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Re: Re[4]: Mystery Photo
John Pastore (venture@CANCUN.RCE.COM.MX)
Wed, 24 Apr 1996 15:17:34 +0000
On 24 Apr 96 at 6:34, Hanson, Douglas wrote:
> Water containment facility or perhaps a sluice of some sort? Can you
> describe the base of the tunnel - is it paved or compacted
> soil/clay??
>
> Doug Hanson
>
Hi Doug,
The first time I saw some 6 years ago I thinking the same. But it
nagged at me and at the end of a discussion a month ago I was
motivated to go take another look.
The flash of the second photo I have reveals the floor to be strerwin
with pieces of scattered limestone including one larger block as if
during the excavation of the tunnel not all the pieces of limestone
being cut out was carried out. So what is beneath that rubble: clay
or pavement, I do not know. In any case it could not have been a
sluice as there is not enough of an incline to either channel water
in or out. Also the floor of the room or corridor at the far end of
the tunnel is level with the floor of the tunnel, making it
impossible for water flowing in or out to drop up. The far wall of
the room or corridor itself is composed of large blocks of very
finely masoned limestone. The walls of the tunnel itself is smoothed
limestone in the rough. Another aspect is its being korbeled. A water
tunnel would require that, and neither a crawlway for even people of
normally short stature. Also consider the setting:
I had a hard time relocating the entrance of the tunnel when I went
to take my second look. It is located beneath the ledge of a rim
describing a round depression about 8 or 9 feet deep and about 30 to
40 feet in diameter in an other-wise flat limestone terrain. It is
quite possible that the floor of the flat limestone terrain is not
natural, but the overgrown pavement of what was once a broad plaza.
It is not located at the lowest point of the depression where, once
finding the depression, I originally started to relook. It is just
over midway up the side of the depression.
Also, the round ledge of the depression harbors several cenotes
(underground brooks which seep up) so that the tunnel could have
provided, not only interior living quarters, but some kind of access
to deeper sources of water. Interesting too is the walls and ceilings
of the natural cenotes tucked under the surrounding ledge. They
appear to have been artificially smoothed even to the lowest points
of the ceilings. I have never seen anything like that here, and I've
been here for 17 years. Always the walls and ceilings of natural
cenotes are treacherously rough -cutting edge material of fossilized
coral and trilobytes (spelled right?) and calcerous sediment.
I would make a scan of the second photo and send it out, but if
anyone out there has a copy of the software for a LOGITECH B5N-1706
hand scanner, I would appreciate it if we could arrange attaching it
to an e-mail. I can't find the software anywhere on the net or here
in Cancun. The scan of the first photo was made from a MAC, and it
took two weeks to get an image that was anything other than something
like those diagonal lines on a t.v. gone haywire. Its doing the same
now, and the guy still wants to be paid for it.
Well, thanks for your interest and any more input would be quite
welcome.
Ka Xiik Keech Ya Utzil,
John Pastore
Writer/Guide in 'El Mayab'
("The Mayan Homeland")
venture@cancun.rce.com.mx
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