Scientists using aerial measurements methods have discovered the largest known structure of the ancient Mayan civilization, a massive rectangular high platform that was built between 1,000 and 800 BC. In the state of Mexico's Tabasco. The total volume of the building exceeds that of the Great Pyramid of Giza, which was built 1,500 years ago.
According to a paper published today in Nature, a huge 3,000-year-old earthen platform crowned by a series of structures, including a 13-foot pyramid, has been identified as the oldest and largest monumental structure discovered in the Mayan region. It is the latest discovery to support the emerging view that the earliest structures erected in the region were among the largest ever built during the Classical Mayan period (250-900 AD), when empire was at its highest.
Mayan architecture was characterized by a refined sense of decoration and art, expressed in bas-reliefs and murals. The Mayan cities of the classical period consisted of a series of stepped platforms with masonry, ranging from large temples and pyramids to palaces, individual houses and hills. The main location is Tikal, where large building complexes were connected by stone roads and dams.
The amount of work involved in building a city would have been immense, with up to a million men a day. In the classical period, the city of Tikal stretched over 20 square kilometers, the core of which was 6 square kilometers.
The Mayan cities were administrative and ritual centers for the region, including the city itself and the agricultural hinterland. They were not planned and underwent an irregular expansion with the arbitrary addition of palaces, temples and other buildings.
The main center of Tikal was, for example, a six-square-kilometer area with more than 10,000 individual buildings, from temples and pyramids to thatched roofed huts. The population has been estimated at around 60,000, which corresponds to a population density many times higher than the average for cities in Europe and America over the same period of history. Evidence suggests that the ancient Mayan city of Yaxchilan experienced strong population growth and influential political status in 100 AD, making it one of the strongest Mayan cities in the region.
Today, the ancient Mayan city of Yaxchilan consists of a special pyramid collection called Nohoch Mul. It is the largest pyramid in Coba and it is worth climbing 130 steps to enjoy the view from above.
Uxmal is a UNESCO world heritage site and is home to breathtaking monuments such as the Magician Pyramid, the Mayan Ballroom, the Great Pyramid and the Governor's Palace. It is the beginning and the end of the Puuc Road, a collection of five ancient Mayan sites in Yucatan with architecture typical of Puuc and the Maya.
The ancient Mayan city of Coba is believed to have been inhabited since the 1st century AD and to have reached its peak between 600 AD and 900 AD. Until 900 AD, there lived 50,000 people there, making it one of the most important city states in the ancient Mayan world. The Mayan Empire, with its centre in the tropical lowlands of Guatemala, reached the height of its power and influence in the sixth century AD.
The Mayan Empire centered in the tropical lowlands of what is now Guatemala was characterized by agriculture, pottery, hieroglyphics, calendar making and mathematics and left an astonishing amount of impressive architecture and symbolic art. Most of the great stone cities of the Mayan empire were abandoned between 900 AD and the 19th century, and scholars are still debating the causes of their disappearance.
The term Mayan Empire is used to refer to a civilization that consisted of separate city-states that ruled each other. These town states stood in what is now Mexico: the Yucatán Peninsula, parts of Chiapas and Tabasco, Guatemala, Belize, parts of Honduras and parts of El Salvador.
The first great Mesoamerican civilization, the Olmecs, arose in the pre-classical Middle Ages. Like other Central American peoples such as the Zapotecs, Totonac, Teotihuacan, Aztecs and Mayas, the Mayas derived a number of religious and cultural features from this ancient civilization (the Mayans had a numerical system and their famous calendar).
In addition to agriculture, the Maya also exhibited advanced cultural features such as pyramid construction, urban construction and the inscription of stone monuments. Beginning around 250 AD, the classical period is defined by the Mayans who erect and carve monuments that are too long to count or date them. During this period, the Mayan civilization developed many city-states that were connected by complex trade networks.
Mayan records indicate that Sihyaj Kahk established friendly kings in a number of important Mayan cities within a few years, said Francisco Estrada Belli, an archaeologist from the University of Tulane. The classical period also saw the intrusive involvement of central Mexican city Teotihuacan in the dynastic politics of Maya. In the Mayan lowlands, two large rival cities, Tikal and Calakmul, became more and more powerful.
Archaeologists excavated the tombs of Yax Nuun, Ayiin Tikal and Kinich Yax Kuk Mo, founder of a new dynasty in the Copan Mayan city of Honduras. Kinich in Copan is depicted in a Teotihuacan-style dress, including distinctive glasses over his eyes, reminiscent of the rain god of Central Mexico. Inscriptions say he was a foreign king who came to the site for a ceremony that gave him the right to reign and assume the Copan throne.
The city was founded according to the legend of Zamna, which is associated with the deity Itzamna and his writing place in the main temple. In antiquity it became known as an important pilgrimage site along with Chichen Itza.
The discovery took place in the state of Mexico's Tabasco at the Aguada Fenix compound, about 850 miles south of Mexico City. This is the region known as the Mayan lowlands, where the Mayan civilization began to emerge.
