Have you ever wondered if the Mayan civilization really exists? Well, wonder no more because a 15-year-old Canadian teen from Saint-Jean-de-Matha in Lanaudière, Quebec has discovered a long-forgotten Mayan city in the thick jungles of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.
The Discoverer
Would you believe that a teenager could come up with a theory that no other scientist had ever discovered before? Thanks to his interest in archaeology and fascination in the Mayan civilization, William Gadoury was able to formulate a theory that will lead to one of the major discoveries in history - a lost Mayan city discovery.
The Theory
By studying the Mayan astronomy and satellite photos, Gadoury came up with an original theory that Mayans chose the location of their towns and cities based on their civilization's star constellation. According to Daily Mail, the teenager analyzed 22 Mayan constellations, realizing the connection of stars corresponded to the position of 117 Mayan cities found in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and EL Salvador.
"I was really surprised and excited when I realized that the most brilliant stars of the constellations matched the largest Maya cities," Gadoury told Le Journal de Montréal.
After Gadoury studied the star map further, he noticed that one city appeared to be missing. Hoping to solve the intriguing mystery the young astronomer used satellite images from the Canadian Space Agency and then mapped on to Google Earth, finding the city where the third star of the constellation indicated it would be, The Blaze notes.
The Discovery
Gadoury named his newly discovered Mayan city as "K'aak Chi" or "Mouth of Fire." Unfortunately, the location is yet to be explored city in the Yucatan jungle because of its dense vegetation, Canadian Space Agency's Daniel De Lisle said, The Independent learns.
Gadoury's newly discovered Mayan city might potentially have 30 buildings and an impressive pyramid at the site. If proven true, the lost city would be one of the five largest Mayan-built cities known to archaeologists, BBC News reveals.
"It would be the culmination of my three years of work and the dream of my life," he said, as per The Telegraph.
Gadoury became interested in the Mayans after reading about their apocalyptic predictions in 2012. Meanwhile, Gadoury's discovery will be presented at Brazil's International Science fair in 2017 and published in a scientific journal.
Gadoury's Discovery Allegedly Fake?
As Gadoury's discovery went viral, some skeptics expressed their opinions about the story. The Mesoamerica Center-University of Texas anthropologist David Stuart called the story as a "mess and false" on Facebook, saying the square feature found on Google Earth was a milpa or old fallow cornfield, Gizmodo reports.
Stuart's claims were also echoed by USC Dornsife anthropologist Thomas Garrison, saying the objects were indeed relic cornfields. Slovenia's Institute of Anthropological and Spatial Studies associate professor and head researcher Ivan Šprajc, on the other hand, said Mayans were good astronomers but the thought of correlating the location of Mayan settlements with stars is "utterly unlikely."
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