A wave of cold washed over me as I gingerly submerged myself into the pool at the cave entrance. Wading forward, I felt an upward push as my bulky life jacket compensated for my lost contact with the ground. The ever receding light from outside yielded flashes of silver as it illuminated several small minnows swimming past me. With my parents behind me and a newlywed couple ahead, I kept my eyes set on the veteran tour guide. We began our descent into Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave, a frozen tableau of the ancient Maya from over a millennia ago.
When searching for the top tourist destinations in Belize, a coastal country bordered by Guatemala and Mexico with a population of just over 400,000 individuals, the Actun Tunichil Muknal cave in Western Belize, which translates to “Cave of the Stone Sepulcher” and is commonly abbreviated as the ATM cave, frequently tops tourists’ lists. Tour guides bring small groups into the cave to admire its geologic splendor, Maya relics, and human sacrifices that lie within. As National Geographic’s #1 sacred cave destination in the world, the ATM cave attracts history junkies, cautiously curious tourists, and adrenaline seekers. My parents fell into the middle category and, interested in going to Belize after a recommendation from a Belizean colleague, booked a $125 per person tour of the Cave in August of 2024. I left the ATM cave enamored by its rich history, so I contacted its primary researcher, Belizean archaeologist Dr. Jaime Awe, in order to learn more.
The Maya were an ancient Mesoamerican civilization that surfaced between 7000 B.C.E. and 2000 B.C.E., prospered after pioneering the domestication and processing of maize, and then developed one of the world’s foremost civilizations between 300 B.C.E. and 900 C.E. They established complex irrigation systems, trade networks, played a precursor to soccer called pitz, and followed a religiously tied calendar system. However, their signature giant pyramids built from countless limestone blocks typically bask in the main spotlight of the mainstream zeitgeist’s perception of the Maya.
After tourists drive down a road from San Ignacio to the Actun Tunichil Muknal Ranger Station, they get ready to embark on a 45-minute hike to the ATM cave’s entrance. At the station’s parking lot, tour guides equip tourists with helmets, headlamps, and life jackets. The guides then lead tourists on a trail through a lush jungle to get to the entrance of the cave. While walking, tourists must be mindful of tree roots, trails of ants, holes that house Iguana eggs, and other jungle phenomena that riddle the graveled path. The guides answer questions about the site and share personal stories during the walk, creating a rapport with tourists and building anticipation for when they finally enter the cave.
The groups wade through the Roaring River a total of three times across the trail. The banks of the river are connected by a thick rope that tourists can hold onto if they need support while walking on the slick, moss-ridden rocks underwater. However, the rope undulates when many people attempt to hold onto it, so guides advise tourists to direct their focus to their footing instead. The water gently pushes people in the direction of its laminar flow as they cross, too weak to significantly hinder traversal.
Thirty-one years prior, in 1993, Belizean Archaeologist Dr. Jaime Awe waded through that same river in his search for the ATM cave. National Geographic had just contacted him to make a prospective documentary in which he explored several caves he had never seen before. Looking for leads, Dr. Awe promptly reached out to Tom Miller, a colleague and geomorphologist whom he had pointed out a cave location to in the past. He was armed with Miller’s directions to “go beyond [a] cave, go up the river, and then on the right side of the river, there’s a stream, go up the stream and there’s a cave.” With these directions, Dr. Awe began his journey.
Dr. Awe was born in San Ignacio, located in the Cayo district of Western Belize as one of eleven siblings. “When you grow up in Belize, you’re never far from big archaeological sites. And I was born in San Ignacio, so I was never far away from caves. And as a kid, I spent a lot of time just running around sites and going to a couple of caves that were easy to get to. …And I always used to wonder, well, what happened to these ancient people, you know? What did their kids do for fun? …I knew that the Maya were still around. I mean, some of them are my friends, right?… We never got taught [about the Maya] in school…until, gosh, I think it was like 2008. And I participated in that movement to introduce Maya studies in the schools in Belize,” said Dr. Awe.
After graduating high school, Dr. Awe enrolled in St. John’s College, one of only two colleges in Belize and majored in economics. There, he was assigned to his advisor, anthropologist Father Richard Buhler S.J., who had recently introduced an anthropology elective to the college. Dr. Awe enrolled in Buhler’s class and quickly realized he was far more passionate about anthropology than economics. Unable to ask his parents to financially support his enrollment into a college abroad when they had to support his other siblings, he left to teach history at his old high school. He worked there a year and a half until, one day, he received a letter from Belize Department of Archaeology Head Joseph Palacio asking him to apply to be an archaeological assistant upon the recommendation of Father Buhler. Dr. Awe got the role and worked directly under Dr. Palacio. A year later, Palacio retired, leaving Dr. Awe with the daunting task to run the Belize Department of Archaeology on his own.
