- 2 hours ago
- #brightside
- #brightsideglobal
Hidden in the jungle like a secret treasure, a colossal Mayan city has just been discovered by archaeologists. This ancient city, known as "City of the Serpent", is a lost world that resembles an Indiana Jones adventure – with huge pyramids, magnificent temples, and mysterious relics. This city is so enormous that it was the Mayan equivalent of Las Vegas – a lively center of culture, commerce, and civilization. So, prepare to travel back in time and explore the core of the Mayan mysteries, because the City of the Serpent awaits – and it's time to reveal the legends of the past.
#brightside #brightsideglobal
TIMESTAMPS:
0:01 The City of Serpent
09:01 The code of Mayan calendar
17:12 A student finds a lost city
This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
#brightside #brightsideglobal
TIMESTAMPS:
0:01 The City of Serpent
09:01 The code of Mayan calendar
17:12 A student finds a lost city
This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
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FunTranscript
00:00Researchers have found almost 1,000 previously hidden Maya settlements
00:04in the tropical lowlands of what is now northern Guatemala.
00:08They did it with LIDAR, light detection and ranging lasers,
00:13which they used to scan areas from the air.
00:16The region we're talking about is pretty vast.
00:19All those structures and buildings they saw over there
00:21stretch across about 650 square miles.
00:25And these spots were supposedly occupied thousands of years ago.
00:30It seems all these structures were pretty densely packed,
00:33so people lived close to each other.
00:35They had at least 417 ancient villages, towns and cities
00:40where they could identify boundaries.
00:42These structures and buildings were actually a part of a state
00:45that looked like a kingdom.
00:48Some of these settlements were built as sports courts,
00:51civic, ceremonial and religious centers and residential homes.
00:55There were also massive palaces, platforms, dams, pyramids and causeways across that area.
01:03People who lived there also had reservoirs where they collected water.
01:07So, they needed the power to organize thousands of specialists and workers.
01:12And they also needed many skilled people to build such structures
01:16without the technologies we have today.
01:18They needed lime producers, architects, mortar and quarry specialists,
01:23lithic technicians, those who took care of legal enforcement,
01:27and other important roles to establish the true community.
01:30This cool laser scanning system researchers used while exploring this area
01:35can even penetrate very dense ecosystems and vegetation.
01:40The light bounces off different surfaces
01:42and then creates a digitally reconstructed map.
01:45This map is based on how much time it takes for the pulses to get back to a receiver.
01:50So, with this laser system,
01:53they discovered they were also lowlands for agriculture.
01:57So, why exactly did the Maya settle in this region?
02:01It was a specific area.
02:03Plus, it was hard to build such an amazing kingdom
02:05in a tropical rainforest climate.
02:08Back in the old times,
02:09ancient peoples had mostly inhabited areas in drier climates.
02:13Over there, they would build water resources,
02:16which were some sort of the basis of society and a source of life.
02:20An example of this is Teotihuacan of Highland Mexico,
02:25although they did have a couple of navigable rivers
02:27they could use for transport and trade.
02:31But these rainforest areas had their advantages too.
02:35The Maya used natural resources like limestone,
02:39which was their primary building material,
02:40salt, and the volcanic rock, obsidian,
02:44which they used for different tools.
02:46Also, they managed to find enough dry land to live and build homes there.
02:51The lowlands were seasonal swamps called bajos,
02:54and they were perfect for agriculture because of the fertile soil.
02:59Generally, the Maya built settlements that could endure rainy periods too.
03:04They were ready for different circumstances,
03:06including flood and drought,
03:08which is something you could see in how they built houses.
03:11Their architecture was also one piece of evidence
03:14that showed their community was like a centralized kingdom-like state,
03:18which shows they stuck together through tough times.
03:21The Mayan Empire was very powerful,
03:24and it reached its peak about the 6th century CE.
03:27They were excellent at pottery, agriculture, writing, mathematics, and calendars.
03:33They were the ones who created complex calendar systems,
03:36such as the Calendar Round, which is based on 365 days.
