Category Archives: NORTH AMERICA

‘Lost’ 1,500-year-old Teotihuacan village discovered in the heart of Mexico City

‘Lost’ 1,500-year-old Teotihuacan village discovered in the heart of Mexico City

Archeologists have unearthed the lost remains of a Teotihuacan village, including human burials, in the heart of Mexico City.

'Lost' 1,500-year-old Teotihuacan village discovered in the heart of Mexico City
Archeologists discovered three human burials in the remains of the lost village.

Ceramics found scattered around the site, which is located 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) northwest of the city’s historical center, indicate the village dates from around A.D. 450 to 650 and may have housed a community of artisans and craftspeople.

“The finding was surprising,” said Juan Carlos Campos-Varela, an archaeologist at Mexico’s National Institute of History and Anthropology (INAH) Directorate of Archeological Salvage, who co-led the dig.

“It shows that 1,300 years ago, the islets inside Lake Texcoco, on which Mexico City was founded [after the lake was drained], already supported a permanent population that took advantage of the resources of the lake environment,” he told Live Science in an email.

The newly excavated settlement may have formed during the “ruralization” of Teotihuacan, an ancient metropolis that flourished in the highlands of what is now central Mexico between A.D. 100 and 650, Campos-Varela said.

The village is located 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Teotihuacan and may have been one of several small towns that supported themselves through subsistence farming and fishing as the ancient city reached its zenith.

These settlements maintained commercial ties to Teotihuacan, and the new discoveries shed light on the role these settlements played in the city’s supply network, Campos-Varela said.

“The discovery is rare because it occurred in a fully urbanized context where the possibility of finding archeological evidence associated with the Teotihuacan culture was very low,” he added.

Gifted craftspeople

Archeologist Francisco González Rul discovered the first clues to this village’s existence in the 1960s, during construction works in the Mexican capital. Based on the ceramics he unearthed, González Rul suggested at the time that the inhabitants were self-reliant fishers and gatherers. The new excavations confirmed this.

Several previously unseen architectural structures—including post holes, flooring, channels, and an artesian well — as well as ceramics have come to light. The excavation also unearthed three human burials containing the skeletons of two adults and a child.

Teotihuacan was an ancient metropolis that flourished in the highlands of what is now central Mexico.

Teotihuacan ceramics are categorized into phases, according to a 2016 study in the journal PLOS One. The newfound ceramics displayed features that correspond to the Xolalpan (A.D. 350 to 550) and Metepec (A.D. 550 to 600) phases in the 2016 study, which enabled the researchers to date the remains of the village and its inhabitants. 

The Teotihuacans were gifted artists and craftspeople, said Michael Smith, a professor of archeology and director of the Teotihuacan Research Laboratory at Arizona State University. “To decorate the walls of their houses and temples, the Teotihuacanos used the same fresco technique used by Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel,” Smith told Live Science in an email. “They also used the fresco technique on ceramic vessels.”

The ceramics could reveal important information about trade with Teotihuacan through chemical analysis, Smith said. 

Archeologists have concluded the excavations and are now analyzing the discovered materials and bones. Much of Teotihuacan’s sprawling architecture remains buried, but the site is largely unaffected by modern construction and will eventually be unearthed in its entirety, Arizona State University said.

Who Craved the Giant Handprints in the White Mountain Petroglyphs, Wyoming?

Who Craved the Giant Handprints in the White Mountain Petroglyphs, Wyoming?

We are not in total darkness about how our ancient ancestors lived their lives thousands of years ago. One reason for this is that they etched their daily lives, including struggles, celebrations, fears, or rituals, on rocks, stones, and caves that we can see even today. These illustrations, like the White Mountain Petroglyphs, are like a historical legacy that silently tells us stories of their lives.

The White Mountain Petroglyphs are a powerful testimony to the lives of the Native American tribes who lived there between 200 and 1,000 years ago.

