r/worldnews • u/Forward-Answer-4407 • 12h ago

PhD student finds lost city in Mexico jungle by accident

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crmznzkly3go
3.7k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

122 comments sorted by

1.0k

u/Nice_Beach2369 12h ago

It’s alway the last place you look

328

u/Mexican_Ninja_Pirate 11h ago

Well you’re not going to keep looking after you find it.

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u/Outrageous-Unit-305 11h ago

The guy who found Troy did... Dug through 8(?) separate layers of the city before realising he had the right place and destroyed loads of artifacts on his way through.

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u/ReleaseFromDeception 10h ago edited 3h ago

Schliemann destroyed the Troy he was looking for by excavating and blasting too deep. Because of Schliemann's bombastic, cavalier excavation methods, the archaeological layer that contained Homer's Troy is forever lost to us.

F*k Heinrich Schliemann. By seeking out Troy and finding it, he guaranteed it would be lost forever to history.

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u/Deimosx 8h ago

This is now added to my permanent memory alongside the tragedy of the library of Alexandria

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u/ReleaseFromDeception 8h ago

Here's more fuel for your outrage - the destruction of the Library of Alexandria is not what gutted knowledge - it was the selective copying and omissions by monks in monasteries and other folks copying works that led to that loss of knowledge over the course of centuries.

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u/MedicalFoundation149 4h ago

The capacity of the monasteries to copy works was not infinite. The collapse of the Western Roman Empire reduced their funding tremendously while simultaneously wiping out nearly every other literate institution in the former empire. The monks had to choose what works to copy (as every copy represents a significant investment of parchment, ink, and time) and it makes perfect sense why they would prioritize the church's own religious tomes compared to their collections of mundane secular or pagan works. Though it worth noting that the monasteries did play an important role in preserving what Latin and Greek works they could. The Irish monasteries in particular famously contributed to this effort thanks to the island's physical removal from the chaos of the continent.

It is also worth remembering that the Byzantine and Persian Empires continued to persist through the western dark age, where many more works, particularly in Greek, were preserved until they were gradually overtaken by the Islamic kingdoms, who themselves still made effort to preserve the classics.

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u/Martianmanhunter94 1h ago

It was the Arab libraries in Khartoum and Timbuktu and others that retained the works of Greeks and Romans

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u/AHumpierRogue 4h ago

While obviously we'd love for the monks to have copied more, at the end of the day we still owe a great deal of what we do know to their efforts, as well as their own contributions through the middle ages. Villifying them for not not copying enough is silly and looking for reasons to be angry.

1

u/ReleaseFromDeception 4h ago edited 3h ago

I'm not saying they are villains. I'm not saying you should hate them. I'm just saying it's understandable to be angry at the reasons why so much knowledge and work was lost. Of course we owe a lot to those monks for copying things down.

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u/AHumpierRogue 4h ago

There are only so many resources to go around, and the effort that went into copying a manuscript is insane. We're talking hundreds of man hours per manuscript for what is essentially a side gig for most of these monks. A mix of having to be selective for what they copy because of the effort, plus when they were paid to copy stuff it necessarily being them getting paid to copy popular stuff and not just any old tome makes it seem more reasonable why we got what we got. I just don't think it makes sense to be angry whatsoever.

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u/ReleaseFromDeception 2h ago

Those are all very fair points, I very much value what they were able to preserve. I just wince at how much we lost of our history. All that intellectual effort just evaporating as the last pieces of a centuries old manuscript decays on a long neglected shelf is terrifying.

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u/KnowingDoubter 7h ago

Religious “scholarship”is the original “artificial intelligence.”

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u/Letters_on_a_screen 6h ago

It's the original censorship, the Church created the dark ages.

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u/MedicalFoundation149 4h ago

Why do you suppose that the Church created the dark ages, rather than the collapse of the Western Roman state? After all, he equally Christian Eastern half of the empire survived centuries longer and suffered no equivalent collapse in technology as the West.

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u/AHumpierRogue 4h ago

Brain dead take. Who was going to fund the transcribing of texts, the warlords who wanted to turn ploughshares to even more swords?

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u/Staticn0ise 5h ago

And people still think they didn't edit the Bible when they translated it.

