Although global mapping is now very advanced thanks to satellite technology, they are still there many secrets hidden in the most remote and inaccessible parts of the world. A group of archaeologists, therefore, after traveling about 60 kilometers in the dense jungle of the Yucatan peninsula, discovered an unknown Mayan city.
The new city was baptized Ocomtúnwhat does it mean “stone columnThe vast site includes plazas, large pyramid-style buildings, stone columns and other structures arranged in concentric ring patterns. Much has been lost over time, and archaeologists say the stone columns may originally have been entrances to upper rooms (by the way, did you know that we know the history of a civilization thanks to their feces?).
There is also a ball court, used for recreational and perhaps even religious purposes. The LIDAR technology used uses reflections from laser beams to detect buildings that would otherwise be hidden from view by trees and undergrowth. “The biggest surprise turned out to be the site located on a peninsula of elevated land, surrounded by extensive marshland‘, says archaeologist and team leader Ivan Šprajc, from the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
The monumental nucleus of Ocomtún it covers more than 50 hectares and includes various buildings, including several pyramid structures over 15 meters high. These tropical forests are huge: there are around 3,000 square kilometers of uninhabited jungle in this part of the world, and to this day very little is known about what it hides and part of the reason is due to its dense foliage.
We can now add this new discovery to the thousands of Mayan sites we already know about.