Teen Discovers Lost Mayan City

[Itse]

Mindblowing story of the day.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/quebec-tee...170620746.html

William Gadoury is a 15-year-old student from Saint-Jean-de-Matha in Lanaudière, Quebec. The precocious teen has been fascinated by all things Mayan for several years, devouring any information he could find on the topic.

During his research, Gadoury examined 22 Mayan constellations and discovered that if he projected those constellations onto a map, the shapes corresponded perfectly with the locations of 117 Mayan cities.

He examined a twenty-third constellation which contained three stars, yet only two corresponded to known cities.

Satellite images later confirmed that, indeed, geometric shapes visible from above imply that an ancient city with a large pyramid and thirty buildings stands exactly where Gadoury said they would be. If the find is confirmed, it would be the fourth largest Mayan city in existence.

“I didn’t understand why the Maya built their cities far away from rivers, in remote areas, or in the mountains,” Gadoury told the Journal de Montreal, explaining how he developed his theory.

Incredibly his work seems to be even more groundbreaking than "just" finding lost ruins. It explains something fundamental about how the Mayans chose the locations of their cities.

[psyang]

Saw a Reddit response to this story that gave the boy credit, but brought some balance.

Secondly, he may have 'discovered' a site- I can't tell if he has or has not from the article. There are thousands of sites still out there that haven't been registered, many of which are known to local populations. So he may have found something new, and that in itself would be an incredible contribution, especially from someone his age. But if his new site is in the Belize River Valley, which it looks like it may be from the map, you can't throw a rock in that area without hitting an archaeologist. That area has been intensively studied for decades and there is unlikely to be an unknown major site anywhere near there.

Regardless, an incredible result by a 15 year old. Hopefully it pans out.

[Rathji]

Sounds interesting.

Read something about it on Reddit, and some guy debunked a lot of the stuff that is being reported in the media. Essentially that this city really wasn't lost and the constellation thing was really just random coincidence that is being trumped up by the media

[Itse]

The fall of the Mayan civilization has always been a bit of a mystery. While there are a number of explanations out there, this might turn out to a huge addition to our understanding of what happened. After all, most cities are built on logical locations. Places of strategic value, areas with lots of trade, along rivers and roads etc.

If the Mayans placed their cities where the stars told them, those locations would probably be massively inefficient.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Rathji

Sounds interesting.

Read something about it on Reddit, and some guy debunked a lot of the stuff that is being reported in the media. Essentially that this city really wasn't lost and the constellation thing was really just random coincidence that is being trumped up by the media

Link?

[Hack&Lube]

This is getting massively debunked around the internet. For example, the concept of city placement based on comsmology doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It sounds really cool and makes for a sensational Da Vinci Code type romantic plotline but does it make any realistic sense? It's that romanticism that is giving the story legs in addition to the youth of the original guy (remember the kid who got a lot of sensational news for having his home made clock confiscated? It turned it he didn't actually make it, it was just disassembled bits of electronics).

https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/...city_the_post/

[peter12]

Didn't the Mayans disappear for all the standard confluence of disasters? Earthquake, disease, wars...

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Itse

Link?

Sorry, am in my phone or I would have posted it.

/u/Xnipek explains why we should be cautious of the claim that a 15 year old kid discovered a hidden Maya city

https://np.reddit.com/r/news/comment...n_city/d2y3u1l

[Fuzz]

I thought the fall of the Mayan civilization was pretty well figured out it was due to a massive change in their climate, causing droughts and a collapse when the leaders couldn't provide so everyone left the cities. Isn't that the gist of it?

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by peter12

Didn't the Mayans disappear for all the standard confluence of disasters? Earthquake, disease, wars...

Their civilization waned prior to the European Age of Discovery so it's a romantic bit of archeology to go back and try to find out why. The most popular theories are climate/agriculture related.

[Regulator75]

Originally Posted by peter12

Didn't the Mayans disappear for all the standard confluence of disasters? Earthquake, disease, wars...

Nope, the Mothership arrived and took them back to the stars.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

It sounds really cool and makes for a sensational Da Vinci Code type romantic plotline but does it make any realistic sense?

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Their civilization waned prior to the European Age of Discovery so it's a romantic bit of archeology to go back and try to find out why. The most popular theories are climate/agriculture related.

Got something on the mind there, Hack&Lube?

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

This is getting massively debunked around the internet. For example, the concept of city placement based on comsmology doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It sounds really cool and makes for a sensational Da Vinci Code type romantic plotline but does it make any realistic sense? It's that romanticism that is giving the story legs in addition to the youth of the original guy (remember the kid who got a lot of sensational news for having his home made clock confiscated? It turned it he didn't actually make it, it was just disassembled bits of electronics).

https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/...city_the_post/

Constellations are pretty random concepts to begin with. If you have an area filled with cities, it'd be pretty easy to bunch a group of them together that more or less correspond with a constellation.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Itse

The fall of the Mayan civilization has always been a bit of a mystery. While there are a number of explanations out there, this might turn out to a huge addition to our understanding of what happened. After all, most cities are built on logical locations. Places of strategic value, areas with lots of trade, along rivers and roads etc.

