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- GUATEMALA CITY - An entire
city, including a massive Mayan palace, has been rediscovered beneath
dense jungle in northern Guatemala.
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- The forgotten site was originally found and dismissed
as worthless almost a century ago, because explorers didn't come across
any artifacts.
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- Even looters left it alone, because they assumed there
were no treasurers underneath.
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- But on Friday, the National Geographic Society said the
lost city of Cancuen boasts one of the most grandiose Mayan structures
ever unearthed a 25,000 square-metre palace, with three 20-metre high
levels.
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- Archeologists predict it will take at least 10 years
to dig out the entire 13-kilometre square community of stone buildings.
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- Cancuen, a Mayan word for "Place of the Serpent"
was a key trading post in Central America 1,200 years ago.
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- Since it was built for commercial and not religious reasons,
the city does not have spectacular temples like those found in Tikal and
other Mayan sites.
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- But that fact may have saved it from being plundered
by looters when it was first discovered by modern explorers under thick
mud and foliage in 1905.
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http://www.rense.com
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