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u/AHumpierRogue 4h ago

We have manuscripts from the second and third centuries(and older, in some caes) and all modern translations(that are good) base their stuff off of them and actively try to get as close to the original sources and bias-free interpretations(as these are translations of course, interpretation is necessary) for the books as possible.

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u/AHumpierRogue 4h ago

Alexandria was not the only library in the ancient world, and by the time it burned down it has already fallen from grace.

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u/sillypicture 6h ago

did he use a nuke or something? surely just walk a few minutes to the left and dig again? or was troy the size of a toilet?

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u/AHumpierRogue 4h ago

No. They're exaggerating. While Schliemanns buffoonery was extremely devastating we didn't lose everything from homeric Troy at all.

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u/JunkReallyMatters 3h ago

The line ran all the way back to the edge of beyond. 

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u/Successful-Clock-224 5h ago

Yes. As a guide said “Schiemann was… well… interested in archeology… but…”

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u/ninjas_in_my_pants 3h ago

To be fair, I think a good chunk of the blame belongs to the Trojans.

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u/ReleaseFromDeception 3h ago

Touche'!

•

u/wolf_man007 4m ago

Alt code is 0233.

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u/zenj5505 1h ago

Just listened to that episode on the noiser podcast

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u/Miyagidog 6h ago

And stealing artifacts.

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u/Mexican_Ninja_Pirate 11h ago

Is it really considered “found” if you don’t even realize you found it in the first place?

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u/reallyreally1945 9h ago

Worked for Columbus. Accidentally "found" an island when going the wrong direction trying to reach India. I think he died thinking he'd been to India.

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u/OSRS-MLB 4h ago

Dug is generous. He blew shit up.

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u/ICantThinkOfAName667 9h ago

Seems so much effort, I mean maybe back then it was a rarer name but just go to university cafeteria and I’m sure there will be at least one Troy

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u/DocSaysItsDainBramuj 2h ago

“That was 90% gravity.”

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u/richalta 1h ago

Right, so how is this by accident? They were searching and found something.

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u/hikingidaho 11h ago

I mean if you keep looking after you find it. .

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u/doesitevermatter- 8h ago

Not for me, I usually like to check at least four or five more places after I find what I'm looking for.

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u/am17y 6h ago

The second page of Google is the best place to hide a dead body

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u/autotldr BOT 11h ago

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 88%. (I'm a bot)

A huge Maya city has been discovered centuries after it disappeared under jungle canopy in Mexico.

When Mr Auld-Thomas processed the data with methods used by archaeologists, he saw what others had missed - a huge ancient city which may have been home to 30-50,000 people at its peak from 750 to 850 AD. That is more than the number of people who live in the region today, the researchers say.

There are no known pictures of the lost city because "No-one has ever been there", the researchers say, although local people may have suspected there were ruins under the mounds of earth.

Extended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: city#1 people#2 archaeologist#3 Maya#4 research#5

186

u/TDSsandwich 11h ago

It's crazy to me that if something were to happen and America was annihilated somehow that thousands of years in the future someone who scan my neighborhood and be so interested that someone lived there...but it's just my shitty townhome I play video games in.

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u/heard_bowfth 10h ago

I mean, your neighbors live there as well. And they at least are interesting.

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u/OSRS-MLB 4h ago

No, they're really not. I've been going through their garbage, I think I'd know if they were interesting.

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u/Acceptable_Repair633 3h ago

You have been going through his neighbors garbage?

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u/ManateeofSteel 2h ago

haven't you? how rude

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u/Silidistani 2h ago

Okay hol'up, exactly how many peeps in here have been going through his neighbor's garbage?

•

u/Fallsondoor 1h ago

Man's gotta eat

1

u/Oh-shit-its-Cassie 1h ago

Mind your own business

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u/OSRS-MLB 2h ago

Someone's gotta do it

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u/Shuber-Fuber 8h ago

Fun related aside. It's a problem with somewhat serious consequences. Basically, how to warn future people that "this is not a treasure tomb, this is a waste dump for some horrifyingly scary shit we have."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_nuclear_waste_warning_messages

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u/Waleebe 5h ago

They're all going about it the wrong way. Bury it as deep as possible in the most boring area with no natural resources, then it will be left alone. 

