Opening details

According to a study published October 29 in the journal Antiquity, owned by the University of Cambridge, the city contains up to 6,674 buildingsIncluding pyramids similar to those at Chichen Itza and Tikal. According to preliminary estimates, the age of the object may reach 1,500 years.

Researchers have recently used LIDAR technology, which has helped find many interesting things on the surface of our planet. It emits laser pulses and then reads the reflected signals. In this way, it creates a map of the surface by detecting the smallest changes in altitude. However, using lidars of this level and power to detect artifacts from very high altitudes is quite expensive. For scientist Luke Old-Thomas, an archaeologist at Northern Arizona University, and his colleagues, this was an unsustainable amount. So they took a different path.

Scientists in ecology, forestry, and civil engineering have used Lidar imaging to study some of these areas for completely different purposes. But what if Lidar survey of this area already exists?
– says Old Thomas.

After reviewing previously commissioned lidar research, scientists found an ancient imager created to measure and monitor carbon in Mexican forests. After analyzing 129 square kilometers of east-central Mexico, where Mayan structures had never been studied before, Elder Thomas and colleagues I found hidden traces of the Mayan city hidden among modern farms and highways.

Scanning the City of May / Photo: Luke Auld-Thomas, Antiquity Publications Ltd

The city, which researchers named “Valeriana” after a nearby freshwater lagoon, dates to the Classic period (AD 250-900) and has “all the hallmarks of a Classic Maya political capital,” including numerous covered plazas connected by a wide causeway. Researchers say there were temple pyramids and a playground for playing ball. A little further from the centre, there is a hillside full of terraces and houses, indicating dense urban development. This study is the first to describe Maya structures in east-central Campeche.

So far, no excavations have been carried out there, and scientists do not even talk about it. But they should probably also be expected in the future.