William Gadoury, who is a 15-year-old that comes from Saint-Jean-de-Matha in Lanaudière, has developed his interest in archaeology after the Maya calendar was published, which announced the end of the world in 2012.
After he spends hours poring over diagrams of constellations and maps of some known Maya cities, he noticed that the two seemed to be linked somehow; the brightest stars of the constellations covered perfectly with the places of the largest Maya cities. It has been reported that no other scientists have ever discovered such a correlation.
William had a keen interest in the ancient Mayan culture and the stars, so he made this truly incredible and huge discovery. He was always fascinated by some of the ancient civilizations, and especially, his imagination was attracted by the way in which they used to worship the stars. He found that all of the ancient Mayan cities matched up with the brightest stars in the sky. Using maps of the night sky, as well as satellite images and even Google maps he found that 117 Mayan cities perfectly matched up with the constellations we see in the night sky.
One of the constellations, in particular, was a little strange compared to the rest, because it was made up of 3 stars only, but William could just find two cities that actually matched up with it which led him to think that there could actually be a hidden city still waiting to be discovered.
William also had some help from the Canadian Space Agency or CSA. He used their satellite images in order to investigate the area where he thought the city might be hidden.
One member of the CSA, named Daniel De Lisle, in one interview explained:
By providing some of these images that William had, we could see some structures, and try to see that there is an elevation here – maybe this could be a pyramid.
William also named the city K’aak Chi which actually means mouth of fire. This high school student had not only discovered the new Maya city, but the city may also be one of the largest sites to be found yet.
William has presented his research to the two Mexican archaeologists, and they promised that he is going to accompany them in their next expedition to the newly discovered Maya city, which nobody has seen in person yet.
William said:
This would be the culmination of three years of work and the dream of my life.
