From this deep natural well, the ancient Mayans, despite the drought, never took water. The sacred well (cenote) in Chichen Itza was a place of religious pilgrimage, people came here to make sacrifices to Yum-Kash, the god of forests and fields, and threw not only jewelry into the cenote, but also beautiful girls.
Sacrifices to Indian deities
The ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza on the Yucatan Peninsula became famous among tourists for its beautiful architectural structures, among which the most impressive is the step pyramid of the Feathered Serpent - the mysterious temple of Kukulkan. However, no less mysterious is the Sacred Cenote - it is also called the Well of Death, the Well of Victims or the Well of Dead Virgins. This is a giant natural karst sinkhole with a diameter of about 60 meters and about the same depth.
According to the legends and written sources of the Spanish chroniclers, young beauties and valuables were thrown into the Death Well during the Mayan drought. These sacrifices were made to Indian deities in order to beg them for rain for the parched land. The fact is that there are almost no rivers in the Yucatan, and rain moisture easily seeps through the porous limestone and immediately goes into the ground. therefore, all Mayan agriculture was directly dependent on precipitation, and drought here was a real disaster.
For the first time, the Well of Death in the ancient city of Chichen Itza was mentioned back in 1566 by the Spanish bishop Diego de Landa, who at one time fought hard against the pagans on the Yucatan Peninsula, where the Mayan tribes lived. He wrote about the Maya: "It was their custom to throw living people into this well, and they believed that those people did not die, although no one else saw them." Treasure hunters were especially interested in de Landa's mention of the fact that not only people, but also jewelry fell into the well. Maya “threw there and many other things,” de Landa noted, “for example, gems and things that were considered the most valuable. And if there was gold in their country, then most of it should have been in this well. so great was the reverence with which the Indians surrounded this place."
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Edward Thompson buys the Sacred Well
It is not known whether the Spanish conquistadors tried to get the treasures from the bottom of the well, but in any case, such attempts were doomed to failure - the great depth and 11-meter layer of mud and silt served as a reliable obstacle for lovers of profit.
The first attempt to examine the bottom of the well and get the jewelry was made in 1882 by the Frenchman Desiree Charnay. With great difficulty he brought two dredgers to Chichen Itza, but he could not start work due to the fact that he incorrectly estimated the depth of the well.
With this dredger, Edward Thompson hoped to extract Mayan treasures from under the water
The first detailed study of the Sacred Cenote is associated with the name of Edward Thompson, who in 1885 received the seat of US Consul in the Yucatan. Thompson specifically sought this appointment, although he was not at all attracted to such work. He simply tried to combine business with pleasure. studying the civilization of the ancient Maya. Thompson was especially interested in the Well of Death, because the newly minted consul believed de Landa's notes that untold treasures should be kept there, at the bottom.
Edward Thompson was not an archaeologist, but he was so keen on history that he decided to literally devote his life to the study of the Sacred Cenote. He spent almost all his fortune to become the owner of the hacienda of San Isidoro, on the territory of which there was a well. The rest of the money was spent on purchasing the necessary equipment. With great difficulty, a special dredger was delivered from the USA to Chichen Itza, which in 1904 was installed on the southern side of the cenote.
What was at the bottom?
The dredger regularly supplied from the bottom of the cenote more and more portions of mud, which were carefully examined by the Indians hired by Thompson. For a long time, except for stones and half-rotten branches, nothing came across, but the Indians found two strange balls, which turned out to be lumps of copal resin used by the Maya in all religious rituals. Then the dredger removed a perfectly preserved skull (as it was established later, of a young girl) and a pair of women's sandals, which confirmed de Landa's records of human sacrifices.
Although with the help of a dredger, bones of victims and ancient objects continued to appear from the well - vessels, wooden tools, obsidian knives, pieces of jade - Thompson realized that only when he sank to the bottom of the cenote. you can examine all its depressions and crevices and find the most valuable items.
In 1909, Thompson telegraphed two Greek divers who brought all the necessary equipment to the well. Edward was determined to personally descend to the bottom and therefore completed the "Young Diver Course" in a short time. The Indians watched with dismay. as their owner, whom they had come to love over the years of working together. went under water. They believed that evil spirits and terrible monsters lived at the bottom of the well.
Thompson saw neither spirits nor monsters at the bottom of the well, there was absolute darkness. And although it was necessary to search for treasures by touch, the finds followed one after another. These were jade figurines, golden figurines, rings and bells, weapons and household items of the ancient Mayans. The enthusiast was particularly struck by the gold relief discs with religious and military episodes from the life of the Indians. Among the most important finds were a beautiful golden mask and a golden crown decorated with the image of the Feathered Serpent.
Revealing the secret of the Holy Cenote
Once Thompson, being in the well and thinking about new finds, before the ascent forgot about the air valves and began to rise to the surface at great speed. Although he did manage to open them, he was hit hard on the bottom of the pontoon, as a result of which Thompson practically lost his hearing for the rest of his life. Some are inclined to see in this incident a kind of curse of the pharaohs, believing that in this way a person was punished for invading the kingdom of the dead and desecrating ancient shrines. However, do not forget that the amateur archaeologist was a rather inexperienced diver, moreover, despite everything, he managed to fulfill his dream and reveal the secret of the Holy Cenote. As a result of the research, a very impressive collection of fine jewelry and household items of the ancient Maya has been collected,which Thompson donated to the Peabody Museum at Harvard University.
New assault
However, the contents of the Death Well did not give rest to another researcher. to the Mexican archaeologist Davalos Hurtado, who believed that Thompson with his primitive equipment could not fully extract all the historical values accumulated there for centuries. In the 60s of the last century, Hurtado, using a modern suction dredger and the help of a whole team of scuba divers. undertook a new assault on the Holy Cenote.
The expectations of the Mexican scientist were fully justified - on the very first day a rubber figurine of a deity was taken from the bowels of the well, and this was only the beginning. Although Hurtado's team did not find gold items, everything that they fished out of the well turned out to be invaluable from a historical point of view - thousands of fragments of cotton fabric, a lot of wicker and wooden items, among which was an outlandish mask.
Davalos Hurtado dreamed of temporarily draining the Well of Death and completely extracting all the antiquities from its bottom, but he did not have time to implement this idea, dying quite early.
Mayan underwater history repository
F. Kirk Johnson was the initiator of the third phase of the underwater survey of the Chichen Itza well. In 1967, chlorine was poured into the cenote, which temporarily destroyed small algae and made the water clear. Thanks to this, it was possible to get a lot of pottery and various fragments of human remains.
Unfortunately, it was impossible to “excavate” the cenote as it should be, layer by layer, so archaeologists dated the objects raised from the bottom, comparing them with similar finds from other places. It is curious that many of the things found in the well, which scientists attributed to the earliest era, before they got into the cenote, were deliberately damaged - the jade figurines were broken, and the gold items were crushed.
Skull recovered from the bottom of a well
In the early period, from the 9th to the 11th century AD, when Chichen Itza was flourishing, many items of jade and gold were sacrificed to the gods, and in the later period, especially in the 13th-16th centuries, the ruling elite of the city had already become impoverished. therefore, mainly copper bells, carved wooden objects and vessels with the remains of burnt copal resin were thrown into the well.
Although, according to ancient legend, beautiful girls were sacrificed to the cenote, and it was even called the Well of Dead Virgins, a study of several dozen human remains recovered from the bottom showed. that the ritual victims were not only girls, but also men, and even children.
All items and jewelry found in the well made up a magnificent collection that perfectly illustrates the history of the legendary civilization of the ancient Maya.
Fedor Perfilov. Magazine "Secrets of the XX century" № 45 2010