Apart from hundreds of carved figures in the area, there are giant handprints that look like someone has scooped a part of the mountain and let it solidify. These mysterious handprints are perhaps one of the most captivating things to see if you ever visit the remote White Mountains site.

Where can you find the White Mountain Petroglyphs? Who made them?

The White Mountains of Wyoming.

The White Mountain Petroglyph site in Wyoming’s Red Desert was once the home of Native American tribes. The site roughly starts ten miles north of Rock Springs. But to reach the White Mountains, where the petroglyphs are, one must drive 16 miles on a dirt road from the main site and walk a quarter mile on foot.

Petroglyphs (rock carvings) and pictographs (rock paintings) are the windows to the past, giving us almost a first-hand account of the lives of those who made them. Here, on the mountain face canvas, there are carvings and handprints that are the most tangible connections we have with the Great Basin Native Americans who lived there between 200 to 1,000 years ago. They include the Shoshone, Arapaho, and Ute tribes.

It is interesting to note that in other parts of the World, petroglyphs can be as old as 20,000 years. They started to diminish with the discovery and introduction of other forms of writing surfaces, different forms of art, and pictographs. But many cultures, like the Native Americans, continued to create them until contact was made with  Western culture, sometimes as late as the 18th or even the 19th century.

The petroglyphs have animals, symbols, and mysterious handprints.

The markings tell us a lot about the beliefs and culture of the people who lived here several hundred years ago and more. There are carvings in the White Mountains that look like bison and elk hunts. There are also buffalos and wild horses carved on the rock face. Apart from the animals, there are also various interesting geometric shapes and tiny footprints that embellish the rock face.

A Bison Carved on the Sandstone.

Though not much is known about these shapes or symbols, the local Native Americans consider them sacred. They feel connected to nature and feel positive when they visit the site.

According to a Native American elder, symbols are important and communal.  They feel the rocks are alive and connected to them. Some carvings also depict horses and warriors with swords. They tell us about their contact with European cultures.

White Mountain Petroglyphs.

But the most mysterious of all is the deep-set handprints that are somehow left within solid sandstone as if someone had mysteriously softened the rocks. These petroglyphs are important to understand the culture and beliefs of the people who made them.

How were the deep handprints in the White Mountain Petroglyphs site made?

Deep Handprints in the White Mountain Petroglyphs.

The handprints, deeply embedded in the sandstone, give an effect of mountain-scooping. According to historians, the handprints were created by the Easter Shoshone tribes between 1,000-1,800 CE. Thousands of people since then have continued to make the same motion with their hands across the soft sandstone. This, in turn, has created the effect of handprint carving deep into the rocks.

According to a website on Wyoming history, this was the birthing place for the Plains and Great Basin Tribes. The locals tell a fascinating story about how these handprints originated. Native women used to visit the White Mountains when they were giving birth. As their labor started and they had their contractions, their hands used to seek support on the mountain face and created deep handprints into the soft sandstone.

Standing against the rocks, they gave birth. Today, the site is considered sacred by  Native Americans, and visitors are urged to respect the site and not destroy any part of history through vandalism. Unfortunately, though, reckless damage to the site has already happened.

Could the White Mountain Natives melt stones?

White Mountain Petroglyph Site

The petroglyphs on the White Mountain are made of sandstone, a softer rock that gradually hardens with time. They were probably engraved with a harder object than the sandstone. Therefore, maybe melting stones was not necessary in this case.

But what about the handprints that look like they have been scooped out of the mountain? They are deep set in solid sandstone, giving an impression that, somehow, the ancients could soften the rocks like snow. Though these have not been studied much, experts believe the birthing story might have a logical explanation. These stones were soft, and years of pushing your hands into the mountains can make these handprints really deep and big.

Not just in the White Mountains but worldwide, there are similar examples of stone bending and carvings. Scientists and historians often discuss how ancient civilizations knew advanced mechanisms to melt or soften stones.

One interesting theory, based on the shaping of stones in Peru, is that the ancients knew a plant that could melt stones. Scientists also believe ancient cultures knew advanced science and used high temperatures to shape rocks. This unknown process vitrified the surface of the rocks, turning them glasslike, on which they carved. But the process remains a mystery.

