Posted on 12/09/2024 10:28:12 PM PST by Red Badger
The pyramid structure has been hidden for centuries.
Image credit: CINAH Hidalgo
Construction workers have stumbled across the ruins of a large pyramid along the side of a highway in Mexico. After being alerted to the discovery, archaeologists collected dozens of other artifacts from the site that will be closely studied in the lab over the next few months.
The structure was unearthed in June 2024 during the construction of a third lane on a federal highway in Hidalgo, east-central Mexico.
Archaeologists at Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) headed to the scene to carry out an investigation. After surveying the area with an aerial drone, their team collected 155 samples, including pieces of ceramics, stone tools, and animal shells.
To safeguard the relic, the archaeological authorities approved the construction of a large wall around the pyramid, measuring 43 meters (141 feet) in length and 11.7 meters (38 feet) in height.
The structure is part of a pre-Hispanic settlement known as San Miguel, which is dated between the Epiclassic period (650-950 CE) and the Late Postclassic period (1350-1519 CE). This was a period when the area was under the control of the “Metzca lordship”, which the INAH says left a “multi-ethnic imprint” until at least the 16th century CE.
However, the history of human activity goes back much further in the surrounding region, with the earliest settlements dating back at least 14,000 years.
It’s still unclear how many pre-Hispanic structures are lying hidden in Mexico, as well as Central America and South America, but recent years have revealed a wealth of new discoveries.
Many of these can be attributed to LiDAR, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging, a remote sensing technology that uses laser light to reveal a world hidden from the naked eye. It uses reflected light to generate information about the shape and characteristics of objects that might otherwise be hidden by vegetation, the ground, or other structures. It’s proved to be especially fruitful in tropical regions where long-lost archaeological features have become swamped by vegetation.
Just last year, the INAH used LiDAR to reveal traces of an 18-kilometer (11-mile) long highway that connected Maya cities over 1,200 years ago. Further south in present-day Guatemala, the imaging technique has also revealed evidence of a previously unknown Maya civilization made up of 964 interconnected settlements linked together with 177 kilometers (110 miles) of ancient roads.
These discoveries are a solid reminder that the pre-Columbian world was vibrant and incredibly complex long before its untimely demise in the modern era with the arrival of European colonizers.
PinGGG!....................
BTTT
They haven’t been inside it yet. Apparently only around it.................
Boroscopes... long ones.
Don’t read the scrolls out loud.
Don’t arrange the crystal skulls.
Calendars with sudden end dates might be worth a movie.
I wonder if they make good bomb shelters.
They just found that huge structure?
Yes..............
Don’t touch any vines, or sleep on the structure....................
How is this possible?
It was covered in a thousand years of jungle growth. There are entire Mayan cities still unexplored because of their vegetation covering..................
And the catholic church burnt all the written records, or as many as they could lay their hands on
You know, it upsets some, but all their famous pyramids, cities like Machu Pichu etc were covered in dirt and vegetation, and looked like hills to them until white explorers and archaeologists discovered them, uncovered them and returned them to what we see today.
Now they go out of their way to act snooty to us and tell us how sacred they are, and how our presence profanes them.
Hidalgo Trading Co.
That was Doc Savage’s old business, wasn’t it?
I notice they now say “pre-Hispanic” instead of “pre-Columbian”, in a further effort to erase Columbus.
I think you’re right. My grandmother had all those, I read the whole series when I was 11-13 or so. Read all the Edgar Rice Burroughs series as well.
Many, many moons ago, I had a college double major of Spanish and archaeology. This was before I discovered that you cannot pay a mortgage, or any other bill, with archaeology. The opportunity to excavate a Mayan area in Belize was a chance of a lifetime. While we could only investigate/excavate the main pyramid area, and long before LIDAR, one could tell there was much more under the jungle and soil. Some of the Indiana Jones jungle scenes, where the jungle takes back whatever man has built, and minus the head hunters, is close to reality.
Ever see the movie “The Ruins”?..............
“And the catholic church burnt all the written records,”
The only “writing” detected in north America were pictographs carved on stone.
So your statement is nonsense
Before the arrival of Spanish conquistadors, the Aztecs eradicated many Mayan works and sought to depict themselves as the true rulers through a fake history and newly written texts.[6]
There were many books in existence at the time of the Spanish conquest of Yucatán in the 16th century; most were destroyed by the Catholic priests.[7] Many in Yucatán were ordered destroyed by Diego de Landa in July 1562.[8] Bishop de Landa hosted a mass book burning in the town of Maní in the Yucatán peninsula.[9] De Landa wrote:
We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction.
Such codices were the primary written records of Maya civilization, together with the many inscriptions on stone monuments and stelae that survived. Their range of subject matter in all likelihood embraced more topics than those recorded in stone and buildings, and was more like what is found on painted ceramics (the so-called ‘ceramic codex’). Alonso de Zorita wrote that in 1540 he saw numerous such books in the Guatemalan highlands that “recorded their history for more than eight hundred years back, and that were interpreted for me by very ancient Indians”.[10]
Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas lamented when he found out that such books were destroyed: “These books were seen by our clergy, and even I saw part of those that were burned by the monks, apparently because they thought [they] might harm the Indians in matters concerning religion, since at that time they were at the beginning of their conversion.” The last codices destroyed were those of Nojpetén, Guatemala in 1697, the last city conquered in the Americas.[11] With their destruction, access to the history of the Maya and opportunity for insight into some key areas of Maya life was greatly diminished.
Three fully Mayan codices have been preserved. These are:
The Dresden Codex, also known as the Codex Dresdensis (74 pages, 3.56 metres [11.7 feet]);[12] dating to the 11th or 12th century.[13]
The Madrid Codex, also known as the Tro-Cortesianus Codex (112 pages, 6.82 metres [22.4 feet]) dating to the Postclassic period of Mesoamerican chronology (circa 900–1521 AD).;[14]
The Paris Codex, also known as the Peresianus Codex (22 pages, 1.45 metres [4.8 feet]) tentatively dated to around 1450, in the Late Postclassic period (AD 1200–1525)[14]
A fourth codex, lacking hieroglyphs, is Maya-Toltec rather than Maya. It remained controversial until 2015, when extensive research finally authenticated it:
The Grolier Codex, also known as the Sáenz Codex (10 pages) or Códice Maya de México.[15][16][17]
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