RhiannonWalkerArticle

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MAYAN CULTURE
Whispers
WORDS:
Image by Rhiannon Walker
Rhiannon Walker
rs of the maya
WHISPER
The ancient Maya were very clever with their architectural acoustics. But are we,
thousands of years down the line, able to match them? Perhaps they were whispering their
secrets all along.
I
n the northern tropical rainforest
of the Yucatan, Mexico there is an
ancient city named Chichen Itza. The
remarkable history towering at this site is
enriched by the locals - the descendants
of the original Maya who settled there in
around 600AD. A lot that is to be learned
about their way of life comes directly from
the highest authority. It is this that makes
the experience of being at the site far more
informative than anything that could
be found in a book or film. Following
through old and new accounts of peoples
experiences can be a fascinating hobby.
Many visitors of the past and present day
have awed at the amazing sights and tried
to understand what it was about the Maya
that enabled them to create such immense
structures with such little tools. Are we,
today, as a culture able to match them
even with current day technology and
machinery?
The whispers of the past that emanate
from this site have proven to be ahead
They used their
feathers to decorate
themselves like
jewellery: it was the
gold of the tropical
rainforest.
Above Left: Image by
Edward Weston
Above Right: Image by
Rhiannon Walker
of their time in terms of their
precise architectural acoustics.
At the base of the pyramid of
Kukulkan you can clap to the
tune of the sacred Quetzal bird.
The Maya believed the bird
to be of limitless value. They
used their feathers to decorate
themselves like jewellery: it
was the gold of the tropical
rainforest.
The Maya didn’t just stop
at clapping though, they also
made other acoustic effects at
the Kukulkan pyramid. For
example if you sit at the base of
the pyramid simultaneously as
people are climbing the steps
behind you, you will hear their
steps echoing as raindrops.
This was of significant
importance to them in a similar
sense to the Quetzal. Being a
rainforest tribe they worshiped
the rain with as much
seriousness as they worshiped
the Quetzal bird.
Unfortunately this effect is
now only a whisper of the past
due to the preservation of what
is considered to be one of the
new 7 wonders of the world. To
prevent erosion to Kukulkan,
people are no longer permitted
to climb the pyramid.
Today we have a greater
understanding of how much
accuracy these acoustics need
to be successful. It is beyond
question that the Maya wanted
the sounds to match the
Quetzal bird and raindrops as
accurately as possible.
Julian Treasure makes an
argument that current day
architects need to use their ears
more. This isn’t just because of
religious beliefs or ceremonial
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MAYAN CULTURE
practices but for practical everyday life.
Modern, and what is considered to be hightech, classrooms contained within a space
outputting a reverb time of 2 seconds proves
to be very impractical and to most people
indecipherable. Where as if the rooms were
designed to give a reverb time of 0.4 seconds
the result for the listener is the opposite, the
echo is of perfect time that it supports the
speaker rather than clouds them. It makes
a much more comprehensible environment
for learning. In most cases this isn’t a costly
adjustment to the design of the building, it
is just an aspect that is not considered. It is
useless having a large projected screen of the
speaker and a small ineffective microphone.
You can hear without seeing but you can’t
understand just with sight alone.
The Maya would have had to design the
size of their stairs precisely to achieve such
lifelike results using reverb times, and there
is evidence on previous smaller pyramids
of experimentation in stair size, depth and
height. Trial and error was a valuable piece
of kit in the toolbox. Today we struggle to
create a working environment with all of that
knowledge already in the bag. This is not
a skill we have never known, it it one that
is simply lost in all of our progressions in
cultural preferences.
Remarkably, the brilliance of the Maya’s
intelligence doesn’t end there, they too
communicated to large groups of people.
They had a need to have educational
environments just like we do today. Their
intentions also to spread knowledge as well
as hold religious events.
It was told to me by locals at the city
of Chichen Itza that they did this by also
engineering the Kukulkan pyramid to act
as an ancient ‘microphone’. It was possible
for the leader of the tribe to stand tall at the
top of the pyramid and speak to his people
24 metres down to the ground below. This
was how they conducted their religious
ceremonies.
They considered this particular pyramid
to be of significant importance. It is believed
that there was a leader who fell
from the stars to enlighten the
tribe and teach them new efficient
ways of life. Kukulkan is a tribute
to this ‘Serpent King’ so it is only
fitting that it was built to such an
extraordinary standard and used
to spread knowledge and wisdom.
