Laser Beams Discover a Lost World

A POWERFUL NEW ARCHAEOLOGY TOOL REVEALS COUNTLESS MAYA STRUCTURES.

- Rachel Kehoe

On a summer day in 2017, a group of researchers board a small plane in northern Guatemala in Central America. It takes off from the runway and climbs high into the air. Lush green jungle stretches far into the horizon. Its dense canopy covers the uneven landscape, giving it the appearance of a rolling green sea. It's a beautiful sight. But the researchers inside the cockpit aren't here for the view. They have come to discover what lies beneath the thick, sprawling greenery.

Centuries ago, during about 1,800 BCE to 900 CE, the Maya civilization called this low-lying swampy area home. They were skilled farmers and brave warriors. They studied science, mathematics, and medicine. The Maya people honored their gods by offering sacrifices and building great cities filled with pyramids, palaces, and temples. But sometime around 900 CE, the Maya mysteriously abandoned their cities. Slowly, their monuments and temples began to crumble.

In 1839, American archaeologist John Lloyd Stephens and English artist Frederick Catherwood visited the deserted ruins of this forgotten civilization. By then, the jungle had reclaimed the land. The invading tangle of foliage swallowed up palaces I and monuments. Roads and temples turned into green swellings that blended in with the forest. Stephens described stone columns carved with images as “equal to the finest monuments of the Egyptians."

Following their expedition, other researchers continued the search throughout northern Guatemala, finding one individual Maya structure at a time. These disconnected discoveries made it difficult to put together the full story of how the Maya really lived-until now. Recent advancements in laser technology are revealing the lost world of the Maya and have scientists wondering if they understood this civilization as well as they had thought.

Lasers in the Sky