2,000-year-old Mayan invention could save us

A crisis that threatens modern humans could be averted by the thing that helped the Maya survive for more than 1,000 years .

The Maya amazed humanity by developing an unimaginable civilization, including a vast agricultural system in areas with the most severe shortage of clean water.

To do that, more than 2,000 years ago they developed large-scale irrigation works , huge reservoir systems, water storage and shockingly "timeless" water filtration technologies, including modern-style quartz filtration.

Research recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences focuses on one type of water filtration system among them.

LiDAR map of the ancient Mayan city of Tikal, with its incredible infrastructure including a water reservoir system - (Photo: Bryan Lin).

Anthropology professor Lisa Lucero from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and colleagues believe that an ancient Mayan "biotechnological" water filtration system could be the prototype for modern systems.

This will help address today's globally worrying water crisis, and address sustainable water needs for the future.

That ancient biotechnology was surprisingly simple and clever, discovered in ancient Mayan cities across Central America.

According to SciTech Daily, those cities contain networks of giant reservoirs, enough to provide clean drinking water for thousands to tens of thousands of people during the five-month dry season each year and during longer periods of drought.

It was a huge effort by the Maya, because the water in the area where they lived was often unclean, containing heavy metals and other substances harmful to health.

Therefore, in addition to building a system of reservoirs, canals, dams, culverts, and dikes to distribute clean water and treat wastewater, the Maya also invested in water filtration systems.

Some of these reservoirs use quartz and zeolite sand. Others use native aquatic plants to purify water, which is common in areas where quartz and other water-purifying minerals are not available.

The famous city of Tikai (located in present-day Guatemala) is an example.

To get quartz, people would have to buy it from far away places. Therefore, the Mayan royal family decided to use ancient "biotechnology" . The aquatic plants used included sedge, reed, cattail.

These plants have been found in sediments from ancient Mayan lakes.

They are capable of reducing water turbidity and absorbing nitrogen and phosphorus. Evidence clearly shows that the Maya actively planted them inside the reservoirs, replacing them periodically.

Among the aquatic plants used is the native water lily Nymphaea ampla, which thrives only in clean water.

This helped explain a big mystery: Water lilies symbolized royalty to the Maya. After all, the Mayan royal family owed their status to their 'timeless' technology for providing clean water.