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Inside ‘gateway to underworld' underneath 1,800-year-old city which holds ‘toxic' secret that scientists ‘can't explain'

Inside ‘gateway to underworld' underneath 1,800-year-old city which holds ‘toxic' secret that scientists ‘can't explain'

The Sun29-05-2025
AN ANCIENT pyramid thought to be a 'gateway to underworld' was discovered to contain a hidden secret.
The historic site, located in an ancient city, is thought to house a supernatural secret.
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Quetzalcoatl Temple in Mexico, also known as the Feathered Serpent Pyramid is thought to have been built around 1,800 to 1,900 years ago.
During an excavation project researchers discovered large amounts of liquid mercury in 2015.
Its something experts believe means the structure was used to 'look into the supernatural world.'
They also believe its presence could indicate that a king's tomb or ritual chamber could be lying underneath the ancient city of Teotihuacan.
The pyramid was originally unsealed in 2003, allowing researchers like Dr Sergio Gómez to spend six years excavating the tunnel.
During this excavation, researchers uncovered three chambers at the end of a 300 foot tunnel.
In addition to the liquid mercury, they also found artefacts like jade status, jaguar remains, and a box of carved shells and rubber balls.
The tunnels and adjoining structures lie 60 feet below the temple.
In their 16 years excavating the temple, the research team uncovered over 3,000 ceremonial and ritual artefacts.
They have used their discoveries to create a comprehensive survey of the pyramid and tunnel using LiDAR scanners and photogrammetry.
Liquid mercury is not an uncommon discovery - with Dr Rosemary Joyce saying that archaeologists had found the substance in three other sites around Central America.
Its believed that mercury symbolises an underworld river or lake.
Dr Annabeth Headrick agreed with this interpretation, telling the Guardian that the the qualities of liquid mercury might appear to resemble "an underworld river, not that different from the river Styx.
"Mirrors were considered a way to look into the supernatural world, they were a way to divine what might happen in the future.
"It could be a sort of river, albeit a pretty spectacular one," Dr Headrick added.
The Quetzalcoatl Temple is located around 12 miles northeast of Mexico City in Teotihuacán - the heart of the Mesoamerican Teotihuacan universe.
Around 4.5 million people visit the temple - which is the third largest in the city - every year.
It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987, and was listed on the World Monuments Watch in 2004 as tourist visitation led to the site's deterioration.
More than a hundred human remains, which may have been sacrificial victims, were found under the structure in the 1980s.
The Aztecs believed it was the place where Gods were created, with sacrifices being made as tributes.
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Disturbing Ancient Egyptian graves reveal brutal treatment of corpses 5,000 years ago including shock teen girl's burial
Disturbing Ancient Egyptian graves reveal brutal treatment of corpses 5,000 years ago including shock teen girl's burial

The Sun

time14 hours ago

  • The Sun

Disturbing Ancient Egyptian graves reveal brutal treatment of corpses 5,000 years ago including shock teen girl's burial

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have uncovered a disturbing Ancient Egyptian burial practice that saw people dismembered before being put to rest. The discovery offers a rare insight into the spiritual life of villagers more than 5,000 years ago - and may even mark the beginning of religion for the ancient pharaohs. 3 Researchers found the remains of a teenage girl whose arm had been deliberately severed after her death and positioned to match her left arm. The girl's left arm was bent unnaturally in a more than 90-degree angle and tucked in very tightly. The limb was removed near the lower part of the upper arm and forearm, possibly done using an axe. The muscles were most likely sliced with a flint blade, according to researchers. Her severed arm was carefully arranged to appear almost intact, with the hand placed beside the forearm. Buried in the Adaiima cemetery on the west bank of the Nile river, the remains date back to between 3300 to 2700 BC. The girl's body was carefully aligned with the setting sun on the winter solstice, while her coffin also pointed towards the rising of Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. Celestial alignments, and other symbolic gestures, likely influenced the religious traditions later embraced by Egypt's first pharaohs who emerged between 100 and 400 years later. 3 Her burial may also be the earliest sign of the Osiris and Isis myth - where the goddess Isis reassembles the dismembered body of Osiris beneath the rising Sirius. The tale is thought to symbolise death, rebirth, and cosmic order. Ancient Egyptian Tombs: Over a Thousand Mummies Unveiled The cemetery in which her remains were found is one of Egypt's oldest and most thoroughly studied, and paints a detailed picture about how funerary practices changed over time. Using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, researchers analysed patterns among more than 900 tombs across the 74-acre Adaiima site. Another coffin that was positioned to catch the winter sun contained a woman buried with ornate jewelry and pottery. A third grave, also belonging to a woman, faced the summer sunset and contained a ceremonial staff and plant-fiber wig. The study suggests these early burials shaped the mythology later adopted by Egypt's ruling elite - from their sky-based alignments to their ritual gestures, such as dismemberment. Older graves were placed around earlier, astronomically aligned tombs, suggesting those burials continued to hold religious or ancestral significance over the years. Ivory boat models and fine coffins were found with remains that researchers believed once belonged to individuals of higher status or spiritual importance. Similar to the dismemberment, a singular bone belonging to a child was found placed on the chest of an adult in a later tomb. In the myth of Osiris, Isis gathers the scattered body parts of her murdered husband after he is slain by his jealous brother, Set. "Sepdet, which we know as Sirius, was believed to be the appearance of Isis in the sky," the study said. "When the state emerged, it did not create religion from scratch. "It absorbed long-standing practices and reworked them into royal narratives." 3

