Archaeologists Uncover a Monumental Ancient Maya Map of the Cosmos

Archaeologists have discovered a monumental map of the ancient Mayan cosmos

TO Umberto Basilio edited by Andrea Thompson

The discovery of the oldest Mayan site ever documented was just the beginning of archaeologist Takeshi Inomata's discoveries. After discovering the Aguada Phoenix burial site in the jungles of southern Mexico in 2017, Inomata and his team began digging down and discovered a huge, cross-shaped pit.

Inside the pit were pigments of blue azurite in the north, green malachite in the east and yellow ocher in the south, as well as sea shells interspersed with axe-shaped clay offerings in the west, says Inomata, a researcher at the University of Arizona. The team later realized that the cross-shaped pit was aligned with giant channels extending in four cardinal directions.

The cross and the channels, according to Inomata, form a cosmogram – a monumental map of the Universe, engraved on the landscape. Cosmograms were used by Mesoamerican civilizations to represent their understanding and cultural connections to the cosmos. Inomata says his and his colleagues' findings, published Wednesday in Achievements of science, challenge established ideas about the social order of the ancient Maya and the reasons for their architectural achievements.

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For decades, archaeologists have theorized that the monumental architecture built by the Maya civilization, such as the pyramids and other ceremonial centers, arose after the ancient Maya hierarchy began to take shape around 350 BC, and were the product of powerful rulers who commanded labor and controlled resources. (This social scale consisted of four distinct classes: slaves and commoners were at the bottom two levels, and priests and nobles were at the top.) Maya communities were previously assumed to have lived in small villages with modest ceremonial structures.

Aguada Phoenix covers an area of ​​almost nine by 7.5 kilometers, making it one of the largest ancient structures in all of Mesoamerica. Following its discovery in 2017, the team discovered that the site dates back to between 1000 and 800 BC, long before the Mayan hierarchies emerged. “The question was, why was it built?” – says Inomata.

To find answers, he and his team combined lidar (light detection and ranging) technology with excavations carried out between 2020 and 2024. Above, they discovered a pattern of raised causeways, carved corridors, and canals that formed nested crosses oriented along north-south and east-west axes. At the center of this pattern lay a rectangular plateau and area consisting of structures arranged in what is known as Group E, a ceremonial layout found throughout Mesoamerica and associated with astronomical observations. Underneath it, the team found a cross with colored pigments. Radiocarbon dating has placed the year of the ritual burial at around 900 BC.

The researchers also documented a network of canals and a dam extending west from the main plateau; these elements were probably intended to drain water from a nearby lake. Although the hydraulic system appears unfinished, its monumental scale suggests an exceptional level of coordination in its construction, Inomata says.

Since the canals served no practical purpose, archaeologists have speculated that they may have been built for ritual use. The team also found no palaces, royal tombs or elite residences at the site. Along with evidence found inside the pit, this suggests that Aguada Phoenix may have been a gathering place where disparate communities gathered seasonally for rituals, ceremonies and feasts. Instead of orders from the ruling class, “religion was very important and motivated people to do this huge job,” Inomata says.

There is widespread debate in the archaeological community about what defines a cosmogram, says archaeologist Osvaldo Chinchilla of Yale University, who was not involved in the study. Some archaeologists, including Chinchilla, believe “the term is somewhat overused,” he says, because it was often applied to pre-colonization sites with limited evidence. However, Aguada Phoenix's case is different because “the evidence is strong.”

The use of pigments and the alignment of ceremonial centers with the rising and setting of the sun are elements that are closely associated with Mayan religion and cosmology, something that continues today among Mayan communities that still live in Mexico and Central America, Chinchilla says.

“Based on what we know about Mesoamerican science and religion, a cruciform pit would tie everything back to space,” says archaeologist David Stewart of the University of Texas at Austin, who was also not involved in the study. “It helped make it a sacred place for the community that built it.”

Like Inomata and Chinchilla, Stewart suggests that the subterranean offerings placed around the pit “work as metaphorical plantings, activating the space as a cosmic stage,” perhaps for public gatherings and performances.

For Inomata, the new data is a reminder that social hierarchies are not always necessary when the goal serves the common good, such as allowing for collective rituals. “This is an outstanding achievement [Maya] people who still live there,” he says.

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