If the Mayans placed their cities where the stars told them, those locations would probably be massively inefficient.

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. Cities are where they are for a reason and that reason is typically water.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

This is getting massively debunked around the internet. For example, the concept of city placement based on comsmology doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It sounds really cool and makes for a sensational Da Vinci Code type romantic plotline but does it make any realistic sense? It's that romanticism that is giving the story legs in addition to the youth of the original guy (remember the kid who got a lot of sensational news for having his home made clock confiscated? It turned it he didn't actually make it, it was just disassembled bits of electronics).

https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/...city_the_post/

Yeah, all of our city placements are of the utmost logical choices. We have never built cities on the sides of volcanoes, in flood planes, on fault lines, in the middle of deserts, tucked in the mountains, remote northern locations. Nope.

If the stars were their maps, it makes perfect sense to me that they would use them as markers for their cities.

[Fuzz]

Volcanoes and flood plains have fertile soil, fault lines don't move often enough so you don't know it is an issue until it is to late, middle of the desert, well you got me...but climates have changed and some used to be good farming...

I do get what you are suggesting though. Civilizations of the past were much more connected to the sky and knew a lot more about it than most of us do.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by MattyC

Yeah, all of our city placements are of the utmost logical choices. We have never built cities on the sides of volcanoes, in flood planes, on fault lines, in the middle of deserts, tucked in the mountains, remote northern locations. Nope.

No, we haven't built cities in the middle of the desert unless there's both water and a significant trading route passing through. (That has actually been an excellent way to get rich quick.) Flood plains and sides of volcanoes are excellent farming land. There actually are not a lot cities "tucked in the mountains" or remote northern locations.

Even today almost all cities in the world are by a sea, river or a lake. Probably something like 99% or more are like that.

Pretty much the only "illogical" cities are ones built for military purpose.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Itse

No, we haven't built cities in the middle of the desert unless there's both water and a significant trading route passing through. (That has actually been an excellent way to get rich quick.) Flood plains and sides of volcanoes are excellent farming land. There actually are not a lot cities "tucked in the mountains" or remote northern locations.

Even today almost all cities in the world are by a sea, river or a lake. Probably something like 99% or more are like that.

Pretty much the only "illogical" cities are ones built for military purpose.

But there are some, why can't the Mayan's have made some poor settlement places as well? Have you ever been to Phoenix? Someone's going to have to explain to me why that city exists. There's also a complete clusterfata of problems due to a couple different religious groups claiming their city to be a holyland and fighting over it, on a mountain, in a desert.

Part of the debunking is that there are already discoveries in the area, so they obviously DID build in this impractical location. If that location corresponded with stars which they tracked, maybe it was a shrine that became a settlement. Maybe they thought being under the constellation of the agriculture god would bring them good crops. I don't understand the narrow view that it's an impractical location so their's no way they would have built there when we have been building things in ridiculous locations for ridiculous reasons since we had the ability to do so. And then to think we know why. We have been studying the pyramids for generations and still have no idea why a group of people would spend the many years needed to do so, what they are for, how it's even possible that they were built, etc..

We have such little knowledge about ancient cultures and their view of the world, the technology they may have used, why they built what they did, etc.. that it's crazy to me that anyone would discount they built something because the stars pointed to it.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by MattyC

But there are some, why can't the Mayan's have made some poor settlement places as well? Have you ever been to Phoenix? Someone's going to have to explain to me why that city exists. There's also a complete clusterfata of problems due to a couple different religious groups claiming their city to be a holyland and fighting over it, on a mountain, in a desert.

Part of the debunking is that there are already discoveries in the area, so they obviously DID build in this impractical location. If that location corresponded with stars which they tracked, maybe it was a shrine that became a settlement. Maybe they thought being under the constellation of the agriculture god would bring them good crops. I don't understand the narrow view that it's an impractical location so their's no way they would have built there when we have been building things in ridiculous locations for ridiculous reasons since we had the ability to do so. And then to think we know why. We have been studying the pyramids for generations and still have no idea why a group of people would spend the many years needed to do so, what they are for, how it's even possible that they were built, etc..

We have such little knowledge about ancient cultures and their view of the world, the technology they may have used, why they built what they did, etc.. that it's crazy to me that anyone would discount they built something because the stars pointed to it.

Wasn't it because of a lot of silver in the hills around it?

[Itse]

Originally Posted by MattyC

Have you ever been to Phoenix? Someone's going to have to explain to me why that city exists.

Phoenix is built in a river valley. It's quite green, especially relative to it's surroundings.

We have such little knowledge about ancient cultures and their view of the world, the technology they may have used, why they built what they did, etc.. that it's crazy to me that anyone would discount they built something because the stars pointed to it.

I actually agree with you on this to some extent. Yes, constellations are very arbitrary and that would also apply to placing them on a map, but that goes for pretty much all religion related stuff.