Tracee Ellis Ross' top tips for travelling solo
Tracee Ellis Ross' top tips for travelling solo

BBC News

time15 hours ago

  • BBC News

Tracee Ellis Ross' top tips for travelling solo

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I like to unpack; I'm an unpack girl. I also like to take a bath, because I feel like it settles my body off the plane, and I now actually have my feet on the ground. I love to look for a lymphatic drainage massage. How do you plan your trip? Usually, I have researched in advance if there's a particular restaurant I want to try or if there's a gallery or a museum that I want to visit so that I'm not spending my time researching. My favourite thing to do is find those places by asking [local] people versus TikTok, you know? Because I lived in Europe growing up and went to school in Europe, I know people and I can usually collect a really good sort of itinerary for myself. What's one thing you never do? I don't overbook. If I go on a trip, it might be like one restaurant that I try. I don't like to jam pack my days in any way, shape or form. You don't want to need a vacation from the vacation. I come home from my solo trips and I'm, like, ready to jive back into my life. There are some great scenes of you celebrating local food culture in the series. I try to keep it simple and order things that I know and love. [But in] Morocco, my mouth was so happy and I had no idea what I was eating. [There] were flavours that my mouth had never tasted! And it was delicious! I was, like, 'I don't even know what these things are!' So I love that part of it. And then you just wanna have some fries. What's the best way to experience a city on your own? I listen to the sounds. I find it so soothing to listen to the sounds of an environment, because they sound different everywhere. Wind sounds different. The birds sound different. The traffic sounds different. So I do a lot of listening when I'm travelling. One of my favourite sounds in the world is wind on trees. Truly, it's just magic to me. -- For more Travel stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

Caves, cocktails and dances with deers: 11 days on Mexico's Copper Canyon railway route
Caves, cocktails and dances with deers: 11 days on Mexico's Copper Canyon railway route

The Independent

time2 days ago

  • The Independent

Caves, cocktails and dances with deers: 11 days on Mexico's Copper Canyon railway route

