Overview
- INAH announced Monday that specialists recorded 179 ceramic objects arranged in 13 ritual deposits inside the hard-to-reach Mundo Zoque cave in Cintalapa, Chiapas.
- Field work by INAH took place between February and June after a local guide alerted authorities and the cave was inspected down narrow passages and a >10-meter rappel descent.
- Researchers provisionally date the materials to the Late Classic period (600–900 CE) and interpret the placement of urns, incensarios and figure-handled vessels as offerings for rain and agricultural fertility.
- Notable finds include a 32-centimeter-handled sahumador with a quincunce motif and serpent head plus ceramics showing jaguars, owls and snakes tied to Zoque cosmology.
- Authorities will protect the site with local communities while carrying out photogrammetry, 3D recording and chemical residue analyses to seek copal, ash or bone traces and to refine dating and function.