Thousands of cities of the Mayan civilization

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

There is a popular belief among tourists that South American cultures are famous for several stone pyramids and a few artifacts. However, judging by the number of excavated cities, the population density of South American peoples at that time was comparable to that of modern Europe …

Density of Mayan cities

The majority of people have an idea of South American ancient cultures as cities, temples, pyramids, albeit not as megalithic as in Baalbek, but still made of stone. And they are lost as solitary centers in the jungle and plains. Here is a map with not all known Mayan cities:

Or here:

But when I saw the maps (which are presented below) with the real density of ancient cities - I was simply amazed! I believed that there are several dozen such cities. It turns out there are hundreds of them!

The building density of cities, temples, pyramids in Ancient Mexico was no less than cities and castles in medieval Europe. This means that the density and number of the population, the level of development: social, cultural, economic, etc. - should also be on top. Because to build even one temple (although finally we do not even know what kind of buildings it is) - only logistics and supplies should be fine-tuned.

According to the official history, what did the conquistadors find at the time of their arrival? Remnants of the population that claimed it was built before them.

Most of the hills in this area are overgrown with forests and covered with clay and vegetation, pyramids and ancient temples. And historians know about this, but do not spread too much, because even to those questions that have already been raised, they do not know the answer. Why produce new ones? But there are experts on Ancient Mexico who are willing to comment on the situation.

This is just a part

Another part of a small territory, but with a huge density of settlements and, accordingly, the remains of buildings, which, apparently, are in a state overgrown with forests or covered with soil.

On the thispage you can download the KMZ-file with the location of cities for the program Google Earth

They find them, at best, in this state.

The following messages regularly appear in the news:

In the southeastern Mexican state of Campeche, archaeologists have discovered a Mayan city whose characteristics and dimensions indicate that it may have been the leading center of this civilization 1,400 years ago.

A group of archaeologists have found a whole unknown Mayan city in the protected jungle in the west of the Yucatan Peninsula. Archaeologists have discovered fifteen pyramid temples, ball stadiums, many squares, houses, altars and fragments of frescoes. The city flourished during the late classical period of the Mayan civilization (600-900 AD), and lived in it up to 40,000 people.

Here is another of the many cities found in the jungle and more or less excavated - Calakmul:

18 ° 3 ′ 23.69 ″ N 89 ° 44 ′ 8.48 ″ W

I'll conclude with information from a competent reader who left a few comments on this blog.

martinmics:

And this is not a complete map yet. The count of the unexplored, but found settlements, exceeds 20 thousand, if I am not mistaken. Excavated at the same time, within 300. And then, even in places trampled to death by tourists like Chichen Itza the same, right under their feet they find something new. For example, the excavation between the Temple of the Warriors and the Temple of the Feathered Serpent. Crowds had been walking there for many years, but it turned out that there was something else below the level of the square. And so on.

By the way, the most intensive excavations are carried out precisely in popular and promising places. It's easier to get to them, and information that is quite interesting is found out.

The population and building density were comparable, perhaps, to modern Europe. Large religious buildings are found on average, every 20 km in any direction. Around them were residential areas with fields, their area was clearly rather large.

A very interesting topic is the canals in the south of Yucatan, where the modern border with Guatemala now passes. The canals were not only meliorative, but even navigable, used as transport arteries. And there was clearly not one or two such channels.

Another point is the road network. The roads were not only straight, but the terrain was also trimmed. They poured the embankment, leveled it, put the walls on the sides, if necessary, and poured everything with lime in the manner of asphalt.

The volume of the shoveled rock greatly exceeded the volume of the same pyramids.

Well, to burn 1 kg of limestone, it was necessary to burn 3 kg of high-density wood, which a stone (even obsidian) ax barely scratches upon impact. Modern steel ones are tortured to chop, but how they did it - no idea.

About 10% of the total explored volume has been excavated, not even all large cities have been studied, not to mention thousands of small ones. And in each there is something new and interesting. We are all accustomed to seeing only large buildings, sometimes partially restored, but we cannot see and take into account the huge number of objects found, the remains of people and animals, etc., which are locked in museum depositories for many years.

Therefore, there is nothing of the kind in the presence of one's own opinion, especially if it is at least half a step away from the alien, divine or some other mystical origin of the finds.

Even archaeologists working for the state, in addition to the officially accepted theory, are developing several more in parallel.

After that, the question arises even more: for what reason all these cities, temples were abandoned by their builders. Indeed, for so many years, the descendants of those Mayans never returned to them. If it was only with a part of the buildings, then it can be attributed to droughts, epidemics, internecine wars. But when the inhabitants of an entire country, a huge territory, disappear, leaving their cities, I do not believe in the stories of historians. There must be a good reason for this. The answer for many regular readers of this blog is obvious - it's a cataclysm. Flood, massive volcanic eruptions, or all of them - it's hard to say. But a thin layer of fertile soil in the jungle, clay layer everywhere - speaks about it.