Archaeologists have discovered the ruins of an ancient Mayan city filled with palaces, pyramids and plazas at a construction site for a future industrial park near Mérida on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.
The archaeological site, called Xiol, has features of the Mayan Puuc style of architecture, according to archaeologists, common in the southern Yucatan peninsula but rare in the Merida region.
“We believe that more than 4,000 people lived here,” said Carlos Peraza, one of the archaeologists who led the excavation of the city, which is estimated to have been occupied between 600 and 900 AD.
“There were people from different social classes… priests, scribes, who lived in these great palaces, and there were also ordinary people living in small buildings,” Peraza said.
Researchers also located cemeteries of adults and children, buried with obsidian stone tools, offerings and other belongings.
Remains of marine life were also found at the site, suggesting that the townspeople supplemented their agriculture-based diet with fishing in the nearby coastal region.
Xiol was discovered after construction began on an industrial park that has yet to be done, although the archaeological remains will still be preserved, according to the landowners.
