KANASIN, Mexico—Archaeologists have uncovered the ruins of an ancient Mayan city filled with palaces, pyramids, and plazas on a construction site of what will become an industrial park near Merida, on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.
The site, called Xiol, has features of the Mayan Puuc style of architecture, archaeologists said, which is common in the southern Yucatan Peninsula but rare near Merida.
“We think more than 4,000 people lived around here,” said Carlos Peraza, one of the archaeologists who led the excavation of the city, estimated to have been occupied from 600–900 A.D.
“There were people from different social classes … priests, scribes, who lived in these great palaces, and there were also the common people who lived in small buildings,” Peraza said….