Pipe 1D6A3 15-year-old discovers a new Mayan city based on star constellations

15-year-old discovers a new Mayan city based on star constellations

by
in science on (#1D6A3)
William Gadoury, 15, passionate about the Mayan civilization for several years, wondered why the Mayan would build their cities away from rivers on infertile lands in the mountains. He then noticed the correlation between 22 star constellations known to the Maya people and the location of their cities. Eventually he theorized that a 23rd 3-star constellation should correspond to as many other cities and, indeed, two of the stars matched two already-discovered cities.

But what about the third one? Well, sure enough, helped by scientists, he started looking at satellite photographs provided by the Canadian Space Agency, NASA and JAXA, and they observed geometrical shapes at the exact corresponding position. According to Dr Armand LaRocque these shapes cannot be explained by natural phenomenons and are likely the remain of a new Mayan city named K’ÀAK’ CHI’ ("Fire Mouth").

Besides, it seems Mayan cities were sized according to the brightness of their corresponding star, which would make this new city the fifth largest one.

original story (in French): http://www.journaldemontreal.com/2016/05/07/un-ado-decouvre-une-cite-maya
blog translation: http://yucatanexpatlife.com/teen-tracks-down-lost-mayan-city/
on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/4igqnk/15_year_old_discovers_hidden_mayan_city/
score 0
  • Closed (Timeout)
Reply 2 comments

Or did he... (Score: 2, Informative)

by bryan@pipedot.org on 2016-05-11 17:52 (#1DDC4)

Re: Or did he... (Score: 1)

by seriously@pipedot.org on 2016-05-11 18:38 (#1DDHD)

Yes, indeed, I saw it this morning. Some other experts argue that the human-made structure could as well be abandoned corn fields.

Oh well. Guess we will have to wait until someone actually gets there before publishing the (non-)story.