In his new role, Dr. Awe accepted four foreign research project applications and assisted their heads with their projects, obtaining hands-on experience and knowledge about archaeology. One such archaeologist, Dennis Puleston, suggested that Dr. Awe pursue further formal education. Dr. Awe took his advice. Alternating between working at the Belize Department of Archaeology and studying abroad, Dr. Awe enrolled in Trent University for Bachelor’s and Masters degrees and eventually obtained his Ph.D. in Archaeology at the University of London’s Institute of Archaeology in 1992. He would take his first steps into the ATM cave a year later.
Dr. Awe followed the stream of water in the cave with a notebook in hand, noting the different chambers leading off from the main passage. Over the course of several expeditions, he brought in a group of undergraduate and graduate students to help him fully map out the cave, separating them into up to four mapping units at once. In each expedition, the mapping units would all start traveling in opposite directions from a single point of reference called a datum and map out what they see. They joined those maps together several times to eventually map out the entire cave over the course of four years. The research team also photographed and drew over 1,400 artifacts found in ATM.
Tourists begin their true expedition when they enter the cave. Once they wade far enough inside that the outside world’s light dims, tourists turn their headlights on and see their first real glimpse of the cave’s interior. Their lights illuminate sparkling minerals embedded in the walls with a mesmerizing array of shades of brown and red. Stalactites populate the cascading ceiling as small bats silently circulate the interior, creating an otherworldly atmosphere that evokes awe in tourists. After allowing a moment for tourists to appreciate the cave and collect their bearings, guides lead tourists through a narrower passageway towards the direction of the water’s flow.
People need to fit through small cracks and traverse other forms of difficult terrain in narrower segments of the route. Though this predicament has the potential to spark claustrophobia in tourists, guides ease their anxiety by slowly and deliberately modeling how to angle their bodies to fit through tight spaces seamlessly in areas where the water level oscillates between ankle and chest level. As groups tread through this initial section of the cave, guides stop at visually stunning clusters of limestone formations to talk about the cave’s geology.
Stalactites form when droplets of water with dissolved calcium carbonate drip from overhanging projections, while stalagmites form where these droplets splash onto the ground. By listening to the frequency of water droplets falling from stalactites, guides can gauge the danger of the cave flooding. Contrary to the popular imagination, stalactites and stalagmites are not the only types of calcium carbonate-borne cave formations; sheets of calcium carbonate called flowstones drape from the ceiling and along walls of the cave, and columns form from when stalactites and stalagmites eventually meet each other. Guides tell tourists that these formations grow only as much as 3 millimeters a year, impelling tourists to feel reverent amazement as they begin to understand how ATM’s profound longevity precedes even the Maya. They also sternly tell tourists not to touch the growing limestone formations, as even the oil from just one touch of the hand can permanently halt growth. In addition to limestone formations, tourists also see small, smooth, metallic deposits of manganese as they venture deeper into the cave’s wet portion. The sheer variety and abundance of geological features is an unforgettable feature of ATM.
At a certain point near the beginning of the expedition, groups pass a dark cavern at a sharp left to the intended route that guides state is too dangerous for tourists. It was through this passage that Dr. Awe found his favorite artifacts in what he dubbed the Stelae Chamber. He stated that there were “two stone slate monument implements that the Maya used to do blood-letting ceremonies…We suspected that they were doing some bloodletting rituals in caves because, you know, in other caves we had found some obsidian points that were used for that purpose. But to find two slate monuments that are shaped exactly like the objects used to do bloodletting and then at the base of them were two obsidian bladelets. Oh, wow. I mean, it doesn’t get better than that.” Both stelae were made of carved fragments of slate, with one notched monument resembling a stingray spine and the other resembling a pointed obsidian blade bloodletter. Maya priests used stingray spines and obsidian blades to pierce their ears, tongue, and genitals to collect and then burn their blood. Near the stelae was a representation of the Maya’s rain god, Chaac, suggesting that the Maya performed bloodletting rituals in hopes of receiving rain.
Tourists continue to wade through the water, weaving through the cave’s complex system of pathways until they reach an approximately 10 foot-tall fallen boulder that they must climb to reach the upper portion of the cave. For many, climbing the rock is the most nerve-wracking challenge of the journey, as they have to carefully position their feet in certain footholds to get on top of the boulder, then step from the top of the boulder onto the ledge of the next portion of the cave. A few feet after clearing this rock climbing feat, everyone is required to take their shoes off to prevent accidents that could crush the fragile artifacts that lie ahead.
