Sacred Cenote

Edward Herbert Thompson dredged the Cenote Sagrado from 1904 to 1910, and recovered artifacts of gold, jade, pottery, and incense, as well as human remains.

[5] As Friar Diego de Landa observed in 1566 after visiting Chichen Itza: Most of the major findings in the cenote were made under the supervision of Edward Herbert Thompson, who began dredging in 1904.

Thompson received money from Stephen Salisbury III to help him buy the Chichén Itzá excavation site and explore the cenote.

Leon Cole, a colleague of Thompson, once recorded in his journal, “they made ten hauls in the morning and six or eight in the afternoon.” People would search through the buckets of water looking for artifacts and categorizing them accordingly.

A host of problems, including the Mexican Revolution, and financial issues began to hinder the work effort and damage the morale of the workers.

[7] Archaeological investigations have removed thousands of objects from the bottom of the cenote, including artifacts made from gold, jadeite, copal, pottery, flint, obsidian, shell, wood, rubber, and cloth, as well as human skeletons.

The presence of jade, gold and copper in the cenote offers proof of the importance of Chichén Itzá as a cultural city center.

None of these raw materials are native to the Yucatán, which indicates that they were valuable objects brought to Chichén Itzá from other places in Central America and then sacrificed as an act of worship.

This suggests that Maya religious officiants believed that only certain cenotes led to the underworld, and sacrifices placed in others would serve no purpose.

The Franciscan leader Diego de Landa reported that he witnessed live sacrifices being thrown into the cenote at Chichén Itzá.