Archaeologists discover 1,000-year-old ‘untouched’ Maya ritual site containing hundreds of ceramic vessels, burnt offerings, and fragments of bone in Mexican cave
- The ritual cave was discovered at the ruins of the ancient Maya city Chichen Itza, on the Yucatan Peninsula
- There they found about 200 ceramic vessels left as offerings, containing bone fragments and burnt materials
- The team says the cave likely had been discovered, but not fully explored, by locals about 50 years earlier
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Archaeologists have stumbled upon an ‘untouched’ ritual cave on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula that could hold the key to unraveling the fall of the Maya Empire.
At the ruins of the ancient city Chichen Itza, the team found roughly 200 ceramic vessels left as offerings more than 1,000 years ago.
And remarkably, it seems they’ve remained undisturbed since.
The National Institute of Anthropology and History said the vessels appear to date back to around A.D. 1000 and contain bone fragments and burnt offering materials that are being analyzed.
Archaeologist Guillermo de Anda stands next to pre-columbian artifacts in a cave at the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico. Mexican archaeologists say they have found offerings of about 200 ceramic vessels in nearly untouched condition. The National Institute of Anthropology and History says the vessels appear to date back to around 1,000 A.D
Archaeologist Guillermo de Anda said exploration of the cave began in 2018 after local Maya residents told experts about it.
It turned out the cave had been discovered, but apparently not fully explored, by locals about 50 years earlier.
They told an archaeologist about it then, but he ordered it sealed – perhaps to protect it – and only issued a brief report that was essentially forgotten in government archives.
The 155 ceramic braziers and incense burners found by the experts bear the likeness of Tlaloc, the rain god of central Mexico.
The Mayas also had their own rain god, Chaac, and may have imported Tlaloc from other pre-Hispanic cultures.
There were also clay boxes and other vessels. The team plans to leave all the objects in the cave.
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Archaeologists have stumbled upon an ‘untouched’ ritual cave on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula that could hold the key to unraveling the fall of the Maya Empire. Above, pre-columbian artifacts sit in a cave at the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza
Archaeologist Guillermo de Anda said exploration of the cave began in 2018 after local Maya residents told experts about it. It turned out the cave had been discovered, but apparently not fully explored, by locals about 50 years earlier
De Anda said ancient Mayas had to crawl on their bellies through the extremely narrow cave to deposit the offerings inside a few larger, higher chambers. The offerings were apparently meant to ask for rain.
The cave, called Balamku, is about 1.7 miles (2.75 kilometers) east of the main pyramid of Kukulkan, also known as El Castillo, ‘The Castle.’
De Anda and his team are exploring Chichen Itza to establish the routes and sites of its underground water system.
A series of sinkhole lakes known as cenotes are visible on the surface of the Chichen Itza site, but there are other, undiscovered water sites beneath the pyramids, patios and temples.
The 155 ceramic braziers and incense burners found by the experts bear the likeness of Tlaloc, the rain god of central Mexico. The Mayas also had their own rain god, Chaac, and may have imported Tlaloc from other pre-Hispanic cultures
The National Institute of Anthropology and History said the vessels appear to date back to around A.D. 1000 and contain bone fragments and burnt offering materials that are being analyzed
Water was always central to Chichen Itza, whose very name means ‘at the mouth of the well of the Water Wizards’ in Maya.
De Anda said experts have crawled a few hundred meters (yards) into the cave, which in places is just 16 inches (40 centimeters) tall, in hopes of finding the connection to a cenote cave believed to lie under the pyramid of Kukulkan.
‘Let’s hope this leads us there,’ De Anda said.
‘That is part of the reason why we are entering these sites, to find a connection to the cenote under the Castillo.’
WHAT CAUSED THE COLLAPSE OF THE MAYAN CIVILISATION?
For hundreds of years the Mayans dominated large parts of the Americas until, mysteriously in the 8th and 9th century AD, a large chunk of the Mayan civilisation collapsed.
The reason for this collapse has been hotly debated, but now scientists say they might have an answer – an intense drought that lasted a century.
Studies of sediments in the Great Blue Hole in Belize suggest a lack of rains caused the disintegration of the Mayan civilisation, and a second dry spell forced them to relocate elsewhere.
The theory that a drought led to a decline of the Mayan Classic Period is not entirely new, but the new study co-authored by Dr André Droxler from Rice University in Texas provides fresh evidence for the claims.
The Maya who built Chichen Itza came to dominate the Yucatan Peninsula in southeast Mexico, shown above, for hundreds of years before dissappearing mysteriously in the 8th and 9th century AD
Dozens of theories have attempted to explain the Classic Maya Collapse, from epidemic diseases to foreign invasion.
With his team Dr Droxler found that from 800 to 1000 AD, no more than two tropical cyclones occurred every two decades, when usually there were up to six.
This suggests major droughts occurred in these years, possibly leading to famines and unrest among the Mayan people.
And they also found that a second drought hit from 1000 to 1100 AD, corresponding to the time that the Mayan city of Chichén Itzá collapsed.
Researchers say a climate reversal and drying trend between 660 and 1000 AD triggered political competition, increased warfare, overall sociopolitical instability, and finally, political collapse – known as the Classic Maya Collapse.
This was followed by an extended drought between AD 1020 and 1100 that likely corresponded with crop failures, death, famine, migration and, ultimately, the collapse of the Maya population.
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