15-year-old boy discovers ancient Mayan city while working on a school project

15-year-old William Gadoury's interest in the Mayan civilization led to his discovery of a lost city that was missed by several archaeologists. The Canadian teenager made the discovery 10 years ago in 2016 while he was working on a science project, CBC News: The National reported. His fascination with the Mayans began when he was a child, ever since the Mayan calendar predicted the 2012 apocalypse, BBC News shared. The city he discovered is considered to be the fourth biggest Mayan city, and he named it 'K'ÀAK' CHI'', which translates to 'Mouth of Fire.' The story of Gadoury's discovery went viral on Reddit after it was shared by a user (u/bate178).

Three stars, but only two Mayan cities

Gadoury's discovery began with his theory that the locations of the ancient Mayan cities matched the stars in the Mayan constellations. He used the Madrid Codex to compare the star charts with the satellite images and layered the star positions on Google Images of the Yucatan Peninsula. According to the charts, the brightest stars indicated the big Mayan cities. However, Gadoury noticed that the 23rd constellation was out of place. There were three stars, but only two cities. The third star was on the Mexico-Belize border, and the reason why it was undiscovered for so long was because of the thick vegetation.

30 buildings and a pyramid

With the help of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), Gadoury was provided with new images of the location from their RADARSAT-2 satellite. He became acquainted with the CSA after he won a science competition in 2015. Armed with the CSA images, Gadoury hunted down more satellite images from 2005. A fire broke out in the same location in 2005, making the landscape more visible. Furthermore, he collaborated with Remote Sensing expert Dr. Armand Larocque from the University of New Brunswick to study the satellite images with the help of digital image processing. Dr. Larocque confirmed that William Gadoury had, in fact, discovered a new ancient city that had 30 buildings and one pyramid. 

When did the Mayans disappear?

NASA archaeologist Tim Sever said that the Mayan civilization was once one of the most densely populated areas in the world. It reached its peak in 800 A.D, after two millennia of constant growth. Through the ruins, Sever revealed that the population "crashed" by 950 A.D. Their population ranged from 500 to 700 people per square mile in the rural areas, and shot up to 1,800 to 2,600 people per square mile closer towards the center of the Mayan Empire.  "Perhaps as many as 90 to 95 percent of the Maya died," Sever concluded.

People in the comments were extremely impressed by Gadoury's discovery at such a young age. Many agreed that he had the ultimate 'bragging rights.' u/SunTzuIsMyFavourite commented, "Amazing. You have to imagine a generation of archaeologists [who] are rather annoyed about that." u/Dymdez humorously added, "15-year-old finds an ancient Mayan city, and I can't even find a working link to the story."

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