An eerie portal to the Maya underworld

An eerie portal to the Maya underworld Belize Tourism Board The Maya were likely staging elaborate, theatrical and deadly re-enactments of the Popol Vuh, the Maya creation myth In Belize's ATM Cave, details of ancient Maya religious sacrifices come into focus as new research creates a picture of how rituals were used to re-enact the Maya creation story. Belize Tourism Board There are 21 recorded human skeletons inside ATM Cave Evidence within ATM Cave suggests that it's this myth the Maya were re-enacting in a desperate attempt to battle the Lords of Xibalba, just as the Hero Twins did. Belize Tourism Board The only way into the ATM Cave is to swim "There are a number of artefacts, as well as human remains, clustered in the 5m x 5m central area of the Main Chamber surrounding the three stacked speleothems that suggest a literal re-enactment of the Popol Vuh story," wrote Moyes and Awe in their research paper. Belize Tourism Board For more than 1,000 years, the 5k-long subterranean ATM Cave system lay unlooted and undisturbed In fact, Moyes believes that the Maya world parallels our own.