All posts tagged: Mayan Ruins

Maya City, Hidden for More Than 1000 Years, Discovered Intact in Mexico

Maya City, Hidden for More Than 1000 Years, Discovered Intact in Mexico

A joint Slovenian-Mexican archeological team has discovered an undisturbed Mayan city in a remote area of Campeche, Mexico. Located deep within the jungles of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, the city—which the researchers have named “Minanbé,” a Maya Yucatec phrase meaning “there is no road”—had been hidden by vegetation for over a thousand years. The site features a 43-foot-high pyramid temple (about the height of a four-story apartment building), and 14 carved altars and stelae, according to Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), which authorized the expedition. The discovery is the culmination of lead archaeologist Ivan Šprajc’s three-decade-long exploration of the Central Maya Lowlands, home to between 9 and 11 million people during the Maya civilization’s Late Classic period (600–900 CE). Related Articles This year’s expedition followed on the team’s discovery, in 2013, of the Mayan city of Chactún. Airborne LiDAR mapping of the area had shown a 37-acre urban center under the forest canopy just east of Chactún, with squares surrounded by palaces and temples, terraces, and hydraulic channels. To conduct a surface …