2026 DISCOVERY This Mummy Discovery Is Terrifying Scientists Worldwide

Not many civilizations are as mysterious as Ancient Egypt. A powerful empire that lasted over 3,000 years, it gave us pyramids that still stand and myths that still inspire. It's one of the most explored places on Earth, yet somehow we still find exciting stuff. In Abydos, archaeologists just uncovered a 3,600-year-old royal tomb. It's huge! It has golden hieroglyphs of deities covering the entrance. But the pharaoh's name? It's not there. It's missing. Who was this ruler? And what new chapter could this open in Egypt's story? If there's one place in Egypt where the line between life and demise feels thinner, it's Abydos. To the Ancient Egyptians, this was sacred ground. They believed it was the burial place of Osiris, the god who literally passed away, had his remains separated, and came back to life to rule the underworld. Because of that, Abydos became Egypt's spiritual gathering place. Pharaohs built amazing temples here, like the Temple of Seti. Famous for its king's list, a wall that has the names of 76 pharaohs carved in it. Pilgrims came from across Egypt, leaving offerings and participating in Osiris festivals, where his demise and rebirth were ritually reenacted. It wasn't just symbolic worship. It was Egypt's version of Comic-Con. But instead of cosplaying superheroes, people reenacted gods coming back to life. Obviously, pharaohs competed to be buried as close to Osiris as possible. Abydos became part cemetery, part holy city, part afterlife insurance policy. Fast forward thousands of years, and we still uncover remarkable stuff around Abydos. That's the case with the recently discovered tomb. In early 2025, a joint team of researchers from the US and Egypt decided to dig beneath a rocky rise ominously called Anubis Mountain. You remember Anubis, the jackal-headed deity who guarded cemeteries. The uncovered royal burial was hidden 23 feet below the surface. Sadly, even though it eluded archaeologists for so long, robbers had already taken away with treasures ages ago. They could definitely tell this was a tomb of someone super important. Similar to how you can walk around a mansion with no furniture but still deduce that someone rich must have lived there. The chamber had mud brick vaults rising over 16 feet. That's taller than a female giraffe standing upright. For something built 36 centuries ago, it still felt enormous. However, when you remember that Egyptians were masters of architecture, nothing seems surprising. So no treasures, no golden mask, and sadly, no name. The cartouche that should have spelled the king's identity was unreadable. Egyptian tombs usually bragged about who was inside. In ancient Egypt, a cartouche was basically a big oval name tag for kings wrapped in hieroglyphs. Think of them as VIP passes that worked in both this life and the next. Without it, your soul couldn't check into the afterlife hotel. That's because to the Egyptians, your name, your ren, wasn't just so your teacher could distinguish you from kids with the same haircut. It was a core part of who you were. As long as your ren survived, so did you. To have your name forgotten was considered a fate worse than passing away. A soul cannot journey without a name. That's why you'd see cartouches all over the place. On temples, obelisks, jewelry, statues, and tomb walls. It wasn't there just for the marketing. It kept the pharaoh's presence front and center everywhere you looked. Imagine building a massive tomb only for 3,600 years later to walk in and go, uh, who is this guy again? Not cool at all. That's why it's fair to imagine our nameless pharaoh haunting the robbers for all eternity. So yeah, cartouche was considered very significant. One of the most famous and mind-blowing examples comes from the tomb of Thutmose III. His burial chamber and sarcophagus were literally shaped like a cartouche. In other words, the entire room was a living architectural symbol of his name. Thankfully, in the recently discovered tomb, not everything was erased. Painted in golden hues at the entrance were two familiar guardians, deities Isis and Nepethys. Isis was the magician who stitched Osiris back together and breathed life into him. Nepethys, her sister, was the eternal mourner and protector of the mummy. Together, they promised that whoever rested here would not face the afterlife alone, and it's one additional proof of the importance of the mysterious pharaoh. So, who could this be? To answer that, we need to go down history lane. This tomb dates back to Egypt's messy chapter called the Second Intermediate Period. Instead of one ruler in charge, the country had many rival kingdoms, each with its own little power base, like a real-life Egyptian version of Game of Thrones. And right in the middle of that chaos was Abydos. For a while, it was home to its own line of kings, the so-called Abydos dynasty. Those weren't the pyramid builders everyone knows, and that's why they're so mysterious. They left behind almost nothing. No great monuments, no sprawling cities, just fragments of names on broken blocks. For centuries, many