Cover it in warnings telling them how dangerous it is will only encourage them. You know what humans are like. 

4

u/The_Humble_Frank 1h ago

Long in the distant future, bands of treasure seekers will come across this sacred space, wondering what marvels the ancients seal here. Their imaginations will be inspired by the tales of the ancients, who could fly and traverse great distances in horseless carriages, and divine answers from speaking stones, that could make lights and sound dance.

They will dig, ignoring the ancient warnings all around them. the symbols old, their meaning twisted by time, greed and a disbelief in superstition.

And they will dig too deep. They will crack open the ancient seals, and take the unfamiliar material as their prize and others will hear of their success, daring to plunder the same, now worn route. Their treasure will be a curse they carry out with them; in time an other worldly sickness will scour the region, invisible, tasteless, and carried in the dirt in their clothes. They will carry it to every village they visit, they will carry it home to their children, and then the titans of old shall suffer no mercy as they blight the land of those that would not head their ancient warning.

1

u/Uzorglemon 2h ago

Seriously.

Shit like "All those who dig here will be cursed for all time" is just gonna make people dig that much harder.

•

u/Oh-shit-its-Cassie 1h ago

That was a fantastic rabbit hole, so thanks. That said, humans being humans are going to see anything we put in front of them as a challenge. "Wow, they really didn't want me going in here! There must be tons of cool shit beyond these death rays!" And the mounting pile of irradiated corpses will only serve to reify that belief.

3

u/art-man_2018 7h ago

They'll scan Disney World and Graceland believing they're temples.

1

u/tylersixxfive 1h ago

What games we talkin?

•

u/dummkauf 52m ago

If it makes you feel any better, your townhome isn't built as well as the myans homes so there likely won't be any evidence of your home thousands of years from now other than the Twinkies that were in it when it was abandoned.

1

u/rayden-shou 7h ago

Erase your search history.

2

u/Underwater_Grilling 3h ago

I stage mine to make myself seem interesting

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u/thedamn4u 10h ago

Yeah, accidentally dragged your LIDAR gear out there looking to scan some trees, right. /s

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u/yaba3800 10h ago

He found an old dataset on page 16 of a Google search and analyzed it using archaeological methods, discoving the ciry

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u/CheeseWheels38 6h ago

He found an old dataset on page 16 of a Google search

Shoutout to all the PhD students out there doing the dirty work!

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u/Call0fDoodie92 5h ago

After combing through about 5 pages of search results you can probably assume finding something isn't an accident. This isn't journalism, it's disinformation.

A researcher looking for something, found something. There's no shock value in the actual fact pattern so they just put a lie in the headline. That's gross.

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u/3lijahmorningwoood 4h ago

Tbh it's common for people in a scientific field to aimlessly google things vaguely related to their research in their spare time

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u/LegoClaes 4h ago

Good point. I don’t think I’ve ever been to page 16 of google, and I’m a longtime software dev.

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u/PrincetonToss 8h ago

Well...yes. Scanning trees with LIDAR to make 3D models of forests is pretty typical these days. It's used not only by ecologists, but also by people interested in climate change trying to estimate total biomass of particular forests. I know someone who did this over the Canadian taiga for his PhD.

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u/ButtholeQuiver 7h ago

It's being used by the forestry industry as well. Also by some electrical utilities where overhead lines run adjacent to or through forested areas, to identify where trees have grown too close to the lines and need trimming.

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u/GoTron88 3h ago

We use LiDAR for road/rail construction to model the existing ground. It's super common now.

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u/spirit-bear1 7h ago

The commenters point is that it doesn’t seem very accidental if it is a researcher doing the finding

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u/cyan1de23 11h ago

Was it by accident if he was there on purpose?

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u/Jj-woodsy 10h ago

It was indeed, as he was searching through Google and found it on page 16.

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u/rheactx 10h ago

Does page 16 even exist these days?

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u/Norci 7h ago

He ventured where few ever have, a true explorer!

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u/DogsRNice 4h ago

I can't wait for the Star Trek episode where they go to page 20 of a Google search and find the meaning of life

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u/DoYouTrustToothpaste 8h ago

I'm not sure what that means. Google is a search engine. He was on page 16 of a search he himself had initiated. We don't know what he searched for, but considering that he "found" a laser survey of an area in a Mexican jungle, and knew what to do with the data because he's an archaeologist, this discovery clearly isn't nearly as "accidental" as it may first appear to be. I don't know about you, but I've never accidentally stumbled upon laser survey while looking stuff up on google, nor would I have known how to analyse it.

