« Do you have a Celebrity Life Traveling Companion? | Main | You'd think school had started or something - but no! »
August 25, 2008
Portal to Maya Underworld
A labyrinth filled with stone temples and pyramids in 14 caves—some underwater—have been uncovered on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, archaeologists announced last week.The discovery has experts wondering whether Maya legend inspired the construction of the underground complex—or vice versa.
According to Maya myth, the souls of the dead had to follow a dog with night vision on a horrific and watery path and endure myriad challenges before they could rest in the afterlife.
In one of the recently found caves, researchers discovered a nearly 300-foot (90-meter) concrete road that ends at a column standing in front of a body of water.
. . .
"These were probably made as part of a very elaborate ritual," de Anda said. "Everything is related to death, life, and human sacrifice."
Full-scale models of the entrance to the Underworld! Coolness!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at August 25, 2008 9:34 AM
Comments
Your posting takes me back to December 1973 when, in my senior year of undergraduate architecture, I went on a 3 week trip to Mexico and the Yucatan to study Mayan ruins. It was awe-inspiring in so many ways. Perhaps the highlight of the trip was visiting the recently (at the time) opened tomb of K'inich Janaab' Pakal at Palenque in the Mexican State of Chiapas.
From Wikipedia "In 1952 Alberto Ruz Lhuillier removed a stone slab in the floor of the back room of the temple superstructure to reveal a passageway (filled in shortly before the city's abandonment and reopened by archeologists) leading through a long stairway to Pakal's tomb...Unique to Pakal's tomb is the psychoduct, which leads from the tomb itself, up the stairway and through a hole in the stone covering the entrance to the burial."
I vividly remember squeezing through that opening and crawling down that "psychoduct", terrified of what might be waiting for me at the other end. As claustrophobic as I am, it was worth it.
Posted by: bucko at August 25, 2008 12:28 PM
errrrr, thanks CP for pointing out that I'm not 4 years older than I thought I was - it was December '77.
Posted by: bucko at August 26, 2008 6:54 AM