scholars even doubted they existed at all. That sort of changed in 2014, when archaeologists uncovered the tomb of Senebkay, one of those shadowy kings. Now, everything we know about Senebkay points to him having quite a story to tell. His bones revealed 18 deep wounds, the kind you get in battle. He had blows to his skull, back, and hands, and likely lost his life fighting, making him one of the few pharaohs we know who sadly fell in combat. His tomb was modest, with reused artifacts from earlier kings, but it delivered one priceless thing, proof. Until Senebkay, the Abydos dynasty was just a theory. With him, it became real. And that's why the new discovery could be a big deal. The newly-uncovered royal tomb at Abydos shares the same layout and style as Senebkay's. It has limestone chambers, mud-brick vaults, and protective deities, although it's much bigger. Which again raises the possibility that we're looking at an even earlier, more powerful ruler of Abydos. Whoever he was, he wanted to be remembered alongside the greats. Which is ironic, cause it seems that history tried erasing him. Perhaps additional findings alongside his tomb could tell us more. Yes, there's more, and it's actually pretty cool. Not far from Abydos, in the village of Vanuit, archaeologists uncovered a Roman-era pottery workshop. Yeah, you heard that right, a pottery factory close to a pharaoh's burial ground. The site had huge clay kilns, storage rooms, and even broken shards called ostraca. They were basically ancient sticky notes. Except instead of shopping lists, those had receipts scratched onto them, in Greek and Demotic Egyptian. Little records of everyday transactions, the kind of thing you'd never expect to find near a lost dynasty king. Honestly, the potters missed a chance. Forget boring receipts, they should have been selling Osiris's mugs and Anubis figurines to pilgrims and tourists. But that's not all. It seems that centuries later, during the medieval period, the same ground became a cemetery. Archaeologists found mud-brick graves with skeletal remains. This could mean that Abydos kept its aura of significance for hundreds of years after the age of pharaohs. So why this hill again and again? Is this place really a getaway to the afterlife? It is, after all, the very place where Osiris is said to rest. That belief lingered like a shadow for thousands of years, strong enough to pull in pharaohs and later medieval families. Different rituals, same sacred ground. Although, to be fair, the Romans weren't here for Osiris. They came to make pots. The story of Abydos is not over. The excavations will continue and who knows what else could be discovered in the future. Today, archaeologists are armed with tools that are basically x-ray glasses for the desert. Every scan could reveal a hidden chamber or, if we're lucky, finally give our nameless pharaoh his wren back to him. In fact, I became strangely invested in finding out who he was. So let's hope for some news soon. It's only a matter of time. Do you have your own theory? Let me know! It's almost impossible to get out of this place, but it is even more difficult to get here. No, this is not a location from an adventure movie, but a treasure hunter. This is a real giant tomb filled with traps and streams of toxic mercury. And it's not somewhere deep in the Amazon jungle or an unknown island. This tomb is located in central China, near the Xi'an city. And you know what the coolest thing is? This tomb was built more than 2,000 years ago, and even now, in the 21st century, we still don't know how to get there. But let's start from the beginning. Many of you have probably heard of terracotta statues, thousands of clay sculptures of people. Those statues were first found in 1974, when a group of peasants were digging decks near Xi'an. They found a detailed human-sized figure, and that was one out of a thousand. Each figure was made as realistic as possible. Each of them was unique and had its distinctive details. More than 50 years have passed, and scientists are still digging up these sculptures. The number has already exceeded 8,000. But what are they doing there? What is their purpose? Terracotta sculptures are kind of guarding the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang. He was such an influential man in China that he wasn't just buried in a tomb. His servants created a giant coffin complex the size of a small town. So, if thousands of clay guards symbolically protect this place, it's difficult to imagine what's in the center of this ancient, gigantic tomb. But first, let's find out who Qin Shi Huang was and then move on to the dangerous traps. He was the first son of the ruler of the Kingdom of Qin. It was one of the six kingdoms that existed on the territory of modern China. In 2059 BCE, when Qin Shi Huang was born, those six kingdoms were independent and separated from one another. Moreover, there was a strong conflict between them that lasted for more than 200 years. But Qin Shi Huang turned out to be the man who managed to conquer and unite all these kingdoms. He became more than just a king. He became the first emperor