Dozens of ancient black and red handprints on the walls of a cave are believed to be from a mysterious coming-of-age ritual of the ancient Maya.
The 137 prints, mostly made by the hands of children, are more than 1,200 years old and were discovered in a subterranean cavern near the northern tip of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula.
The prints are thought to be from the end of the ancient Maya’s classical zenith, when major cities across present-day southern Mexico and Central America thrived amid major human achievements in math and art.
Archaeologist Sergio Grosjean argues that the handprints were likely made by children as they entered puberty, due to analysis of their size, with the colours providing a clue to their meaning.
(Image: via REUTERS)
Mr Grosjean said: “They imprinted their hands on the walls in black… which symbolised death, but that didn’t mean they were going to be killed, but rather death from a ritual perspective.
“Afterwards, these children imprinted their hands in red, which was a reference to war or life.”
The cave, in the same region where the towering pyramids of urban centres such as Uxmal and Chichen Itza still stand, was discovered by accident.
(Image: via REUTERS)
(Image: via REUTERS)
It lies some 33 feet (10 metres) below a large ceiba tree, which the Maya consider sacred.
Of the some 150 Mayan artefacts found in the cave’s chambers, they include a carved face and six painted relief sculptures.
Those date from between 800-1,000 AD, a time when severe drought struck the region and may have contributed to the classical Maya’s sudden abandonment of major cities.
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Archaeologists made the stunning discovery of the artefacts while searching for a sacred well beneath the ancient city of Chichen Itza.
The cave system is known as Balamku or “Jaguar God”.
Its discovery was made public in March 2019 by Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History.
Farmers reported finding the cave in 1966, and after it was examined by an archaeologists they were instructed to seal the entrance.
It remained sealed for more than 50 years until National Geographic explorer Guillermo de Anda and his team reopened it in 2018 during their search for the water table beneath Chichen Itza.
Mr De Anda told National Geographic in 2019 that he spent hours crawling on his stomach through the cave’s tight tunnels until his head torch illuminated perfectly preserved and untouched offerings left by ancient residents.
They included incense burners, vases and decorated plates.
He said: “I couldn’t speak, I started to cry. I’ve analysed human remains in [Chichen Itza’s] Sacred Cenote, but nothing compares to the sensation I had entering, alone, for the first time in that cave.
“You almost feel the presence of the Maya who deposited these things in there.”
While the first Mayan settlements date back nearly 4,000 years, there were still large centres when Spanish conquerors arrived in the early 1500s.
Several million Maya continue to live in communities scattered across southeastern Mexican states like Chiapas and Campeche, in addition to Guatemala and Belize.