Lost Mayan city accidentally discovered beneath the Mexican jungle

Deep beneath the Mexican jungle, a lost Mayan city has been discovered, complete with pyramids and a ball court.

The city, which archaeologists have named Valeriana, was found by studying laser scans taken in 2013 as part of a forest monitoring project in the southeastern state of Campeche.

The scans revealed the outlines of several enclosed plazas, temple pyramids, a reservoir and several curved amphitheatre-like patios in the city, which are thought to be main attractions. the second largest of its kind in Latin America.

The team said Valeriana had “all the hallmarks of a classic Mayan political capital” and at its height, perhaps accommodates up to 50,000 people between 750 and 850 AD.

The discovery was initially made by Luke Auld-Thomas, a doctoral candidate at Tulane University in New Orleans, who was surfing Google to find out if anyone had conducted a Lidar (light detection and ranging) survey of the area .

“Scientists in ecology, forestry and civil engineering have used Lidar surveys to study some of these areas for completely different purposes,” Mr Auld-Thomas said. “So what if there was already a lidar survey of this area?”

Lidar works by firing a short laser pulse from an aircraft or satellite and recording the time it takes for the signal to bounce back.

Mr Auld-Thomas discovered a laser survey of about 80 square kilometers of dense Mexican forest that was rarely visited, even by locals.

Together with colleagues, he studied the maps and found a dense, enormous series of completely unstudied Mayan settlements spread across the region, consisting of 6,674 undiscovered Mayan structures.

“Our analysis not only revealed a picture of a region dense with settlements, but also revealed a lot of variability,” said Mr Auld-Thomas. “We didn’t just find rural areas and smaller settlements.

“We found it too a big city with pyramids right next to the only highway in the area, near a town where people have been actively farming among the ruins for years.

“The government never knew about it; the scientific community never knew about it. That really puts an exclamation point behind the statement: no, we haven’t found everything, and yes, there is much more to discover.”

Valeriana included two major nodes of monumental architecture, 2 kilometers apart, linked by continued dense settlement, landscaping and watercourses. It also appears to have pyramids like the one at the famous sights of Chichén Itzá or Tikal.

A ball court was also found, where the ancient Mayan game of Pitz may have been played. The game could last two weeks and the object was to get the ball to the other side of the field without dropping it only with the hip, knee or elbow.

The team now plans to conduct fieldwork in the areas identified in the study.

The findings were published in the journal Antiquity.

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