Dance Platform - Chichen Itza

 

Gordon Nicolson

  1891 - 1975 (biography)

c. 1940  

silver print photograph 

16 x 19 15/16" image and paper 

artist's stamp verso 

not stated 

ink titled, lower left; studio stamp on verso: "All Rights Reserved. No Reproduction / and No Cropping Permitted without / Permission in Writing / Gordon Nicolson." 

 

wove photography paper mounted to a white and cream pebble mat board. 

 

artist 

19685 

$600.00 

'Dance Platform' is from a series of photographs of pre-Columbian ruins by California photographer Gordon Nicolson. Little is known about Nicolson except that he had a studio in Berkeley, California and he died in Walnut Creek, California in February, 1975 at age 84.

Chichen Itza is a Mayan civilization site, located on the northern center of the Yucatan Peninsula and contains what is known as the Temple of Warriors.

The Dance Platform is also known as The Great Platform of Venus is also known as the Tomb of the Chac Mool because a Chac Mool sculpture was discovered inside the platform when it was excavated. The platform is an 83 foot squared platform built in the talud-tablero (slope-panel) style. There are steps on all four sides leading to Plumed Serpents heads guarding the platform at the top. The side panels have mythical creatures of part eagle, serpent, jaguar and human forms.

Chichen was a major focal point in the northern Maya lowlands from the Late Classic (AD 600-900) through the Terminal Classic (AD 800-900). The site exhibits a multitiude of architectural styles, reminiscent of styles seen in central Mexico and of the Puuc and Chenes styles of the northern Maya lowlands.

Chichen Itza was one of the largest Maya cities and it was likely to have been one of the mythical great cities. The city may have had the most diverse population in the Maya world, a factor that could have contributed to the variety of architectural styles at the site.

From 800 to 925 A.D., the foundations of this magnificent civilization weakened, and the Maya abandoned their religious centers and the rural land around them. Chichen Itza was visited only to perform religious rites or bury the dead. By the 10th century A.D. the Mayas returned to Chichen Itza.