Before we had iPhone alerts\u00a0and Google Doodles to let us know that the autumnal equinox had arrived, ancient civilizations had to rely on, you know, actual sun to measure time. Revolutionary, eh? The practice of marking the passing seasons using the sun was once thought to have developed to help agricultural societies, though developing research shows that even nomadic peoples used the solstices and equinoxes to spur\u00a0seasonal migration patterns.<\/p>\n
In celebration of today, let’s\u00a0hop on some round trip flights around the world and see just a scattering of the many structures (that you can visit!) that people built eons ago to celebrate the equinox:<\/p>\n
Perhaps the most famous of the Mayan ruins, they built the El Castillo pyramid in an ode to Kukulkan, the serpent deity, in 1000 CE. When the autumn or spring equinox sunset, intricately calculated architecture has a body of light, in the shape of a serpent, snake down the pyramid’s steps to reach a carved head of Kukulkan.<\/p>\n