A discovery over 1000 years old: the Cave of the Jaguar God has preserved the history of the Mayan civilization
The discovery of the cave system known as Balamku, or the "Jaguar God," was announced by the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico (INAH) at a press conference held in Mexico City. Advanced technologies are being used to study it.
The underground monument was first discovered in 1966. However, instead of excavating, the entrance was sealed almost immediately. "More than half a century later, scientists managed to access it," writes National Geographic.
The cave was initially discovered by farmers
The history of the cave dates back to 800 AD when the Maya people of the Yucatan Peninsula faced a severe drought at the beginning of the Western Classic era. In search of water, they began to inhabit natural branched caves, which were fed by groundwater. There, the Maya found not only water but also new hope.
The Balamku, or "Jaguar God," cave was first discovered in 1966 by farmers who later reported their discovery to local authorities. Archaeologist Victor Segovia Pinto arrived at the site and documented the presence of a large amount of archaeological material. However, instead of conducting excavations, he ordered the entrance to be sealed.
In 2018, during other archaeological work, National Geographic researcher Guillermo de Anda and his team from the Maya Great Aquifer project rediscovered the cave in a different location.
Secrets of the great city of Chichen Itza
De Anda recalls crawling for hours on his stomach through the narrow tunnels of Balamku before his lantern illuminated the underworld left behind by the ancient inhabitants of Chichen Itza. They are so well preserved that stalagmites have formed around the censers, vases, decorated plates, and other objects in the cave.
Artifacts were found in the cave, some of which bear the face of the Toltec rain god Tlaloc, while others bear marks of the sacred ceiba tree, a powerful representative of the Mayan universe.
The researchers of the Great Maya Aquifer Project see the rediscovery of Balamku as an opportunity to implement an entirely new model of cave archaeology that utilizes advanced technology and specialized fields such as 3-D mapping and paleobotany. This new knowledge can provide us with a much more detailed picture of what actually occurred in Mayan cave rituals, as well as the history of the great city of Chichen Itza, which declined for unknown reasons in the 13th century.
The study of the cave will also shed light on the catastrophic droughts that likely triggered the decline of the Mayan civilization. While the area has always been subject to sharp cycles of climate variability, some researchers suggest that excessive deforestation in the Maya lowlands, once home to some 10-15 million people, may have exacerbated the problem and rendered the entire region uninhabitable.