YUCATÁN (Times Media Mexico).- The Great Mayan Acquifer Project (Gran Acuífero Maya: GAM) will digitize cenotes located in Yucatan and Quintana Roo; they will be digitized and the results will be presented in a simultaneous exhibition in three countries: the national museums of Anthropology in Mexico and Switzerland, as well as the National Geographic Museum in Washington, USA.
A total of six cenotes will be digitized and for this, GAM received a donation of 100 thousand dollars from the Ministry of Culture of Switzerland.
This type of work, said archaeologist Guillermo de Anda, director of GAM, contributes to another form of preservation and also, if any archaeological remains happen to be found, they will not be removed from the site.
“The purpose of the Great Mayan Aquifer Project is to maintain the sites unaltered. The idea is to make reproductions accessible to a large public and create virtual museums,” explained De Anda.
With respect to the archaeological remains, the GAM director said, only one skull has been found, and that they are particularly interested in its characteristics: “It is probably thousands of years old, when the cave was dry, and it has two important marks on the right parietal, probably produced by megafauna that carried the head into this cave. This speculation comes from the fact that, we have not found another bone”, De Anda said.
“In Quintana Roo we will work in the cenote of the God of Trade “Ek Chuah“, which is part of the Sac Actún System, the largest flooded cave in the world. While, in the Chichén Itzá Archaeological Zone, we will focus on the Holtún cenote, which, while it has already been extensively studied in its shallow regions, it contains many elements such as vessels, sculptures of Tláloc and anthropomorphic representations in its deepest sections, at a depth of 40 and 45 meters”, added De Anda.
The Yucatan Times
Newsroom