SAN IGNACIO, Belize - One day about 1,200 years ago, a young Mayan woman walked through the jungle and into the mouth of the underworld.
She never came out.
Instead, her body merged with the ground in a cavern, the limestone slowly encasing her bones.
Now the woman is teaching archaeologists, anthropologists and adventurous tourists about the life of the ancient Mayan civilization.
The journey through Actun Tunichil Muknal (it translates to Cave of the Stone Sepulcher) is an awe-inspiring trip. Where else can you hike through jungles, wade through rivers, swim through the mouth of a cave, scurry over rocks and then see Mayan pottery and remains just inches from your bare feet?
The site was not discovered until 1989, when Belizean archaeologist Jaime Awe - now a professor at the University of New Hampshire - began exploring the numerous cave systems in western Belize, near the Guatemalan border. Awe is considered one of the world's leading experts on speleoarchaeology - the study of caves.
Those caves, he discovered, were places of worship and ritual sacrifice for the ancient Mayans. Actun Tunichil Muknal was probably used for ceremonies involving rain.
Rest of the article:
Link