03:41Although some believed the Mayan calendar predicted
03:43December 21, 2012 would be the end of the world,
03:47it was just a coincidence with the end of a certain full cycle.
03:51They would call it the Long Count Calendar,
03:53and it lasts 5,125 years.
03:58The Mayan people left behind an impressive amount
04:01of astonishing architecture and symbolic artwork.
04:04Most of their stone cities ended up abandoned by 900 CE.
04:09No one still knows why the Mayan civilization in that area collapsed,
04:14although there are some theories.
04:17Some think that by the 9th century,
04:19these people had exhausted the resources around them
04:22to the point that they could no longer feed and sustain such a big population.
04:27Others believe some city-states didn't get along that well,
04:30so they broke down the traditional system of power they used to have.
04:34Some say it was all because of a very long period of drought.
04:38It could be a combination of all these factors, though.
04:42But one Mayan city, located on an island,
04:45even survived until the 17th century.
04:48It was long after the rest of the Mayan civilizations had been destroyed or abandoned.
04:53If you're a traveler,
04:54you might know the town by its modern name,
04:57Flores.
04:58Scientists believe about 2,000 people lived there.
05:03The earliest Mayan people were farmers.
05:05They cultivated crops like beans, squash, corn, and cassava.
05:10As they had many interesting ingredients,
05:12they created hundreds of cool recipes.
05:15Many of those are still present even today.
05:17For example, in modern Mexican cooking,
05:20and especially popular are papayas,
05:23cacao, avocados, squash,
05:25pineapples, chili peppers,
05:27beans, and so on.
05:28Even though the Maya mostly practiced a kind of
05:31primitive type of slash-and-burn agriculture,
05:34there is also evidence of them using some more advanced farming methods,
05:39like terracing and irrigation.
05:42And they were big chocolate lovers.
05:45More than 3,500 years ago,
05:48the Olmecs of Mesoamerica probably turned out to be the first to realize
05:52that it takes some work for us to get such a cool thing as chocolate.
05:55But the Maya were the ones who turned it into a true form of art.
06:00Scientists found out about it when they found cacao in Mayan pottery.
06:06Their chocolate would be mixed with honey, water, cornmeal, and chili peppers.
06:11That's how you get a spicy, savory, hot chocolate beverage
06:15you can try even today in Mexico and Central America.
06:20Also, they used written language in their books.
06:23Their paper was made from fig tree bark,
06:26and using strips of that paper,
06:28they created a large library of books.
06:31Books made of this material are called codices,
06:35and four of these can still be found today.
06:37Sadly, many books were lost over time
06:40because of the humid climate or some human factors.
06:44The classic Maya built a bunch of palaces and temples
06:48that had a stepped pyramid shape.
06:50They decorated them with inscriptions and reliefs,
06:53which have earned them the reputation
06:55of being incredible artists of Mesoamerica.
06:59For the Mayans,
07:01flat foreheads were the most desirable thing on someone's face.
07:05They were generally really into aesthetics,
07:08and having a flat forehead was one of the main things
07:10where you could meet their highest aesthetic standard.
07:13They also liked to glam up their looks with makeup and clothing.
07:17Also, the Mayans were master tattoo artists.
07:21Actually, they were one of the first civilizations
07:23that started doing such forms of body art.
07:26They had a rich culture and believed in many things,
07:30such as fairies.
07:32Many civilizations across the globe believed in these mythical creatures,
07:36which had different names everywhere.
07:38The Mayans called those creatures aluxes.
07:41They would make sculptures of aluxes from wood or clay,
07:45take them to the forest,
07:47and hide in some secret spots.
07:49The Maya believed these sculptures would come to life during the night
07:53and take the role of guardians of their land,
07:56animals, and crops.
07:58The Maya believed caves were entrances that led to the underworld.
08:03You can even visit some of these caves if you like.
08:06For example,
08:07you can explore the jungles of Quintana Roo and Yucatan near Cancun.
