Emily Chan
During the Maya Classic period, which lasted from A.D. 250 to 925, the Midnight Terror Cave in what is now Belize was used for the burials of sacrifice victims.
The cave received its name in 2006 after locals were called to rescue an injured looter. The robber had been trying to escape from the locals and ended up falling through a hole and into the cave. As the locals retrieved the robber, they came across a large number of human bones.
An investigation revealed that there were more than 10,000 bones belonging to at least 118 people in the cave. Many of their remains showed signs of trauma that occurred around the time of death.
A research team consisting of professors and students from California State University, Los Angeles, conducted a three-year-long excavation project at the cave.
In 2022, the researchers examined the calcified plaque, known as dental calculus, from the victims’ teeth instead of their bones to learn more about how they died. They found blue fibers in the teeth of at least two of the victims.
Dental calculus can preserve tiny pieces of food that were eaten while a person was still alive. But diet isn’t the only thing that calculus can reflect.
The lead author of the study, Amy Chan, who is now an archaeologist working in cultural resource management, collected samples from six teeth.
She then sent them to Linda Scott Cummings, a study co-author, and president and CEO of the PaleoResearch Institute in Golden, Colorado.
Scott Cummings found that the samples contained mostly fibers that were dyed a bright blue. The fibers were likely made of cotton. The color blue was special to the ancient Mayans since it was symbolically significant in rituals.
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