Mayan "Gateway to the Underworld" found....

MEXICO CITY - Mexican archeologists have discovered a maze of stone temples in underground caves, some submerged in water and containing human bones, which ancient Mayans believed was a portal where dead souls entered the underworld.

Clad in scuba gear and edging through narrow tunnels, researchers discovered the stone ruins of eleven sacred temples and what could be the remains of human sacrifices at the site in the Yucatan Peninsula.

www.msnbc.msn.com...

with so much going on in the world important discoveries like this get buried under the wave of current events. this find could really add credit to the 'inner earth' paradigm. also, there seem to be monthly 'new' discoveries about the Mayans as the final Baktun nears and 2012 looms in the not-to-distant future.

Actually the title of the article is "Portal to mythical Mayan underworld found" and the keyword here is *mythical. Admittedly this is an interesting find, however... I wonder how the archaeologist make the conclusion that this place is a gateway to the underworld versus a simple burial site???

Hey too bad they didn't find a stargate there...

So what is it with the 2012 thing??

Good archeological find! Seems like Indiana Jones down there.

I am still bamboozled about this entire 2012 deal. Who ever started this way back when is having a good laugh up in heaven, while we make a good fool out of ourselves. I'm just paranoid once this 2012 deal reaches mainstream media and have all these conspiracies nut cases make a fool out of our selves and set the rest of the world to hysteria on December 20th, 2012.

I know for myself I will go and do nothing. I can imagine the hysita on December 20th on ATS. The servers are going to go crazy.

Have a good debate!

I scuba dive, but I would be terribly afraid of bumping into skeletons underwater....in the dark...in a friggin' cave/abandoned Mayan slaughterhouse....at night. Very interesting OP.

Originally posted by mapsurfer_
dmittedly this is an interesting find, however... I wonder how the archaeologist make the conclusion that this place is a gateway to the underworld versus a simple burial site???

From what I could gather there are thought to be many 'gateways' to the mythical underworld, Xibalba. I'm not sure if a gateway to the underworld and a burial site are all that different when they were in use.

Originally posted by mapsurfer_
"Portal to mythical Mayan underworld found" and the keyword here is *mythical.

Do the mayans have a word for mythical?

Can please tell me what that is?

If not then it's not a key word....

reply to post by Z.S.P.V.G.


Great post! I suppose they will attempt to find the 'end' of these tunnels/caves? It will be very kewl to watch the finds of this unfold, thanks for the story.

reply to post by Torsten


scuba diving in caves is one of the most dangerous things you can do. i live in fla and hav been spring diving and both hated & loved it. i cannot imagine what diving those Mayan passages is like. i'd like to know more about this '300' ft long road.

The cenotes of the yucatan are cave like voids in the limestone of the Yucatan. They are now thought to be the eroded cracks left in the bedrock from the Chixulub impact event.
Over millions of years rainwater has seeped into them and made them into sinkholes, underground cave and river systems.
The large round depressions in the rock have filled with water, much in the way the springs in florida have.
The Maya who did have many "entrances to the under world", but at one cenote inparticular, this metaphor has a whole new meaning.
This cenote is very close to the shoreline, 1/4 mile?, and at one time the bottom was above sea level. This cenote is also on top of an underground river that flows out to the gulf of mexico. It is like an open manhole on a storm drain, if you drop something into it it gets carried along with the current.
Divers have found human remains deep in the cave, and it is well known that the Maya made human sacrifices at this cenote, they tossed people into what shoulld surely be a certain death.
This cenote and a river in Northen Guatemala are the 2 most important "entrance to the underworld"'s.
Ok, the awesome thing about the cenote, is that when divers were exploring it the found it went all the way to the sea.
And they found remains very deep into the system, at first they thought the people had been washed in by the current, but the found pockets of air in the tops of some chambers.
When the finally made it near to the end of the tunnel system, they found a shimmering "wall", light was coming through the wall in the water, yet they could not see beyond it.
And as they swam nearer, they began to feel the tidal surge washing into the passage, and the went from being, carried downsteam on the current, to being pushed from, then pulled towards.
The resistance and turbulance grew as the struggled to make it out the of the tunnel.
When the divers reached the shimmering wall they pushed through it with ease, and were then explelled from the cave by the tidal surge, and swam to the surface, just past the reef.
The shimmering wall is a sort of thermocline, a delineation of the cool fresh water and the warm salt water.
They think that at least one person survived the passage through the underworld, the world of the dead, to be reborn into the world of the living, once you were cast out of the underworld.
Imagine the terror of being swept underground into a chilly dark world, that you surely cant survive.You tumble along holding your breath for all its worth, then being thrust up into AIR. You cough and gasp for every breath as you cling to the rocks, but they are slick and your cold.
The darkness is unlike anything youve ever experienced.
You can only hear the sound of the water, and the never ending pull of the water. You cling to the rocks, not want to give into what we must all face, but it's a lost cause. Your muscles dont do what you tell them any more and you just let go of the rocks and succumb to the darkness.
Oh no, air again, and onced again your clinging to the rock with every last bit of strength. Yet the underwolrd pulls into it faster this time, and once agian you start to give into the darkness.
As you tumble along, you realize , YOUR DEAD, its just talking a little bit laonger than you thought.
The cold is now a comfort as an even greater darkness now surrounds you. Yet as you a pulled along you see A LIGHT, it cant be, but it is the river gets more turbulant, and the light grows.
Now you realize that you must swim with all your might to reach the light that is beyond this hell youve been through or youll remain down here for an eternity.
AS you reach through the shimmering wall, you are pulled out of the under world and cast back to the world of the living.
You think you might not make the surface, but you can see the birds flying over head, kits only a few feet now, then you break through the surface and gasp for that sweet real world air.
You pull yourself to shore, and lay there for a while, till the birds start to peck at you, and you can feel a crab crawling up your leg.
You jump up and run for the jungle. As you do you realize you know where you are, and you make for the village.
As you stagger into the village and collapse, your best friend, runs off in terror of you.
You see, he saw you fall into the cenote and get swept away, 2 days ago.
And he has every right to be you are agohst as far as he is concerned.

