Experts Cast Doubt on Discovery of Ancient Maya City by Canadian Teen Fox News Latino
go to original May 12, 2016

Did Quebec teen find lost Mayan city? (CBC News)

The news that a Canadian teen had discovered an ancient Mayan city hidden in the Yucatan jungle without ever leaving home spread rapidly in Mexico's media, but experts here responded with caution and said that they cannot back the claim.

Initial reporting was that 15-year-old William Gadoury noticed what appeared to be the outlines of man-made structures covered with jungle foliage in satellite images he was viewing on his home computer.

Nevertheless, an official with Mexico's National Anthropology and History Institute, or INAH, told EFE that they cannot "endorse the existence of this city or the information presented by this boy."

The INAH also said that it is not even "considering" the alleged find, since "there is no scientific basis for it."

INAH archaeological coordinator Pedro Francisco Sanchez emphasized that Gadoury's theory lacks appropriate seriousness since it is not known what scale he was using to match the stars in constellations with the locations of Mayan settlements and temples.

Gadoury, who admits being fascinated by the Maya civilization, said he had noticed that the relative positions of bright stars in various constellations corresponded to the location of 117 known Maya cities.

The constellation-city correlation has never before been made by archaeologists studying the Mesoamerican civilization, which fell apart before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492.

Read the rest at Fox News Latino

Related: Breaking Down the Mythical 'Mayan City' Discovery (CNN)

Related: Parts of That 'Lost Maya City' Might Actually Be a Marijuana Grow-Op (Gizmodo)

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