Profile of Actun Xcoch underlying monumental structures on the surface above. 

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... investigations of a deep cave in the Lowland Maya site of Xcoch were first described by John Lloyd Stephens in 1843. Stephens’ wrote: ‘‘The water was in a deep, stony basin running under a shelf of overhanging rock, with a pole laid across on one side, over which the Indians leaned to dip it up . . . . [T]he sight of it was more welcome to us than gold or rubies’’ (Stephens, 1843). Caves have been a significant component of Maya worldview and their assessment of the sacred landscape for millennia. The rain deity, Chaac, was believed to reside within caves, where wind was formed that carried water to the sky. While caves were places connected with supernatural and often malevolent forces, they were also places that the Maya considered as wombs of the earth, connected to the primordial water that was the source of creation (Halperin et al, 2003). This duality is best described as reflecting breaks in the quadrilateral fabric of the world through which destructive forces and essential elements could enter (Bassie-Sweet, 2008). The Maya connected with caves and their cosmic denizens by integrating caves into town and city plans (Ashmore and Brady, 1999; Bassie-Sweet, 1991; Brady and Stone, 1986). Rituals were often performed both near and within caves. In 1841, John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood were the first outsiders to visit one such cave, filled with the remains of past ritual activities, while visiting the ancient Maya site of Xcoch. This article reports on the first systematic exploration and mapping of Xcoch Cave, undertaken in 2009 and 2010. The site of Xcoch is located just outside of the town of Santa Elena in Yucat ́ n, Mexico, and approximately 10 km east of the famous ruins of Uxmal (Fig. 1). Xcoch lies in the heart of the Puuc Hills, a region famous for its high density of ancient Maya sites, most of which date to the Late and Terminal Classic periods (ca. AD 600–900). It is located south of a line of fault-block ridges known as the Sierrita de Ticul, and the permanent freshwater table in the Puuc lies tens of meters below the ground surface and is accessible through only a small handful of deep caves, including Xcoch (Dunning, 1992). Excavation of the site began in 2006 under the direction of Michael Smyth and has continued since then. Xcoch includes a 10 ha acropolis, primarily displaying megalithic-style architecture dating to the Middle and Late Preclassic periods (ca. 800 BC–AD 150). The largest pyramid, referred to as the Great Pyramid, is 30 meters high and exhibits Late Classic construction (ca. AD 600–800) overlying massive, earlier Preclassic phases. Actun Xcoch is located near the base of another pyramid, dubbed the Cave Pyramid. This edifice had four entrances and stairways indicating that it once may have been a radial pyramid, an architectural device used to align the site with the Maya model of the cosmos (Dunning, 2011). The Great Pyramid and an associated plaza are connected to other parts of the site by two causeways, one of which runs due west from near the cave entrance to a nearby ancient reservoir. The central plaza is approximately 100 meters by 50 meters in size. An overlay of the maps of central Xcoch and the underlying cave system (Fig. 2) indicates that the main plaza and associated monumental architecture were developed around and above the cave. A series of structures around the plaza form what appears to be an ‘‘E-Group Complex,’’ a Preclassic solar observatory also used to cosmically align urban space (Smyth, 2008). Most of the central architecture shows evidence of construction in early styles (e.g., Early Puuc, Proto-Puuc, and Megalithic) that likely span the period between 800 BC and AD 600. Very few buildings, mainly those on the outskirts of the acropolis, resemble the later AD 700–900 Classic Puuc style of architecture for which the region is best known. Xcoch shows evidence of a significant population as early as 800 BC during the Middle Preclassic. While the site is still in the early stages of excavation, it seems evident that Xcoch was a major early center, but played a relatively minor role in the Late Classic/Terminal Classic florescence of the Puuc region (Smyth and Ortego ́ n Zapata, 2008). The first published account of Actun Xcoch is from John Lloyd Stephens (1843) in his book Incidents of Travel in the Yucat ́n . Stephens’ account of the cave expresses both disappointment, because it did not contain an underground cathedral as he had been lead to believe by the residents of the area, and excitement because of what the cave did contain. The next report of any exploration of the cave is from a group of entomologists in 1971, who indicated that the cave entrance required reopening for them to gain access. They were unable to reach the water pool in the deep recesses of the cave because the passage to it had been intentionally sealed. The cave was entered again in 2006 by Michael Smyth during the course of mapping and excavating the Xcoch acropolis (Smyth and Ortego ́n Zapata, 2008). The survey of the cave began in 2009 and continued in 2010. At the onset of the survey, very minimal excavation work had occurred within the cave; but some ceramics had been collected, including a rare, specialized ware known as Chac Polychrome and the Middle Preclassic diagnostic ware Yotolin Patterned Burnished (Smyth and Ortego ́ n Zapata, 2008). After two field seasons in the cave, its total surveyed length is currently 1,286 m with a surface length of 131 m. The depth of the cave is 34.9 m. There are two significant upper rooms, Chambers I and II, in the cave and two lower rooms, Chambers III and IV (Fig. 3). The cave entrance is situated at the bottom of a large sinkhole, where excavation in 2010 revealed a staircase that had descended from the top of the depression to the entrance of the cave. The entrance is a small pit 2.3 m deep in which there is a carved rock at the bottom on the left-hand side. The rock is a spool element common in the decorated facades of Puuc architecture, and it is unclear whether this stone simply fell into the cave entrance or was deliberately placed. The pit immediately becomes a crawl space less than 1 m in height, where a strong breeze blows through the cave passage, and then proceeds to a stoop-walk between 1 and 1.5 m in height. Stephens aptly describes this breeze as capable of taking a person’s breath away, and, indeed, the breeze blows dirt directly into one’s face when crawling into the entrance. The breeze seems to diminish after several meters of crawling. Nearby is another carved rock that marks the location of what may be a blocked passage. No efforts have been made yet to remove the debris for further exploration. Eventually the cave becomes large enough to accom- modate upright walking, and the ceiling has multiple cupolas. There is a side lead to the left, the B Passage, marked by a round stone; it loops back into the main passage. The main passage then begins to open up into a relatively complex room, referred to as Chamber I. It would have been an ideal meeting location in the cave, as it is large enough to comfortably hold twenty or more people. Several significant passages branch from this room. The C Passage is a small passage that loops into the much longer E Passage. Multiple sets of human remains are identifiable at this location, primarily in the E Passage. From there, the E Passage continues in a southerly direction and eventually surpasses the entrance as the southern-most point in the cave. A major extension discovered during the second year of survey substantially increased the length of this passage. The connection of the A Passage with the E and C Passages is marked by an inverted conical stone altar (Fig. 4). On the surface such altars are typically found upright in the center of courtyards and are thought to represent world trees or cosmic centering points (Kowalski and Dunning, 1999). The emblematic Maya world tree is the Ceiba ( Ceiba pentandra ), the branches of which created 13 celestial tiers and the roots of which formed 9 subterranean layers. The inverted cave altar may represent the roots of the world tree. The D Passage branches to the east and reaches ...