Watch: A look inside the world

Watch: A look inside the world’s largest underwater cave in Mexico [video]

After months of intense exploration, archaeologists in Mexico have discovered the world’s largest flooded cave system – and it looks like an underwater kingdom.

Watch: A look inside the world

Underwater archaeologists in eastern Mexico have discovered what is believed to be the world’s largest flooded cave – and it’s a wonderland full of treasures still to be unlocked.

The cave is just three miles west of the white sand beaches of Tulum.

The Great Maya Aquifer Project (GAM) team found the cave, and confirmed that the 164-mile-long Sistema Sac Actun, a waterlogged system of natural sinkholes (cenotes) is actually connected to the nearby 52-mile-long Dos Ojos system, bringing the total length of the caves to 216 miles – or rather 347 km.

Bloomberg reports that it’s more than the combined height of 24 Mount Everest’s stacked on top of one another. “The warren of caves also stretches downward, to a depth of more than 332 feet, making parts of it deeper than London’s Big Ben is tall.”

Herbert Meyrl

The discovery has opened the door for archaeologists to decipher secrets from the Maya civilization, which ruled the region before Spain’s 16th century conquests of Central and South America.

Cenotes were often used as holy sites in Mayan culture where they could communicate with their gods.

Underwater archaeologist and project director, Guillermo de Anda told Reuters that it allows them to appreciate much more clearly how the rituals, the pilgrimage sites, and ultimately the great pre-Hispanic settlements that we know emerged.

“This immense cave represents the most important submerged archaeological site in the world, as it has more than a hundred archaeological contexts,” he said in a statement.

“Along this system, we had documented evidence of the first settlers of America, as well as extinct fauna and, of course, the Mayan culture.”

The exploration director of the project, Robert Schmittner, has been working on the project for more than 20 years. He said from now on it’s everybody’s job to conserve it.

“This is an effort of more than 20 years, to travel hundreds of kilometers of caves submerged in Quintana Roo mainly, of which I dedicated 14 years to explore this monstrous Sac Actun System; now everyone’s job is to keep it.”

The next phase includes the analysis of the water quality of the Sac Actun System, as well as the study of the biodiversity that directly depends on this aquifer, and of course its adequate conservation; in addition to giving continuity to the mapping and detailed record of submerged archaeological contexts.

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