The petroglyphs in the White Mountains have not been researched, or studied by anyone formally, yet. They remain elusive and hidden, getting only 12,000 visitors a year. Let us hope when visiting the site, the visitors respect the sacredness and tread lightly to preserve the petroglyphs for as long as possible.

The Mystery Of The Modern “London Hammer” Found Encased In Ancient Rock

The Mystery Of The Modern “London Hammer” Found Encased In Ancient Rock

While walking along Red Creek, London, Texas, in June 1936, Emma Zadie Hahn and her husband Max Edmond Hahn made an unusual discovery: a piece of wood poking out of what appeared to be an ancient rock formation.

The story goes that ten-ish years later, their son, who was clearly born with the merest hint of curiosity that they lacked, smashed open the rock to see what was inside. What he found was a hammer. Where it gets weirder is that it was clearly a modern(ish) hammer.

The hammer attracted the unhelpful attention of Young Earth Creationist Carl Baugh, who claimed that the rock around the hammer was from the Cretaceous period.

When they split it open, this is what they found.

This would mean that whoever dropped the hammer of 19th-century design did so while (e.g.) running away from a triceratops.

For Baugh, who was himself incorrect, this was evidence that evolution theory was incorrect.

“If the artifact is truly from the Cretaceous time frame, where does this leave evolutionary theory, since man was not supposed to have evolved for another 100-million years or so?” Baugh asked. “If the artifact is relatively recent, that means that the Cretaceous Hensell Sand formation from which it came is relatively young… Again, where does that leave evolutionary theory with its traditional dates for the Cretaceous formations?”

The answer, of course, was that the hammer was modern, but it had become encased in the rock by geological processes not known to Baugh.

“The stone is real, and it looks impressive to someone unfamiliar with geological processes.

How could a modern artifact be stuck in Ordovician rock?” investigator Glen J. Kuban asked in a 1997 paper on the hammer, published in Paleo.

“The answer is that the concretion itself is not Ordovician.

Minerals in solution can harden around an intrusive object dropped in a crack or simply left on the ground if the source rock (in this case, reportedly Ordovician) is chemically soluble.”

While an extremely cool find, the rock formation is not as ancient as it appears.

Likely, a miner dropped the hammer a century ago, or perhaps a touch earlier, after which the rock formed around it. It was not, repeat, not, proof of The Flintstones.

Hundreds of well-preserved prehistoric animals were found in an ancient ash bed in Nebraska

Hundreds of well-preserved prehistoric animals were found in an ancient ash bed in Nebraska

Scientists have excavated fossils of 58 rhinos, 17 horses, 6 camels, 5 deers, 2 dogs, a rodent, a saber-toothed deer, and dozens of birds and turtles in Nebraska.

In that distant past, Nebraska was a grassy savanna. Trees and shrubs dotted the landscape. It likely resembled today’s Serengeti National Park in East Africa.

The watering holes attracted prehistoric animals among Nebraska’s tall grasslands. From horses to camels and rhinoceroses, with wild dogs looming nearby, animals roamed the savanna-like region.

Hundreds of well-preserved prehistoric animals were found in an ancient ash bed in Nebraska
Teleoceras mother “3” and nursing calf (above mother’s neck and head).

Then, one day, it all changed. Hundreds of miles away, a volcano in southeast Idaho erupted. Within days, up to two feet of ash covered parts of present-day Nebraska.

Some of the animals died immediately, consumed with ash and other debris. Most of the animals lived for several more days, their lungs ingesting ash as they searched the ground for food. Within a few weeks, northeast Nebraska was barren of animals, except for a few survivors.

More than 12 million years later, in 1971, a fossil was found in Antelope County, near the small town of Royal. The skull of a baby rhino was discovered by a Nebraska paleontologist named Michael Voorhies and his wife while exploring the area. The fossil was exposed by erosion. Soon after, exploration started in the area.

