The Ancient Maya were one of the most advanced civilisations ever seen in the Americas. They were ingenious engineers, impressive mathematicians and talented artists who controlled a huge territory and built astonishing temples using manpower alone. But after 2000 years their magnificent civilisation collapsed, and their stunning cities were abandoned. Lost Tombs of the Ancient Maya follows archaeologists as they search for clues to how the Maya lived and what happened to them.

We embed our cameras as a team uses muon imaging - a revolutionary scanning technique harnessing cosmic rays from space – to search for a royal burial chamber hidden inside Copán’s Temple of Inscriptions, a 1200-year-old Maya pyramid said to be the final resting place of one Copán’s greatest kings. A second team of scientists digs deep into a Mexican lakebed to search for evidence that may explain why, in the 9th century AD, the Maya abandoned their great cities. In Copan, excavations reveal evidence of religious rituals and even human sacrifice that shed light on Maya beliefs about death and the afterlife. In Mexico, home to two of the most stunning Maya cities - Palenque and Chichen Itza - we’ll uncover the story of the most famous Maya king of all. We learn about what treasures might be hidden inside Maya tombs and how their rulers reinvented their society after the collapse. And at Tikal, another important Maya city, ground-breaking LIDAR scans reveal the Maya civilisation was far larger and more advanced than previously thought.

Using stunning CGI imagery, unique access to excavations, and a pioneering attempt to scan a 1500-year-old Maya pyramid, Lost Tombs of the Maya is an immersive dive into a vanished world and an extraordinary opportunity to make real breakthroughs in our understanding of what happened to this fascinating civilisation.
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