Archaeologists Find Secret Tunnel Underneath Ancient Mexican Pyramid

If you thought the days of real-life Indiana Jones' were over, think again, because a team of researchers have just had an incredible find in Mexico.

Thirty feet (10 metres) underneath the Pyramid of the Moon in the ancient city of Teotihuacan, archaeologists have discovered a tunnel which extends to the Plaza de la Luna.

Credit: Creative Commons

But what is interesting about this particular tunnel, is that researchers believe that its creators were trying to represent their belief in the underworld.

It could've also been filled with offerings, according to the Daily Mail.

Archaeologist Verónica Ortega told the paper: "The finding confirms that Teotihuacans reproduced the same pattern of tunnels associated with their great monuments, whose function had to be the emulation of the underworld."

It wasn't discovered in the traditional sense of one brave soul heading into the dark depths. Instead, researchers mapped the tunnel with a process that's called electrical resistivity tomography, which is a fancy term for a technique which takes sub-surface images through electrodes in one or more boreholes.

Facade of the Temple of the Feathered Serpent. Credit: Creative Commons/rosemanios

The team behind the project says that more work needs to be done to understand the scale of the tunnel and whether others exist nearby. There was one unveiled at the Temple of the Plumed Serpent, in 2014, which lead to three hidden chambers.

There were 50,000 ritual objects discovered in a separate tunnel discovered in 2003, including pottery, jewellery and animal bones. So, this newest uncovering could yield some amazing objects.

Credit: Creative Commons/Sailko

It is unclear who was behind the Teotihuacan pyramids. It's understood that around 300 BCE, people in central and southeastern area of Mesoamerica started to group together. But it's believed that the biggest pyramid, the Pyramid of the Sun, was finished around 100 CE. At the height of its civilisation, about 125,000 people are thought to have living there.

Researchers have determined that some of the pyramids were used, at some point in their history, for human and animal sacrifice as well as burial sites.

Scholars reckon Teotihuacan was invaded in the 7^th or 8^th century, where it was ransacked and burned and the site was in ruins when it was later discovered by the Aztecs.

Featured Image Credit: Creative Commons

Topics: Mexico

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie is a Trending Journalist at LADbible. His first job was as a newsreader and journalist at the award winning Sydney radio station, Macquarie Radio. He was solely responsible for the content broadcast on multiple stations across Australia when the MH17, Germanwings and AirAsia disasters unfolded. Stewart has covered the conflict in Syria for LADbible, interviewing a doctor on the front line, and has contributed to the hugely successful UOKM8 campaign.

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