of China. But how did he complete a seemingly impossible task? Natural disasters, clever strategy, tactics, and skills helped him conquer the six kingdoms. Scientists are still arguing about some of the details of how this happened. All that can be said is that Qin Shi Huang was a very wise and intelligent emperor. So, it's not surprising that his burial turned out to be so huge. He was buried in the largest and most luxurious funeral complex in the history of China. The area the size of a small city contains many underground caves filled with things an emperor could need in the afterlife. In ancient China, as well as in ancient Egypt, people believed that when an emperor went to the other world, he could take with him those things that were buried with him. Unfortunately, sometimes it could be people. But Qin Shi Huang acted wisely and correctly. He decided to bury clay statues. But the coolest thing is that the architects and builders of this complex made it impregnable. The whole area holds many secrets, historical artifacts, and priceless objects. There's a beautiful place with the emperor's body in the center of this tomb. Imagine how many treasures you can find there. And all of them were meant to remain untouched and unseen by other people. And we probably won't be able to get to them, at least in the near future. Ancient Chinese historian Sima Qian wrote something about the tomb about 100 years after the emperor's burial. He said that this place had dangerous traps inside the tomb that would destroy anyone who dared to enter the tomb. The engineers installed crossbows with loaded arrows and also poured a huge amount of mercury, simulating the movement of rivers. Of course, that was 2,000 years ago, and crossbows probably don't work anymore. But what about mercury? This toxic metal has no expiration date. It's shiny and moves quickly in liquid form. It looks beautiful, but don't touch it. Even a small drop of mercury can cause damage to your body. Inhalation of its vapors or ingestion causes damage to nerves, the liver, kidneys, and many other symptoms. And that's just one drop. Imagine how dangerous rivers of this substance can be. Who knows how much mercury was loaded there by the tomb builders? But even if you dodge all the traps and don't end up in the poisonous river, mercury would still be able to harm you. Its vapors can pass through the cracks in the walls. This means that the entire tomb is probably soaked in this substance. And by the way, this is not just a guess. Scientists have measured the mercury level at the excavation site and found that it's much higher than normal. But why mercury? In ancient China, mercury was considered the elixir of youth, the source of immortality. According to the records, Qin Shaohuang often took pills with this element. Perhaps this was the reason that his life ended at the age of 49. In any case, people can damage ancient structures and artifacts during excavations. For example, archaeologists cause great damage to Tutankhamen's tomb during its exploration. You dig around, but then suddenly, the entrance collapses, and you destroy vases, scrolls, interior decorations, and other stuff. But even if you do everything carefully, the writing and drawings on the walls can be destroyed by sunlight or oxygen. Places where there has been no fresh air and ultraviolet radiation for thousands of years have their own chemical composition that can be damaged by contact with the outside world. In the 1970s, when archaeologists were excavating terracotta sculptures, the paint pigment fell off the statues because of contact with the sun and air. Fortunately, the archaeologists quickly adapted and created a technology that allowed them to get the statues out without damaging the paint. It was a long and careful process, but it was worth it. And here's why. According to ancient writings, the emperor created an underground kingdom with a beautiful palace in the center. He decorated the ceiling of this palace with expensive pearls. You know why? To simulate the stars in the night sky. And that's just the It's difficult to imagine how the walls, floor, and tomb of the emperor are decorated. Besides, scientists expect to find many other statues that copy the emperor's servants. So, in simple terms, the tomb of Qin Shaohuang is a paradise for archaeologists and historians. But of course, it will take more than one generation before they extract all the treasures. Some experts predict that the excavation of the entire tomb could take centuries. But of course, new archaeological technologies can change everything. For example, non-invasive research methods mean you don't have to enter the tomb. You can see it through a special device. Another idea is the use of muons. Those are subatomic products that appear as a result of the collision of cosmic rays and atoms in the Earth's atmosphere. The point is that these muons can penetrate through solid objects, just like x-rays. Or how about nanotechnologies? Imagine millions of tiny digger robots climbing into a tomb and starting to scan the area. They transmit the data to a computer, and then scientists