AssetID: 54973505
Headline: RAW VIDEO: Archaeologists find long-lost 'last Mayan City' - The Land of the White Jaguar
Caption: Archaeologists believe they have located the remains of a long-lost Mayan city in southern Mexico. It is thought to have been a rebel stronghold against Spanish colonial rule for more than a century. The site, known as Sak-Bahlán – meaning “Land of the White Jaguar” – was home to the Lakandon-Ch’ol people, who resisted Spanish conquest well into the late 17th Century. Historians describe them as the last Maya rebels of Chiapas, in modern-day Mexico. Following the Spanish capture of their capital, Lacan-Tun (“Great Rock”), in 1586, the Lakandon-Ch’ol retreated deeper into the jungle, where they established Sak-Bahlán. It remained hidden until 1695, when an expedition led by Friar Pedro de la Concepción discovered it. The Spanish soon subdued the settlement, renaming it Nuestra Señora de Dolores (“Our Lady of Sorrows”). By 1721, it had been abandoned and its location forgotten. Now, a team led by Josuhé Lozada Toledo of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) believes it has rediscovered the site. Using colonial-era records, including detailed letters from Spanish friar Diego de Rivas, alongside modern geographic information system (GIS) mapping, the researchers narrowed their search to a remote area near the Jataté and Ixcán rivers, close to the present-day border with Guatemala. Josuhé Lozada Toledo, an archaeologist at the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) in Mexico City, pinned down the most likely location of the stronghold. According to 17th Century accounts, the stronghold was built on a plain beside a bend in the Lacantún River. By combining these descriptions with estimates of travel times through the dense terrain, the team identified a likely location – which matched archaeological remains found during field surveys. The discovery, if confirmed, would end a search that has puzzled historians and archaeologists for decades, shedding new light on one of the final chapters of Maya resistance to Spanish rule.
Keywords: feature,photo,maya,mexico,history,archaeology
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