Photo: Caves near the Mexican city of Tulum: In recent years, specialist divers have explored and mapped out thousands of kilometer of these caves. The yellow line here indicates caves discoved by German diver Robert Schmittner. SOURCE Google Earth/ TerraMetrics/ Robert Schmittner

from Spiegel Online International 

11/30/2012

By Markus Becker in Tulum, Mexico

Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula is dotted with thousands of caves that once housed prehistoric people and later became sacred to the Mayans. German archaeologists and filmmakers are currently involved in a project to explore with modern imaging technology and make a 3-D film of this underwater labyrinth.

A person died here hundreds of years ago. His body fell into the flooded cave and sank into the water. His flesh gradually separated from his bones. Today, he stares at divers out of empty eye sockets. His skull seems to be pushing its way out of the soil, as if he were trying to rise from the dead, to rise up from the sand, shake the tiresome sediment from his bones and escape from the silent darkness. . . . Read Complete Report