It was found that birds and turtles died quickly as their skeletons lie at the bottom of the ash, right on what was the sandy bottom of the watering hole. Other animals occur in layers.

The Ashfall water hole drew creatures of all descriptions to its muddy banks. Some would probably look strange to modern eyes. Some would resemble familiar creatures that still walk the Earth. (Nebraska during the Cenozoic Era)

Above the birds and turtles lie dog-sized saber-tooth deer. Then five species of pony-sized horses, some with three toes. Above those are camel remains.

Atop them, all are the biggest, the rhinos, in a single layer. All of this is buried under about 2.5 meters (8 feet) of ash. It must have blown into the water, covering the dead.

Fossils in the ash bed are whole. They haven’t been squashed flat. Their bones are all still in place. They’re also fragile. Most fossils form when groundwater soaks into bones and teeth.

Over time, minerals from the water fill in the gaps and even replace some of the original bone. The result is a hard, rock-like fossil that can stand the test of time.

Here, however, the ash eventually locked the skeletons away from the water. After the watering hole dried up, the super-fine ash left no room between particles for new water to seep in.

The ash protected the bones, preserving them in their original positions. But they didn’t mineralize much. When scientists remove the ash around them, these bones start to crumble.

Within a few years, as more discoveries were made, the fossil site grew into a tourist attraction. Today, people visit Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park to check out hundreds of fossils from 12 species of animals, including five types of horses, three species of camels, as well as a saber-toothed deer. The infamous saber-toothed cat remains a dream discovery.

Visitors view fossils inside the Hubbard Rhino Barn, a 17,500-square-foot facility that protects the fossils while allowing visitors to roam on a boardwalk. Kiosks provide information on fossils located in specific areas.

The 14,000-year-old ice age village discovered is 10,000 years older than the pyramids

The 14,000-year-old ice age village discovered is 10,000 years older than the pyramids

The 14,000-year-old ice age village discovered is 10,000 years older than the pyramids

In their oral history, the Heiltsuk people describe how the area around Triquet Island, on the western coast of their territory in British Columbia, remained open land during the ice age.

“People flocked there for survival because everywhere else was being covered by ice, and all the ocean was freezing and all of the food resources were dwindling,” says Heiltsuk Nation member William Housty.

And late last year, archaeologists excavating an ancient Heiltsuk village on Triquet Island uncovered the physical evidence: a few flakes of charcoal from a long-ago hearth.

Analysis of the carbon fragments indicates that the village site — deserted since a smallpox epidemic in the 1800s — was inhabited as many as 14,000 years ago, making it three times as old as the pyramids at Giza, and one of the oldest settlements in North America.

“There are several sites that date to around the same time as the very early date that we obtained for Triquet Island, so what this is suggesting is that people have been here for tens of thousands of years,” says Alisha Gauvreau, a scholar at the Hakai Institute and a PhD candidate at the University of Victoria, who has been working at the Triquet Island site.

But how was it that Triquet Island remained uncovered, even during the ice age? According to Gauvreau, sea levels in the area remained stable over time, due to a phenomenon called sea level hinge.

“So all the rest of the landmass was covered in ice,” she explains. “As those ice sheets started to recede — and we had some major shifts in sea levels coastwide, so further to the north and to the south in the magnitude of 150 to 200 meters of difference, whereas here it remained exactly the same.”

The result, Gauvreau says, is that people were able to return to Triquet Island repeatedly over time. And while nearby sites also show evidence of ancient inhabitants, people “were definitely sticking around Triquet Island longer than anywhere else,” she says. In addition to finding bits of charcoal at the site, she says archaeologists have uncovered tools like obsidian blades, atlatls and spear throwers, fishhook fragments and hand drills for starting fires.

“And I could go on, but basically, all of these things, coupled with the fallen assemblage, tell us that the earliest people were making relatively simple stone tools at first, perhaps expediently, due to the parent material that was available at the time,” Gauvreau says.

