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Posted on Sun, Nov. 9, 2008 [SOURCE]
Scholar finds Mayans' buried highway through hell
MARK STEVENSON | The Associated Press

The Associated Press followed de Anda and his team into the caves, squeezing through tiny, overgrown entrances and rappelling down narrow shafts and slippery tree roots.

There, in the stygian darkness, a scene unfolded that was eerily reminiscent of an "Indiana Jones" movie , tottering ancient temple platforms, slippery staircases and tortuous paths that skirted underground lakes littered with Mayan pottery and ancient skulls.

The group explored walled-off sacred chambers that can only be entered by crawling along a floor populated by spiders, scorpions and toads.

To find Xibalba, De Anda spent five years combing the 450-year-old records of the Inquisition trials the Spaniards held against Indian "heretics" in Mexico.

The Spanish were outraged that the Mayas continued to practice their old religion even after the conquest. So they used the trials to make them reveal the places where they performed their ceremonies.

Time after time, the defendants mentioned the same places , but the recorded names changed over the centuries or were forgotten.

Armed with clues from trial records, the archaeologists asked locals for caves with similar-sounding names or coordinates that would place them nearby.

The Mayas used the sinkhole caves, known as cenotes, as places of worship and depositories for sacrificed humans. Many cenotes still contain pools that supply villages with water. The best-known is the broad, circular pool at the ruins of Chichen Itza. (SOURCE)