create a holographic model. It all sounds cool, but to be honest, the charm of archaeology is lost here. It's one thing when you carefully dig up some ancient artifact with your hands, see it with your own eyes, and scrupulously clean it from the ground. And it's completely different when you watch it on a computer screen. But in any case, technologies using muons or some kind of robots ensure people's safety. It's better if a computer falls into a trap than if it happens to an archaeologist. Once upon a time, I searched through the jungle following a map poorly drawn on a piece of cloth. After days of walking, I reached an ancient Mayan temple. As soon as I stepped in, a strange noise echoed. I turned to leave, but suddenly the floor cracked beneath my feet. I fell into a 1,600-year-old tomb. Finally, I got lucky. That day, I walked out with shiny jades, carved seashells, a creepy afterlife mask, and a curse that's been haunting me ever since. Well, okay, maybe it didn't happen exactly like that. Or maybe it didn't happen to me. Sadly, real-life archaeology is not like Indiana Jones movies. However, the findings can be as exciting and important. Especially in Belize, where archaeologists just found the first identifiable ruler's tomb in the lost Mayan city of Karakol after 40 years of digging. A team of archaeologists finally unsealed a hidden chamber buried deep beneath a structure they'd already studied. And inside that tomb, which is indeed around 1,600 years old, was Tikab Shak, the first known king of Karakol. His name is commonly interpreted as tree-branch rain deity, which is poetic and incredibly awesome. King Shak was believed to be a Mayan deity in rain, thunder, and lightning. According to folklore, he used axes to strike rain-bearing snakes in the sky to make the rain fall. The buried king is considered to be the dynasty founder. The royal dynasty he founded lasted more than 460 years. And judging by what was buried with him, we can assume that King Shak was greatly celebrated. His tomb had jade beads, carved bones, seashell jewelry, and ritual pottery vessels. One of those vessels shows Ek Chua, the Maya deity of trade receiving offerings. Others showed bound prisoners. Archaeologists could tell they had found some high royalty when they noticed a considerable presence of red cinnabar in the tomb, a rare and expensive material from the Mayan world. Then there's a jade mosaic mask, pieced together like a puzzle to cover the king's face in brilliant green. Jade wasn't used just because it was shiny. It was sacred and symbolically associated with life and demise. Polished jade glistens like it's been dipped in water – cool at first, but quickly warming in your hand. To the ancient Maya, this lifelike quality made jade a living, breathing substance. And for this reason, it possessed high religious and spiritual importance. The Maya associated it with the breath of life, with royalty, and with eternity. Covering someone's face in jade showed just how high-ranking that person was. King Shak's mask has yet to be examined properly, but another famous mask of King Pakal was made of over 346 green jade stone fragments. That's a lot of painstaking work! But maybe the most symbolically fascinating thing about this king was that he was old. Not just lived a good life old, toothless old. To us, that means he didn't clean his teeth properly, because no, you don't usually lose teeth just from getting old, as long as you maintain good oral hygiene and dental care. On the other hand, according to Maya legends, toothless elders were believed to have spiritual powers. Rulers and shamans mediated between realms, and aged or underworld deities were often shown as toothless in art. Speaking of realms, Mayan cosmology divided the universe into three layers. The upper world was where the deities lived. The middle world was where humans lived. It was carried on the back of a giant turtle or caiman, and surrounded by a primordial sea. Beneath it was the underworld, known as Xibalba, a dark and complex realm of spirits and ancestors. And certain people, especially rulers, shamans, and elders, were believed to move between these worlds. This king was a ruler, had a deity-like name, and was a toothless elder. Boy, his power level must've been off the charts! But that's not all. Here's the eerie part. The tomb was buried beneath another tomb, which was discovered all the way back in 1993. Archaeologists were investigating a different burial when they realized there was another chamber hidden beneath it, an interesting hiding place. Remarkably, it worked. For more than 1,600 years, no one found him. This makes Tikhob Shakh's tomb the first ever discovered at Karakol that can be definitely linked to a known ruler, thanks to hieroglyphs, burial contexts, and artifacts. If you're not a geography or history buff, you've probably never heard of Karakol. Today, it's a remote ruin deep in the jungles of western Belize. But around 16 centuries ago, Karakol was one of the largest and most powerful cities in the entire Maya world. At its peak, it covered over 77 square miles, which, for reference, is