Nearly 6,700 Maya 'ghosts' revealed in Mexico

A series of pyramids, temples, houses. and a glorious Mayan capital were hidden right next to a densely populated area without anyone knowing.

According to Heritage Daily, a team of scientists from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History, Tulane University and the University of Houston (USA) discovered up to 6,674 Mayan architectural works in an unexplored area of ​​Campeche City, Mexico.

Part of the surveyed area shows hidden structures that are the ruins of an ancient Mayan city - (Photo: Antiquity).

'Ecologists and engineers have conducted LiDAR surveys in some of these areas for unrelated studies,' said lead author Luke Auld-Thomas from Tulane University.

So archaeologists theorize whether it still reveals hidden structures from centuries ago.

LiDAR is a remote sensing technique that uses lasers to measure the distance from a transmitter to the ground. The difference in the response time and wavelength of the laser can be used to compile a 3D digital map of the landscape.

Therefore, ruins with only the base remaining or covered by dense forest canopies may be revealed in LiDAR images.

But the researchers could not have imagined that they would make an unexpected discovery.

It was a densely populated area containing 6,674 previously unknown Mayan structures , including pyramids similar to those at Chichén Itzá and Tikal.

In addition, the research revealed rural areas and small settlements. They even found a large city with many pyramids, located on a mountainside near an agricultural area.

Notably, the city is located very close to the highway that passes through modern Campeche.

The central area of ​​this large city still contains traces of houses on high ground, a football field, and an irrigation project.

'The ancient world has many examples of cities that were completely different from the ones we have today,' Dr Auld-Thomas concluded.

Unlike today's urban areas, ancient Mayan urban areas were often interspersed with large agricultural areas.

Research on this spectacular discovery has just been published in the scientific journal Antiquity.