Similar to the Kukulkan
pyramid, the ancient ball court
at the city of Chichen Itza had
acoustic properties used to make
announcements to large groups of
people. It is said that a whisper
can clearly be heard 500 feet
across this great ancient stadium.
The total distance of the court
measuring 545 feet long and 225
feet wide and completely open to
the stars that the Maya so adored.
As it is easy to imagine, it
was very practical for the sports
played within this space that
they had a way of communicating
It almost seems as though, even
thousands of years ago, they had
identified the basics and the art of
creating good musical acoustics.
Above Left: Image by
Andrew Crump
Above Right: Image by
Elea Chang
without the interruption of gathering people
into a small audible space every time
communication was needed with the tribes.
There were many consequences for the losing
tribes and they took the games very seriously.
Something truly astonishing about this
ball court’s acoustics though is that the
speech travelling in the air is completely
unaffected by the open air nature of the
structure. Wind direction, temperature and
time of day have no effect on whispered,
spoken and shouted voices.
This is something that has definitely
been matched by modern architecture on
an indoor scale. The whispering galleries in
St Paul’s Cathedral have similar attributes
created in a circular fashion rather than in
rectangular. The experience of being inside
the Cathedral while whispering is very
atmospheric, enveloping and almost personal
where as in the outdoor Mayan predecessor
it was perhaps the opposite: very open and
communal.
The positions of the Maya and Modern
society have essentially swapped within
these four examples of both past and present.
The goal of the clap was to create a sacred
experience using acoustics, with little need
for practicality like the classroom needed.
The ball court created a practical area for
announcements to the masses where as St
Paul’s Cathedral wanted to use the acoustics
to create a spiritual environment.
In 1931 a famous conductor named
Leopold Stokowski spent 4 days studying
the acoustic properties of these sites at
the ancient city of Chichen Itza to try and
understand how they could be applied to an
open air concert theatre he was designing.
He was unsuccessful in gaining any tangible
knowledge on how to construct such a
phenomenon.
In modern day open air concert
theatres the same principles are still
being considered. Stokowski’s attempts to
understand the Maya’s skill are still being
repeated. As pointed out by Michael Barron
in his book ‘Auditorium Acoustics and
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MAYAN CULTURE
Architectural Design’ music and speech have
some comparable qualities which make it
relevant for people like Stokowski to study
Chichen Itza. It makes sense then that the
Maya have something to teach us in terms
of musical acoustics as well as speech. The
frequency ranges and the way the sound of
music and speech reacts in a room is almost
identical for both. The book does however go
on to demonstrate how music requires a lot
more qualities to be successful in the ears of
both the musicians and the audience.
Unlike modern day outdoor concert
theatres, the Maya didn’t have to face the
problems Michael Barron mentions about
the difference between musical and speech
tones. Because the Maya only primarily used
their acoustics for speech they didn’t have to
consider musical tone and quality of song.
There would be no complaining musicians
about their craft not being correctly
portrayed. They had different priorities in
how they wanted their sound portrayed.
Despite the fact they didn’t have a
necessity for musical depth to
their whispering monuments
their output could be closely
compared to the 5 independent
dimensions needed for
successful musical sound
established by Hawkes and
Douglas in 1971. Clarity in the
fine tuning produced by a clap
that mimics the Quetzal bird.
Reverberance in the repetitive
echoes that correctly identify
how the tone of the bird and rain
sounds. Envelopment around the
area of the Kukulkan pyramid
that includes only those in
proximity to the base. Intimacy
with the religious relationship
they had with the bird and rain
and finally loudness for the
successful amount of accurately
sized stairs giving the correct
volume.
It almost seems as though,
even thousands of years ago, they had
identified the basics and the art of creating
good musical acoustics. They had a talent for
sound and architecture combined. Modern
day architects are struggling to keep up with
what has already been done with far less
machinery, a substantially long time in the
past.
Whether it is fair to make an architectural
or acoustic comparison between this ancient
culture and modern day culture is up for
debate. Both have very different objectives
for what they want to achieve with their
monuments and the relationship they
have with sound. It is likely fair to say that
perhaps the Maya achieved these more
than we do today. This historical tribe had
an impenetrable, audible relationship with
their sacred monuments. In the true spirit of
the Maya, they whispered their knowledge
down through centuries. We certainly have
the tools and the technology to recreate
their craft but maybe we don’t have the right
mindset for their beautiful rainforest artwork.