Minanbé, an Intact Maya City Hidden for Centuries, Is Found in Campeche
A Slovenian-Mexican archaeological team has identified an undisturbed ancient Maya city deep in the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in Campeche, Mexico, adding a rare preserved site to a region already transformed by recent LiDAR discoveries. The city, named Minanbé — a Maya Yucatec phrase meaning “there is no road” — had remained concealed by jungle growth for more than a thousand years.
Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) authorized the expedition, which documented a 43-foot-high pyramid temple and 14 carved altars and stelae. The find is the latest result of lead archaeologist Ivan Šprajc’s three decades of work in the Central Maya Lowlands, a region that supported between 9 and 11 million people during the Maya civilization’s Late Classic period, from 600 to 900 CE.
The team reached the site after clearing a three-mile path with machetes, then continuing on foot and by ATV. Šprajc said the lack of old logging roads was a promising sign. “Compared to other places where we did surface surveys, access here was much more difficult; however, in the last three years, this is the first one we’ve found intact, with no signs of looting,” he said.
The physical survey was carried out by archaeologists Atasta Flores Esquivel, Israel Chato López, Quintín Hernández Gómez, and Vitan Vujanović. Vujanović said the temple shows characteristics of classic Río Bec style, a Maya architectural form associated with the 7th through 12th centuries CE. He added that it was the first well-preserved temple of its kind he had recorded.
Among the most significant objects is Stele 1, which depicts a decapitation scene and includes the calendrical sign 5 Ajaw, corresponding to 849 CE. Octavio Esparza Olguín, the project’s epigraphist, said that detail suggests the monuments were erected during the Terminal Classic period, close to the abandonment of sites in the region in the 10th century CE.
Another altar appears to have been intentionally broken. It bears hieroglyphic cartouches on its sides and a ruler figure wearing a feathered headdress. One of the inscriptions preserves part of a Long Count date that likely refers to the late 7th century CE, making it one of the earliest known texts in the area. Its defacement also raises the possibility of a later incursion from groups arriving from the northern Yucatán Peninsula.
Minanbé joins a growing list of Campeche discoveries made through LiDAR in recent years, underscoring how much of the Maya landscape still lies beneath the forest canopy.
