Ancient Mayan cities found. Two impressive ancient Mayan cities have been found in the Mexican jungle by archaeologists. The ancient Mayan cities called Lagunita and Tamchén were discovered by expedition leader Ivan Sprajc and are located in the Biosphere Reserve of Calakmul. Sprajc said the two ancient Mayan cities raised many questions on the unexplored Mesoamerican civilization.
Two ancient Mayan cities have been found in Mexico thanks to a relentless archaeologist named Ivan Sprajc.
Sprajc who is from the Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts and his team were determined to find one city called Lagunita buried deep in the Mexican forest.
And while searching for one, he found two lost ancient Mayan cities – Lagunita and Tamchén. Lagunita was originally discovered in 1970 by an American archaeologist named Eric von Euw.
Eric von Euw never really gave the location of the site and his work was never published. Many went searching for the city but in vain.
Sprajc gathered the little bit of information von Euw left behind, such as drawings and aerial photographs, and lead an expedition in the Free and Sovereign State of Campeche located in Southeast Mexico last year.
Several weeks into the expedition, the researchers found two ancient Mayan cities hidden in the Biosphere Reserve of Calakmul.
The first was indeed, Lagunita, which featured a huge facade that resembles the mouth of a monster and is in very good shape with hieroglyphic writings on it.
According to the Slovenian archaeologist, the inscription on the facade indicated that it was erected in 711 AD by Lord Katunes 4th.
The city of Lagunita also contained several pyramid temples measuring over 65 ft high, altars, sculpted stone shafts and large monuments with inscriptions on them.
An epigrapher said that one of the statues had the exact date, Nov. 29, 711, engraved on it.
As for Tamchén, which is older than Lagunita, it contained over 30 chultunes. A chultun, which is also known as chultunob is a bottle-shaped cavity, dug into the earth to preserve rain water.
Some of the chultunes were more than 10 meters deep. It is believed that the two cities were abandoned around A.D. 1000.
