Lost Mayan city of Valeriana discovered under Mexican jungle by accident

While there are no pictures of the city, it may have looked similar to ruins in Calakmul. Photo / Getty Images

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.

“Scientists in ecology, forestry and civil engineering have been using Lidar surveys to study some of these areas for totally separate purposes,” said Auld-Thomas. “So what if a lidar survey of this area already existed?”

Lidar works by firing a short laser pulse from a plane or satellite and recording the time it takes for the signal to bounce back.

Auld-Thomas discovered a laser survey of around 129 sq km of dense Mexican forest which was rarely visited, even by locals.

Working with colleagues, he studied the maps and found a dense, vast array of totally unstudied Maya settlements dotted throughout the region, comprising 6674 undiscovered Mayan structures.

“Our analysis not only revealed a picture of a region that was dense with settlements, but it also revealed a lot of variability,” said Auld-Thomas. “We didn’t just find rural areas and smaller settlements.

“We also found a large city with pyramids right next to the area’s only highway, near a town where people have been actively farming among the ruins for years.

“The Government never knew about it; the scientific community never knew about it. That really puts an exclamation point behind the statement that, no, we have not found everything, and yes, there’s a lot more to be discovered.”

Valeriana comprised two major hubs of monumental architecture 2km apart, which were linked by continuous dense settlement and landscape engineering and watercourses. It also appears to have pyramids like those at the famous sites of Chichen Itza or Tikal.

A ball court, where the ancient Mayan game of Pitz may have been played, was also found. The game could last two weeks, and its aim was to get the ball to the other side of the court without dropping it using only the hip, knee or elbow.

The team are now planning to conduct fieldwork in the areas identified on the survey.

The findings are published in the journal Antiquity.