more: El Castillo is widely believed to have been devoted to the feathered serpent god Kukulcan, but Cruz thinks it may also have been a temple to the rain god Chaac. Indeed, a mask of Chaac is found at the top of El Castillo and also in the Moon Pyramid. "The Mexican pyramids, with some imagination, can be considered musical instruments dating back to the Mayan civilisation," says Cruz, although he adds that there is no direct evidence that the Mayans actually played them.

Francisco Estrada-Belli, an archaeologist at Boston University, Massachusetts, says: "Most if not all Maya pyramids were conceived as sacred mountains, which were the places where the clouds gathered and created rain." H...

more: El Castillo is widely believed to have been devoted to the feathered serpent god Kukulcan, but Cruz thinks it may also have been a temple to the rain god Chaac. Indeed, a mask of Chaac is found at the top of El Castillo and also in the Moon Pyramid. "The Mexican pyramids, with some imagination, can be considered musical instruments dating back to the Mayan civilisation," says Cruz, although he adds that there is no direct evidence that the Mayans actually played them.

Francisco Estrada-Belli, an archaeologist at Boston University, Massachusetts, says: "Most if not all Maya pyramids were conceived as sacred mountains, which were the places where the clouds gathered and created rain." However, while the acoustics may have emphasised the metaphor of water, "the fact that there were echoes around them does not mean that they were musical instruments", he says - adding that Mayan texts do not mention such a use.