Overview
- The findings, led by Takeshi Inomata with coauthors including Daniela Triadan and Verónica Vázquez López, draw on LiDAR-guided mapping, soil cores and radiocarbon-dated excavations.
- Aguada Fénix in Tabasco measures roughly 1.5 km by 400 m and rises up to 9–15 m, dating to around 1000 BCE as the oldest and largest known monument in the Maya area.
- At the platform’s center, a cruciform pit held ceremonial jade axes, carved jade ornaments and mineral pigments arranged by cardinal direction, indicating a deliberately ordered ritual space.
- The site’s east–west axis aligns with sunrises on October 17 and February 24, an interval of 130 days that corresponds to half of the 260-day Mesoamerican ritual calendar.
- Constructed in earth with extended causeways, channels and corridors, the complex likely required millions of person-days, and the lack of elite residences or iconography points to communal, possibly seasonal, gatherings rather than coercive rule.