One of my favorite places to go is el Cuadrángulo de los Pájaros, which is at Uxmal. So many people rush through it, maybe stopping to take a moment to take a photo of a worn carving of a bird, but sites here are largely unchanged rather than having a lot of signs explaining what they are and how to experience them, so visitors tend to hurry to get to the larger structures, to climb as high as they can, to get photos with the recognizable structure of the pyramid.
But if they slow down and stop, stay long enough to let the air still, they realize the Maya who built the cuadrangle did so in such a way that the small birds who fly overhead have their calls echoed by the walls of the quadrangle. It’s incredible really. The walls become an echo chamber of sound, of nature. It cannot be photographed or captured in any medium, really, how the birdsong bounces. It has to be experienced.
That part of Uxmal was largely complete by 900 AD.
We are not the first to appreciate nature.