In this new area, tourists are instructed to stay within a set area designated by red tape plastered onto the floor, which serves as the only “barrier” between them and millennia-old artifacts. Without water obscuring the ground, tourists can see swirl-like patterns carved into the rock. They have formed after water in countless high floods sculpted the surface. Guides instruct tourists to avoid stepping on the gravel-filled resultant crevices, lest they accidentally step on a hidden buried artifact. It is here that the guides begin to delve into the intricacies of the Maya religion.
The Maya believed that the caves were portals into the womb of the earth. The world was split into the 13 levels of the heavens, the earth, and the nine levels of Xibalba, the underworld. Most of the knowledge about the ancient Mayan rituals and religion comes from the traditions passed down to the Maya living today and from an ancient text dubbed the Popol Vuh, which details the creation myth of the Maya called The Hero Twins. In this story, Hun Hunahpu and his brother angered the gods of Xibalba by playing a ball game noisily. The Lords of Xibalba invited them to the underworld where they failed a series of trials that led to their decapitation. They put Hun Hunahpu’s head on a tree and his skull spit onto the hand of a goddess of the underworld, leading her to go to the overworld to bear twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque. Like their father, they angered the gods by playing their ball game and the gods summoned them to complete a series of trials. They used their wits to survive the several trials, but are eventually sacrificed. When their bones are ground up and thrown into the river, they come back to life. Awe believed that this was symbolic of how corn sprouts if thrown in water. Later on, Xbalanque tricked the gods into letting him sacrifice them, lying when he said he would resurrect them. Victorious in their vengeance, the twins resurrected their father Hun Hunahpu. He was designated as the maize god and worked with the gods of the heavens to create the first four humans from corn, which were the ancestors of all the Maya.
Collections of reddish brown pots, some broken or turned on their side, lay on the floor undisturbed since the Maya first used them. The Maya believed that objects used for rituals had to be pure, meaning they were created for the sole purpose of the ritual and were smashed or cut after they served their purpose. These pots contained earls of corn and other offerings relating to fertility to appeal to the gods.
The next area opens up into the main chamber, also known as the Cathedral. This is the largest and most visually stunning portion of the cave. The sheer open space inspires amazement, driving tourists to shine their headlamps over every inch of its soaring ceiling to internalize every aspect of its grandeur. Here, guides paint a vivid mental picture of how the Maya would have performed rituals. Torches in hand, priests would have sloshed through the lower wet portion of the cave, sliding through crevices along a memorized route while carrying pots, obsidian blades, agricultural tools and produce, human sacrifices, and anything else that they needed to perform their rituals. At last, they would finally have reached the Cathedral. The torches would have emitted light that ricocheted across cave walls, fabricating dancing shadows that amplified priests’ sense of spirituality. They would have set out their offerings and possibly pierced themselves and sacrifices to offer their blood to the gods, praying for bountiful harvests and agricultural fertility.
As guides bring tourists farther up into the cave, clusters of pots slowly become less abundant. Their replacement satisfies tourists’ morbid curiosity, and possibly gratifies their primary motive for visiting the cave: human remains. Skulls, femurs, and other bones are strewn across the ground. Twelve of the twenty discovered skeletons are children under five years of age, likely because the youth were seen as more pure and therefore more valuable as sacrifices to the gods. The highest point that the tour ventures into is the Sepulcher Chamber, or site of the “Crystal Maiden,” a complete fossilized skeleton of a teenage sacrifice. A wire fence shields the Maiden from onlooking tourists, making it the only artifact to be blocked off by a physical barrier. The immediate ascent and descent from the Crystal Maiden is the most congested section of the cave. Nevertheless, guides skillfully and routinely create as much space as possible between each other by intermittently stopping their groups to share new anecdotes about the cave. After seeing the Maiden, the tour groups begin their descent back to the cave’s exit.
Dr. Awe knew that he needed to conduct more research on ATM after his initial expedition, so he received a grant to embark on a ten-year comprehensive analysis of the cave. He chronologically dated remnant agricultural offerings and human sacrifices, and realized that the majority of them fell between 750 C.E. and 900 C.E. Analysis of the ratio between Oxygen-18 and Oxygen-16 isotopes in stalactites and other geologic formations revealed that there were major drought conditions roughly between 700-1200 C.E., which corroborated discoveries from lake sediment analysis in the area. Archaeologists knew that the Maya abandoned their populous cities en mass during the 8th and 9th centuries, though the reason was largely unknown. All these clues pointed to a shocking revelation: the Maya civilization had likely collapsed due to drought. As the drought persisted and crops died, the Maya became increasingly more desperate, driving them to hold more frequent rituals and resort to human sacrifice in ATM to make a fervid appeal to the gods. “I started off looking at caves to determine why the Maya were using them and at the time I had no idea we would end up investigating questions about the collapse of Maya civilization,” said Dr. Awe in his 2015 lecture at the Verde Valley Archaeological Center.
