A group of Mexican archaeologists has discovered an ancient Mayan city that was hidden in the jungle of the Balamkú ecological reserve (in Campeche, southeast), which they named Ocomtún (“stone column” in Yucatec Mayan) due to the numerous stone columns scattered cylindrical in the settlement.
The city includes large pyramidal buildings, stone columns, three plazas with buildings, and other structures, with a core spanning over 50 hectares, and is hypothesized to have been an important center of the Central Lowlands during the Classic period (250– 1000 AD), the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) of Mexico reported in a recent statement.
The discovery of this city was also possible thanks to the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping of the University of Houston, United States, and its LiDAR technology, a new technique that during May and June of this year was used to scan the ground and find structures. hidden.
pyramid structures
The Slovenian-born archaeologist Ivan Ṡprajc, who led the investigation, said that thanks to the data collected by LiDAR, numerous concentrations of pre-Hispanic structures were identified that share characteristics with what is known from other parts of the Mayan area.
“The biggest surprise turned out to be the site located on a ‘peninsula’ of high ground, surrounded by extensive wetlands. Its monumental core covers more than 50 hectares and has several large buildings, including several pyramidal structures over 15 meters high,” he added.
Use of cylindrical stones
According to Ṡprajc, this site must have been an important regional center, probably during the Classic period: “The most common ceramic types that we collected on the surface and in some test pits are from the Late Classic (AD 600-800). However, the analysis of samples of this material will offer us more reliable data on the occupation sequences”.
About the cylindrical columns they found, the expert explained that “they must have been part of the entrances to the upper rooms of the buildings.”
The INAH added that it is a rectangular acropolis, whose sides measure 80 meters and its height is about 10 meters, and in its northern part there is a pyramid that rises 25 meters above the natural terrain.
Possible markets or spaces for rituals
Likewise, Ṡprajc estimated that Ocomtún suffered alterations in the Terminal Classic period (800-1000 AD) as a “reflection of ideological and population changes in times of crisis that, finally, by the 10th century, led to the collapse of the complex sociopolitical organization and the Drastic Demographic Decline in the Maya Central Lowlands”.
The researcher said that they also found stairways, monolithic columns and the absence of monuments with inscriptions, which were possibly markets or spaces for community rituals.
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