Photograph from the Peabody Museum Archives, Harvard University. El Castillo, also known as the Temple of Kukulcan, dominates the center of the Chichen Itza. Built by the Mayans between the 9th and 12th centuries AD, it served as a temple to the god Kukulkan, the Maya feathered serpent deity closely related to the god Quetzalcoatl known to the Aztecs and other central Mexican cultures. The temple was built over an older, smaller pyramid which contained a number of chambers in which humans remains, statues and incense was discovered. Each of the 30m high pyramid's four sides has 91 steps which, when added together and including the temple platform on top as the final "step", produces a total of 365 steps – one for every day of the year. Chichen Itza was one of the largest Maya cities which was at the peak of its power from around 750-1050 AD, trading with many other Mayn kingdoms around the Yucatan peninsula. It was eventually conquered by the Spanish Conquistadors in the mid-16th century.