Ancient Mayans Civilization
The Maya civilization was one of the most indigenous societies of Mesoamerica. The Rise of the Maya began about 250 Ce In the east of Mexico, there is a dense forest where you could only see trees and trees far and wide. Amidst this dense forest, There is a location where a trail passing between rocks goes deep inside the earth. A team of archaeologists decided to go inside this cave-like tunnel.
They believed there was something abnormal inside this cave. It was quite risky to go inside it without any professional equipment as the passage was quite narrow and surrounded by complete darkness.
With several hours of hard work, archaeologists were able to reach 230 feet down at the bottom of the cave. Initially, they didn’t find anything interesting but suddenly they found a secret chamber.
Whose entrance was blocked with a rock? Now the question was who built that secret chamber 230 feet down at the bottom of this cave in a deserted forest and when and why was it sealed?
This dense forest in the East of Mexico spread across 3 million km². Hidden under the sea of leaves and branches, are the secrets of the lost world of Mayan civilization.
In the past, this entire forest used to be under Mayan civilization where they had built many cities.
People of this civilization were considered skillful because like ancient Egyptians they had constructed pyramids and cities along with that they were well-versed in agriculture, pottery, hieroglyphics writing, calendar making, mathematics, architecture, and artwork. According to the experts, ancient Mayans had built a total of 60 cities in this area which had magnificent palaces, pyramids, and temples.
Every city had a different king whom Mayans considered their God. Still, now some of the buildings of these cities are intact and they are part of tourist attractions now. But this dense forest where there is no proper road network, has hidden cities, structures, and secrets of ancient Mayan civilization. Some are buried under the soil, and some are out of sight because of the trees.
But using modern technologies hidden Mayan cities are being discovered. Experts can identify the ancient cities hidden under the sea of leaves and branches using LiDAR technology.
Li DAR Technology means light detection and ranging. In this technology laser pulses are being projected from the aircraft on the land, these laser pulses bypassing the trees hit the land and are again reflected back to the sensor on the aircraft. And a shape of the ground is prepared by processing this data. It is similar to x-rays forming an image of our bones. Astonishingly, still, now more than 4500 ruins of Mayan civilization have been discovered. But experts believe that Mayans have built more structures than this.
It is not important to know how many structures the Mayans made?
But the real mystery is where did the Mayans go, abandoning so many populated cities?
Did they vanish into thin air! Despite being so skillful, what was their weak point for which they had to leave this place? With the help of LiDAR, technology experts find out in which part of the forest is the Mayan ruin located. And then that place is excavated. In the Yucatán region near the Gulf of Mexico, archaeologists found the remains of a small Mayan village.
Ancient Mayans are Skilled Architecture
The name of the village is Kiwiik, where a local king had constructed a 30 feet tall pyramid using 20,000 stone blocks 1200 years ago. Usually, Mayans used to bury their King in a Royal chamber inside the pyramid. That’s why the archaeologist decided to dig a shaft from the top to the bottom of this pyramid. To find out if there is any royal chamber in this pyramid or not. And if yes, what does it contain?
After digging up to 21 feet, archaeologists found a stone that was completely flat on one side. This stone was very different from others because Mayans did not use stones of this shape for building pyramids rather it was used to give support to the roof of a room.
As it can be seen in the ceiling of this structure. This stone was an indication that a tomb was made inside this pyramid. After excavating further, archaeologists found something which they were looking for. Surprisingly in the basement of the pyramid, a foundation of a room and a few stairs were discovered. Although they didn’t find anything interesting they did find a broken piece of clay utensil.
This small piece of clay utensil raised a lot of questions. The age of this piece was determined by radiocarbon dating, and they found out it was approximately made in the year 500 A.D.That is around 1500 years ago But the surprising thing was although the pyramid was built in 1200 A.D This piece of pottery was built 300 years before the pyramid. And according to the archaeologists, it is not at all possible. And we need to know the history to understand why it is not possible. From history, we get to know that this region of Yucatan was considered part of northern Maya. And in 1500 A.D when this chamber inside the pyramid was built, At the time Mayans did not come here. Now the biggest question is if the Mayans did not build this royal chamber, then who did?
To find out this, the forest surrounding this pyramid ruin was inspected. With the hope that they’ll be able to get some special information.15 km away from the Pyramid site archaeologists found a trail in the middle of some rocks leading to a cave.
Also Read : Antique Paintings – A hidden gem in your home?
The entrance of the cave was quite narrow and going inside it was quite dangerous. So they use professional equipment and some experts enter in a cave. After hours of hard work, experts were able to climb 230 feet to the bottom of the cave. Where they found a passage to a secret chamber. And the entrance of this chamber was covered with a stone When experts cleared the entrance, things they found inside were beyond their wildest imagination. They found a lot of used fire torches 230 feet below the ground, in the secret chamber of this cave. which were used for lighting in ancient times. Apart from burned fire touches, they found a lot of broken pieces of pots. These ports were similar to what they had found in the basement of the pyramid.
It was as if this place was some kind of worship area where people would come and break their pots to fulfill their wishes.
When they tried to join the pieces of pots then another fact presented itself. It was noticed that even after joining all the pieces, the pot never becomes complete. Rather one piece always remains missing.No one understood this strange mystery, why only one piece of all pots broken here is missing.
Archaeologists believe that These people used to take one piece of the broken pot with themselves. The piece of the ceramic pot found in the basement of the pyramid ruin in the Yucatan region was brought from this cave.
Also, Visit SEO Antiques for antique product collections.
It was clear evidence that before the coming of the Mayans, people who lived in this village of Kiwiik, used to perform their religious practice by going into this cave. And their way of living was similar to the Mayans. Archaeologists found a passage to go further inside the cave, from the chamber they found down below the cave with broken ceramic pots.
Experts decided to go inside this passage of the cave to gather more evidence. After proceeding just a little bit, experts found another secret chamber where the walls had mind-boggling paintings. In this deepest point of the cave
Mayans Art
They found a 3D jaguar painting on the stone. And there was another painting where a Jaguar was shown hunting a deer. Experts who have seen paintings in other Mayan caves were seeing these types of paintings for the first time in their lives. When a detailed analysis of these paintings was done, It was found that they date back to 100 BC. I.e. 2100 years ago. These paintings were made, 800 years prior to the Mayans coming from the south. Now with this new evidence, one thing was certain civilization was living in this village of Kiwiik, before the coming of Mayans from the South, whose culture and way of living was similar to that of Mayans And it was the reason why experts named them early/classic Maya. What happened to the Mayans who had built thousands of structures that they had to abandon this place forever.