CAMPECHE, MEXICO—BBC News reports that traces of a Maya city have been discovered in an ecological reserve on the Yucatán Peninsula by researchers led by Ivan Sprajc of Mexico’s National Institute for Anthropology and History (INAH). Airborne laser scanning of the area conducted by researchers from the University of Houston helped the team to spot the structures, which are covered with dense vegetation and situated on elevated terrain surrounded by wetlands. One of the pyramid-shaped buildings stands about 50 feet tall. Sprajc said that the site would have served as an important regional center. It has been named Ocomtún, the Mayan word for stone column. The many cylindrical stone columns found in the city are thought to have been placed at the entrances to rooms in the upper parts of the buildings, Sprajc added. Pottery at the site suggests the city was inhabited between A.D. 600 and 800, which is known as the Late Classic period. To read about powerful women of the Yucatán's Maya kingdoms, go to "Jungle Realm of the Snake Queens."
City Ruins Discovered in the Central Maya Lowlands
News June 21, 2023
SHARE:
Recommended Articles
Digs & Discoveries July/August 2023
A Game to Remember
(Courtesy INAH)
Digs & Discoveries January/February 2020
Maya Maize God's Birth
(Courtesy Evan Parker)
SLUB Dresden, Mscr.Dresd.R.310, http://digital.slub-dresden. de/id280742827 (Public Domain Mark 1.0)
Features January/February 2023
Jungle Realm of the Snake Queens
How women ascended the ranks in the highstakes world of Maya politics
-
Features May/June 2023
The Man in the Middle
How an ingenious royal official transformed Persian conquerors into proper Egyptian pharaohs
(© The Trustees of the British Museum) -
Letter from the American Southeast May/June 2023
Spartans of the Lower Mississippi
Unearthing evidence of defiance and resilience in the homeland of the Chickasaw
(Kimberly Wescott and Brad Lieb, Chickasaw Native Explorers Program 2015) -
Artifacts May/June 2023
Greek Kylix Fragments
(Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford) -
Digs & Discoveries May/June 2023
The Beauty of Bugs
(Michael Terlep)