08:12There are many spots where researchers found artifacts the Mayans had left behind.
08:19They were one of the first cultures that learned how to use rubber latex
08:23and make, for example, rubber balls for the many interesting games they had.
08:28They used natural latex and then probably mixed it with some other natural substances.
08:33That's how they came up with the bouncy balls they played with.
08:38They also built cool steam baths.
08:41The Maya had structures made from stone
08:43that looked like something we know today as bathtubs.
08:46Plus, they were building heated stone structures we know as sweat houses.
08:51Researchers found these in El Salvador and Guatemala,
08:54and they were previously hidden under volcanic ash.
09:00Can you tell me what date it is today?
09:02Piece of cake.
09:03You just look at your smartphone and voila,
09:05you immediately know the day, month, and year.
09:08But was it always this easy to tell the date?
09:10Did the ancient people even have the concept of a year that lasts 365 days?
09:15Yes and no.
09:16Mayan calendars had cycles.
09:18That's close to what we call a year.
09:20But the Mayan cycle was much longer.
09:238-19 days.
09:25And this is where the mystery begins.
09:288-19 days compared to what?
09:30When does this calendar begin?
09:32And when does it end?
09:33Scientists were asking themselves this question for decades.
09:37They discovered and deciphered the Mayan calendar during the 1940s.
09:41Recently, two American scientists, John Linden and Victoria Bricker,
09:46came forward with a solution.
09:47So, what did they do differently from their predecessors?
09:51The duo deciphered the code by broadening their thinking.
09:54They expanded the calendar from 8-19 days to full 45 years.
09:59That's 20 times longer than the original cycle.
10:02And a pattern started to emerge.
10:05This was a major breakthrough because the Maya told time in a complicated way.
10:08You can forget about the easy-to-read Arabic numerals we have today.
10:12These ancient people used glyphs.
10:14These are tiny images that represent characters.
10:17Something like the icons on your desktop or universal symbols.
10:22When you see a little dot with three curved lines above it,
10:25you know there is a Wi-Fi network available.
10:28The Mayan calendar used glyphs that represented animals or natural phenomena.
10:32For example, there were symbols for a jaguar and an eagle.
10:35Each glyph marked one day.
10:37Each cycle is repeated four times, 8-19x4.
10:41Let's call these four cycles blocks.
10:43The Mayas colored each block differently.
10:46Scientists thought these colors corresponded to the four cardinal directions.
10:50Red was east, white, north.
10:53West was black and finally, yellow marked south.
10:56But then the 1980s came.
10:58Yeah, this was a weird decade.
11:00The calculations were all wrong.
11:02Researchers determined that the colors were associated with the position of the sun in the sky.
11:07It turned out that the color yellow represented the highest point of the sun,
11:10which is called a zenith.
11:12White was the lowest point, called the nadir.
11:15It seems that the calendar showed just how good the ancient Mayas were at astronomy.
11:20This is most evident at Chichen Itza.
11:22This principal Mayan city is located on the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.
11:26There stands an impressive step pyramid.
11:28It is dedicated to the feathered serpent deity, and its alignment is perfect.
11:33Something marvelous happens here twice a year,
11:35during the equinoxes, March and September.
11:37These are the times when the sun shines directly over the equator.
11:41On these two dates, the day and night last the same.
11:45At the site of the pyramid, sunlight first illuminates the sculpture of the serpent head
11:49at the base of the structure.
11:51Then it makes its way up the 91 steps.
11:54This creates the illusion that a snake is slithering down the pyramid.
11:58Even today, people gather to witness the site.
12:01And it must have been more impressive when the Mayas completed the structure 1050-1300 CE.
12:07Do you know what a synodic period is?
12:10Neither do I.
12:11But Mayan astronomers did.
12:13A synodic period is the time that passes before a stellar body does a full lap.
12:18For example, this is the period between two full moons.
12:21When you look from Earth, this period lasts roughly 30 days.
12:26And the Mayas were looking at the skies non-stop.
