While touring at Chichen Itza, your guide will undoubtedly ask you to clap your hands while standing on the broad field in front of the main step pyramid. What you hear is an odd chirping echo, caused (I’m guessing) by the many vertical steps which run up the side of the pyramid. Our guide explained that during equinox and solstice celebrations, the plain would be filled with drummers and clappers, and the echo returns must have truly sounded unworldly.

I immediately thought of my friend Tom and the fact that we could probably simulate just what that might sound like.

Toward that end, I did a quick google for “Chichen Itza acoustics”, and uncovered this paper summary which had an interesting theory: that the reflected echos were designed to sound like the chirps of the Quetzal bird. Interesting, and not unconvincing. It appears that my Googling is turning up a lot of other interesting phenomena that might bear additional study, but my lunch hour is over. I’ll have to try again later.