Dr. Awe found several trends throughout the caves of Western Belize and compared them to the ATM cave. Most contained ceramics, stone tools, and grinding stones, all of which were related to agricultural fertility. “One of the interesting things that we found is that not all caves had human remains. There is a cave, in fact, not too far from ATM that has easily over a hundred individuals. So, there are a lot of skeletons in that cave, far more than ATM. But the ATM has a little bit of everything…Some caves have better preservation. And we actually find the organic remains like corn cobs and cacao seeds and chili pepper seeds”
Following his expedition, Dr. Awe was posed with a contentious question: “What should be done with the ATM cave now?” If Awe sealed it away to everyone outside of high academic circles, he could guarantee that it would remain preserved and unaltered for years to come. But if he opened the cave to the public, he could allow more people to appreciate its splendors and bolster Belizean tourism. Ultimately, Dr. Awe concluded that he would open the cave to tourists, provided that the prospective guides underwent a small-group intensive training program. He wanted to instill a sense of partnership to protect and preserve the cave, so that people would enjoy it for generations.
Dr. Awe trained the guides personally over a two month period. In the first two weeks, he took the guides through the cave and pointed out artifacts and high sensitivity areas. In addition to teaching about the geology, archaeology, and religious significance of the ATM cave, he also emphasized the biological systems at play in the cave. “You can’t just think of a cave as an archaeological site, it’s a living organism, right? Caves change every day. There’s still erosion taking place, there’s still animals within that environment. So, I also included a biology component in the training program where we talked about some of the different types of species that inhabit the cave,” said Dr. Awe.
“I talked a lot about conservation and the value of conservation. You know, that this is part of Belize’s heritage, that it is incumbent on all of us to protect and preserve these sights for the future. I talked to them about that, essentially, what we were trying to preserve was a living museum, right? … it wasn’t a situation where everything is locked up in glass cases where there are boundaries between you and the objects,” said Dr. Awe. Afterwards, the guides were given a grace period in which they took four tourists into the cave while a person on the team of archaeologists supervised the excursion. Following the training, Dr. Awe went to the cave on a monthly basis to ensure they continued to prioritize preservation.
Dr. Awe’s emphasis on conservation has been largely successful. A total of 25 trained, licensed guides are allowed to take a maximum of 125 tourists into the cave daily, minimizing overcrowding to protect the cave’s artifacts. There has been only one widely known incident in 2012, in which a tourist accidentally dropped their camera onto a preserved skull. Officials responded promptly and decisively to the event, banning cameras, phones, or any other photography equipment in the cave. This rule has also provided a safer, more fulfilling experience for tourists because they can better focus on experiencing in the cave in the moment.
I was amazed by what I saw in the ATM cave. Living in New York City, I have unparalleled access to the Museum of Natural History and Metropolitan Museum of Art, but every piece in these museums has been deliberately systemically positioned under bright white lights in pristine halls protected by clear glass for visitors’ viewing pleasure. The fact that I had the opportunity to spelunk through an actual cave, personally retracing the steps of Maya priests and researchers to see gorgeous geologic marvels and enigmatic artifacts unmoved from when the Maya used them during a consequential period in Maya history, all while a guide explained their significance to me, continues to boggle my mind.
In his closing remarks in my interview with him, Dr. Awe said we were provided “a very special opportunity to just see the Maya …at a moment of desperation…Caves also provide us a great opportunity to see how nature always wins. And in spite of human resilience, climate change can significantly impact human culture. It certainly did that to the Maya… It led to the decline and then abandonment of many of the big cities that at one time were thriving. I think [it] can remind us of our own vulnerabilities…One of the things I like about cave research is that…if more people learn about some of these things that we’re talking about on the effects on this great civilization, that it will serve to humble us. And realize there are important lessons that we can learn from the past.”
“It started off looking at caves to determine why the Maya were using them and at the time I had no idea we would end up investigating questions about the collapse of Maya civilization,” said Belizean archaeologist Dr. Jaime Awe, the primary researcher of the cave of Actun Tunichil Muknal.