Lost ancient Mayan city bigger than Sydney discovered 'by accident' in deep jungle
Archaeologists have stumbled upon a vast ancient Mayan city built centuries ago beneath dense jungle in Mexico.
The hidden urban centre in the south-eastern state of Campeche had sports fields, amphitheatres and pyramids, the BBC reports.
The discovery was made by using the advanced mapping technology Ltdar - a laser survey that maps structures buried under vegetation.
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A heat map from the laser survey of three sites in Mexico. Analysis revealed a lost ancient city from the Mayan era. (Image: Cambridge University Press) Supplied
The newly-discovered city, known as Valeriana, is second in density behind only Calakmul, in Mexico regarded as the largest Maya site in ancient Latin America.
It was found by American researcher and PhD student Luke Auld-Thomas when he was browsing figures on the internet.
"I was on something like page 16 of Google search and found a laser survey done by a Mexican organisation for environmental monitoring," he said.
The survey had been completed using Ltdar, which shoots thousands of laser pulses from an aircraft and maps objects below using the time the signal takes to return.
Auld-Thomas then used archaeological methods to process the information, and spotted a massive ancient city, believed to have a population of 30,000 to 50,000 people.
The researchers believe the metropolis reached its peak between 750AD and 850AD.
Its size was about 16.6 square kilometres, which is bigger than Sydney. It had two major centres linked by dense houses and causeways.
The full article about the discovery was published in the journal Cambridge Core.
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