Day Six

Into the Underworld
We traveled to Chanona cave in Belize to better understand how the Maya used caves. Perhaps the answer to the collapse of the Maya would be found in the mysterious Underworld the Maya called Xibalba?

The skull of a Maya man who was perhaps sacrificed in the cave over a thousand years ago.

Our guides were an archaeologist named Polly Ann Peterson and a science writer/cave expert who calls himself, "Allen Cobb, the Science Slob." They led us up a muddy, winding path to the cave. It looked like the mouth of an enormous beast.

"Here's our first cool thing," said Polly. "We call him Dead Guy One." She pointed down the bones of an ancient Maya.

We crept on, passing hundreds of broken pottery vessels. Polly pointed out Dead Guy Two, whose bones were spread out like a yard sale.

	Dan Buettner finds an almost perfectly preserved Maya pot in the cave.

"We're pretty sure the Maya used this like a church," said Polly. "It was here the rulers held the ceremonies to ask for the weather they needed to survive."

If the rulers' ceremonies failed, the people not only lost their crops, they lost confidence in their leaders as well. Could this sequence of events be what led to the collapse of the Maya civilization?

As we were leaving, Bernadette slipped and cried out. Under her hand were the remains of a human lower jaw.

"What's wrong?" somebody asked.

"I think I just got bit by Dead Guy Three."

With our sense of humor still intact, we left the cave, each of us glad not to have become Dead Guy Four.

Pedals Up!

- Dan Buettner

< previous   MayaQuest Home   next >

MayaQuest is produced by Classroom Connect as part of The Quest Channel series of online adventures.