Ancient Mayan city is discovered in the jungles of southern Mexico

Deep in the jungle of Mexico, an ancient Mayan city has been discovered.

Buildings, stone columns and 50-foot pyramids make up the settlement, thought to have been an important hub at points between 250 and 1000 AD and is located in a largely unexplored stretch of virgin forest that is larger than Arizona.

The city — called Ocomtún or “stone column” — covers about one-fifth of a square mile and is located in the Campeche region of the Yucatan Peninsula, which splits the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea.

It was discovered in May by Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc, who led a team into the dense jungle and spent a month uncovering the city’s remains, Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) announced Tuesday.

According to Šprajc, the columns would have served as entrances to the upper floors of the buildings. The city is built around three main plazas and also has fields where the Mayan inhabitants are said to have played an ancient ball game.

Ocomtún was discovered using LiDAR scanners, described by National Geographic as one of archaeology’s most exciting modern tools, which use laser images captured from an aircraft to identify objects and structures hidden beneath.

The method has become especially popular among archaeologists who search dense areas of forest and jungle.

Known for its advanced mathematical calendars, the Maya civilization spanned southeastern Mexico and parts of Central America. They are also known for their pyramid temples and stone buildings.

Although they are thought to have existed for millennia, from about 1800 BC to about 1000 AD, archaeologists believe the Ocomtún fell late in the civilization between 800 and 1000 AD.

Its political collapse led to its decline centuries before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors, whose military campaigns saw the last stronghold fall in the late 17th century.

The Ocomtún site has a core area, located on high ground surrounded by extensive wetlands, Šprajc said in a statement.

Ball games were popular throughout the Maya region and consisted of passing a rubber ball without hands across a field and passing it through a small stone hoop.

Experts believe the ball game has been played throughout the Mesoamerican region and is likely the oldest game in the history of the sport. It is played on a stone-floored field about 50 yards long.

Šprajc said his team had also found central altars in an area closer to the La Riguena River that may have been designed for community rituals, though more research is needed to understand the cultures that once lived there.

He has discovered a number of Maya cities during his career, dedicated to the Yucatan Peninsula, and is the author of Lost Maya Cities: Archaeological Quests in the Mexican Jungle.

He suggested in his last announcement that the city’s collapse likely reflected “ideological and population changes” that led to the wider collapse of Maya societies in that region around the 10th century.

Earlier this year, a similar LiDAR approach was used to identify another Maya civilization in Guatemala.