Before boarding the Chepe Regional train, I'd heard that the state of Chihuahua was considered 'drug cartel land'. But I was still a little surprised to pass a policeman with a machine gun strapped to his back in the carriage aisle. It was day one of my 11-day railway trip through the massive canyons of northwest Mexico, collectively known as Copper Canyon due to their colouring. I wasn't put off by reports of violence – tourists don't tend to get caught up in disputes, and the association frustrates some locals. 'It's sad to say: some tourists don't come [to Chihuahua] because they feel as though they won't be safe,' says Gustavo Lozano, a guide in his early 60s. 'They miss this wonderful trip. If it was dangerous, I wouldn't be here.' The Chepe train route runs 405 miles between the cities of Chihuahua and Los Mochis, trundling through tunnels and forest-dotted canyons, connecting sparse settlements. It launched in 1961 and was supposed to be part of a longer route connecting the US Midwest to the Mexican port of Topolobampo, although it was never completed. For visitors, the route initially provided a rugged rural adventure unique in Mexico. In 2018, a tourist version of the train called the Chepe Express was launched. In contrast to the basic Chepe Regional, the Chepe Express has leather seats, high-end burgers and a bar carriage with thumping dance music. The two train services run a few times per week each, so many tourists travel the route over a day or two. But I decided to ride both the local and tourist trains, getting off at each stop. I first alight at the small town of Creel, from which a driver takes me to the nearby Valley of the Monks. I walk in the shadows of house-tall natural stone structures that (sort of) resemble monks. I'm told that this place used to be known locally as a 'valley of penises', until Catholic church figures gained more influence and baulked at the reference. Either way, it's calming to walk around the boulder bases, briefly escaping the skin-crisping sun. We stop at a huge rock resembling a frog, and then at what looks like a collection of large stone mushrooms. As we traverse rubbly roads between frogs, mushrooms and monks, we occasionally pass women wearing long, crinkly blue skirts. We're in the territory of the Rarámuri: the indigenous group pushed into the canyon depths when Spain colonised Mexico in the 16th century. In the small museum by Creel's train station, videos teach me about the spectacular long-distance running ability of the Rarámuri, which translates to 'runners on foot' in their dialect. Many Rarámuri still live semi-nomadically, building houses among caves. I meet local guide Lozano at my second stop, Divisadero: a sparse outpost overlooking a canyon. No offence to Creel's rocky monks, but the vista is a new level of beautiful vastness. Birds of prey circle overhead, as I scan misty peaks and wiry bushes rooted at improbable angles to copper-coloured dirt ledges. In the distance, I see a lone Rarámuri girl walking between the cliffside thickets, the bright orange of her skirt popping amidst the grey rocks. Lozano leads me down the canyon, and my hiking shoes sporadically skid on loose rock. Lozano points out hosepipes angled between tree roots: makeshift plumbing directing spring water. We pass teapots on stone ledges, goats with bells hanging from their necks, and fluffy puppies peeking out from behind knobbly wooden cave doors. We exchange nods with a moustachioed man craning his neck to watch us from a gap he'd built into his cave house wall. Our ' Kwira bá ' greetings (a Rarámuri variation of 'hello') don't prompt too much enthusiasm. Lozano says that landowners have tried to evict locals from this area, and there are understandably trust issues. Some Rarámuri earn from tourism, leading hikes or working at the nearby zipline park, but Lozano says others won't work with outsiders. After a few nights in a Divisadero cliffside hotel, I board the Chepe Express and order a virgin piña colada in a bar carriage with screens playing Madonna and LMFAO videos. The quieter carriages have plush brown seats, and my on-board gourmet burger is the best train food I've had. As Smells Like Teen Spirit blasts from the train, a Rarámuri woman stands by the track, covering a little girl's ears with her hands as we whizz past. I get off at Bahuichivo: a snoozy, mountain-flanked town with no phone signal. A hotel owner I meet on the town square agrees to drive me to the bottom of the Copper Canyon, on bumpy, snaking roads flanked by witchy, leafless trees. We pass murals depicting Rarámuri women running long-distance races, wearing long pink skirts and determined expressions. When the train gets to its fourth main stop, El Fuerte town in Sinaloa state, we're no longer in Rarámuri land. A guide takes me to nearby Los Capomos, a village that's home to Mayo indigenous people. In a large open-walled building, buttressed by crooked wooden pillars, I'm introduced to a man named Ernesto, who is strapping a deer head to his forehead. I can't tell if it's a realistic model or taxidermy. Ernesto is wearing rattles made from dried butterfly cocoons, known as tenábaris, around his ankles. They make a loud rattlesnake noise as he begins to dance, backed by white-shirted men hitting dried calabash plants with drumsticks. Ernesto scrapes his deer head antlers on the ground, then pushes its mouth to a water bowl. This is maso bwikam, 'deer songs' in Mayo language, often performed as a rain dance. Ernesto's movements are mesmerising, and with researchers reporting that Mayo culture is being lost among modern Mexico, these visits help share the ritual while providing income for performers. But I don't think it's too snowflakey to admit that I feel a teensy bit awkward when paying indigenous people to dance for me. It's feelings of awe and adventure, though, that dominate my Copper Canyon trip. In El Fuerte, I board the Chepe Regional for the final stretch to Los Mochis city: the route's full stop. It's a smooth two-hour ride past fields and a pastel purple sunset. Just before we arrive in Los Mochis, the cop I saw on the first train walks through my carriage, his machine gun still strapped to his back. We trade thumbs-up as I pull my backpack on. Jamie Fullerton was a guest of The Chepe Express. How to get there Aeroméxico and British Airways fly from London Heathrow direct to Mexico City, with flight times of around 11 hours and 35 minutes. Aeroméxico, VivaAerobus and Volaris fly direct from Mexico City to Chihuahua, with flight times of around two hours and 15 minutes. Aeroméxico and Volaris fly direct from Los Mochis to Mexico City, with flight times of just over two hours. How to book Find the schedule for the Chepe Regional (local) train at the link. Chepe Regional tickets can only be booked at station ticket offices or by calling +52 800 122 43 73 (Spanish-language only), and for foreigners, cost around £143 for the entire route, one-way. Book Chepe Express (tourist) train tickets from £115 for the entire route, one-way. The best was El Fuerte's Hotel Posada del Hidalgo, which has large rooms, an outdoor pool, and regularly hosts a mildly cheesy Zorro live show.

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