Deep in an underwater cave located 4.6 meters below sea level was an ancient canoe surrounded by skeletons. The vessel was found in the Yucatan Peninsula, near the well-known city of Chichén Itzá. What is surprising is that, according to the researchers, this is the place where the Mayans placed the entrance to the underworld.
A team of underwater archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) discovered the boat in 2021 along with up to 38 skeletal remains, including a human metatarsus (foot bone) that probably belonged to a woman and bones from up to six different animals such as the armadillo, the dog, the turkey or the eagle.
The abundance of armadillo remains and the presence of the human foot have led experts to conclude that the monoxyl canoe (one piece) may have been used by the Maya during a ritual and was intentionally placed inside the San Andrés cenote before let it flood.
The researchers have exposed, in a congress organized by the National Autonomous University of Mexico, that the analyzes carried out in recent months indicate that the armadillo remains could be an “allusion to the entrance of the underworld”, as explained in a statement.
Expert swimmers, armadillos are able to hold their breath underwater and use their claws to propel themselves forward. Its abundant presence next to the canoe would be an allusion to the entrance of said animal to the subterranean world inhabited by spirits.
The ancient Maya had the conception that flooded and semi-flooded caves and cenotes (flooded geological depressions of karstic origin) acted as portals to said cosmogonic space. In addition, Mayan ceramic images are known in which the armadillo appears as a “stool of the gods”, with characters that place their feet on it.
The work in the laboratory has allowed a 3D model of the boat to be made and its dimensions have been specified: 2.15 meters in length, 45 centimeters in width and 36.5 centimeters in height. Archaeologists believe that the boat had ritual use, a detail that even its morphology conveys, with a very heavy prow and stern.
This characteristic would have limited its navigation capacity in more dynamic waters, so the INAH researchers do not rule out that it had been created for symbolic purposes. Carbon 14 dating indicates that the wood used in its construction dates from the 16th century.
That would indicate that the ritual practices associated with the caves continued even after the Spanish conquest had arrived. Even so, specialists consider that new dives are necessary to take additional samples of wood and bone material in the San Andrés cenote.
