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\n\tA joint Slovenian-Mexican archeological team has discovered an undisturbed Mayan city in a remote area of Campeche, Mexico. Located deep within the jungles of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, the city\u2014which the researchers have named \u201cMinanb\u00e9,\u201d a Maya Yucatec phrase meaning \u201cthere is no road\u201d\u2014had been hidden by vegetation for over a thousand years.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe site features a 43-foot-high pyramid temple (about the height of a four-story apartment building), and 14 carved altars and stelae, according to Mexico\u2019s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), which authorized the expedition. The discovery is the culmination of lead archaeologist Ivan \u0160prajc\u2019s three-decade-long exploration of the Central Maya Lowlands, home to between 9 and 11 million people during the Maya civilization\u2019s Late Classic period (600\u2013900 CE).<\/p>\n
\n\tThis year\u2019s expedition followed on the team\u2019s discovery, in 2013, of the Mayan city of Chact\u00fan. Airborne LiDAR mapping of the area had shown a 37-acre urban center under the forest canopy just east of Chact\u00fan, with squares surrounded by palaces and temples, terraces, and hydraulic channels.<\/p>\n
\n\tTo conduct a surface reconnaissance of Minanb\u00e9, the archaeologists and community workers cleared a path with machetes for three miles, then advanced on foot and by ATVs to the site. The absence of old logging roads leading there was a good sign, said \u0160prajc. \u201cCompared to other places where we did surface surveys,\u201d he noted, \u201caccess here was much more difficult; however, in the last three years, this is the first one we\u2019ve found intact, with no signs of looting.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tArchaeologists Atasta Flores Esquivel, Israel Chato L\u00f3pez, Quint\u00edn Hern\u00e1ndez G\u00f3mez, and Vitan Vujanovi\u0107 carried out the physical survey of Minanb\u00e9. Speaking of the pyramidal temple, Vujanovi\u0107 said it had the characteristics of classic R\u00edo Bec style, a form of Maya architecture of the 7th to 12th centuries CE. \u201cThis is the first time I have recorded a temple that is more or less well-preserved,\u201d\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n
\n\tOf particular interest is Stele 1, which depicts a decapitation scene, as well as a calendrical sign with the date 5 Ajaw (849 CE). \u201cThis is an important clue,\u201d notes the project\u2019s epigraphist, Octavio Esparza Olgu\u00edn, \u201cbecause we can assume that the entire group of monuments, or some of them, were erected during that period of the Terminal Classic, close to the abandonment of the sites in the region, which occurred in the 10th century [CE].\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAlso noteworthy is an altar that appears to have been intentionally broken. It has hieroglyphic cartouches on its sides and the figure of a ruler with a feathered headdress. One of the hieroglyphic texts contains part of a Long Count date that likely refers to a period in the late 7th century CE, making it one of the earliest inscriptions in the region. Its defacement raises the possibility of an incursion by groups from the northern Yucat\u00e1n Peninsula to the abandoned city.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe discovery of Minanb\u00e9 is one of several in the Campeche region that have been found via LiDAR in recent years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/city1.webp?w=1024″] A joint Slovenian-Mexican archeological team has discovered an undisturbed Mayan city in a remote area of Campeche, Mexico. Located deep within the jungles of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, the city\u2014which the researchers have named \u201cMinanb\u00e9,\u201d a Maya Yucatec phrase meaning \u201cthere is no road\u201d\u2014had been hidden by vegetation for over a thousand […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2010886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2010886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2010886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2010886\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2010886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2010886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2010886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}