{"id":224610,"date":"2025-11-06T01:15:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T07:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/oldest-known-maya-monument-could-be-a-map-of-the-universe"},"modified":"2025-11-06T01:15:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T07:15:12","slug":"oldest-known-maya-monument-could-be-a-map-of-the-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/oldest-known-maya-monument-could-be-a-map-of-the-universe","title":{"rendered":"Oldest Known Maya Monument Could Be a Map of The Universe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/oldest-known-maya-monument-could-be-a-map-of-the-universe.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A monumental complex built by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/123-maya-glyphs-found-on-huge-stone-reveal-secrets-of-a-lost-city\">Maya<\/a> around 3,000 years ago was modeled on a map of the cosmos, new fieldwork has revealed.<\/p>\n<p>A detailed survey of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/largest-and-oldest-maya-monument-ever-found-lay-hidden-under-mexico-for-centuries\">Aguada F\u00e9nix site<\/a> reveals that not only was the monument significantly larger than initial surveys suggested \u2013 laid out in the shape of a cross with axes measuring 9 and 7.5 kilometers (5.6 and 4.7 miles) \u2013 but it was also designed as a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cosmogram\">cosmogram<\/a>, an architecture symbolizing the cosmos.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s even more remarkable about the structure is that the site contains none of the trappings of social inequality, such as elite residences or sculptures of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/ancient-maya-used-ashes-of-rulers-to-make-rubber-balls-some-researchers-suggest\">rulers<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A monumental complex built by the Maya around 3,000 years ago was modeled on a map of the cosmos, new fieldwork has revealed. A detailed survey of the Aguada F\u00e9nix site reveals that not only was the monument significantly larger than initial surveys suggested \u2013 laid out in the shape of a cross with axes [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224610\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}