Balankanche

topographic features Balankancha with some prominent features and artifact concentrations by the work of Bruce Rogers (Grutas de Balancanche. // AMCS Activities Newsletter, № 27, May 2004. P. 79.)

Balankancha (Spanish: Grutas de Balankanché) - the most famous Maya cave sites, near Chichen Itza.[1] Other names of the cave: Balancanche, Balaamcanche, Balaancanche, Balankanche and Balancanchyn. The name translates as the cave sacred jaguar throne (according to Bruce Rogers name of the cave is related to the Mayan leaders, not the animal jaguar). In the last 22 years is widely used as a tourist attraction.

History

Balankancha was known to the Maya as early as pre-classical period, 3000 years ago. The cave was a source of water, so was the object of worship god of rain Chaac.

Discovery and study of caves

For the first time in modern times Balankanchu was visited by Edward Thompson and Alfred Tozzer in 1905. In different periods of the cave were studied: A. Pearse and his team of biologists - in 1932 and 1936, E. Wyllys Andrews IV - in 1930, Edwin Shook and RE Smith of the Carnegie Institution - in 1954. In 1954, José Humberto Gómez found immured passage in one of the branches of the cave. Behind it was a sanctuary Maya consisting of "Altar of the Jaguar" and "Altar of pristine waters." Cave ended with a small lake. The sanctuary has been studied and described by Ramon Pavon Abreu. It turned out that the sanctuary was built in honor of the god Tlaloc, and walled in about 842 AD during the Classic Maya collapse.

Gallery

Notes

  1. ↑ Стингл, Милослав. Тайны индейских пирамид. Москва: Прогресс, 1978.

References

External links