A recent underwater survey has found clues in a Mayan cenote, a type of sinkhole, about the development of the Mesoamerican city of Mayapán (1150–1450 CE). The city wall curves to avoid this particular cenote, Sac Uayum, in which research divers found more than a dozen skeletal human remains. Normally cenotes are found within city limits, to provide water, so the location of the cenote and number of remains are notably atypical.
Researchers are considering various possibilities to explain their findings. A theory that the cenote might have served as a general city cemetery was rejected, because most city residents were interred near or under their homes. A theory of ceremonial human sacrifice was dismissed because the bones were unmarked, showing no indications of rituals or cause of death. A theory of social elitism was eliminated, because shards of other artifacts discovered at the same site were mainly those of plain water pitchers, displaying no indications of wealth or high social rank. So far the most tenable interpretation under consideration is that the cenote may have served as an attempt at contagious-disease containment—a plague pit, kept deliberately beyond the city wall and apart from drinking water supplies. The persistence into modern times of local taboos and superstitions around Sac Uayum, threatening death if the gods are not appeased with rituals before the water is approached, lends further credence to the researchers' theory.