reply to post by mapsurfer_


The Mayan calendar ends at 2012 people have speculated that the world will end then. If you want more of a read on the Mayan calendar i have written an article on it at my blog matteroftruth.net.

This is actually pretty cool.

Punkin did you write that?
Where did you get that from?
Its a good story.

Originally posted by Shawn B.

Originally posted by mapsurfer_
"Portal to mythical Mayan underworld found" and the keyword here is *mythical.

Do the mayans have a word for mythical?

Can please tell me what that is?

If not then it's not a key word....

Excellent rebuttal of a pseudoskeptical argument

[edit on 18-8-2008 by Skyfloating]

reply to post by punkinworks


Star for you punkinworks, just for the prose itself!

Nice find Z.S.P.V.G. f & s for ya!

Oh! and mapsurfer, try the 'search' facility and punch in 2012 - you might be suprised. Failing that - 'google' it!

H

Well... if I am not mistaken.. That is the actual title of the article. It is a "myth" is the sense that the author believes it to be a gateway to the underworld. Only the ancient mayans know its true purpose. I certainly appreciate archeology, however I am a skeptic when people say "Oh this is a gateway to the underworld". I just cannot figure out how/why modern man attaches such labels to ancient stone structures. Some legend handed down from generation to generation... some glyphs???? I dunno.

If they said the great pyramid was a spaceship, would you believe it?

Havalon... what about 2012?? I see alot of people freaking out about a possible doomsday, moving into the nth dimension. Do you really believe that stuff?
Better start collecting those crystal skulls.


[edit on 18-8-2008 by mapsurfer_]

Exploring Myan ruins with my father twice, I became more frightened than I have ever been. It is almost as if things got into my head. Passageways to history with a sort of psychic message exist.

reply to post by mapsurfer_


The "entrance to the underworld" is a very important concept in mayan religion. There are many "entrances to the underworld" throughout the mayan world.
It is such an important concept that the idea was integrated into many facets of mayan life.
Whole city/temple complexes were designed around the idea of an entrance to the underworld.
And it not as though somebody just found an ancient temple and decided that it is the entrance to the underworld, these have names and are know through the translation of mayan texts.
At one of the northern cities, the king, at its height of power, made a pilgrimage to a important southern maya temple complex, on a river in Guatemala.
This must have been a very difficult journey, hundreds of miles through some of the densest jungle in the world, then over high mountains.
This temple is buillt on a river that "passes through the under world".
High in the mountains this river flows from a crack in the rock at the base of a very distinctive mountain.
It sits all alone and has a very conical shape to it, the river that flows out of the base is a big river, that just appears full size at the botom of the mountain.
As the river makes its way down to the lowlands it dissapears into a cave, this is one of the other "entrances to the underworld". again at the base of a mountain. From here it winds its way for several kilometers through the cave system before again emerging out of the base of the mountains.

Another several kilometers down the river the maya built a huge temple city dedicated to the "underworld". It had canals flowing through it with many temple buildings and was a place where maya from all over to make offerings, farmer and king alike.


Now when the northern king returns to his city state, the trek was so arduous, he set out to duplicate the concept of the "river of life flowing from the underworld" in the construction of a massive temple complex.
They built underground cannals to bring water in from springs,then the water went under a new kind of structure that represented the mountain from which the river of life flowed.
This new kind of structure, was the first mayan pyramid, and the main canal flowed underneath it before entering the city, there were undergroung chambers where the priests could make their offerings to the gods of the underworld.
In fact the idea of a cave representing the underwolrd is a very strong idea in mayan religion. So strong that when the spanish showed up and tried to christianize the maya and forbid them from their former practices, they spent hundreds of years carving out man made caves in secret, so that they could practice their true religion incognito.
They also hid copies of the main mayan religious books in the alter of a small local church, preserving them from destruction at the hands of the fanatical monks who came along with the spanish. So much was lost when nthe spanish burned the mayan and aztec libraries.
I believe these books were found again in the 1800's but not translated till recently.
The system of secret caves is still in use today, and the local will treck to the hillside out of town and make thier way into the network of tunnels and pray and make offerings .
Maya civilization may have died out but the maya culture lived on in the remote areas of central americas. They just abandonded their cities and went back to a simpler lifestyle that still persists today.

reply to post by punkinworks


Great description.

What an incredible rebirthing ritual that would be

Until of course, someone who didn't "get it" copied the ritual 100 miles inland and just started throwing people into a hole...they could never escape from... siiiiigh

I would love to dive any of these...

reply to post by mopusvindictus


exactly what i figured happened

thanks for the narrative... very informative.