HOLMUL Guatemala (The Guardian).- A group of researchers has found the skeletons of a man and a woman who would have been kings of the Maya civilization. The remains could be approximately 1,500 years old and were found in the funerary chambers of one of the three pyramids of the archaeological city of Holmul, located in the Guatemalan jungle.

“We’re pretty sure he’s the king, because we have this big vase with the name of a very important king from a nearby city that controlled this one,” archaeologist Francisco Estrada-Belli told the British media, adding that only the monarchs of civilization could possess such objects.

In addition, the bones were found next to the skull of a child, apparently sacrificed, and other valuable objects that suggest the prominent status of these persons.

The discovery was made thanks to a lidar, a laser device that detected approximately 60,000 structures, from pyramids to entire cities, located deep in the dense Guatemalan jungle. This mechanism makes it possible to determine the distances from a laser emitter to an object or surface and to create three-dimensional maps.

Thus, it was determined that the ancient civilization “was much more complex and interconnected than most Maya scholars assumed,” says a recent National Geographic report, which will present the findings through the ‘Maya Lost Treasures’ series beginning May 5 on NatGeo.

The specialists also visited previously unknown pyramids located outside the city of Witzna, north of the Central American country.

In the area they found signs of attacks perpetrated on the site, buildings destroyed, burned, and monuments with images of disfigured kings, suggesting a high level of conflict for centuries. “There is an almost palpable sense of fear in this landscape,” said Stephen Houston, an archeologist at Brown University.

The Yucatan Times

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