Mayans Myth and Reality

Myth and Reality

Archaeologists excavating the temples and pyramids in the village of Tahtzibichen, in Mérida, the capital of Yucatán state, said the oldest item they found was a 1,900-year-old vessel. Other uncovered earthenware and sculptures dated to A.D. 750 to 850.

"There are stones, huge columns, and sculptures of priests in the caves," said de Anda, whose team has been working on the Yucatán Peninsula for six months.

"There are also human remains and ceramics," he said.

Researchers said the ancient legend—described in part in the sacred book Popul Vuh—tells of a tortuous journey through oozing blood, bats, and spiders, that souls had to make in order to reach Xibalba, the underworld.

"Caves are natural portals to other realms, which could have inspired the Mayan myth. They are related to darkness, to fright, and to monsters," de Anda said, adding that this does not contradict the theory that the myth inspired the temples.

William Saturno, a Maya expert at Boston University, believes the maze of temples was built after the story.

"I'm sure the myths came first, and the caves reaffirmed the broad time-and-space myths of the Mayans," he said.

Underworld Entrances

Saturno said the discovery of the temples underwater indicates the significant effort the Maya put into creating these portals.

In addition to plunging deep into the forest to reach the cave openings, Maya builders would have had to hold their breath and dive underwater to build some of the shrines and pyramids.

Other Maya underworld entrances have been discovered in jungles and aboveground caves in northern Guatemala Belize.

"They believed in a reality with many layers," Saturno said of the Maya. "The portal between life and where the dead go was important to them."

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The Watery Graves of the Maya

On the third day it was my turn to test God's vigilance, letting the metal chair plop me down into the cool pond like a piece of bait. Treading water, I adjusted my eyes to the moonlight of the cave. The cenote was shaped like an old Chianti bottle—a narrow neck leading to a wide chamber about 90 feet (30 meters) across and 120 feet (40 meters) deep. The bottle was half full, the water surface 35 feet (11 meters) below the domed ceiling. Stalactites dripped, and the roots of trees were spread on the walls in delicate dark webbing. Spanish records tell how live victims were thrown into the sacred cenote at Chichén Itzá, a major Maya city, on the premise that, as sacrifices to the gods, they would not die—even though they were never seen again. I scanned the slick limestone walls, and my heart pounded, feeling their terror.

Sinking deeper into the white noise of pressure, I bottomed out at 50 feet (20 meters) and glided across piles of shattered limestone. A side cave, shaped like a sock, spun down and off to the west. Resting in the sand was a mahogany-hued skeleton, already tagged, the eye orbits of its skull bleak with expectations of eternity.

A few days later the National Instutute of Anthropology and History scientists brought him up. It was the first skeleton of its kind—with all its bones in their natural positions, undisturbed—ever found underwater in the Yucatán. He was a large man, perhaps 50 years old, well past the Maya life expectancy. "His health was bad," said Terrazas after examining the bones, "with arthritis so severe that he could barely flex his hands. He had terrible teeth problems—gingivitis—and he probably had a very hard time chewing."

He was lying face up on the sand. Was it an accident? "No," said Terrazas. "There are nine skeletons down there [eight are partial]. Maybe one is there from an accident, but not nine."

When the car winch pulled up the bones of the old man, the three women who had made quesadillas for us the previous night were standing by the well. I asked them what they thought of our mission. "We didn't expect skeletons," said one, Olegaria Chiku. "For us, a cenote is just a hole with water. But my mother lived around here, and she said that we needed to give the cenote 15 virgins, and God would open up a road to bring in the gold that we know is down there."

Until the 1960s many people, including many archaeologists, thought virgins were the only individuals whose stories had ended in the cenotes. "We learned then that they were not all young girls," said Carmen Rojas, the underwater archaeologist who oversees data processing for the survey project. "And now we know that they were not all sacrifices."

Source: Priit J.Vesilind

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Mayan “Highway to Hell” Discovered

Mayan legend, as described in their sacred book named the Popul Vuh—”tells of a tortuous journey through oozing blood, bats, and spiders, that souls had to make in order to reach Xibalba, the underworld”.

In a cave recently found near Mérida, the capital of Yucatán State in Mexico, researchers have discovered a 90-meter paved road that ends at a column standing in front of a body of water. Within the same cave are walled off rooms, an altar and a submerged temple.

Did they build within the cave first, and the legend of Xibalba followed later? Or did the discovery of the cave validate the existing legend? These are questions puzzling researchers. But there is no doubt that these caves, currently full of water, were used for Mayan rituals.

A labyrinth filled with stone temples and pyramids in 14 caves—some underwater—have been uncovered on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, archaeologists announced recently.

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.

"We have this pattern now of finding temples close to the water—or under the water, in this most recent case," said Guillermo de Anda, lead investigator at the research sites.

"These were probably made as part of a very elaborate ritual," de Anda told National Geographic News in August. "Everything is related to death, life, and human sacrifice."

Stretching south from southern Mexico, through Guatemala, and into northern Belize, the Maya culture had its heyday from about A.D. 250 to 900, when the civilization mysteriously collapsed.

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Mayans : 2012

According to Carlos Barrios in his book "Kam Wuj, El Libro del Destino", the Fourth World, of a highly materialistic nature, finished on 16th August, 1987, the day of the Harmonic Convergence. At that point, the world entered a time of major transition, during which there is a colossal global convergence of environmental destruction, social chaos, war, and on-going Earth changes. This in-between period will continue until the Winter Solstice 2012. It will be a time of rebirth, the beginning of the Fifth World, a new era when people live in harmony with Mother Earth, a time of fusion and integration of Life and Light. (Similar and consistent understandings have been shared by Hopi and other American Indian Elders, along with Eskimo "Grandparents").


The Mayans explain how the entire solar system orbits around Alcyone, its "Central" star of our galaxy, yet Alcyone is far from the actual Galactic Centre. It takes the solar system 26,000 earth years to complete each orbital cycle around Alcyone. This orbital cycle can in turn be divided into five sectors of 5,200 years, with each sector representing an "age" or "world".


At the Winter Solstice of 2012 both the 26,000 year and the 5,200 year cycles are completed prior to the birth of the new cycles and a new world. The alignment of Earth, Sun and Alcyone with the actual centre of the Galaxy at this time will allow a momentary but massive ray of Galactic Light to illuminate, purify and energise the Earth and its life forms. This will permit and facilitate our movement to the next dimensional reality, a quantum leap for those individuals who have made the choice to prepare themselves for this major transition. The Mayans indicated that the scale and nature of this leap is the first such occurrence in human evolution.

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