About Ancient Maya city:
- It is located in the Balamku ecological reserve on the country's Yucatan Peninsula.
- This city has been named Ocomtun - meaning "stone column" in the Yucatec Maya language.
- This would have been an important centre for the peninsula's central lowland region between 250 and 1000 AD.
- The city includes large pyramid-like buildings, stone columns, three plazas with "imposing buildings" and other structures arranged in almost-concentric circles.
- It has a core area located on high ground surrounded by extensive wetlands.
Key Facts about Mayan Civilization
- The Mayans are probably the best-known of the classical civilizations of Mesoamerica.
- Originating in the Yucatán peninsula around 2600 B.C., they rose to prominence around A.D. 250 in present-day southern Mexico, Guatemala, northern Belize and western Honduras.
- Building on the inherited inventions and ideas of earlier civilizations, the Maya developed astronomy, calendrical systems and hieroglyphic writing.
- They were also noted for elaborate and highly decorated ceremonial architecture, including temple pyramids, palaces and observatories, all built without metal tools.
- They were also skilled farmers, clearing large sections of tropical rainforest and, where groundwater was scarce, building sizable underground reservoirs for the storage of rainwater.
Where is Yucatan Peninsula?
- It is a Northeastern projection of Central America which is lying between the Gulf of Mexico to the west and north and the Caribbean Sea to the east.
- The peninsula is almost wholly composed of beds of coralline and porous limestone rocks.
