A Chirp Echo from El Castillo Pyramid
At Chichen Itza in Mexico, there is a Mayan ruin with a pyramid named El Castillo that produces an echo in response to a handclap. According to some authors, it sounds like the chirp of a quetzal bird. It was felt by Lubman and others that the periodic structure of the central staircase (see Fig. 1) is responsible for the chirp-like sound of the echo (Lubman, 1998a, b). Declercq, Degrieck, Briers, & Leroy (2004) performed a spectral analysis of the echo sound as recorded by Lubman and tried to find an explanation by applying optical diffraction theory to the periodic structure of the steps of the pyramid. Bilsen (2006), on the other hand, proposed an explanation based on auditory pitch theory, by considering the detailed time pattern of sound reflections from the steps of the staircase.
The El Castillo pyramid at the Mayan ruin at Chichen Itza in Mexico
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Bilsen, F.A. (2016). Acoustics at Chichen Itza. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7747-7_9798
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