Archaeologists discover ancient Mayan city at Mexico construction site
Researchers estimate the city, which features the Mayan Puuc style of architecture, to have been occupied from AD600 to 900
The ruins of a Mayan site, called Xiol, have been uncovered on a construction site near Mérida, Mexico.
Archaeologists have uncovered the ruins of an ancient Mayan city filled with palaces, pyramids and plazas on a construction site of what will become an industrial park near Mérida, on Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula.
The site, called Xiol, has features of the Mayan Puuc style of architecture, archaeologists said, which is common in the southern Yucatán peninsula but rare near Mérida.
Hidden tunnels discovered beneath Chavín de Huántar temple complex
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Archaeologists have discovered a system of hidden tunnels beneath the Chavín de Huántar temple complex in the Ancash Region of Peru.
Chavín de Huántar is a pre-Inca site constructed by the Chavín culture, a people of the Peruvian highlands who emerged in the Mosna Valley around 900 BC.
The Chavín first settled at Chavín de Huántar during the Urabarriu Stage (900 to 500 BC), with occupation lasting until around 250 BC. The complex served as a major ceremonial centre and gathering place for pilgrims and perhaps a home for an oracle.
Image Credit : Antamina
Back in 2019, archaeologists from the the Chavín de Huántar Archaeological Research and Conservation Program at Stanford University used a robotic camera to explore a small duct in Building D. This revealed a gallery and chamber which appeared to have an object in the centre.
Further studies were delayed due to the pandemic, but researchers have finally managed to enter the gallery and a system of 35 interconnecting tunnels believed to predate the construction of the temple’s galleries.
Image Credit : Antamina
The object from the 2019 camera survey is a sculptural ceremonial stone bowl with a three-dimensional carving of the head of a condor, resulting in the researchers naming the tunnels the gallery of the condor.
From this discovery, archaeologists have affirmed that the gallery is purely ceremonial and represents a transitional space of time between the late pre-ceramic site of Caral, and the middle and late formative period.
LIMA, May 30 (Reuters) - A team of archaeologists has discovered a network of passageways under a more than 3,000-year-old temple in the Peruvian Andes.
Chavin de Huantar temple, located in the north-central Andes, was once a religious and administrative center for people across the region.
The passageways were found earlier in May and have features believed to have been built earlier than the temple's labyrinthine galleries, according to John Rick, an archaeologist at Stanford University who was involved in the excavation.
The archaeological site of Chavin de Huantar, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site, is seen some 155 miles (250 km) north of Lima July 18, 2008. REUTERS/Enrique Castro-Mendivil (PERU)
Located 3,200 meters above sea level, at least 35 underground passageways have been found over the years of excavations, which all connect with each other and were built between 1,200 and 200 years B.C. in the foothills of the Andes.
"It's a passageway, but it's very different. It's a different form of construction. It has features from earlier periods that we've never seen in passageways," Rick said.
