An international team of archaeologists reports the discovery of a previously unknown Maya city, Minanbé, whose name roughly translates from Yucatecan Mayan as “There is no path.”
Working under the Archaeology Council of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), archaeologists from Slovenia and Mexico, led by Ivan Šprajc, discovered the lost settlement miles deep in the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in Campeche, Mexico.
Hidden beneath more than a millennium of forest growth, the ancient Maya site required a challenging journey by ATV, followed by several miles on foot before the team could reach the ancient ruins.
Maya Civilization
For three decades, Ivan Šprajc of the Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Arts and Sciences has investigated the Central Mayan Lowlands. During the Maya civilization’s Late Classical period, the region was home to an estimated nine to eleven million people.
The discovery of Minanbé came west of Chactún, another Maya site that Šprajc’s team uncovered 13 years ago. Researchers first identified the approximately 15-hectare settlement using LiDAR to peer through the dense jungle canopy before carving a five-kilometer path to the ruins with machetes. Ironically, the difficult journey to reach Minanbé ultimately proved to be one of the site’s greatest assets.
“Compared to other places where we made surface routes, here access was much more difficult; however, in the last three years, it is the first one we found intact, and there was no looting. It was a discovery, a great surprise,” Šprajc said. “That’s why we chose the name of Minanbé, which comes from the Yucatecan Mayan (mina’an, ‘there is no’, and bej, ‘path’). Thus, we follow the tradition in Mayan archeology of naming some sites according to some characteristic of the place or in reference to the circumstances of the discovery.”
Urban Ruins
Upon arriving at Minanbé, the archaeologists uncovered plazas surrounded by ceremonial and palatial structures, along with terraces and hydraulic infrastructure. Among the site’s most impressive features was a 13-meter-high pyramid with a smooth façade, a steep staircase, and finely crafted molding. One grisly stela depicts a decapitation, while others preserve intricate iconography and hieroglyphic inscriptions. The team also identified a row of monuments lining a road that connected the city’s central and northeastern sectors.
The researchers took thousands of photographs, which were then referenced in the construction of 3D models of stelae and altars. Despite erosion softening the limestone details, epigraphist Octavio Esparza Olguín identified several important elements using editing software, including a date of 5 jaw, corresponding to 848 AD, on the decapitation stele.
“This is an important key because we can think that the entire set of monuments or some were erected for that moment of the Classic Terminal, close to the abandonment of the sites of the region, which happened in the 10th century AD,” Olguín explained.
Maya Records
Among the round and rectangular altars discovered at the site, several show evidence of having been intentionally altered over time. Monument 6 features an unusual split design, with the figure of a ruler carved on its front face wearing a feathered headdress, necklaces, wristbands, and a pectoral adorned with trilobed elements, while its sides are covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions.
Within those inscriptions, researchers identified a Long Count date they believe corresponds to the late seventh century, suggesting Minanbé may rank among the oldest known Maya settlements in the region.
Taken together, the discoveries provide important new insights into the history of the region. According to Šprajc, it likely fits into the regional pattern of an agricultural site that peaked in the Late Classical period, organized around a hierarchy linked to the production and distribution of surplus agricultural products. Later, a group from the north of the Yucatan may have arrived, changing the city’s dynamics. Despite the team’s success, there are currently no plans for additional fieldwork at the site.
Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.