Balankanché

Balankanché ('throne of the Jaguar Priest'), 5km/3mi east of the excavation zone on the Valladolid and Puerto Juárez road (MEX 180), is a fascinating cult and burial site in a stalactitic limestone cave discovered quite by accident in 1959. It had evidently lain undisturbed for many centuries, its entrance blocked with rough hewn stone. The cave is almost certainly part of an extensive labyrinth of underground caverns and waterways yet to be investigated. Artificial lighting has been installed allowing the visitor to see the numerous clay dishes and jars, 'metates' (stones for grinding maize), copal burners and other objects still lying where the priests using the site left them. Many items are decorated with the mask of the Toltec-Aztec Rain god Tláloc, suggesting that the cave was an exclusively Toltec burial place. The focal point of the cave is a chamber containing an altar and a limestone formation reminiscent of the sacred Mayan ceiba tree. A narrow passageway leads to a deeper-lying stalactitic chamber, at the end of which crystal-clear water surrounds another altar also dedicated to the Rain god Tláloc. Tiny shrimps and blind fish live in the pool.