Ancient Mayan City Revealed With Thousands of Hidden Structures in Mexico

TPO - Laser surveys have discovered a vast, centuries-old Mayan city in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. The city has up to 6,674 architectural structures, including pyramids like those at Chichén Itzá and Tikal.

TPO - Laser surveys have discovered a vast, centuries-old Mayan city in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. The city has up to 6,674 architectural structures, including pyramids like those at Chichén Itzá and Tikal.

The city was discovered in east-central Campeche, hidden among modern buildings and highways. (Photo: Luke Auld-Thomas, Antiquity Publications Ltd; CC BY 4.0 )

Researchers used previously created lidar (light detection and ranging) maps, created by firing laser pulses at the ground, to uncover the site, which could date back 1,500 years.

The discovery of ancient settlements has increased dramatically over the past few decades with the development of lidar technology. However, the technology is expensive and often inaccessible to novice scientists like Luke Auld-Thomas, an archaeologist at Northern Arizona University and first author of the study. But researchers have an idea for how to overcome this barrier.

By reviewing previously commissioned lidar studies, Auld-Thomas identified a survey created to measure and monitor carbon in forests in Mexico.

By analyzing 129 square kilometers in east-central Campeche, Mexico, an area that had never been searched for Maya architecture before, Auld-Thomas and his colleagues found traces of a Maya city hidden among modern farms and highways.

The city, which researchers named Valeriana after a nearby freshwater lagoon, dates to the Classic period (AD 250–900), and shows "all the hallmarks of a Classic Maya political capital", including multiple enclosed plazas connected by a wide causeway, temple pyramids, and a ball court.

Further from the city center of Valeriana, terraces and houses dot the hillsides, suggesting dense urban development. This study is the first to reveal Maya architectural structures in east-central Campeche.

Auld-Thomas notes that as the diversity and density of the Maya civilization is gradually revealed, the study of this time period becomes more important than ever.

Ha Thu

According to Live Science

Source: https://tienphong.vn/thanh-pho-maya-co-dai-lo-ra-voi-hang-ngan-cong-trinh-kien-truc-an-giau-o-mexico-post1687021.tpo