Archaeologists have found a walled Mayan city from 2,600 years ago that followed a unique grid pattern, suggesting the ruler who oversaw the design was a very powerful person.
The city, which contains flat-topped pyramids, was in use between roughly 600 BC and 300 BC, a time when the first cities were being constructed in the area, archaeologists working at Nixtun-Ch'ich' in Peten, Guatemala, have found.
No other city from the Mayan world was planned using this grid design, researchers said.
This city was "organised in a way we haven't seen in other places," said Timothy Pugh, a professor at Queens College in New York.
"It's a top-down organisation. Some sort of really, really, powerful ruler had to put this together," Pugh said.
The ancient Mexican city of Teotihuacan also used a grid system. But that city is not considered to be Mayan, and so far archaeologists have found no connections between it and the one at Nixtun-Ch'ich', Pugh said.
Pugh said that the city's main ceremonial route runs in an east-west line only 3 degrees off of true east, 'LiveScience' reported.
"You get about 15 buildings in an exact straight line - that's the main ceremonial area," he said. These 15 buildings included flat-topped pyramids that would have risen up to almost 100 feet high.
Visitors would have climbed a series of steps to reach the temple structure at the top of each of these pyramids.
At the end of the ceremonial way, on the eastern edge of the city, is a "triadic" structure or group, which consists of pyramids and buildings that were constructed facing each other on a platform.
The residential areas of the city were built to the north and south of the ceremonial route and were also packed into the city's grid design, Pugh said.
From the excavations, archaeologists can tell that many of the city's structures were decorated with shiny white plaster.
The city's orientation, facing almost directly east, would have helped people follow the movements of the Sun, something that may have been of importance to their religion.
A wall made of earth and stone also protected the city, suggesting defense was also a concern of these Mayans.
