Cradle of the Maya (Full Episode) | Lost Cities Revealed with Albert Lin | Nat Geo

[chanting in native language] [Albert Lin] At the dawn of one of the Americas' greatest civilizations lies a mystery I've been trying to solve for more than a decade. Whispers of a mythical city, lost in the jungles of Mexico, home to the origins of the Maya. [Albert] My search for this forgotten city begins at one of the Maya's most iconic sites, Palenque. I want to discover where the people who built Palenque came from, and maybe shed new light on the birth of the Maya civilization itself. ♪ ♪ [birds singing] One more turn down here? Oh, there it is. Wow. The tomb of one of the most important kings of the entire Maya world. What are these symbols representing? [Albert] Archaeologist Josuhé Lozada, from the National Institute of Anthropology and History, is an expert in interpreting Maya symbols, also called glyphs. I better start scanning. My handheld LiDAR scanner uses laser technology to gather data, allowing us to create a high-definition 3D model of the glyphs and search for clues to the location of this lost origin city. This is the search I've always been waiting for. [Albert] The beginning. 600 AD. The Maya civilization is at its peak, stretching across parts of Central America and into southern Mexico, where the regional capital of Palenque is home to around 20,000 inhabitants. This was the Maya's golden age, but I want to explore their origins. Where did these ancient masters of mathematics, astronomy and writing come from? How did the remarkable story of the Maya begin? Hey, this is Josuhé. My technology team, Joe and Duncan, are using advanced 3D software to enhance the LiDAR scans we made in the tomb, so that we can examine the glyphs in forensic detail. [Duncan] We processed your scans inside the tomb. [Albert] Wow. I want to see any symbols that might be describing this mythical city. [Albert] Like a lake. Okay. So, there's a mythical city somewhere where there's cormorants, a hollow or split mountain, and water. Palenque lies on the edge of Mexico's largest tropical rain forest. Let's see if we can find anything nearby. We'll focus on isolating the closest viable locations first. This looks like mountains down here. [Albert] The lakes of the Lacandon Jungle. That's where we got to go. Hey, Joe and Duncan. How are you guys doing back there? [Joe] Hey, Albert, yeah, doing good. We're on your six. [Albert] We're traveling around 60 miles southeast from Palenque, searching for the source of the Tulijá River, believed to be in a remote lake district called Mensabak, in the heart of the Lacandon Jungle. Looks like this route follows pretty much the path of the river, so... just follow it all the way upstream. Get as close as we can to its source. [Joe] Yeah, sounds good, Albert. [Albert] The oldest Maya settlements date from around 1,000 years before Palenque. The most important of these, sometimes called origin cities, were built around sacred natural features like lakes and mountains. The ancient Maya would often follow rivers back to their source, to find them. This looks promising. This must be it. We got here. Right before dark. [exhales] Josuhé believes that the Tulijá River originates at a series of pools, about a two-mile hike from here, but through thick jungle wetlands. So, tomorrow's gonna be a long, tough day. Time to get some sleep. Agh! Lot of spikes. Lot of spikes. Look at this. It's beautiful. During the rainy season, this whole area floods. Pools, or cenotes, like this one, become part of a larger system that feeds the Tulijá River. If the Maya believed that this was the sacred source, there could be clues in the water. We got to go inside, right? [Albert] As we scan the water, our eyes are drawn to something totally unexpected. [gasps] Yeah. Wow, it's right over here. It follows the whole line. Okay, let's take a look. [inhales sharply] Huge hand-carved stone blocks, one on top of the other, rising 20 feet up from the floor. [Albert] A quarry? For finding rocks to build structures. [Josuhé] Mm-hmm. [Albert] How old do you think this is? The beginning of the Maya civilization. [Albert] So, if these rocks were pulled from this cenote to build something, that something must be close by. [Albert] Hauling huge blocks through this terrain would