Newly Found Maya City Emerges Completely Intact

For once, "there is no road" turned out to be exactly what archaeologists wanted to hear. A joint Slovenian-Mexican team says it has uncovered an untouched Maya city in the thick jungle of Mexico's Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, a site they've named Minanbé—Maya Yucatec for "there is no road"—after finding no logging tracks or looting scars, per ARTNews. The city, hidden beneath vegetation for more than a millennium, includes a 43-foot pyramid temple, 14 carved altars and stelae, plazas rimmed by palaces and temples, and what appear to be terraces and hydraulic channels, per Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History.

LiDAR scans first hinted at a 37-acre urban center east of the previously discovered site of Chactún; machete crews then cut a three-mile path so archaeologists could reach it by foot and ATV, per WION. One stela shows a decapitation and includes a date equivalent to 849 CE, suggesting many monuments went up near the time the region's cities were abandoned in the 10th century, per ARTNews. Archaeologists also found an altar with one of the area's earliest known inscriptions, possibly from the late 7th century. It seems to have been intentionally damaged and may point to later incursions by groups from northern Yucatán, experts say.