Mayan mystery: Shock discovery made inside ‘cursed entrance to underworld’ revealed

The so-called entrance, which is actually a cenote – or sinkhole – was discovered in the city of Mayapan, just south of the Mexican town of Telchaquillo. Archaeologist Bradley Russell, from College of St Rose, and a group of divers bravely scaled-down roughly 20 metres into the unknown. But, the team had reason to be cautious.

Dr Russell explained to National Geographic why the sinkhole is said to be “evil”.

He said in 2014: “To this day, people do not get drinking water from that cenote, it is generally considered taboo.

“It’s off-limits, people do not let their children plan near there and there’s a lot of beliefs around this cenote having evil forces or malevolent forces associated with it.

“Cenotes are important because the main access to the water that you get is through these sinkholes. 

“They are also believed to be access to the Mayan underworld and the homes of Gods.

“Mayapan is a large city, it’s incredibly dense, there’s nothing like it in the classic period, it’s incredibly dense for Maya history, there’s nothing quite like it.”

Dr Russell went on to describe the task at hand.

He added: “It’s a walled city which is unusual, the wall includes a number of water-bearing cenotes, but what you see at Mayapan is that the wall diverts noticeably to the north around the cenote, then joins the next one down the line.

“It has struck researchers from the Thirties on as being incredibly unusual that it seems intentionally excluded, there’s no other cenote at the site quite like that.

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He added: “The second chamber was a real surprise to us, we weren’t looking to find a connected cave system that far away from the coast.

“So what you have is a tunnel barely big enough for a person with tanks to get through, then it opens up into a huge second cavern.

“The main thing that seems to be there is a lot of human remains, mostly concentrated in the southwest end.

“It’s my theory at the moment that they were essentially regular burials from people who had died on the surface.

“This is significant because they are clearly religiously powerful spaces and I suspect there will be some social differences.”

The Mayans, who are well known for their belief in the afterlife, also excelled at architecture, mathematics and astronomy.

Many of their impressive constructions, which date back as far as  2,000BC, can still be seen in the jungles of southeast Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and western parts of Honduras.

Experts are still encapsulated by how this ancient society was so advanced more than 4,000 years ago.

source: express.co.uk