have been brutal. So where were they taking them? From here we go up. It definitely feels like I'm seeing blue above that line there. [Josuhé] Yes. Let's send the drone up. Let's see if we can get a view. [Albert] Look at this. [Josuhé] Wow. [Albert] The lake. It's just like in that glyph. Could this be the lake we saw on the glyphs back at Palenque? Is the origin city we're searching for hidden somewhere out there? [Albert] Joe, Duncan. Do you guys copy? [Joe] Copy you, Albert. [Albert] The jungle is super dense up here. Hold your position, and I'll update you when we reach the spot. We've traveled from the flooded quarry to Noh K'uh, a remote archaeological site on the southern side of the lake. Santiago, are there a lot of snakes out here? [Santiago Juarez] Yes, so just be careful where you step on the ground. [Albert] Archaeology professors Santiago Juarez and Joel Palka have discovered evidence of an early Maya settlement here. Agh. Looks like it clears out a little bit up here. [machetes clanging] Look, there's definitely something here. [Santiago] Definitely a change in elevation. [Albert] What is this? What's this ledge? [Santiago] Wow, yeah. [Albert] Is that all-- is this, uh... Is this shaped? [Santiago] It's, uh, made from a quarry. There you go, you got a corner right there. [Albert] So, this is the corner of a, of what? [Santiago] Of the top of the building. [Albert] Oh, you're kidding me? [Santiago] So, we got like a step here. [Joel Palka] Yeah, they're starting here, too. Looks like they leveled off this structure. [Albert] Yeah, let me clear it out a little. [Santiago] Yeah, see, a nice little rectangular line over here. Keeps going here, then comes back this way. [Albert] Oh, you can barely make it out, huh? When did this get built? [Santiago] Uh, 2,500 years ago. [Albert] 2,500 years ago. People lived here? [Santiago] Yes. [Albert] So, this is way before Palenque? [Santiago] Exactly. So, we're looking at something that predates Palenque by at least 1,000 years. [Albert] This site and the flooded quarry we discovered suggest there was significant Maya activity in this area, right at the beginning of the Maya era. What do you think this building was? [Santiago] Oh, so if we're looking at the way the sun is rising, this would have been a platform to welcome the rising sun. Basically an observatory? [Albert] From this plateau, they would have mapped the stars and the movement of the sun? [Santiago] Yes, exactly. We're looking at ancient astronomers. [Albert] Joel and Santiago believe that this site could be part of a much larger settlement, reaching deeper into the jungle. But the only way to see if they're right is by launching the drone and scanning the whole area. Hey, Joe, Duncan. [Duncan] How's it going? [Albert] Yeah, I got one for you guys. Let's get the drone up, and I'll send you the GPS coordinates of where to send it, okay? [Duncan] Okay, drone's going up. [Joe] Okay, start motors. [Albert] The drone carries state-of-the-art LiDAR technology, which beams light signals through the canopy to the jungle floor. [Joe] So, you can see the drone there, it's just starting. [Albert] But the thickness of this canopy means an accurate scan of Noh K'uh will take several days. We've arranged to base ourselves in the nearby village of Mensabak, home to the Lacandon Maya, where the team can charge their batteries and process our LiDAR data. The Lacandon were never truly colonized by the Spanish, making them almost unique in the Maya world. Today they are the guardians of this highly protected lake district. [Albert] Yeah? [Albert] Mincho is one of the community leaders. This way? I want to see if the local people recognize any of the symbols that we scanned at Palenque. Wow, this is incredible, everybody's here. You guys want to pull those glyphs up? [Santiago] Wow. [Joel] Look at that. [Albert] So, zoom in on that one. Are there cormorants around here? [Albert] There's another symbol that we found, which shows a split mountain. [Albert] Can we pull that up? [Joe] Yep. [Albert] Are there big mountains around the lake that might have, I don't know, like, uh, caves or...? [Albert] Chak Aktun. It's a mountain that's got a split down the middle? [Albert] Can somebody help guide us there to Chak Aktun? This landscape is sacred to the Maya. Agreeing