The Secrets of El Castillo | Buried Truth of the Maya

MEMO: It's magical just to be here. I'm thinking about how many thousands of stones are overhead, man. So let's not think a lot about that.

KENNY BROAD: My name is Kenny Broad. I'm the mission specialist.

NARRATOR: Kenny Broad is a National Geographic explorer and chief exploration officer of the Virtual Wonders Team.

MAN: I would describe Kenny Broad as a mad scientist.

NARRATOR: As an expert caver, he and Memo may be able to add crucial insight on how to access the chamber below the pyramid.

MEMO: There's very few people that have the privilege to go in here.

KENNY BROAD: I don't want to wait.

MEMO: All right, let's go.

KENNY BROAD: Being involved in a new discovery, it gives you this feeling that you're doing something larger than just yourself.

NARRATOR: While there are no portals to the underworld on the ground floor, they hike up to a sacred chamber, which holds some intriguing clues.

MEMO: And this is the amazing room. So beware.

KENNY BROAD: Wow. Oh, my gosh, that's incredible.

MEMO: Yeah, this is where the king used to sit.

NARRATOR: This is the jaguar throne.

KENNY BROAD: So the king used to sit here. I mean, it really sticks out because it still has, I assume, the original paint?

MEMO: Yes.

NARRATOR: From this royal throne, kings watched countless humans sacrificed to the rain god Chaac at this nearby altar. Could their remains lie in the veiled crypt below?

KENNY BROAD: Those are the original insets? Is that jade?

MEMO: This is jade.

NARRATOR: To the Maya, jade was a royal resource, used to communicate with the gods.

KENNY BROAD: But there's no local jade, so--

MEMO: Exactly. Yeah, they bring it all the way from Guatemala. It was one very important item. Only Royalty had access to it. This context is not only a royal context, where the king used to rest, sit, it's also a funerary one. There is a relationship with death here and life.

KENNY BROAD: Resurrection?

MEMO: Resurrection.

KENNY BROAD: The cycle. [inaudible] is the cycle.

NARRATOR: The ornate jaguar throne sits in front of something even more grim and ominous.

MEMO: This is an amazing wall for a number of reasons. And what we see here is embedded bones. They are long human bones that are embedded on the wall. There's one there, another one here, and there. My assumption as a bioarchaeologist, I believe these are leg bones.

KENNY BROAD: That looks like it'd be a femur or--

MEMO: Exactly, or tibias. If you ask me, I would say, yeah, that might represent bones of ancestors--

KENNY BROAD: Right.

MEMO: --or people very powerful.

KENNY BROAD: What's your sense of what can be behind this wall?

MEMO: Well, I do really believe that there is something intentionally positive there. Given the sacredness of the site, the importance of the place within Chichen Itza, I believe it could be a burial back there.

KENNY BROAD: I mean, it makes logical sense.

MEMO: It makes sense, yes. Yet, if somebody is buried here, it was for sure a very important person, a king.