A Reexamination of the Substructure Inside the Castillo at Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico

Abstract. The Castillo (also known at the Temple of Kukulkan) is one the most iconic structures in Mesoamerica. This temple-pyramid towers over the main plaza of the civic-ceremonial city of Chichen Itza, which once dominated the political and economic landscape of the northern Maya lowlands. Reported here are the preliminary results of a multimodal and multiresolution scanning campaign and fusion of 3D data outputs intended to more accurately record the physical attributes of the earlier temple-pyramid inside the Castillo, known as the Castillo-sub, and examine the spatial and architectonic relationships between the two structures. A focus of our scanning campaign involved the upper façades of the sub-temple and the Chacmool and jaguar throne sculptures inside the sub-temple itself. Structured-light scans of the upper façades now serve as the definitive representation of this portion of the Castillo-sub.