MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A wooden canoe used by the ancient Mayans and believed to be more than 1,000 years old was found in southern Mexico, officials said on Friday amid archaeological work accompanying the construction of a new large tourist train.
The extremely rare canoe was found almost completely intact, submerged in a pool of fresh water known as a “cenote,” thousands of which dot Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula near the ruins of Chichen Itza, once a large Mayan city with elaborate temples and tall pyramids.
Measuring just over 1.6 meters long and 80 centimeters wide, the canoe was possibly used to transport water from the cenote or to deposit offerings in rituals, according to a statement from the Mexican antiquities institute INAH.
The institute described the extraordinary find as “the first complete canoe like this in the Mayan region,” adding that experts at the Sorbonne University in Paris will help analyze the well-preserved wood to precisely determine its age and type.
A three-dimensional model of the canoe will also be ordered, the statement added, to facilitate further studies and allow replicas to be made.
The canoe is provisionally dated between 830dC. and AD 950, near the end of the classic heyday of the Mayan civilization, when dozens of cities around what is now southern Mexico and Central America thrived on great achievements in mathematics, writing, and art.
(Reporting by David Alire Garciah)
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