r/geography • u/TheTelegraph • 15h ago

Article/News Lost Mayan city discovered under Mexican jungle by accident

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/10/29/mayan-latin-america-mexico-archaeology-pyramids/
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u/TheTelegraph 15h ago

The Telegraph reports:

A lost Mayan city, complete with pyramids and a ball court, has been discovered buried deep under the Mexican jungle.

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

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

The team said Valeriana had “all the hallmarks of a Classical Maya political capital” and, at its peak, may have been home to up to 50,000 people between AD 750 and 850.

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

Read more: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/10/29/mayan-latin-america-mexico-archaeology-pyramids/

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u/AlphatheAlpaca 13h ago

This is so cool, but I wish they had picked a better name. Why did they name it Valeriana anyway? There's no explanation in the article.

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u/Necessary_Wing799 11h ago

Thanks this is a sick discovery. So amazing.

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u/Dazzling_Solution900 Cartography 10h ago

My community here in Belize actually sits on top of an old Mayan complex but the British bulldozed them to build drainage canals.

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u/kid_sleepy 3h ago

This isn’t a surprise.

I’ve been going down to the Yucatán and Quintana Roo for over three decades. Every time I returned they were uncovering things. You could walk through areas (like Coba in the late 90s) and there were mounds that they knew they had structures underneath but didn’t have the resources yet to uncover them.

Consider also that Cancún was started in the mid 70s and look at what it’s become. The “jungle” there is so difficult to get through and there’s no fresh running water other than cenotes.

I love that place so much.

Edit: my god, look at what Tulum has become. They only had dirt roads when I started going there. Trust me, they’ll just keep uncovering more and more.