The Indian Express | 4 days ago | 24-11-2022 | 02:40 pm
The towering pyramid of El Castillo in Mexico’s Chichen Itza temple complex is one of the most recognisable monuments in the world. Earlier this week, a video of a woman tourist climbing up its steps and dancing there went viral.The video, originally posted on TikTok, shows a security guard following the woman and ushering her down the stairs as it is prohibited to climb the monument. The crowd of other tourists present at the Unesco World Heritage Site is seen booing and heckling the woman. Some even throw water at her as the security guard escorts her down.Many people can also be heard shouting ‘carcel’, or jail in Spanish, at the woman, with some of them screaming ‘sacrifice—alluding to the human sacrifices that the Mayans are said to have ritually done at the pyramid.A disrespectful tourist climbs an ancient Mayan pyramid in Mexico and gets booed pic.twitter.com/ZMAnwf0Euo— Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) November 21, 2022Obviously she was wrong to jump the fence and disrespect the monument, but it’s also kind of terrifying how quickly mobs can form. It looked some people were physically trying to get at her. This is a phenomenon of group behavior that shouldn’t be treated lightly.— 💭 (@DPEsposito) November 22, 2022The crowd yelling “jail, jail, jail!” makes me feel better about society seeing these acts as egregious rather than applaudable— Jonny Jon Jon Junior Shabadoo (@Not_ur_avg_Jon) November 21, 2022You’ll be shocked to find out that it was climbed by a 1000 people a day every day for decades and only recently stopped.— Throbert Bedford (@ThrobertBedford) November 21, 2022She’s Mexican, and was fined (200 USD aprox)https://t.co/AnO9YELPsz— Diego Montoya (@diegomontoyagom) November 22, 2022You can see the fence she hopped over in the video. Also, you may have noticed that she was the only one climbing – that should be a big hint that climbing isn’t allowed. pic.twitter.com/3Mtj5JuHue— Nick (@icmesccm) November 21, 2022Every place has their own rules regarding their heritage.. we used to be able to touch and walk through the stonehenge but bc people vandalised it and were being disrespectful, you can’t go too near it anymore since the 70s (i think)— ˗ˏˋ RENEW YOUNG ROYALS ˎˊ˗ ⁷ (@bridgepartinON) November 22, 2022Commenting on the video of the woman’s misdemeanour, a Twitter user wrote, “The crowd yelling “jail, jail, jail!” makes me feel better about society seeing these acts as egregious rather than applaudable”.Another person noted, “Obviously she was wrong to jump the fence and disrespect the monument, but it’s also kind of terrifying how quickly mobs can form. It looked some people were physically trying to get at her. This is a phenomenon of group behaviour that shouldn’t be treated lightly.”According to local reports, the woman is a Mexican and she was fined 5,000 pesos (approximately Rs 21,000). Since 2008, tourists are not allowed to climb the pyramid to preserve the monument and to avoid accidents related to people tripping over the steep steps.Additionally, climbing the pyramid is considered insensitive to local sentiments. The 30-metre-high pyramid has 90 steps on its four sides and together there are 356 of them representing the 365 days of a year.
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