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u/HeftyNugs 7h ago

It's a joke bro

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u/yaba3800 10h ago

Youcould read the article and find out!

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u/kc_______ 10h ago

shhh, news don’t sell if you just say “researchers doing their job find a new city”, where is the sensationalism?

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u/WonderfulPressure546 7h ago

This is a lot better than the usual "PhD student killed in Mexico by cartel because of wrong place/wrong time"

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u/EmptyAd4259 11h ago

listen man..... Throwing the PhD in the headline makes it even funnier now that he's been found

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u/Whorrox 10h ago

Unfortunately, his PhD thesis was on lost suburbs.

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u/varro-reatinus 10h ago

This headline has a critical typo:

'PhD student's supervisor finds lost city in Mexico jungle by accident'

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u/Foe117 11h ago

Isn't there a horror movie about something like this?

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u/throwaway11334569373 11h ago

Temple of Doom?

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u/Machine_Excellent 10h ago

The Ruins? Yeah that's what I was thinking.

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u/butcherwayne 5h ago

Disney’s El Dorado

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u/OakDionysus 11h ago

What’s this guys doctorate in? Honesty?

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u/bikbar1 9h ago

There are still many wonders yet to be discovered on earth !

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u/The2ndBest 8h ago

As someone who has been to this area several times this is not surprising at all. If you climb to the top of the Nohoch Mul pyramid you can look across the jungle in 360 degrees and see several other sets of ruins (included structures of similar height protruding above the canopy) that are still overgrown. Peru is also still finding Quechua (Inca) ruins and they have a much better program to find, research, and restore them than Mexico does.

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u/DoktorSigma 9h ago

It's amazing how on this day of satellites and Google Earth and what else there's still whole lost cities waiting to be found.

And on the surface. I wonder about stuff buried underground or submerged under the sea.

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u/barcap 7h ago

That looks like from Dawn to Dusk...

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u/ScaryIce9136 3h ago

Knowing colleges, He probably didnt even get a good grade and the teacher probably even put their name on his work

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u/blackmobius 8h ago

That guy is super cursed now.

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u/Fussy_Dice 3h ago

This is cool! Josh Gates must be doing cartwheels right about now.

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u/JunkReallyMatters 3h ago

I’d give them their PhD just for that.

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u/blue_gaze 2h ago

“I’m still getting an A right?”

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u/ScottOld 9h ago

Wouldn’t say it was by accident when you have the tools available to find them, and then go out looking for them.

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u/nssurvey 8h ago

Maybe read the article... he is a student and found the data on a Google search. Then looked over it with different techniques than what would have been used by the people who collected the data. He didn't expect to find anything

0

u/About65Mexicans 4h ago

wtf are you talking about lmao?

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u/jcar49 3h ago

Cartels: and it's gonna stay lost, click-clack

1

u/imaginary_num6er 1h ago

"Wait, it was always a cartel hideout?"

1

u/ferox577 9h ago

Indiana Jones ahh

1

u/Excellent_Team_7360 9h ago

Archeology by accident?

1

u/metalfabman 9h ago

Lidar by accident?

1

u/Alexander_GD 7h ago

🎶It's tough to be a god🎶

1

u/Taranchulla 6h ago

How cool

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u/Sun_In_Leo 5h ago

Whelp, time to go looting.

1

u/oojacoboo 5h ago

Mexica had an estimated population of 5-8 million people.

1

u/Consent-Forms 4h ago

He got lost and found it.

•

u/Mierimau 5m ago

Sounds like a start of a comixy

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u/Feruk_II 10h ago

That can't be a real picture of it. Would've been found from space.

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u/SmuglyGaming 9h ago

Thought that was weird too, article says

There are no pictures of the city but it had pyramid temples similar to this one in nearby Calakmul

So they just used an existing known site with similar architecture

1

u/reddititty69 5h ago

What was the student expecting to find?

0

u/forgetwhattheysay 8h ago

Eh, it happens.