ATM - not about cash, more to do with human sacrifice

Our second caving adventure of the trip was to the ATM cave near San Ignacio, Belize.  We weren’t quite sure what to expect, other than a cave and some Mayan artifacts.  What we got, was so much more than that.  There are only 28 guides who are licensed to take you to the ATM cave, and they had to undergo intensive training which included archeologists and historians as well as the expected cave safety training.  What this meant is that for the first time in my life I genuinely found shattered pottery interesting.  

Our tour took us about 1km into the cave system, swimming up the underground river, squeezing through crevices and climbing through gaps into rooms larger than any cathedral. The formations were beautiful, from flowstone, to stalagmites, columns, and hollow stalactites that when tapped sang out beautifully.  There were holes in the ceiling and our guide explained how they were formed by whirlpools when the cave is full of water.  In the final room there were shards of pottery, evidence of worship, and skeletons held in place by priests as they were sacrificed, now immovable due to the limestone build up caused by 100s of years of mineralized water flowing gently by.

Some of the urns still held their shape, and the biggest were easily 80cm in diameter, and we wondered how they would have transported them through the narrow cave system.  Our guide had an answer for that too.  We learnt about the drought that struck towards the end of the Mayan era and how they discovered it as the stalactites form rings in the same way trees do.  It is thought that the Mayans explored deeper and spent more times in the caves at this time in a search for water, and in desperation gave offerings to the gods.  The sacrifices were not generally the disposed, but the successful.  The sacrificial skeletons are tall, in good health, at times with skull modifications that were popular with royalty.  Or they are children and infants. The sacrifice was real, an offering of the population’s best in return for much needed water.