DE-948671

One or two weeks i've got this nice surprise in my mailbox, 2 new mexican unesco sites sent as officials by Claus "elbe" from Germany. It was a double surprise because i love getting new unesco cards and i really enjoy officials from someone i already "know". In this case, i've already received way to many cards from Claus :D

DE-948671, sent by Claus.

"The ensemble of buildings, sports facilities and open spaces of the Central University City Campus of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), was built from 1949 to 1952 by more than 60 architects, engineers and artists who were involved in the project. As a result, the campus constitutes a unique example of 20th-century modernism integrating urbanism, architecture, engineering, landscape design and fine arts with references to local traditions, especially to Mexico’s pre-Hispanic past. The ensemble embodies social and cultural values of universal significance and is one of the most significant icons of modernity in Latin America." - in: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1250 It was declared a World Heritage Site in 2007.

The Castillo (or castle in Spanish) is the monument that people think of when they think of Chichén Itzá. It is mostly Toltec construction, and it probably dates to the period of the first combination of cultures in the 9th century AD at Chichén. El Castillo is centrally located on the south edge of the Great Plaza. The pyramid is 30 meters high and 55 meters on a side, and it was built with nine succeeding platforms with four staircases. The staircases have balustrades with carved feathered serpents, the open-jawed head at the foot and the rattle held high at the top. The last remodel of this monument included one of the fanciest jaguar thrones known from such sites, with red paint and jade insets for eyes and spots on the coat, and flaked chert fangs. The principal stairway and entrance is on the north side, and the central sanctuary is surrounded by a gallery with the main portico.
Information about the solar, Toltec, and Maya calendars is carefully built into el Castillo. Each stairway has exactly 91 steps, times four is 364 plus the top platform equals 365, the days in the solar calendar. The pyramid has 52 panels in the nine terraces; 52 is the number of years in the Toltec cycle. Each of the nine terraced steps are divided in two: 18 for the months in the yearly Maya calendar. Most impressively, though, is not the numbers game, but the fact that on the autumnal and vernal equinoxes, the sun shining on the platform edges forms shadows on the balustrades of the north face that look like a writhing rattle snake." - in: http://archaeology.about.com/od/archaeologic7/ig/Chichen-Itza/El-Castillo.htm
Today "El Castillo" is one of the most recognized and widely visited pre-Columbian structures in present-day Mexico.
As one of the buildings the Chichen Itza archaeological site, El Castillo, also known as the Temple of Kukulkan, is on the World Heritage List since 1988.