Ancient Maya city found in Mexico

An archaeologist shows the remains of a building at the newly discovered ancient Maya city Chactun in Yucatan. Picture: Reuters

• Archaeologists find ruined city in east of Mexico

• Pyramids, ball courts and plazas among finds in abandoned Chactun

The city, which has been christened Chactun, meaning Red Rock or Large Rock, was found in a remote nature reserve in eastern Mexico.

A sculpted stone shaft called stelae. Picture: Reuters

Ivan Sprajc, associate professor at the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, led the team that uncovered 15 pyramids, ball courts, plazas and sculpted stone shafts called stelae.

Its population is estimated to have been at anywhere between 30,000 and 40,000.

The team’s research was approved by the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History and funded by the National Geographic Society. Two European companies also funded the project.

Sprajc said the site - which covers 22 hectares (54 acres) and lies 75 miles (120 km) due west of Chetumal - is one of the largest found in the Yucatan’s central lowlands.

Sprajc and his team spent three weeks clearing a 10 mile path through the jungle to reach the site. Once they mapped the site and logged the location of important monuments, they prevented access to the site after leaving by blocking the path.

Although the ruined city had been unknown to the academic community, Spajc said that there was evidence suggesting that lumberjacks and gum extractors had visited the site some 20 or 30 years ago.

He hopes the discovery could shed new light on relations between different regions of the Maya empire during that period.

The Maya civilization was one of the most advanced in the pre-Columbian Americas and ruled over large parts of the Yucatan, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras at its height.