What is the name of the pyramid at Chichen Itza known for its serpent shadow? It is El Castillo, also called the Temple of Kukulcán. The stepped pyramid was built by the Maya at Chichen Itza as a temple associated with Kukulcán, the Yucatec Maya Feathered Serpent deity.
Near the spring and autumn equinoxes, sunlight strikes the pyramid's northwest corner in the late afternoon. The geometry of the terraces and balustrade produces a series of triangular shadows that appear to form a descending serpent. The effect is especially famous because it visually connects the architecture with Kukulcán, although researchers continue to debate how deliberately the phenomenon was engineered. The shadow can be observed, with changing clarity, for several weeks around the equinoxes.
El Castillo is not the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan, the Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque, or the Great Pyramid of Tikal. The name El Castillo is Spanish for “the castle”; Kukulcán is the temple's Maya religious association and its most precise traditional identification.