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Found a lost city at 25
Finding the spot
Everyone told him every city had already been found. Working from a topographic map from the 1990s, he reasoned that the Maya built pyramids in triads to stand for the three hearthstones of civilization, called their pyramids stone mountains, and farmed. So he looked for the tallest peak with two small peaks beside it and three rivers running through. Reaching it took two seasons of hiking and cutting trail with four to eight students.
Following old roads
His professor wanted a straight line west through the hills, which meant up, down, up, down. Instead he followed old overgrown logging roads left by the British a century earlier, the path of least resistance the Maya would have taken too. Along the way he mapped five villages of 30 to 40 buildings each, then ran into a square building six meters tall, then one 18 meters tall and 100 meters across.
The city appears
Around it stood a ball court, a palace, fallen stelae, and eventually a big reservoir. The city sat on the first hill, not the tallest, and he named it Mashna, Monkey House. He mapped about 400 buildings and knew there were more, including whole neighborhoods he never got to.
Why did the Maya build in triads?
Maya texts describe the creation of the present world with the setting of three stones, which became a hearth at the center of the cosmos. A monument at Quirigua records this event on the date the current era began. Groups of three temple pyramids, like those at El Mirador, echo the three hearthstones in stone. Many archaeologists see these triads as built copies of the creation hearth.
How do jungles hide whole cities?
Tropical vegetation grows fast and roots break apart masonry, while soil and leaf litter bury walls and floors. A collapsed pyramid soon looks like a forested hill. Limestone rubble blends with the natural karst hills of the region. Tikal was reported to Guatemalan authorities by Modesto Mendez in 1848, though forest had covered it for centuries.
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