Talk:Sacred Cenote

All cenotes sacred to the Maya
In a BBC documentary, Secrets of the Maya Underworld (time: 6'28 '' ) it is said with a general reference that cenotes were sacred to the Maya. I hesitate to append the article with only that reference though. __meco (talk) 08:19, 22 July 2009 (UTC)


 * There are scholarly sources too. In “Sacrificio, Tratamiento y Ofrenda del Cuerpo Humano entre los Mayas Peninsulares” pages 195-226 of El Sacrificio Humano en la Tradición Religiosa Mesoamericana, published by both the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia and the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Vera Tiesler and Andrea Cucina say:


 * La cobertura arqueológica de la península confirma que muchos cenotes servían como receptáculos de muertos en la medida en que ha sido documentada en gran cantidad de contextos subacuáticos... La evidencia de mutilación... hace pensar en que los cuerpos de agua estaban vinculados fuertemente a la realización de las prácticas sacrifícales.


 * My translation:


 * The archaeological coverage of the peninsula confirms that many cenotes served as sinkholes of the dead insofar as it has been documented in many underwater contexts... The evidence of mutilation... suggests that the water bodies were strongly related to the performance of the sacrificial practices.


 * The authors had mentioned extensive taphonomic studies before reaching those conclusions.


 * Cesar Tort 19:05, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

"Chen Ku" could probably be translated "Sacred Well (Cenote)" as accurately as "God's Well" and this is presumably the source of the usual name for this feature.156.98.252.252 (talk) 18:37, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

References lacking
A number of references are listed by author last name and date in the notes without title or any other information either in the notes or eference section.156.98.252.252 (talk) 18:31, 24 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Most of the information in this article allegedly has been taken from broad sources, Sharer and Traxler's The Ancient Maya and Sabloff's The New Archaeology and the Ancient Maya. These are very generic books covering the breadth of Maya archaeology and are inappropriate for an article on such a specific subject. In addition, whoever wrote much of this article included no specific page numbers and at least as far as my checking is concerned, the information does not reflect the sources (although I am willing to be proved wrong). CoyoteMan31 (talk) 15:20, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

To Dredge or not to Dredge, that is the question
There have been numerous changes to this page since the last time I took a stab at it in 2017. It hasn't really gotten better. El Cid has made good faith edits and corrected my correction, namely that an airlift is, in fact, a dredge. The history of the later explorations of the Cenote Sagrado are somewhat complex, which is why I never wanted to fully edit this page. But here we are.

The Mexican government approved an exploration of the Cenote Sagrado in 1954 by an organization of Mexican divers, CEDAM (Club de Exploraciones y Deportes Acauticos de Mexico). A team of divers worked in the Cenote Sagrado but found nothing because of poor visibility.

The head of CEDAM, Pablo Bush Romero, persisted, and in 1959 supposedly convinced Mexico to agree to a new project with the National Geographic Society. Bush Romero learned of a device called an airlift that had been used to explore Port Royal in Jamaica. He arranged for the hire of the person in charge of that expedition, Norman Scott. The two of them convinced Mexico's agency in charge of archaeology, INAH, to employ the airlift in the Cenote Sagrado. In late 1961, Scott's team used an airlift but Mexico shut down the project early after four months claiming the airlift was damaging the artifacts it brought to the surface.

Bush Romero made one more try and managed to convince INAH to permit a third exploration in 1967, once again employing Norman Scott. No airlift was used.

Since then there have been several smaller projects by Mexican authorities in the Cenote Sagrado, most recently by the Gran Acuifera Maya Project.

This is a long way of saying I understand why there is a need to state there were later explorations into the Cenote Sagrado, but why is it important to make special note of the airlift dredge? — Preceding unsigned comment added by CoyoteMan31 (talk • contribs) 01:07, 8 December 2020 (UTC)