The site also indicates that these early people were also using boats to hunt sea mammals, and gather shellfish, she adds. And later on, they traded or travelled great distances to obtain nonlocal materials like obsidian, greenstone, and graphite for tools.

For archaeologists and anthropologists, the find bolsters an idea, called the “Kelp Highway Hypothesis” hypothesis, proposing that the first people who arrived in North America followed the coastline in boats to avoid the glacial landscape.

“It certainly adds evidence to the fact that people were able to travel by boat in that coastal area by watercraft,” Gauvreau says.

And for the Heiltsuk Nation, which has worked with the archaeologists for years to share knowledge and identify sites like Triquet Island, the updated archaeological record provides new evidence, as well.

The nation routinely negotiates with the Canadian government on matters of territory governance and natural resource management — negotiations that depend in part on the community’s record of inhabiting the area over long periods.

Archaeologists at the site are unearthing tools for lighting fires, fish hooks and spears dating back to the Ice Age

“So when we’re at the table with our oral history, it’s like me telling you a story,” Housty says. “And you have to believe me without seeing any evidence.”

But now, he explains, with the oral history and archaeological evidence “dovetailing together, telling a really powerful tale,” the Heiltsuk have new advantages at the negotiating table.

“That’s really going to be very significant … and I think will definitely give us a leg up in negotiations, for sure,” he says.

‘Exceptionally Rare’ Dinosaur Fossil Found in Maryland

‘Exceptionally Rare’ Dinosaur Fossil Found in Maryland

‘Exceptionally Rare’ Dinosaur Fossil Found in Maryland

A group of paleontologists and volunteers discovered several rare fossils, along with the largest theropod fossil ever found in Eastern North America.

The find was made at Dinosaur Park, Maryland, in April 2023. The site has seen the discovery of amazing fossils since the 19th century, but this recent find was described by Matthew Carrano, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian, as “exceptionally rare.”

Dinosaur Park discovery

At Dinosaur Park in Prince George’s County, Maryland, paleontologists and volunteers discovered a three-foot-long fossil. This fossil was found at what had been classified as a “bonebed,” a term used by paleontologists to describe a layer with contents that date to the same geologic period. The bonebed discovered was the first found in Maryland since 1887.

JP Hodnett, program coordinator and paleontologist at Dinosaur Park, said, “Finding a bonebed like this is a dream for many paleontologists as they can offer a wealth of information on the ancient environments that preserved the fossils and provide more details on the extinct animals that previously may have only been known from a handful of specimens.”

Workers at the bonebed where the Acrocanthosaurus fossil was discovered.

Hodnett concluded: “Most paleontologists have to travel across the country or go overseas to find something like this, so having this rare find so close to home is fantastic.”

What was discovered was a three-foot-long shin bone which is believed to have belonged to a theropod.

A theropod is a carnivorous, bipedal, saurischian dinosaur, which is characterized by hollow and thin-walled bones. These dinosaurs had shorter forelimbs with three clawed digits.

The fossil is believed to be from an Acrocanthosaurus, the largest theropod of the Early Cretaceous period. Thomas Holtz, a paleontologist at the University of Maryland, said, “The dinosaur site at Laurel is by far the most important dinosaur dig site in America east of the Mississippi… It gives us insights into the diversity of animals and plants at a critical period in Earth’s history.”

Acrocanthosaurus

Acrocanthosaurus is a genus of theropod dinosaur that lived during the Early Cretaceous period, approximately 113 to 110 million years ago. It was a large carnivorous dinosaur that belonged to the family Carcharodontosauridae, which includes other notable predators like Tyrannotitan and Giganotosaurus.

Acrocanthosaurus was named for the distinctive high spines running along its back, which gave it a unique appearance. These spines, coupled with its robust build and powerful jaws, indicate that it was a formidable predator. It measured around 36 to 38 feet in length and weighed an estimated 4.4 to 6.6 metric tons.

Acrocanthosaurus restoration.

