English: The painted Tlaloc effigy pots still lay all around the column—not replicas, but the original vessels. About a thousand years ago the local Maya had performed elaborate rites in this secret lair so near the underworld. Tlaloc, moreover, was originally not a Maya but a central Mexican god. By appealing to this deity, rather than the Maya rain god, Chaac, the Balankanche worshippers had demonstrated a close affiliation with civilizations more than 800 miles away, north of today's Mexico City. Had Tlaloc failed them? For whatever reason, the Maya had sealed shut the shrine—no doubt forever, they hoped, for they had taken pains to camouflage the portal. Yet a faint memory of the lost shrine has perhaps come down through the centuries in the name of the cave. Balankanche translates as "throne of the jaguar" but can also mean "hidden throne".