New airborne LiDAR mapping has identified a hidden urban center deep within the jungles of Mexico's Campeche state. The discovery features a grand three-story palace complex and a network of sacbeob (white roads) that connected it to outlying residential districts, revealing a previously unknown regional power during the Late Classic Maya period.
Archaeologists note that the architecture follows the ornate Puuc style, characterized by intricate geometric mosaics and stone carvings. This discovery challenges existing maps of Maya settlement patterns and suggests that the political landscape of the Yucatan Peninsula was far more crowded and competitive than historians had assumed.