One of the most remarkable aspects of Acrocanthosaurus is its skull, which was long, narrow, and filled with sharp, serrated teeth. These teeth were well-suited for gripping and tearing flesh, indicating that it was an efficient hunter. Additionally, its forelimbs were relatively short compared to its hind limbs, suggesting that Acrocanthosaurus was likely a bipedal dinosaur.

Other fossils of Acrocanthosaurus have been discovered in what is now North America, primarily in the United States. The first remains of this dinosaur were found in 1940 in Oklahoma, and subsequent discoveries have helped paleontologists gain a better understanding of its anatomy and behavior.

Due to the incomplete nature of the fossil record, some aspects of Acrocanthosaurus’ life remain uncertain. However, based on its physical characteristics, scientists believe that it was an apex predator that likely preyed upon large herbivorous dinosaurs, such as sauropods and ornithopods.

Ryan McLachlan is a historian and content writer for Hive Media. He received his Bachelor of Arts in History and Classical Studies and his Master of Arts in History from the University of Western Ontario. Ryan’s research focused on military history, and he is particularly interested in the conflicts fought by the United Kingdom from the Napoleonic Wars to the Falklands War.

Ryan’s other historical interests include naval and maritime history, the history of aviation, the British Empire, and the British Monarchy. He is also interested in the lives of Sir Winston Churchill and Admiral Lord Nelson. Ryan enjoys teaching, reading, writing, and sharing history with anyone who will listen.

In his spare time, he enjoys watching period dramas such as Murdoch Mysteries and Ripper Street and also enjoys reading classical literature and Shakespeare. He also plays football and is an afternoon tea connoisseur.

Traces of Possible Zapotec Temple Detected in Southern Mexico

Traces of Possible Zapotec Temple Detected in Southern Mexico

The Catholic Church of San Pablo in Mitla is built on the footprint of an earlier Zapotec temple.

A hidden “entrance to the underworld” built by the ancient Zapotec culture has been discovered beneath a Catholic church in southern Mexico, according to a team of researchers using cutting-edge ground-scanning technology.

The complex system of underground chambers and tunnels was built more than a millennium ago by the Zapotec, whose state arose near modern-day Oaxaca in the late sixth century B.C. and grew in grandeur as people created monumental buildings and erected massive tombs filled with lavish grave goods. 

The architectural complex at Mitla, 27 miles (44 kilometers) southeast of Oaxaca, boasts unique and intricate mosaics, having functioned as the main Zapotec religious center until the late 15th century, when the Aztec conquest likely resulted in the abandonment of the site.

The Spanish then reused stone blocks from the ruins to build the San Pablo Apostol church a century later. 

Traces of Possible Zapotec Temple Detected in Southern Mexico
Researchers use a georadar to scan the plaza in front of the Palace of the Columns.

Oral histories have long suggested that the main altar of the church was purposefully built over a sealed entrance to a vast underground labyrinth of pillars and passages that originally belonged to a Zapotec temple known as Lyobaa, which means “the place of rest.” 

Investigating this claim with modern geophysical methods, the Project Lyobaa research team announced on May 12 that they had found a complex system of caves and passageways beneath the church.

The project is a collaboration of 15 archaeologists, geophysical scientists, engineers, and conservation experts with the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and the ARX Project.

A seismic tomography scan shows areas of low velocity (blue) that may indicate underground chambers or natural cavities.

Using three nondestructive methods — ground penetrating radar, electrical resistivity tomography and seismic noise tomography — the team produced a virtual 3D model of the subterranean ruins.

These methods work by measuring reflection properties of electromagnetic and seismic waves as they pass through different subsoil layers and other material underground.

A number of measuring devices placed around the church recorded information about a large void below the main altar and two connecting passages, all at a depth of 16 to 26 feet (5 to 8 meters). 

“The newly discovered chambers and tunnels directly relate to the ancient Zapotec beliefs and concepts of the Underworld,” Marco Vigato, founder of the ARX Project, told Live Science in an email, “and confirm the veracity of the colonial accounts that speak of the elaborate rituals and ceremonies conducted at Mitla in subterranean chambers associated with the cult of the dead and the ancestors.” 