12:29They carefully noted the synodic periods of all planets.
12:32From Venus to Saturn, these ancient astronomers kept records of nearly all celestial bodies.
12:38But what does this have to do with their calendar?
12:40The American researchers' calculations revealed the link.
12:44Let's take the planet closest to the sun as an example, Mercury.
12:47Its synodic period is 117 days.
12:51Multiply that by 7 and you get which number?
12:53Exactly 8 to 19, 117, X7 equals sign 819.
12:58Coincidence?
12:59Definitely not.
13:00Because synodic periods of other planets also neatly match the magical figure 819.
13:05But this is not visible from a single Mayan cycle.
13:08Scientists had to expand it several times to discover the pattern.
13:11There is a reason why no one could decipher the code for so long.
13:14They were focused on a single planet.
13:16The trick was to add the Mayan calculation for all the planets.
13:20Researchers just needed to see the bigger picture.
13:24This brings us to the year 2012.
13:27Can you remember that some people thought that the world would end on December 21st?
13:31That turned out to be a bust.
13:33We are alive and well now.
13:35But what started this false rumor?
13:37The Mayan calendar, of course.
13:40You see, these ancient people based their calendar on long periods of all the planets.
13:44That included a lot of complicated math and a lot of multiplying.
13:50This 2012 was simply the time when their cycle ended.
13:53It is known as the long count.
13:55This period is the same as our year.
13:58For the Mayas, 2012 was something like the 31st of December for us.
14:02Just an end of a cycle in which they measured time, so there was no need to panic.
14:06Those New Year's Eve parties might be a bit wild, but the world doesn't end on January 1st.
14:12The Mayas stretched more than their calendar.
14:15Rubber was the name of the game.
14:17Yes, you've heard it correctly.
14:18These ancient people were making different grades of rubber 3,000 years before one famous American did, Charles Goodyear.
14:25They would extract natural latex from the rubber tree.
14:29This is a milky substance that can be turned into rubber.
14:32And they weren't the only ones.
14:35Scientists found evidence that their neighbors, the Aztecs and the Olmecs, did the same.
14:41But what did they do with rubber?
14:43They didn't need car tires, definitely.
14:45But it's cool to have a nice pair of sandals for the beach.
14:48The Spanish wrote about rubber sole footwear that natives wore.
14:52Sadly, scientists still haven't found them.
14:55That would be a big step for archaeology.
14:57So the Maya were playful with rubber, literally.
15:01Researchers guessed that they produced balls from latex.
15:04These were bouncy and ranged in size from a softball to a soccer ball.
15:08A typical Mayan ballgame, pits, involved two hoops.
15:12You must be thinking basketball, but not quite.
15:14The hoops were set on walls, 23 feet high.
15:18Compare that to the NBA standard of 10 feet.
15:21And the hoop was the other way around.
15:24There is also a sweet side to the story of the Mayas.
15:27These ancient people enjoyed chocolate.
15:29In fact, the modern word chocolate probably comes from their language, socolatl.
15:34This meant bitter water.
15:36Okay, you get the bitter part.
15:38But why water?
15:39The Mayas didn't produce chocolate in the form we know it today.
15:42They didn't make bars of chocolate.
15:43They drank it.
15:45Smashed cocoa beans made for excellent drinks.
15:48The Mayas perfected the mixture over time and even added spices.
15:52Anyone up for a fiery chocolate drink with stew, peppers, and cornmeal?
15:55Who knows?
15:56Maybe this beverage actually tasted well.
15:58Cocoa beans were sacred and used as a currency.
16:02Researchers believe all social classes got to enjoy it.
16:05Free chocolate for all sounds nice even today.
16:08But where did the Mayas get clean water for their cocoa drinks?
16:11From the oldest known filtration system in the Western Hemisphere, it was based on zeolite.
16:17These are minerals that contain aluminum and silicone compounds.
16:21And guess what?
16:23Modern air and water purifiers still use this material.
16:26Mayan tech wins yet again.
