Great Mayan Aquifer: Mexico to digitalize cenotes in Yucatán and Quintana Roo

The Great Mayan Aquifer Project (GAM) will digitalize the cenotes located in Yucatán and Quintana Roo and the results will be presented in a simultaneous exhibition in three countries: the national anthropology museums in Mexico and Switzerland and the National Geographic Museum in the United States .

In total, six cenotes will be digitalized and for that, the GAM received a donation for USD $100,000 from Switzerland’s Culture Ministry .

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With this kind of works, said archeologist Guillermo de Anda , director of GAM, we contribute to another kind of preservation and, in addition, if any archeological vestiges are found, they will not be moved from their site.

“The objective of the Great Mayan Aquifer projec t is to maintain the sites without alterations. The idea is to create reproductions available to the public and create virtual museums ” explained De Anda.

Regarding archeological vestiges , said the director of GAM, they have only found a skull that is particularly interesting for its characteristics; “It’s concreted in the keystone, that is, it probably is thousands of years old, when the cave was dry, and it has two important marks in the right parietal, probably caused by a megafauna that took a head inside this cave. We have not found any other bone .”

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“In Quintana Roo , we will work in the God of Commerce cenote , which is part of the Sac Actún System , the largest flooded cave in the world, while, in the Chichén Itzá Archeological Site , we will focus in the Holtún cenote , which, although it has been widely studied on its shallow regions, is home to many elements like basins, Tláloc sculptures, and anthropomorphic representations in its deepest sections, from 40 to 45 meters deep,” added De Anda.

The announcement of the donation was also attended by Eric Mayoraz , Switzerland’s ambassador to Mexico , and Pedro Francisco Sánchez Nava , Archeology coordinator of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).

Sánchez Nava stressed that the collaboration in order for the Great Mayan Aquifer to be considered a Mixed World Heritage Site by UNESCO will take approximately three years.

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