A ground-penetrating radar scan shows a stairway under the surface.

Although the team suspected that the underground temple existed, they were surprised by its scale and depth, according to Vigato. “More research is needed to accurately determine the full extent of these subterranean features,” he said.

José Luis Punzo Díaz, an archaeologist at Centro INAH Michoacán who was not involved in the research, told Live Science in an email that “geophysical methods are very important in current archaeology.”

These methods have helped find anomalies at other Mesoamerican sites, such as Teotihuacán, which have also been interpreted as entrances to the underworld.

As a result, these methods “should be contrasted with archaeological excavations,” Punzo noted, “because although the geophysical data are interesting, it is always essential to verify them in the field.” 

The joint research team has plans for a second season of geophysical investigation in September, which will focus on additional groups of structures at Mitla, and they hope to get permission from authorities to conduct further work at San Pablo Apostol as well, Vigato said.

All told, “these findings will help rewrite the history of the origins of Mitla and its development as an ancient site,” the team members wrote in a statement.

An Underground City Full of Giant Skeletons Discovered in the Grand Canyon

An Underground City Full of Giant Skeletons Discovered in the Grand Canyon

In the early 20th century, chance led us to the gates of the underground city of giants best known in those days. It was an amazing discovery in the Grand Canyon and the press soon echoed.

An Underground City Full of Giant Skeletons Discovered in the Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon was the birthplace of a culture in which people of Cyclopean proportions existed according to an article published in the Gazeta de Arizona on April 5, 1909.  A civilization that only left us some structures as a testimony of its existence. 

The article mentions the discovery of a huge subterranean citadel by an explorer named GE Kinkaid, who accidentally found it while rafting on the Colorado River. It is worth mentioning that Kinkaid was a recognized archaeologist and had the financial support of the Smithsonian Institution.

According to their descriptions, the entrance to this mysterious city was at the end of a tunnel that extended for something more than 1600 meters underground.

Kinkaid was impressed that the cavern was almost inaccessible. The entrance was about 450 meters under the wall of the steep canyon. The place was in a zone protected by the government and the access was penalized under fine.

“Above a shelf that could not be seen from the river was the entrance to the cave. When I saw the chisel marks on the wall inside the entrance, I got interested, I got my gun and I went in. “Kinkaid said.

The architecture found suggested that the builders of that subterranean city possessed advanced engineering skills.

The central axis of the underground city made it a gigantic camera from which radiated passages similar to the radii of a wheel.

The walls of the main chamber were adorned with copper weapons and tablets covered with symbols and hieroglyphic characters very similar to those we know in Egypt.

Another interesting finding was the discovery of mummified bodies inside the citadel. None of the mummies found were less than 2.74 meters and all were wrapped in dark linen. Kinkaid said he had taken photographs of one of them with a flashlight, however, none of those photos were found.

Further explorations revealed interesting data on the beliefs of these alleged giants of the city.

More than 30 meters from the entrance is a room with a cross-shaped plant several tens of meters long and where an idol was found that could have been the main god of his religious system.

He was sitting cross-legged and with a lotus or lily flower in each hand. His face had oriental features as well as the carving of the cave. This idol had a certain resemblance to Buddha, although the scientists of the time did not finish assuring that it represented that religious cult.

The article also talks about the discovery of ceramics and other artifacts with trademarks having been manufactured in other parts of the world. Perhaps a rare mixture of cultures scarcely occurs in archaeological finds, so this discovery would be of unprecedented importance.

The last camera they found on the exploration was what Kinkaid and his partner, Professor SA Jordan, a ceremonial crypt, believed to be at the end of the great hall where they found the mummies.

Unfortunately, the article does not give many more details about this discovery. Nor are there any official versions or references to this enigmatic subterranean city. 

The Smithsonian Institute denies having knowledge of the existence of this underground city.