Quebec teen discovers ancient Mayan ruins by studying the stars

Quebec teen discovers ancient Mayan ruins by studying the stars

teenager from Quebec has discovered an ancient Mayan city without leaving his province’s borders.

William Gadoury is a 15-year-old student from Saint-Jean-de-Matha in Lanaudière, Quebec. The precocious teen has been fascinated by all things Mayan for several years, devouring any information he could find on the topic.

During his research, Gadoury examined 22 Mayan constellations and discovered that if he projected those constellations onto a map, the shapes corresponded perfectly with the locations of 117 Mayan cities. Incredibly, the 15-year-old was the first person to establish this important correlation, reported the Journal de Montreal over the weekend.

Then Gadoury took it one step further. He examined a twenty-third constellation which contained three stars, yet only two corresponded to known cities.

Gadoury’s hypothesis? There had to be a city in the place where that third star fell on the map.

Satellite images later confirmed that, indeed, geometric shapes visible from above imply that an ancient city with a large pyramid and thirty buildings stands exactly where Gadoury said they would be. If the find is confirmed, it would be the fourth largest Mayan city in existence.

“I didn’t understand why the Maya built their cities far away from rivers, in remote areas, or in the mountains,” Gadoury told the Journal de Montreal, explaining how he developed his theory.

Once Gadoury had established where he thought the city should be, the young man reached out to the Canadian Space Agency where staff was able to obtain satellites through NASA and JAXA, the Japanese space agency.

Scientists across the board have been blown away by Gadoury’s discovery.

“What makes William’s project fascinating is the depth of his research,” said Canadian Space Agency liaison officer Daniel de Lisle. “Linking the positions of stars to the location of a lost city along with the use of satellite images on a tiny territory to identify the remains buried under dense vegetation is quite exceptional.”

Being 15, Gadoury has decided to name the city K'ÀAK ‘CHI, a Mayan phrase which in English means “fire mouth.”

The next step for Gadoury will be seeing the city in person. He’s already presented his findings to two Mexican archaeologists, and has been promised that he’ll join expeditions to the area.

Says Gadoury: “It would be the culmination of three years of work and the dream of lifetime.”

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-buzz/quebec-teen-discovers-ancient-mayan-ruins-by-170620746.html

Wow, sounds like something out of a movie!

Brilliant...love such stories, and about a young man that was doing something beside seated in front of his video game player being entertained!  Great story!

What I think is great, is that when teens really get interested in something they sink their teeth in it and follow it through with passion.   And look what he has achieved by doing just that.   Bloody well done.

Agree with you all. What an impressive young man!

Well, bat crap...I'm still pleased that this young man's doing something besides playing video games with his time & mind ~~~

Canadian teen William Gadoury's discovery of 'Mayan city' debunked as junk science 
        
May 11 2016 - 3:39PM - Julie Power                                                      
The apparent discovery of a previously unknown Mayan city in the Yucatan jungle by a 15-year-old Canadian boy has been dismissed as "junk science" by a US archaeologist who was also a child prodigy at the same age on the same subject.
Others think the new "city" may be a cornfield.


The teen began studying satellite images he had requested from the Canadian Space Agency until he found what appeared to be human-built structures overgrown by foliage deep in the Yucatan jungle in south-eastern Mexico.
It is this "city" - comprising a pyramid and about 30 buildings - that he claims to have discovered, and named K'aak Chi, or Mouth of Fire, in the Mayan language.
But David Stuart, an archeologist who is also famous for his Mayan discoveries as a teenager, described the discovery as "false".
"The whole thing is a mess - a terrible example of junk science hitting the internet in free-fall," said Dr Stuart who is the David and Linda Schele Professor of Mesoamerican Art and Writing at the University of Texas at Austin.
"The ancient Maya didn't plot their ancient cities according to constellations. Seeing such patterns is a Rorschach process, since sites are everywhere, and so are stars.
The square feature that was found on Google Earth is indeed man-made, but it's an old fallow cornfield, or milpa," he said.
Dr Stuart avoided blaming William, saying he was "clearly smart and enthusiastic about archaeology and the Maya", and had talent worth nurturing.
Instead he criticised so-called experts who had publicised his discovery.
"What steams me most here is the irresponsibility of 'experts' who sought the media exposure," he said on his Facebook page.
Dr Stuart, the son of Mayan experts who frequently visited the area, rose to fame at a young age. He was only 15 when he was made the lead epigrapher - studying Mayan signs - on a National Geographic expedition in Guatemala.
It was then that he discovered a new syllable in the Mayan language that had stumped dozens of researchers before him, he told a publication in Texas.
At 18, he became the youngest winner in history of the MacArthur Fellowship, or "genius grant".
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/sci-tech/canadian-teen-william-gadourys-discovery-of-mayan-city-debunked-as-junk-science-20160511-gosa26.html 

If David Stuart is right, that's sad, but maybe he's not.   Experts have been proved to be wrong before.   He says they didn't use stars, but he could be wrong.

sassy wrote:If David Stuart is right, that's sad, but maybe he's not.   Experts have been proved to be wrong before.   He says they didn't use stars, but he could be wrong.

And from the most recent horrid/savage earthquakes --- our earth's rotation has shifted ever so slightly off it's orbital path...so if that is a possibility now --- couldn't that have happened in the past from...say huge meter strikes? 
Misalign just a few measures and that could be a gap of 100 square miles, back on earth? 

Seems plausible to this ole' gray head.