Xiaolin Showdown background aesthetic, “Ring of the Nine Dragons” (part 1/3)
bonus, b/c the carvings on the walls of the temple are cool in my opinion:
So a bit of a historical note:
I think it’s more than likely these are Mayan temples, as most Aztec structures were destroyed when the Spanish arrived. The time period during which Dashi would have come to hide the wu in the temple would be during the Mayan Classical Period, which lasted 250-900 AD. Large cities in the southern lowlands were abandoned at the end of this period, theories vary on why exactly. These cities were mostly hidden by vegetation growing and overtaking them. Which is pretty much why they weren’t torn apart by the colonizers when they arrived.
Temple of Kukulcán, Chichen Itza - a post-classical temple, but still an example of what happened.
(Look if there was anything I learned from my Latin American Art class, it was whatever is still intact of pre-columbian Mesoamerica and South America was hidden away somehow, whether by dumb chance, abandoned at the time of the Spaniards arrival, or are part of burial sites)
So when Dashi arrived, the area would have been a thriving city square and rituals going on in the pyramid.
