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Ancient City Found!

Using special technology, a scientist found the ruins of thousands of buildings that were once part of a city.

A lidar image of an ancient city with houses, terraces, a ballcourt, and other features labeled.

 L. Auld-Thomas, M.A. Canuto, A. Velázquez Morlet, F. Estrada-Belli, D. Chatelain, D. Matadamas, M. Pigott, and J.C. Fernández Díaz. “Running out of Empty Space: Environmental Lidar and the Crowded Ancient Landscape of Campeche, Mexico.” https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2024.148

This image shows features of the ancient Maya city now called Valeriana.

What can a jungle hide? Sometimes it can hide an entire city! Using special technology, an anthropologist has discovered the remains of thousands of buildings that were part of the ancient Maya civilization.

The Maya lived in parts of Mexico and Central America between about 200 CE and 900 CE. They built large cities with huge populations, but their civilization eventually declined for reasons that are still unclear.

Some ruins of the Maya civilization are covered over by thick jungles, making them difficult to find. But thanks to a technology called lidar, experts have been making many discoveries. Lidar uses a laser to scan the ground and detect three-dimensional shapes, like buildings. Lidar surveys have revealed thousands of ancient Maya buildings in the nation of Guatemala.

Anthropologist Luke Auld-Thomas, who works at Northern Arizona University in the United States, wanted to use lidar to find Maya ruins in southeastern Mexico. An anthropologist is a scientist who studies human cultures. Auld-Thomas learned that people had used lidar technology in the area for other purposes. So he looked at the results to see if there were any signs of Maya ruins. That’s when he found the lost city, which he named Valeriana.

A map of Mexico shows the area of the country where the ancient city was found.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

The shaded red box on this map shows the location of the ancient city in what is now Mexico.

Valeriana was about 6.4 square miles (16.6 square kilometers) and included two main areas with large buildings and two plazas with temple pyramids. There were also many houses and roads, a court where people would have played ball games, and a reservoir (a place where water is stored). Auld-Thomas and others believe that, at one time, as many as 30,000 to 50,000 people lived in Valeriana.

Discoveries like this one show that the Maya civilization was much larger than anthropologists originally thought. Experts say it’s likely that there are other hidden settlements just waiting to be found!

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Did You Know?

A collage shows five surviving buildings from the Maya civilization.

© skostep, Madrugada Verde/stock.adobe.com, © zlotysu, Wiktor Wojtas, Kobby Dagan/Dreamstime.com; Photo composite Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Maya buildings have lasted hundreds of years, partly because they’re made of stone. But researchers have found that the Maya sometimes added rubber and volcanic ash as they built the walls of their buildings. These materials may have made the buildings even stronger.

When Chocolate Was a Big Deal

If you love chocolate, you can thank the ancient civilizations of Mexico and Central America for helping to bring it to you! Chocolate is made from the cocoa bean, which grows on trees that are native to that part of the world. Thousands of years ago, the Aztec, Maya, and Toltec peoples began making a drink from cocoa beans.

This early chocolate drink was highly prized. Among the Aztecs, only emperors and other high-ranking people were allowed to drink it. The Maya believed chocolate was the food of the gods.

A vessel or mug with an oblong handle is covered in various carvings.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, Gift of Charles and Valerie Diker, 1999 (1999.484.3); www.metmuseum.org

The Maya people made this vessel just for drinking chocolate. It’s more than 1,000 years old.

Life in Valeriana

Five ancient objects include a rattle shaped like a crocodile, a plate with a trumpeter painted on it, a lidded bowl with carvings, a drinking vessel with carvings, and a rattle in the shape of a human.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City (1989.110, 1984.614a, b, 1992.4, 1979.206.1143, 89.4.1273); www.metmuseum.org; Photo composite Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

The objects above were all made by the ancient Maya, probably more than 1,500 years ago.  They include a drinking vessel, a bowl, a plate, and two rattles.

What would it have been like to live in an ancient Maya city? You can learn more about the Maya civilization at Britannica!

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Word of the Day

detect

Part of speech:

verb

Definition:

: to discover or notice the presence of (something that is hidden or hard to see, hear, taste, etc.)

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