PISTÉ Yucatan (INAH) – The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) denied the love story and promises that became a trend yesterday, Monday, with the Tijuana tourist who climbed the pyramid of Kukulcán in Chichén Itzá.
False, says the INAH.
Although in the first version, it was said that a woman wanted to fulfill the promise to her deceased husband, to spread his ashes in the Chichen castle, the institution pointed out that “at no time did she throw ashes or any other object.”
In a statement released Monday night, the Ministry of Culture of the Government of Mexico, through the INAH, assured that immediately, “the security personnel of the archaeological zone, in a peaceful manner, exhorted said person to come down from the pre-Hispanic structure and, once down, she was placed at the disposal of the municipal police.”
Likewise, lawyer José Arturo Chab Cárdenas, head of the legal department of the INAH Center, informed that the woman reached the last steps of the pyramid. However, she did not manage to enter the Kukulcan temple nor spread her late husband’s ashes from that height, as rumored in social networks.
“We have already talked to her, and she tells us that it is not true that she went up to throw her husband’s ashes away,” said the INAH official. “She reached the last steps, but she did not manage to enter the throne. It is not common for people to climb the pyramid. It is not possible to climb the monument. Wires surround it, but she jumped the fence and went up. We talked to her and the tour operator. They were requested to emphasize that they put the historical heritage of Yucatan at risk”.
In one of the videos posted on Facebook by a witness, the woman can be seen climbing and then descending on her own. When she was at the foot of the imposing 24-meter high pyramid, people criticized her for her audacity and asked for jail for her.
The response from INAH
The INAH issued a statement in which it informs the following: “The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) initiated an administrative file for the unauthorized access to the archaeological monument called El Castillo in the Archaeological Zone of Chichén Itzá, on Sunday, January 3, 2021”.
The INAH informs that at 13:40 hours of that day, the security protocols were activated in the Archaeological Zone of Chichén Itzá in Yucatán. The report indicated that a female person tried to access the pyramid called El Castillo by one of its lateral stairs.
The first investigations indicate that the female person is originally from Tijuana, Baja California, and arrived at Chichén Itzá through a tourist agency. The law enforcement agents informed INAH that the female was found to have diminished capacities at the time of the events due to intoxicating effects.
On his part, the lawyer José Arturo Chab Cárdenas, head of the Legal Department of the INAH in Yucatán, pointed out “that since Sunday, administrative file No. CINAH/YUC/JUR/01-2021 was opened for the facts which constitute an infraction to the Federal Law on Monuments and Archaeological, Artistic and Historical Zones. Therefore the alleged responsible parties were summoned to appear before the legal department of the INAH”.
Since 2008, INAH has forbidden to go up to the temples and main castles in the archaeological zones. In 2017, the INAH qualified as illegal a photograph of Chichén Itzá taken by a drone. After last Sunday’s event, the Institute urged to behave with respect for the heritage and comply with security measures.
The Yucatan Times
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