to lead us through it is a deep show of trust in us. I hope we don't let them down. [quietly] Look at this. [Arcelia García] It's amazing, isn't it? [Albert] Through here? [K'in] Sí. [Albert] Maya guides K'in and Bor will lead us to the mountain. And Mexican archaeologist and climber Arcelia García will help me explore it. That's got to be the Red Mountain. [Arcelia] Looks like it. Chak Aktun, or Red Mountain, lies around two miles to the northwest of the archaeological site of Noh K'uh. [bird squawking] I think I see some cormorants. Are those cormorants right there? [Arcelia] Yeah. [chuckles] Just like in the glyphs! [Arcelia] Can I pass you that rope? [Albert] Yeah. [Arcelia] Let's go. [Albert] Okay. Looks like there's a little trail up here. [Albert] To tell the mountain? [K'in] Uh-huh. [Albert] Oh, okay. The ancient Maya believed that a powerful god split a mountain with an axe, releasing sacred seeds from which human life originated. This is a powerful place. I can feel it in my bones. What is this? Oh! What?! You got to see this. [Arcelia] What is this? A hole into the mountain. [Albert] Mountains are living, breathing things. [Arcelia] Wow. [Albert] I mean, a mountain with a hollow core. This has to be this symbol that's being referred to at Palenque. You think this is what this is? [Albert] The split mountain. That's incredible. Vamos, vamos. Hey, Albert! There's another one over here. Another entrance. [Albert] There's got to be a connected cave system, right? [Arcelia] Right. [Albert] If this is the hollow mountain, these tunnels could be the entry point. We'll take one each. [Albert] You take those. [Albert] You have a radio? [Albert] When the ancient Maya discovered mountains like those described in their origin myths, they became the center of their spiritual world. We're going into a place that's reserved for the gods or the souls of the dead. Hope the gods are with us. [Albert] I'm in another world right now. Alright, Arcelia, how are you doing on your end? This rock is razor-sharp. [Arcelia] Yeah, the rock is pretty sharp here also. But all good. [Albert] Arcelia, I'm at the bottom of this first section of the cave. [Arcelia] Hey, Albert, if you see any stalagmites or stalactites, look around there. [Albert] Oh, look. There's a stalactite right there. [Arcelia] For the Maya, those were sacred spaces. So, see if you see anything around them. [Albert] Ah, anything in here. Looking in all the cracks. Not sure I want to know what I'm gonna to find. What is that? Oh, I'm finding something! Hey, I've got pottery. I've really got pottery, right here. [Arcelia] Are you serious? [Albert] Ha ha, right where you said beneath the stalactite. I've got a piece of pottery. I think I can see your light, is that, is that you? Hey. [Arcelia] Hey. The tunnels are connected. This must be a whole system. But right where you were saying to look, directly below the stalactite, look at this. I mean, that's clearly pottery, isn't it? [Arcelia] Yeah, it is. [Albert] Look at this piece. This looks pre-Palenque. I can tell because it's thicker. This is like waxy. Can you feel it? [Albert] Yeah, and you can almost see that there was paint there. I've seen pottery like this, like this color, in Noh K'uh. [Albert] In Noh K'uh? Do you think this was put here by the people of Noh K'uh? [Arcelia] Yeah, most likely. [Albert] Oh, my gosh. I mean, that's 2,500 years ago. [Arcelia] I can picture them, coming down from there with the ropes all the way here with their torches, carefully placing the pottery just in the right spot. [Albert] Alright, I'm going to get down to the second level now, okay? 2,500 years ago, the people who climbed inside this mountain believed they were entering a living being. A powerful, sacred entity. Imagine how they must have felt. It's overwhelming, really. I mean, look at this place. What a chamber. Look, there's bats. Here there's no sunlight. So, the deeper it is, the closer we are to the deities. [Albert] To the gods. [Arcelia] Exactly. We're really in the heart of the mountain. This is a split mountain. It feels like the glyphs that we scanned in Palenque are coming to life here. The cormorants, the lake, and now this incredible split mountain suggest this could be the site of the lost origin city. But it's just so vast. Over on the other