[Aztlan] Chichen Itza water sources

[Bruce Rogers]

Listeros,

A few more comments about the water sources at Chichen Itza.

>From:  E. J. Albright <vanjayal at yahoo.com>
>A couple of picayune corrections to Bruce 
>Rogers' post about the cenotes of Chichén Itzá:
>Edward Thompson dredged the Cenote Sagrado from 1904 to 1910, not 1907.

Dr. Eusebio Davalos Hurtado, Director of INAH in 
the 1960's, and Bates Littlehales, of the 
National Geographic Society, wrote in National 
Geographic Magazine in October of 1961 that 
Edward H. Thompson dredged the Cenote Sacrado 
from 1904 to 1907 as did James Reddell of the 
Texas Tech University Museum in A preliminary 
survey of the caves of the Yucatan Peninsula in 
1977.  I took these dates at face value.

>There were three so-called SCUBA expeditions, not two,
>but the most famous were the latter two that Bruce referred to, in 1961-2 and
>1967-8 (not 1971). Both expeditions relied as 
>much on an airlift as divers to recover 
>artifacts. The latter expedition was not 
>organized by Donald Ediger
>(who did write a book about it), but by three men: Pablo Bush Romero (Mexican
>Ford dealer and founder of CEDAM, who sparked the project and lobbied the
>Mexican government), Kirk Johnson (who put up most of the money) and Norman
>Scott (who handled all the logistics and 
>execution of the airlift and divers). INAH 
>supervised the expedition.

Thanks for adding the details of just who 
organized the dives.  It's always important to 
give credit to those who deserve it.

>While chlorination was used to clear the water in that last
>expedition, I don't know what the source is that says the Cenote Sagrado has
>not recovered. More importantly, recovered to 
>what? I'm not aware of baseline studies before 
>the expedition or of studies conducted in the 
>almost 40 years since.

James Reddell and many others of the Texas Tech 
University Museum visited the Mayab area starting 
in 1973 and has continued explorations and 
systematics of the biota found in the area's 
caves.  His comments in A preliminary survey of 
the caves of the Yucatan Peninsula do include a 
comment that there never was a systematic 
biological survey of the Cenote Sacrado, only 
sporadic observations by biologists.  My 
inferences were from "topside" inspection and his 
comments that only a few life forms have been 
observed in the cenote.  This is contrast with 
fairly extensive fauna lists of the nearby Cenote 
Xtoloc that has not had a "Clorox cleansing" as 
well as my own observations in Cenote Xtojil near 
Libre Union to the west.  Having talked to many 
other divers in the Pacific where Clorox has been 
used to flush exotic fish from reefs and the 
resulting disaster on the surrounding wildlife, I 
made that inference for the Cenote Sacrado.

>Finally, I'm not certain one can make the 
>assertion that the expeditions in the 1960s were 
>more successful than Thompson's dredging. I 
>suppose it depends upon the definition of 
>success.
>Thompson and his dredge recovered more material 
>and more diverse artifacts than
>the later expeditions. Of course, he operated his dredge over several years,
>while the later expeditions only had a matter of weeks to complete their work
>-- EJ Albright

You are correct- what does constitute a 
successful excavation is somewhat subjective.  My 
post was simply to make Aztlan readers aware of 
the existence of other water sources in the 
Chichen Itza area and not provide an exhaustive 
summary of excavations in the Cenote Sacrado or 
measure the success of each of these most worthy 
attempts to enhance our knowledge of the Mayab.

Cheers,
Bruce Rogers, earth scientist on a good day.