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About 500 years ago, someone helped a bracelet on a stalagmit into a Mexican cave. | Credit: Katiya Pavlova
While exploring the cave in the high mountains of Mexico, Spelunker thought she had found a pile of garbage from a modern litter. However, after a closer look, she learned that the “trash” was actually an artifact container that could have been used in fertility rituals more than 500 years ago.
“I looked inside, and it seemed like the cave continued. You had to hold your breath and dive a little to survive,” said speleologist Katiya Pavlova a statement; “That’s when we discovered two rings around the stalagmites.”
The cave, called Tlayócoc, is in the state of Mexico Guerrero and about 7,800 feet (2,380 meters) above sea level. Meaning the Badgers Cave in the local Nahuatl language, Tlayócoc is locally known as a source of water and bats. 2023 September Pavlova and the local guide Adrián Beltrán Dima dared to the cave – perhaps for the first time when someone entered it for about five centuries.
Approximately 500 feet (150 m), the ceiling is submerged in the cave. The pair of researchers had to browse the flooding cave with a gap between the water and the ceiling of the cave only 6 inches (15 centimeters). “Adrián was scared, but the water was deep enough, and I first went to show him that it was not that difficult,” Pavlova said.
During the break to look around, Pavlova and Beltrán had discovered 14 artifacts.
“It was very interesting and incredible!” – said Pavlova. “We are lucky here.”
Related: 2500 years of burial of 3 people found in a cave in Mexico
Archaeologists removed bracelets from stalagmites and cleaned them to reveal the design. | Credit: Miguel Pérez
There were four shell bracelets between the artefacts, a giant decorated snail sheath (tribe Power bus), two full stone discs and six fragments of disk and a piece of carbonized wood. Pavlova and Beltrán immediately contacted the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History (INah), who sent archaeologists to recover artifacts in March.
Given the layout of the bracelets, which was captured in small, rounded stalagmites with “phallies connotations”, archaeologists speculated that fertility rituals were probably performed in the Tlayócoc Ola, the report said.
“Before the ikikan culture, caves were sacred places related to the underworld and considered the uterus of the land,” Inah archaeologist archaeologist Miguel Pérez did not fly The statement is said.
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Three bracelets have decorations. The S -shaped symbol, known as Xonecuilli, is associated with Venus planet and time measurement, and a human similar figure profile can represent the creator God Quetzalcoatl.
Pérez Datin’s artefacts to the post -classic meso -American history between 950 and 1521 AD and suggested that they be produced by members of the little known Tlacotepehua culture living in the region.
“It is very likely that they were found in an artist environment where the humidity is quite stable, objects may have survived so many centuries,” said Pérez.