side of the lake, Joe and Duncan have been carefully scanning the area around Noh K'uh to try and find out how big it really is. How are you guys doing? [Duncan] Hey, Albert, it's Duncan here. I think we're onto a good thing. [Albert] You wouldn't believe what we found up here. Make your way over to Chak Aktun. Let's do a scan of the whole mountain. The LiDAR scanner beams 400,000 lasers towards the ground every second. [Duncan] The canopy's so dense. [Joe] Yeah. While many beams reflect off the top of the trees, some make it all the way down to the jungle floor, allowing the team to build a 3D model, which may reveal any human-made features. [Joe] Wow, look at that. [Albert] With over 150 acres of jungle to cover at Red Mountain, there's a long night of scanning and data processing ahead. You guys get some of the data in? [Duncan] Just looking at the point cloud now for the, from the aerial LiDAR of the whole of the Red Mountain, so. [Albert] Okay, so this is the top-down aerial view, right? Oh, my gosh! [Santiago] What is that? [Albert] Can we remove the trees off the mountain? [Joe] Of course. [Albert] Unbelievable. [Joel] Look how the, the Maya flattened the mountain. It's a four-sided pyramid. The entire mountain's modified. Like, how special is that? [Joe] We can use the algorithm to pull out the features. [Santiago] Oh, wow, look at that. Look at everything here. [Albert] That looks like a massive temple... [Albert] ...formed out of the mountain itself. It's almost like whoever drew this symbol at Palenque was literally drawing a diagram, a schematic diagram, of this exact place. [Joel] Yes. [Albert] Our scans have revealed details of an enormous pyramid temple site at Red Mountain. But there is no evidence of a human settlement there. If this really is the split mountain described in the glyphs, we must figure out where the people who worshipped it lived. You guys also did a bit more at Noh K'uh, right? [Joe] Let's fly over there. [Albert] Okay, let's strip away the trees. Whoa. [Joel] They leveled everything off. [Santiago] See this gigantic rectangle here? Oh, and there's another one there and another one there. It's rectangle on top of rectangle. These are all artificially constructed hills. That's something I never saw before. This is an urban community. [Santiago] I mean, it almost looks like a modern city system, doesn't it? [Albert] It does, but at the time that this was built, what, almost 2,500, 3,000 years ago, is that right? [Santiago] Right, right. [Albert] Did the Maya have large cities? [Santiago] No, so this is a first-generation city. So, the idea of even having a city is completely new. Based on the scale of this and what I already know, I would say it's one of the earliest cities in the Maya region, around 800 BC. How many people do you think made up this city? [Santiago] Oh, gosh. I wouldn't be surprised if this city, at its peak, was about 20,000 people. [Albert] 20,000 people at the time when the Maya civilization was just beginning? It is a sacred city space. [Arcelia] Do you think that the mountain was part of what attracted them? [Santiago] I think that's definitely the big draw here. Now you got me wondering if the site just keeps connecting. I mean, based-- we haven't seen the boundaries of Noh K'uh there. [Albert] I just got to get back out on that lake, find out if that human settlement at Noh K'uh and the temple site at Chak Aktun are connected. If they are, and this is one giant sacred city, this could be one of the most extraordinary discoveries [birds calling] [Albert] You guys pair off. We'll keep going, and then try to make a base. Did we bring enough machetes? Alright, here we go. We're splitting our search team into two. Josuhé, Mincho and I are headed to an area on the western side of the lake between Noh K'uh and Red Mountain, where our earlier scans picked up some interesting results, while Joe and Duncan will focus their attention on an unexplored area in the east. We must be getting close now. [Albert] It must have come from uphill somewhere. So, let's keep going up. [Albert] Cut rocks! [Albert] Another observatory. Their world begins and falls with the sun. We found something all the way out here. Incredible. [Josuhé] Incredible. [Albert] Ah. Could this observatory be connected in some way to the one