A huge Mayan city has been discovered centuries after it disappeared under jungle canopy in Mexico.
Archaeologists found pyramids, sports fields, causeways connecting districts and amphitheatres in the southeastern state of Campeche.
They found the hidden complex - which they have called Valeriana - using Lidar, a type of radar survey that maps structures buried under vegetation.
They believe it is second in size only to Calakmul, thought to be the largest Mayan site in ancient Latin America.
Wow I found it totally on accident while processing lidar images with my software specifically designed to detect hidden cities in lidar images!
Surprising maybe. Accidental? Ehhhh
I guess the argument is that the lidar scan was for something else? And, of course, it makes a better headline.
Yeah the lidar scan was done for other reasons, but this researcher was specifically looking for lidar data to scour through.
You’re right though, this is a much catchier headline.
“It seems the cat-burgular was caught by the very person who was trying to catch him! How ironic!”
Dontcha think?
That’s crazy. Last time I accidentally discovered a Mayan city it was just Chickenitza in Tijuana.
Meh, I’ve heard crazier coinkiedinks
“I was on something like page 16 of Google search
Homie was browsing the dark web.
“I was on something like page 16 of Google search and found a radar survey done by a Mexican organisation for environmental monitoring,” explains Luke Auld-Thomas, a PhD student at Tulane university in the US.
It was a Lidar survey, a remote sensing technique which fires thousands of radar pulses from a plane and maps objects below using the time the signal takes to return.
But when Mr Auld-Thomas processed the data with methods used by archaeologists, he saw what others had missed - a huge ancient city which may have been home to 30-50,000 people at its peak from 750 to 850 AD.
the full section on that. he was looking for the lidar data to analyze.
I’m not sure why they didn’t just ask the group doing the lidar sweeps for the data, though. I find it hard to believe they’d tell an archeologist ‘no’ for some reason.
Being a phd. myself, I would say it seems likely that the person in question wasn’t aware of the research/sweeps that had been done, and was searching through literature with the express purpose of finding out what kind of work had been done on the subject, when they came across this data.
The way I usually find out about a research campaign is by reading articles from said campaign. It’s very rare that I’ll need to reach out to the authors to ask for more data than what is available in their publications.
I’m not sure climate change peeps would necessarily publish the raw lidar map in a way that would be useful for an archeologist.
There’s a lot of data there.
I find it hard to believe they’d tell an archeologist ‘no’ for some reason.
Depends on if enough of the team is superstitious, and fears their findings will lead to a greater disturbance unleashing a long forgotten ancient force that may devastate the region.
Buuut that’s highly unlikely, so yeah, weird they didn’t reach out. Unless they were the superstitious ones in a different way and wanted to be first to seize an ancient power (or less interestingly, they wanted the credit for the finding and didn’t want to let on what they were looking for).
Hmm, yes, you’re onto something. I think we’ve sniffed out a very elaborate DnD campaign…in progress!
Exciting times.
brah, that was just the first real search result after all the ads for “we buy aztec gold” and “top 10 Myan cities you have to visit”
Although they have a hell of a thing to say when someone says, “you need to do your own research” to them.
Mr Auld-Thomas and his colleagues named the city Valeriana after a nearby lagoon.
…
It is “hidden in plain sight”, the archaeologists say, as it is just 15 minutes hike from a major road near Xpujil where mostly Maya people now live.
This archeologist just discovered a Maya city, and they decided to call it “Valeriana” (in the language of the conquistadors) insted of something like “Xpujil” (in the language of the people who still live there.)
They’re not thinking big enough. They should call it “openai.com” and go for corporate sponsorship!
People aren’t generally aware, but the Yúcatan was densely populated during the Mayan classic period (approx. 250-900 CE). Last I read, the estimate was around 20 million people, but that was years ago, so I’m sure it’s gone way up with all the new Lidar surveys.
The population of vastly larger Europe in 1000 CE was less than twice that.
We don’t know for sure why their society collapsed, but the going theory is significant climate change, so there’s something to look forward to.
Also, this caption made me laugh:
There are no pictures of the city but it had pyramid temples similar to this one in nearby Calakmul
And the picture would look similar to that pyramid except all trees. Which is why they only saw it on a Lidar survey. Duh.
i can’t recommend the novel “The Vivero Letter” by Desmond Bagley enough when it comes to the subject of lost mayan cities.
as with his other novels, the research that he showcases in his narrative is nothing short of impressive – especially considering that he was active at a time without the internet.
it’s definitely one of his better books.
Interesting. Sounds like it’s a bit inspired by the legend of La Ciudad Blanca.
in many ways, yes evidently. but there’s something additional at the end of this story which transcends those legends.
but thanks for the link. live and learn!
High Citadel is one of the best action adventure books ever
High Citadel was the first of his books that i read and i was hooked immediately. from the crash landing to the riverside standoff to the trek across the andes to the ultimate jet dogfight - it’s just one rollercoaster dip after another.
and the guerrilla tactics were something else altogether. especially the building of the crossbows and the trebuchet as well as the crash caused by the cable spool.
i’d still place Vivero Letter, Snow Tiger, and a couple of others above it but it’s miles ahead of Juggernaut, Wyatt’s Hurricane, and the weird one about some inheritance.
So none of these images are from the actual site right?
No.
It’s likely the site itself is now a load of dirt mounds in the vague shapes of buildings and then covered with trees.
Very timely discovery indeed. Personally, I just finished episode 1 of the series: American Historia: The Untold History of Latinos
Created by John Leguizamo
Highly recommend
I just finished watching Ancient Apocalypse: The Americas, and they found some structures using LiDAR in that show! Very cool stuff.
I would highly recommend you check it out and I will have to watch American Historia
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