| Site Description | Chichén Itzá stands among the most significant archaeological sites of the ancient Maya world, set on the flat limestone plain of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. Occupied from roughly the 6th century CE and reaching its height between about 800 and 1100 CE, the city grew into a major political, economic, and ceremonial center that fused Maya traditions with influences from central Mexico.
Its most iconic monument is the Temple of Kukulcán, known as El Castillo — a stepped pyramid whose 365 stairway treads and precise orientation encode the solar calendar. Twice yearly, at the equinoxes, the afternoon sun casts a serpent-like shadow that appears to descend the northern balustrade. Nearby stand the Great Ball Court, the largest in Mesoamerica; the Temple of the Warriors with its colonnaded halls; and the circular observatory called El Caracol.
Water shaped both the settlement's location and its beliefs. The site takes its name from the Sacred Cenote, a natural sinkhole used for ritual offerings, while cenotes across the surrounding karst supplied the freshwater that made urban life possible.
Built largely without metal tools, the architecture reflects sophisticated astronomical knowledge, skilled engineering, and a blending of Maya and Toltec-associated styles. Chichén Itzá was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988 and named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in 2007.
Today it ranks among Mexico's most visited archaeological zones, offering a vivid encounter with Maya civilization at its most ambitious and enduring. | |
| Project Description | Between 2014 and 2022, the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM) at the University of Houston conducted a series of aerial LiDAR surveys over Chichén Itzá and its surrounding landscape in the northern Yucatán, Mexico. This dataset draws on two of those campaigns — flights flown in 2017 and 2022 under the direction of Travis W. Stanton (University of California, Riverside) — carried out as part of long-term regional research into the monumental core, settlement, and hinterland of one of the largest Maya cities of the Terminal Classic and Early Postclassic periods.
Both campaigns were acquired with NCALM's Teledyne Optech Titan MW (multi-wavelength) multispectral LiDAR sensor. The Titan emits laser pulses simultaneously at three wavelengths — 1550, 1064, and 532 nm — through a single oscillating-mirror scanner, enabling terrain mapping alongside active multispectral characterization of ground cover in a single pass. Over central Yucatán the system was operated at a target density of roughly 15 laser shots per square meter, producing a canopy-penetrating "bare-earth" model capable of resolving low platforms, terraces, albarradas, and other subtle archaeological features otherwise obscured beneath vegetation. The multispectral returns additionally support surface classification and vegetation analysis beyond conventional single-wavelength LiDAR.
Together these surveys establish the master geospatial reference frame for the Chichén Itzá 3D Archaeological Atlas, aligning terrestrial LiDAR, aerial and terrestrial photogrammetry, mobile LiDAR, and structured-light artifact scans within a single, consistent coordinate system.
The point clouds published here have been trimmed to the portions of the site that are publicly accessible and regularly patrolled by on-site security forces. This restriction reflects both the operational realities of the archaeological zone and the stewardship priorities of its custodians; sensitive and restricted-access areas are deliberately excluded from the public distribution. Researchers requiring coverage beyond the released extent should contact the project contributors directly.
Data collection was carried out in coordination with the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH), Yucatán, under permits issued by the Consejo de Arqueología. The full survey series is distributed through NCALM/OpenTopography and forms part of the openly licensed record made available via OpenHeritage3D, ensuring long-term archival access to the raw and derived elevation products for research, conservation, and site-management applications.
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References & Data Sources
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Stanton, T. (2019). Lidar Transects along Yucatan Peninsula and San Gervasio, Mexico.
National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM). Distributed by OpenTopography.
https://doi.org/10.5069/G9H70CZ3
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McAvoy, S., Stanton, T.W., Rissolo, D., Osorio León, J.F.J., Pérez Ruiz, F.,
Fernández-Diaz, J.C., NCALM, CyArk, Kuester, F., et al. (2023).
Chichen Itza 3D Archaeological Atlas. University of California.
https://doi.org/10.34946/D6B88P
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Fernández-Diaz, J.C., Carter, W.E., Glennie, C., Shrestha, R.L., Pan, Z.,
Ekhtari, N., Singhania, A., Hauser, D., & Sartori, M. (2016).
Capability Assessment and Performance Metrics for the Titan Multispectral Mapping Lidar.
Remote Sensing, 8(11), 936.
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs8110936
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Stanton, T.W., Barth, N.C., Wheeler, J.A., et al.
Detection Thresholds of Archaeological Features in Airborne Lidar Data from Central Yucatán.
Advances in Archaeological Practice. Cambridge University Press.
Cambridge Core
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