The remains of a building are pictured at the newly discovered ancient Maya city Chactun in Yucatan peninsula in this undated handout picture by National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) made available to Reuters June 18, 2013. 
 
 A sculpted stone shaft called stelae is pictured at the newly discovered ancient Maya city Chactun in Yucatan peninsula in this undated handout picture by National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) made available to Reuters June 18, 2013. 
 
 Sculpted stone shafts called stelae are pictured at the newly discovered ancient Maya city Chactun in Yucatan peninsula in this May 31, 2013 handout picture by National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) made available to Reuters June 18, 2013. 
 
 A sculpted stone shaft called stelae is pictured at the newly discovered ancient Maya city Chactun in Yucatan peninsula in this May 31, 2013 handout picture by National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) made available to Reuters June 18, 2013. 
 
 A sculpted stone shaft called stelae is pictured at the newly discovered ancient Maya city Chactun in Yucatan peninsula in this May 31, 2013 handout picture by National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) made available to Reuters June 18, 2013. 
 
 A National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) worker shows the remains of a building at the newly discovered ancient Maya city Chactun in Yucatan peninsula in this May 31, 2013 handout picture by INAH made available to Reuters June 18, 2013. Archaeologists have... 
 
 MEXICO CITY Archaeologists have found an ancient Maya city that remained hidden for centuries in the rain forests of eastern Mexico, a discovery in a remote nature reserve they hope will yield clues about how the civilization collapsed around 1,000 years ago. 
 
 The team, led by Ivan Sprajc, associate professor at the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, found 15 pyramids - including one that stands 75 feet tall - ball courts, plazas and tall, sculpted stone shafts called stelae. 
 
 They named the city Chactun, meaning "Red Rock" or "Large Rock." Sprajc said it was likely slightly less populous than the large ancient Maya city of Tikal in Guatemala, and could have been home to as many as 30,000 or 40,000 people, though further research is necessary to determine an exact estimate. 
 
 Chactun likely had its heyday during the late Classic period of Maya civilization between 600 and 900 A.D., Sprajc said. 
 
 The team's research was approved by the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History and funded by the National Geographic Society and two European companies. 
 
 Sprajc said the site — which covers 22 hectares (54 acres) and lies 75 miles due west of Chetumal — is one of the largest found in the Yucatan's central lowlands. The nearest settlement to the ruins is the small town of Xpujil, around 16 miles away. 
 
 "The whole site is covered by the jungle," he said in Spanish. 
 
 While the site was unknown to the academic community, Sprajc found evidence that other people had been to the site as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, but not since. 
 
 "Lumberjacks and gum extractors were certainly already there, because we saw cuts on the trees," Sprajc said. "What happened is they never told anyone." 
 
 While reviewing aerial photographs taken by the National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity 15 years ago to monitor the nature reserve, Sprajc and his team saw suggestions of ruins and marked the coordinates. 
 
 They then spent three weeks clearing a 10-mile (16-km) path through the jungle to reach the site. After mapping the site for six weeks and documenting the monuments, they blocked the path before leaving to prevent access. 
 
 The presence of multiple ball game courts is an indication that Chactun was a very important city, Sprajc said. It was likely abandoned around the year 1,000, probably due to demographic pressure, climate change, wars and rebellions. 
 
 He hopes the find could shed new light on relations between different regions of the Maya empire during that period. 
 
 The Maya civilization was one of the most advanced in the pre-Columbian Americas and ruled over large swaths of the Yucatan, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras at its height. 
 
 Tikal, which was first mapped by archaeologists in the late 19th century, had a population estimated at up to 90,000. 
 
 In December, thousands of people traveled to the Yucatan to celebrate a new cycle in the Maya calendar amidst fears that the Maya had actually predicted that December 21 would mark the end of the world. 
 
 (Reporting by Luc Cohen and Reuters TV; Editing by Simon Gardner) 

 An entire Maya city full of pyramids and palatial complexes has been discovered in a remote jungle in southeastern Mexico, archaeologists report. 
 
 Covered in thick vegetation, the ruins were found in Campeche, a province in the western Yucatán peninsula that's littered with Maya complexes and artifacts. The newfound site is dubbed Chactún, and it stretches over roughly 54 acres (22 hectares). Researchers think the city was occupied during the Late Classic Maya period, from roughly A.D. 600 until A.D. 900, when the civilization mysteriously collapsed. 
 
 "It is one of the largest sites in the Central Lowlands, comparable in its extent and the magnitude of its buildings with Becan, Nadzcaan and El Palmar in Campeche," archaeologist Ivan Sprajc said in a statement from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). 
 
 This image is from the southeast complex at the newfound Maya city called Chactún. Credit: National Institute of Anthropology and History 
 
 In the sprawling Maya city, Sprajc and his team found three monumental complexes with the remains of pyramids — one 75 feet (23 meters) high — as well as ball courts, plazas, homes, altars, bits of painted stucco and stone slabs known as stele. Epigraphers are still poring over inscriptions at Chactún, but one stele refers to an apparent ruler named K'inich B'ahlam, the researchers say. 
 
 Traces of the lost city were first spotted in aerial images of a vast forested area, which previously had only been explored by loggers and rubber-tappers and was considered "a total blank" in the map of Maya sites, Sprajc said. 
 
 "With aerial photographs examined stereoscopically, we found many features that were obviously architectural remains," Sprajc explained in a statement from INAH. "From there we took the coordinates and the next step was to locate the ancient alleys used by tappers and loggers to reach the area." 
 
 Sprajc and his team could only get to the site by traveling through the jungle in a truck with four-wheel drive, stopping every now and then to hack vegetation blocking their path with a machete. 
 
 Archaeologists hope studying Chactún will shed light on its connection to other nearby Maya cities, according to INAH. 
 
 Follow Megan Gannon on Twitterand Google+.Follow us @livescience, Facebook& Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.
– Just a week after news broke of a "lost city" discovered in Cambodia, archaeologists have uncovered an ancient Mayan city among the dense foliage of the Mexican jungle. The team has dubbed it Chactun (meaning red or large rock), and says it's one of the largest to be found in the Yucatan's central lowlands. The numbers behind that claim: The 54-acre site would have once housed as many as 40,000 people, and evidence of 15 pyramids—one 75 feet tall—has been identified there. But the ruins don't end with those structures, LiveScience reports. The remains of plazas, homes, altars, inscribed stone slabs, and ball courts were found; the ball courts in particular indicate it was a prominent city, though one that met its end around 1000 AD, the team leader tells Reuters. The search team first stumbled upon Chactun by way of aerial photographs taken 15 years ago; hacking their way through 10 miles of jungle took three weeks. The archaeologists spent six weeks exploring its secrets, and hope the find will offer clues on relationships between Maya cities—the closest known was 16 miles away.