22 MAY 02: MAYAN SACRED
WELLS

FROM THE LATIMES:

The recesses of the Ox Bel Ha underwater caves…

 

Divers Discover Maya Relics in Caves That Became Rivers

By ANGELA M. H. SCHUSTER

Nearly 100 feet beneath the Yucatán Peninsula in
southern Mexico, cave divers are

mapping the world’s longest underground river. More important,
they are

unraveling the mysteries of a fragile ecosystem that
may be destroyed before it

is fully understood.

That the peninsula is rich in human history is attested
by the temples and

pyramids built by the Maya during the first millennium.
Underground runs a

common thread that has woven the fabric of life and directed
the distribution of

human settlement for the past 10,000 years: a complex
system of rivers and

natural wells whose formation began more than 100 million
years ago, when the

peninsula lay beneath a shallow sea.

Over a succession of ice ages, sea levels dropped some
300 feet, exposing the

limestone platform that makes up the peninsula. Over
time, rivulets of carbonic

acid (a byproduct of rainwater bonding with carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere)

carved out the caverns. When sea levels began to rise
with the last ice age

18,000 years ago, the once dry caves began to fill with
water, a process that

continued until about 1,000 years ago. Collectively,
these submerged river

systems provide all of the peninsula’s fresh water.

By far the largest of the submerged river systems is called
Ox Bel Ha

(pronounced OHSH bel hah; the name is Mayan for “three
paths of water). Its

labyrinthine passageways, an estimated 200 miles, wind
their way underground

within a triangle, embraced on the surface by the resort
city of Cancún, the

late classic Maya coastal trading center of Tulúm
and the inland classic Maya

site of Cobá.

Since 1998, an international team of divers ˜ Sam Meacham
of Austin, Tex.; Bil

Phillips of Vancouver, British Columbia; and Stephen
Bogaerts, a Londoner ˜ has

been documenting Ox Bel Ha armed with surveying equipment,
lights, hard hats and

gas tanks. Some dives last more than 12 hours, the time
necessary to reach Ox

Bel Ha’s deepest recesses, map them and safely return
to the surface.

To date, the team has charted more than 60 miles of submerged
caverns and

documented 57 cenotes, or natural wells, and three freshwater
passageways just

offshore that are connected to the Ox Bel Ha system…

After transporting thousands of pounds of gear deep into
the jungle on

horseback, the team sets up camp near entrances to the
cave system, many little

more than sinkholes a few feet in diameter…

Carrying reels of line knotted every 10 feet to serve
as measuring tapes, divers

map the chambers and collect samples of underwater life
˜ small fish, blind

shrimp, algae. Where passages splinter off, directional
markers are attached to

lines with arrows pointing to the nearest exit, in some
cases more than two

miles away…

Besides the river system, the peninsula is pocked with
cenotes and sinkholes to

the west that appear not to be connected to Ox Bel Ha.
Exploration of several in

the vicinity of Cobá has yielded evidence of early
human occupation.

“We have found hearths and human remains dating to a period
when the caves were

dry, an estimated 8,000 to 9,000 years ago,” Mr. Meacham
said. “We have also

documented deposits of ceramics and human bones from
the Maya period.”

Cenotes and caves played an important
role in Maya religion: they were regarded

as portals to the underworld,
a potent realm of gods and ancestors. (The word

cenote, pronounced suh-NOH-tee, comes from the Maya dzonot,
which means sacred

well.) The finds will be left in place, to be investigated
by archaeologists

from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and
History.

The divers say they have investigated about half the underground
river system.

“We believe Ox Bel Ha is connected to two nearby hanging
cave systems, each

about 12 miles in length,” Mr. Meacham said. “If we add
these to what we have

already explored, the passageways of Ox Bel Ha will stretch
some 84 miles. To

document the entire system is simply a matter of time
and money.”