More than 15 years after scientists opened the Midnight Terror Cave in Belize, it is still being explored, namely the remains of 100 people sacrificed to the Mayan Rain God almost 1,000 years ago.
The cave was used for burial during the classical Mayan period and was described by local residents, and professors and students came to the conclusion that more than 10,000 bones found in the cave belonged to at least 118 people, many of whom had injuries they had sustained shortly before their death.
Now, in order to better study the last moments of the victims' lives, scientists were not looking at the bones, but were studying the mouth cavity, exploring the calcified raid on their teeth — the toothstone — and archaeologists and paleontologists found curious blue fibers sticking to the teeth of at least two victims.
The toothstone can store microscopic pieces of food that someone ate, such as pollen grains, starchmals and phytolytes — mineralized parts of plants. The victims of the Maya rituals have found cotton fibres. Some of them are painted bright blue. Scientists have pointed out that this was a surprise. It is worth noting that blue color is important in the Mayan rituals.
Some scientists suggested that the fibers were left behind by the gags that they gave to the victims, but other researchers were skeptical about the idea, perhaps in the future experts would do a more detailed analysis. Before this study, blue fibers were found in an agawa-based drink in graves in Theotihuacan.