Last week, I watched the National Geographic documentary, Buried Truth of the Maya, a documentary about archaeologists searching for a hidden cave under the ancient Mayan city of Chichén Itzá. The Mayans, Aztecs, Incans, and just generally all of the ancient South American civilizations have long interested me, especially the Mayans and the Incans, simply because of how intellectually advanced they were. The Europeans were floundering around in poop-filled streets and dying from the plague while the Mayans and Incans were building temples that lit up through a little hole every solstice. It’s quite a shock to hear for the first time, as I did in sixth grade, how advanced these civilizations were, and how we still focus on the Eastern Hemisphere in our history class. So, needless to say, I was excited to watch this documentary. The archaeologists in the documentary were looking for a fabled hidden cave under one of the temples of Chichén Itzá, which was said to hold many riches. The documentary followed them as they used high-tech machinery to scan under the ground and figure out the varying densities of Earth below them, drop down into a tiny cavern in which they found pieces of pottery on the ceiling, and even go into a cenote and remote pilot a mini submarine to find a far extension of the cave. In the end (spoiler alert!) they didn’t end up finding out if there actually is a hidden cave filled with riches or not. However, they did find far extending tunnels in the cenote which had pieces of jade, a highly significant jewel for the Mayans, so it is quite possible there is a hidden cave filled with sacrifices for the Gods, whether those be human or treasure. I am sure that these archaeologists will continue their search for this hidden cave under this famous ancient city. All in all, I enjoyed this documentary a lot! It was very interesting to see how they utilized the technology and though I was a little disappointed that they didn’t find it in the end (probably the Indian Jones and National Treasure lover inside of me), I enjoyed the anticipation of finding each clue, and this definitely made me want to get out there and travel to a place like this.
The Rosalind Project 