6 July 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

Archaeologists Discovered a New Pyramid Resembling Teotihuacán in Tikal

Researchers discovered a new pyramid complex in the Tikal in Guatemala.

About 65 km south of El Mirador in the Petén region of Guatemala, researching in Tikal, an important site of Mayan civilization, archaeologists discovered a pyramid complex with distinct architectural features similar to Teotihuacán.

Archaeologists from Brown University noticed a structure beneath the field when they zoomed in on an aerial image made with laser scanning equipment using a laser scanning method called Lidar (short for “Light Detection And Ranging). Researchers believe Lidar technology has revolutionized archeology.

The building, a pyramid was part of an ancient neighborhood, which includes a large enclosed courtyard fringed by smaller buildings. This building was a pyramid complex with different architectural features similar to Teotihuacán.

Under the guidance of LiDAR images, Edwin Román-Ramírez, the director of the Archaeological Project in Southern Tikal, started a series of excavations last summer. His team excavated the ruins and discovered typical architecture and burial techniques, ceramics, and weapons in Teotihuacan at the beginning of the fourth century.

Tikal National Park (Parque Nacional Tikal)
Tikal National Park (Parque Nacional Tikal)

Román-Ramírez told National Geographic: “We knew that the Teotihuacanos had at least some presence and influence in Tikal and nearby Maya areas prior to the year 378. But it wasn’t clear whether the Maya were just emulating aspects of the region’s most powerful kingdom. Now there’s evidence that the relationship was much more than that.”

The team proposes that the complex might have been a quasi-autonomous settlement at the center of Tikal, possibly tied to the distant imperial capital or maybe an embassy.

Tikal is the largest city in the Classical Maya era. Tikal National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of Guatemala’s first protected areas, was established in 1955.

The research sponsor is supported by the PACUNAM LiDAR Initiative, which produced findings that reveal a network of interconnected ancient cities in the Maya plains in 2018.

Related Articles

New study: Humans engaged in large-scale warfare in Europe 5,000 years ago ‘1,000 years earlier than previously thought’

3 November 2023

3 November 2023

Hundreds of human remains unearthed from a burial site point to a  warfare between Stone Age people long before the...

‘Astonishingly Preserved’ Ancient Roman Well Found in Cambridgeshire was An Engineering Failure

22 August 2024

22 August 2024

In an excavation at the site of future highway improvements in Cambridgeshire, the team from MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology)...

“Urartian Royal garbage dump” was found during excavations at Ayanis Castle

3 September 2022

3 September 2022

During the excavations carried out in the Ayanis Castle, which was built by the Urartian King Rusa II on the...

Croatian Team Finds a Way to Effectively and Permanently Preserve Stuka Aircraft Wreck Under the Sea

11 December 2024

11 December 2024

 The ICUA Zadar team of conservators and archaeologists carried out in situ underwater conservation of the wreckage of the Junkers...

The remains of two new Doric temples are discovered under the Italian site of Paestum

15 January 2024

15 January 2024

Archaeologists have unearthed two new temples in the Doric style in Paestum, an ancient Greek colony in southern Italy. The...

Columns in Lagina Hecate Sanctuary Rise Again

19 February 2021

19 February 2021

Lagina Hecate Sanctuary is located in Yatağan district of Muğla. It is an important sacred area belonging to the Carians...

The 8,000-year-old Aslantepe in Turkey has been added to the UNESCO World Heritage List

26 July 2021

26 July 2021

The Turkish Foreign Ministry said Monday that a rich, 30-meter-high archaeological mound going back 8,000 years in southern Turkey has...

Excavation in Larissa finds a Hellenistic era sanctuary

27 November 2021

27 November 2021

The Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sport reported on Friday the discovery of ancient Greek and Hellenistic era structures at...

Largest-Known Flower Preserved in Amber Is Nearly 40 Million Years Old

20 January 2023

20 January 2023

The largest-known fossilized flower encased in amber, dating back nearly 40 million years, was again discovered in the Baltic region...

Lost sketches by Leonardo Da Vinci show that he understood gravity long before Newton

19 February 2023

19 February 2023

Leonardo da Vinci’s centuries-old sketches show that he may have understood key aspects of gravity long before Galileo, Newton, and...

The Oldest Known Map of Europe, “Saint-Bélec Slab”

6 April 2021

6 April 2021

An ornate Bronze Age stone slab (Saint-Bélec slab) that was excavated in France in 1900 and forgotten about for over...

Excavations at Meir Necropolis have turned up funerary artifacts from two distinct eras of ancient history

16 May 2023

16 May 2023

An Egyptian team of archaeologists has uncovered a collection of structural relics dated to the Byzantine and Late Period in...

1,500-year-old mosaic found near the Caliph’s palace at Khirbat al-Minya on the Sea of Galilee

30 September 2022

30 September 2022

Archaeologists from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz uncovered an ancient mosaic that once lay in the shadow of a caliph palace...

Earliest Multiplication Formulas Discovered in a 2,300-Year-Old Chinese Tomb

27 December 2023

27 December 2023

Archaeologists excavating a tomb in the Qinjiazui archaeological site of Jingzhou City, Hubei Province, China, have found the earliest multiplication...

Denmark King’s spice cabinet discovered on Gribshunden

13 February 2023

13 February 2023

The Gribshunden, a 15th-century Danish royal warship, was uncovered to have been loaded with botanical materials, including the first archaeological...