we saw at Noh K'uh? We need to get the LiDAR team over here now. Hey, Joe, uh, Duncan, do you guys copy? I'll send you our coordinates. Let's scan this area. [Joe] Wow, this jungle is dense. GPS is good. Start motors. [Joe] Yeah, good, I'm just mapping the perimeter here at the moment. [Albert] Will our data show us how the sacred mountain Chak Aktun is connected to the city of Noh K'uh and finally reveal the true scale of this extraordinary lost Maya world? [birds chirping] [Albert] Thank you for hosting us over this last couple of weeks. It's been so wonderful. So how was the scanning? How is the processing? With the city of Noh K'uh in the south and the sacred temple site of Chak Aktun in the north, we can now examine the new data to reveal whether the two sites are connected. Alright, let's see what you guys got in the west. [Joel] Yeah, it's a site. [Josuhé] Yeah. So, what do you think this is? [Joel] There's pyramids, there's temples, there's a rectangular palace complex maybe. [Albert] A palace emerging in the jungle. You guys scanned this whole area on the east of the lake, too, right? [Joel] Yeah that shouldn't be level. Oh, wow. All that's all modified. [Albert] Oh, this whole--oh! [Joel] I just thought of something really, really, really interesting. This is really, like, blowing me away right now. In Palenque there's three temples side by side with a plaza in the middle. You go to that east site, and it's the same plan, but 1,000 years earlier. [Albert] So maybe the very same people that are building this are building Palenque? A pre-Palenque! The scale of what we're revealing here is breathtaking. The links between Palenque and Noh K'uh feel undeniable. Could this really be the origin city we've been searching for? Let's turn on all the different features that have been identified. [Duncan] I think you're gonna be amazed at what we've picked up. [Albert] Oh, wow. [Duncan] It's just everywhere we look. [Joel] Wow. [Albert] I mean, the whole lake system is one massive complex. [Joe] So, here's Noh K'uh. [Joel] There's like an alignment of the buildings at Noh K'uh that's all pointing the same way. It aligns almost like an arrow to the split mountain. What is happening there? [Joel] Many Maya cities are built according to different orientations. This one's oriented to the sacred Red Mountain, and maybe the pathway of the sun. It seems to me that they are standing in Noh K'uh and tracking the movements of the sun at different times of the year. [Albert] The sun? What would be the most important dates along their calendar? [Joel] August 13th. The start of the Maya calendar and the creation of the current world. [Albert] August 13th, let's see what the sun looks like. Are you kidding me? The sun sets on the very top of the split mountain, on the beginning day of their calendar. Their origin day. [Joel] It's a connection between the people and their city and the landscape and the sun. It's all connected. It's quite amazing. [Albert] The sacred mountain of Chak Aktun is the spiritual hub of a vast lost city, wrapping right around the lake. Do you think that it's the origin place for Palenque, or possibly more? [Joel] More, more. [Albert] Could we be looking at the, the cradle of the Maya civilization itself? [Joel] It's a cradle. It definitely is. It's a large city on a lake with a split mountain. And it's so early. It is definitely an origin place. [Albert] We've looked for a lot of lost cities before, but right now what it feels like is that we're looking at more than a city, we're looking at the beginning of an idea, the beginning of a people, a civilization. I set out in search of a mythical city, I found a split mountain, carved into a massive temple site. A sacred lake surrounded by countless houses, home to tens of thousands of people. Palaces and observatories aligned to the pathways A cradle of the ancient Maya. This lost city provides a tangible link to the origins of one of the Western Hemisphere's most important civilizations. Our technology has illuminated a world that had become blurred by myth and legend. But it was the modern Maya who helped us understand the origins of their ancestors were intrinsically linked to the natural world they worshipped and added a new chapter to the origin story of the Maya and the history of all of us.