MAYAN CITY DISCOVERED

It's a discovery on which science fiction  and Hollywood movies thrive. 

The dense jungles of Guatemala has finally revealed its innermost secrets to the nosy and arrogant mankind. 

Beneath the thick,impenetrable canopy of lush green trees ruins of an intricately build Mayan urban civilization has been revealed.

A cluster of cities, fortifications, farms and highways have been laid bare. The ruins clearly show that a highly developed society flourished some 1200 years ago. A mysterious Mayan dynasty named Snake Kings ruled the community.

Some 60,000 previously unknown structures, including a seven-story pyramid has been uncovered by the laser technology.

Using a technology called LiDAR, scientists were able to strip away the tree canopy from aerial images and reveal the ancient civilisation underneath.

The technique uses pulses of laser light to create 3D representations of targets.

Historically, archaeologists have assumed that Maya cities were isolated and self-sufficient, but this discovery provides evidence for a complex, interconnected society flourishing deep in the jungle.

The population estimate of the community have been upgraded from 2 million to 20 million.

The team mapped a 810sq-mile area around the ancient city of Tikal, a popular tourist destination located in the heart of the Guatemalan rainforest.

The civilization flourished in cities and was connected by a network of highways. The site was four times larger than previously assumed.

There was also irrigation and terracing systems suggesting farming and food production systems to feed its millions. 

So far, the scientists have only mapped a fraction of the archaeological area and they think there is a lot more to be discovered. 

Scientists had used a similar scans to unearth a network of ancient cities in Angkor, in Cambodia that includes the famed Angkor Wat.