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  • MEMO: It's magical just to be here.

  • I'm thinking about how many thousands of stones

  • are overhead, man.

  • So let's not think a lot about that.

  • KENNY BROAD: My name is Kenny Broad.

  • I'm the mission specialist.

  • NARRATOR: Kenny Broad is a National Geographic

  • explorer and chief exploration officer

  • of the Virtual Wonders Team.

  • MAN: I would describe Kenny Broad as a mad scientist.

  • NARRATOR: As an expert caver, he and Memo

  • may be able to add crucial insight on how to access

  • the chamber below the pyramid.

  • MEMO: There's very few people that have

  • the privilege to go in here.

  • KENNY BROAD: I don't want to wait.

  • MEMO: All right, let's go.

  • KENNY BROAD: Being involved in a new discovery,

  • it gives you this feeling that you're doing something

  • larger than just yourself.

  • NARRATOR: While there are no portals to the underworld

  • on the ground floor, they hike up to a sacred chamber, which

  • holds some intriguing clues.

  • MEMO: And this is the amazing room.

  • So beware.

  • KENNY BROAD: Wow.

  • Oh, my gosh, that's incredible.

  • MEMO: Yeah, this is where the king used to sit.

  • NARRATOR: This is the jaguar throne.

  • KENNY BROAD: So the king used to sit here.

  • I mean, it really sticks out because it still has, I assume,

  • the original paint?

  • MEMO: Yes.

  • NARRATOR: From this royal throne,

  • kings watched countless humans sacrificed to the rain

  • god Chaac at this nearby altar.

  • Could their remains lie in the veiled crypt below?

  • KENNY BROAD: Those are the original insets?

  • Is that jade?

  • MEMO: This is jade.

  • NARRATOR: To the Maya, jade was a royal resource, used

  • to communicate with the gods.

  • KENNY BROAD: But there's no local jade, so--

  • MEMO: Exactly.

  • Yeah, they bring it all the way from Guatemala.

  • It was one very important item.

  • Only Royalty had access to it.

  • This context is not only a royal context,

  • where the king used to rest, sit, it's also a funerary one.

  • There is a relationship with death here and life.

  • KENNY BROAD: Resurrection? MEMO: Resurrection.

  • KENNY BROAD: The cycle.

  • [inaudible] is the cycle.

  • NARRATOR: The ornate jaguar throne

  • sits in front of something even more grim and ominous.

  • MEMO: This is an amazing wall for a number of reasons.

  • And what we see here is embedded bones.

  • They are long human bones that are embedded on the wall.

  • There's one there, another one here, and there.

  • My assumption as a bioarchaeologist,

  • I believe these are leg bones.

  • KENNY BROAD: That looks like it'd be a femur or--

  • MEMO: Exactly, or tibias.

  • If you ask me, I would say, yeah, that might

  • represent bones of ancestors--

  • KENNY BROAD: Right.

  • MEMO: --or people very powerful.

  • KENNY BROAD: What's your sense of what

  • can be behind this wall?

  • MEMO: Well, I do really believe that there is something

  • intentionally positive there.

  • Given the sacredness of the site, the importance

  • of the place within Chichen Itza,

  • I believe it could be a burial back there.

  • KENNY BROAD: I mean, it makes logical sense.

  • MEMO: It makes sense, yes.

  • Yet, if somebody is buried here, it was for sure a very

  • important person, a king.

MEMO: It's magical just to be here.

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