16:28Back in Europe, Roger Bacon developed a sand filtration system in 1627, some 1,800 years
16:35after the Mayas.
16:36But what about regions without rivers, lakes, or springs?
16:39Mayan engineers had it all figured out.
16:42Rainwater.
16:43They would carve out large reservoirs in the limestone bedrock.
16:46Then, they would coat these underground caves with a layer of a watertight material.
16:51The final step was to make small channels that collected water from the hills above.
16:55Scientists estimated that just one of these reservoirs could hold on average 10,000 gallons
17:01of rainwater, enough to fill 55 modern hot tubs.
17:04So, imagine you're 15, and you get bored of playing video games.
17:09Instead, to pass the time, you decide to give some attention to an old hobby of yours, tracking
17:15down lost Mayan cities.
17:17You've heard that some ancient civilizations are said to have built entire cities based
17:22on constellations.
17:23So, you decide to check out whether that was true for the Mayans.
17:27You find a book containing all the constellations the Mayan civilization believed to exist.
17:33You open good old Google Maps and map every ancient Mayan city discovered to date.
17:38You start seeing that this information actually matches.
17:42And truly, the biggest ancient Mayan cities correspond to the brightest and biggest stars
17:48of the Mayan constellations.
17:50Okay, this is getting interesting.
17:52You manage to map out over 100 ancient cities when you suddenly notice something strange.
17:58There's an area in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico,
18:02where archaeologists have unearthed two Mayan cities.
18:05But on the constellation map, there are three stars.
18:09Could this mean there is a long-lost city waiting to be discovered nearby?
18:14You might think this sounds too daydreaming, but the story is actually true.
18:19The previous account happened to a Canadian teenager named William Gadary.
18:24The boy is known as a science genius and had even won an award for the constellation theory
18:29we've presented just now.
18:31When he noticed that a third city was missing from the 23rd constellation he was examining,
18:36he began to scour the internet for satellite pictures that could help him solve this mystery.
18:42He looked into images from NASA, JAXA, a Japan-based satellite company, and Google Earth.
18:48These images were still insufficient to answer his questions.
18:52So he reached out to a friend inside the Canadian Space Agency.
18:56His friend provided him with state-of-the-art satellite imagery that gave him the answer he was looking for.
19:03According to the images, there is a large square area right on the border of Mexico and Belize,
19:09which looks like the remains of a city.
19:11William took the images to a remote sensing expert known as Dr. Armin LaRocque from the University of New Brunswick.
19:19They studied the images thoroughly and concluded that the area could be housing 30 buildings and even a large pyramid.
19:27The scientific and archaeological community went crazy with the 15-year-old's discovery.
19:32Could this really be true?
19:35Some background.
19:36Lost Mayan cities began to be unearthed in the mid-20th century.
19:40Since then, ruins from cities such as Ticol, Palanique, and Uxmal have been rediscovered.
19:46The Mayans were one of the biggest pre-Columbian civilizations living in the Americas.
19:51They began to settle in the area as early as 1500 BCE.
19:56Experts believe that, at its height, the Mayan civilization consisted of over 40 cities with a population of millions of
20:04people.
20:04That's a crowd.
20:06And their cities were pretty interesting.
20:08Their civilization spanned over Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, Guatemala, and Belize.
20:14They survived mainly on agriculture.
20:16So they developed a complex irrigation system in most of their cities.
20:20They built a series of ceremonial buildings, pyramids, plazas, and even courts for ball games.
20:27The Mayans were keen pyramid builders.
20:29But they also developed an advanced astronomical system.
20:33With whatever ancient technology they had, they were able to predict the exact location of planets, such as Venus and
20:41Mars,
20:41and they were able to predict the exact dates of eclipses.
20:45That's why the methodology William used to discover this long-lost Mayan city was unusual, but not completely surreal.
20:52The Mayans were keen astronomers, so it wouldn't be too strange that they built their major architectural feats in relation
21:00to the sky, would it?
