data Type |
Size |
Device Name |
Device Type |
| Photogrammetry - Terrestrial | Not available | Not available | Not available |
| Photogrammetry - Aerial | Not available | Not available | Not available |
| Short Range Scan | Not available | Not available | Not available |
| Background |
| Site Description | The Tzompantli, a Nahuatl term usually rendered as "skull rack" or "wall of skulls", is a low platform on the Great North Platform of Chichén Itzá, set in the Grand Plaza between the Great Ball Court and the Temple of the Eagles and Jaguars. Its carved stone surfaces render permanently what was elsewhere built of perishable wood: the racks on which the severed heads of sacrificial victims and war captives were publicly displayed. In its structure, shaped like a "T", the base supports panels of skulls divided by moldings, with rows of skulls running in horizontal registers across the platform's sides.
The reliefs are richly varied. Beyond the ranks of skulls, the walls carry eagles, serpents, and scenes of warriors holding human heads — imagery symbolizing death, the underworld, and the power of the gods, and asserting the state's dominance to allies and enemies alike.
The platform's placement beside the ball court is meaningful. Six ball court reliefs at Chichen Itza depict the decapitation of a ball player, and the losers' skulls are thought to have been exhibited here. Skull racks of this type appear across Mesoamerica — most famously at Toltec Tula and later in Aztec ceremonial centers — and their appearance at Chichén Itzá reflects the strong central-Mexican influence woven through the site during the Terminal Classic and Early Postclassic (c. 800–1200 CE).
Grim in purpose, the Tzompantli served at once as a religious monument and a public statement of sacrifice, warfare, and political power. | |
| Project Description | A 2018 drone and terrestrial photogrammetry campaign was supplemented by targeted structured light scans in 2023. This dataset includes high resolution scans from the Chichen Itza Museum, depicting panels which have since been removed from the structure. A Painted skull block, of unknown placement, and a warrior panel which has been shown to have come from the north side of the eastern rampart. | |
| UNESCO World Heritage Site | Pre-Hispanic City of Chichen-Itza |
| Collection Date | 2018-07-06 to 2023-08-27 |
| Publication Date | 2026-07-04 |
| License Type | CC BY-NC |
| 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 | Dominique Meyer, Travis Stanton, Scott McAvoy, Jose Francisco Javier Osorio León, Francisco Pérez Ruiz, Arianna Campiani, Esteban Miron Marvan, Jeremy Coltman, Jesus Gallegos Flores, Luis Alberto Catana, Falko Kuester, Cultural Heritage Engineering Initiative (CHEI) , Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia (INAH) |
Go Back