Mayan cave sites are associated with the Mayan civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. Beliefs and observances connected with these cave sites persist among some contemporary Mayan communities. Many of the Mayan caves served religious purposes. For this reason, the artifacts found there, alongside the epigraphic, iconographic, and ethnographic studies, help build the modern-day understanding of the Mayan religion and society.

Mayan cave sites have also attracted thieves and invaders. Consequently, some of them have been walled shut to stop any damage to the sites. The immured caves of Dos Pilas and Naj Tunich have been sealed.^{[failed verification]}

In works compiled for the fight against idolatry, 16th-century Spanish sources mentioned 17 Maya caves and cenotes - nine of which have been found. In his book Relación de las cosas de Yucatán, friar Diego de Landa described the Sacred Cenote. Underground Maya archaeology began in the 1980s and 1990s.

The Museo Nacional de Antropología leads two projects to study Maya caves: Caves: Register of Prehispanic Cultures Evidence in Puuc Region, 1997, and The cult of the cenotes in the centre of the Yucatan.

In 2008, archaeologists found a Mayan underground complex of 11 temples, 100-metre-long stone roads, and a flooded labyrinth of caves on the Yucatan Peninsula.

The most famous caves are Balankanche, Loltun Cave, Actun Tunichil Muknal, and Jolja'.

It is not known which symbol represents a cave in Maya writing. According to James Brady, a cave is represented as a "sign entry" or "impinged bone element" in the Mayan texts. James Brady reads this sign as CH'EN or CH'EEN. As proof of his hypothesis, James Brady cites three arguments:

1) Use of the sign in the sentence denotes a certain place in which one can enter, sit down, or do a burial;