21:02And they wouldn't be the first ones to be doing so.
21:05There is a famous fringe of Egyptology dedicated to studying how the Giza pyramids were built in perfect alignment with
21:13the Orion constellation,
21:14meaning that each pyramid was purposely built to align with one of the major stars of Orion's belt.
21:21According to William, he first had the idea to look at the Mayan constellations because he couldn't understand why the
21:29Mayans built their cities where they built them.
21:31Most major cities, such as Chichen Itza and Uxmal, aren't near any rivers or significant bodies of water.
21:38Instead, they're built on marginal lands and on top of mountains, which confused the 15-year-old.
21:44His next thought was that it might have something to do with astronomy.
21:48William named the new city he discovered Mouth of Fire, which is also my nickname, and he even won a
21:54merit award for his hard work.
21:56However, his theory was very much contested inside the archaeological community, and many Mayan experts worked to debunk William's findings.
22:06Some archaeologists say that constellation theories are too unscientific.
22:10Anthony Aveni, a renowned anthropologist and astronomer, referred to William's methodology as an act of creative imagination.
22:18He explained that there is no way to be sure what the Mayan constellations really were.
22:24It's all just hypothetical.
22:27Another debunking of William's findings came from Mayanist David Stewart,
22:32who said that the object identified on the satellite imagery is nothing but an old cornfield.
22:37His claim was supported by an expedition that took place near the area in 2021,
22:43when the archaeologists present reported there was nothing at all in this area.
22:47Still, a 15-year-old boy almost found a long-lost Mayan city, which is pretty exciting if you ask
22:54me.
22:55Similar techniques, as those used by William, are actually being used to unearth lost civilizations all over the world.
23:02According to space archaeologist Sarah Parquet,
23:06satellite imagery has been a key player in discovering ancient cities in Egypt and other places.
23:11Sarah herself spends most of her days scouring images for any sign of where there could have been cities long
23:17ago.
23:18What happens, she says, is that any time you have something buried,
23:22it's going to be covered either by vegetation, soil or sand, or some other modern construction on top of it.
23:29In order to assess whether there is something hidden under large canopies of vegetation or not,
23:35she uses infrared technology, for instance.
23:38A major recent discovery in Brazil was done in a similar way.
23:43Satellite imagery detected a network of trenches dating back to 200 to 1200 CE.
23:49These suggest settlements that could have supported around 60,000 people.
23:54But in this case, the satellite imagery did indeed correspond to what was on the ground.
23:59Researchers from the University of Florida found several mounds that were accompanied by ditches and geoglyphs.
24:07Archaeologists also found remnants of carefully designed walls centered around closets,
24:13much like the type of construction done by the ancient Mayans.
24:16Advances in satellite tech have also shed new light on long-discovered ancient Mayan cities, such as Tikal.
24:23Located in the heart of the Guatemalan jungle, Tikal is believed to have been the capital of the ancient Mayan
24:30empire.
24:30At its height, it was comparable in importance to cities such as London or New York in today's world.
24:37It was composed of a series of complex monuments, many of them believed to have been the resting places of
24:43kings and chiefs.
24:45Tikal is already known to have been big,
24:47But recent discoveries show it could have been even three times larger than what scientists originally believed.
24:54The main discovery revolves around a fortification on the outskirts of the city,
24:59indicating how far the original city stretched.
25:02And new discoveries still take place.
25:05In 2017, researchers also unearthed new clues regarding the potential causes of the decline of the Mayan civilization.
25:13Using data from a site in Seawol, located 62 miles southwest of Tikal,
25:19scientists analyzed radiocarbon data from ceramics and archaeological excavations
25:24to extract new information about the sudden demise of this great civilization.
25:29The information shows that, instead of a sudden collapse,
25:33the Mayans most likely collapsed in waves of social instability and political crises.
25:39These events are believed to have deteriorated Mayan city centers
25:43and began causing the dispersion of the Mayan population.
25:47Well, it seems like it's a prime time to uncover ancient ruins.
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