Archaeologists unearth 3,000-year-old Mayan city in Guatemalan jungle. Archaeologists have unearthed the remains of a Mayan city nearly 3,000 years old in northern Guatemala, with pyramids and monuments that point to its significance as an important ceremonial site, the Central American country’s culture ministry said Thursday. The Mayan civilization arose around 2000 BC, reaching its height between 400 and 900 AD in what is present-day southern Mexico and Guatemala, as well as parts of Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. The city named “Los Abuelos,” Spanish for “The Grandparents,” once stood some 21 kilometers (13 miles) from the important archaeological site of Uaxactun, in Guatemala’s northern Peten department, the ministry said in a statement. It is dated to what is known as the “Middle Preclassic” period from about 800 to 500 BC and is believed to have been “one of the most ancient and important ceremonial centers” of the Mayan civilization in the jungle area of Peten near the Mexican border, it added. The city, which covers an area of about 16 square kilometers (six square miles) was discovered by Guatemalan and Slovak archaeologists in previously little-explored areas of the Uaxactun park.