larger than modern-day Belize City. Its population was around 100,000 people. That's more than most cities in Europe had at that time. And it wasn't just big. It was advanced. Karakol had pyramids, ball courts, palaces, reservoirs, and a very complex road system. Stuff like limestone superhighways, stretching miles through the jungle. Past excavations also turned up arrowheads, drills, spindle whorls, figurines, and everyday tools. King Shakh's tomb was one of the three major tombs found in the northeast Acropolis. That's near Khana, the central archaeological complex at Karakol, and one of the tallest human-made buildings in all of Belize, even today. It reaches an imposing 141 feet high and contains multiple levels of elite residences and temples. But even with that size, finding tombs isn't easy at all. Most have already been looted. We don't know what else can be hidden there, and in some places, it's too risky to dig up without causing damage. That's why it took researchers decades to finally find something untouched. However, they were able to report over 850 burials and 175 tombs at Karakol over their 4-decade-long project. One of the earliest tombs, dating to around 350 CE, was a cremation burial containing ritual artifacts such as obsidian blades, atlatl spear points, and ceramic styles associated with central Mexico. So, if you're an archaeologist, this city seems to be an old historical gold mine. And old historical gold mines often come with warnings. For one thing, it's keep out, the ceiling might fall on you. Besides, even though scientists are excited about this discovery, if the king can really walk between realms, he's probably annoyed by all this. So, what happens now that the king's eternal rest has been disturbed? Well, by opening and stepping into the tomb of Teichab Schach, archaeologists basically stepped into a sealed sacred place. Maya tombs weren't just holes in the ground with a fancy coffin. They were sealed like cosmic vaults, locked up with stone, soil, and sometimes elaborate closing rituals. The goal was to mark the end of their use and protect what was inside. Archaeology at Karakol and other Maya cities shows this in action. Thick ceiling layers, termination offerings, and carefully placed debris all saying, this place is done, keep out. Today's archaeologists still treat them that way, working under Belizean laws and cultural protocols, making sure they explore with respect for what these spaces meant to the people who built them. However, it's eerie to think about mythology and whether King Schach is going to haunt the archaeologists. I guess we'll see. They shouldn't be afraid because he's old and has no teeth. Maybe he will annoy them with rain. He's named after a rain deity, after all. And we still don't know about his true power level. The Mayans were a fascinating civilization, and their structures are still among the most mysterious ones you can find. Despite being isolated from the known world, they also built pyramids without cranes, mapped stars without telescopes, and knew how to bury a king. Karakol is full of secrets. A hidden tomb under another tomb, a toothless king with scary-looking mask and a deity's name. Almost unbelievable. And amazingly, there is still stuff being found. So maybe it's not too late for me after all. But first, let's see the aftermath of this curse, huh? Archaeologists recently found something fascinating from a forgotten Maya kingdom. A tomb hidden in a collapsing pyramid. Inside, there was a king buried for 1,700 years. A jade mask that looks almost human, but not quite. And all this, thanks to the looters who missed it by just 6 feet. They stumbled upon it in 2022, in the dense jungles near the border of Guatemala, Mexico, and Belize. In Mayan times, this little place used to be called Chochquital. It's a lost city, half-swallowed by jungle. This place meant pretty much nothing compared to other big Mayan cities, like Tikal or Teotihuacan. Or so we thought. The team found a tomb of a Mayan ruler. The artifacts, the names of kings, all this revealed that Chochquital wasn't just some tiny village. It was a pretty important place for that culture. And what they found inside that tomb may rival the treasures of any Maya metropolis. The tomb's ceiling had collapsed long ago, but the offerings were still inside and remained intact even after centuries. They recovered over 16 spondylus shells. These things were used by the ancient elite for power and rituals. That meant that whoever the tomb was related to, it was someone wealthy, of high status, who got themselves a ceremonial burial. Archaeologists also found carved femur bones. They were etched with hieroglyphs and names. Maya literally wrote their history in human remains. Researchers want to dive super deep and get a DNA analysis on the bones. Maybe that will help uncover familial ties, origins, or health problems these people might have faced. And most important of all, the mosaic jade mask. It was pieced together from luminous green tiles into an expression that feels almost human, almost alive. A lot of people were joking that it's just like Jim Carrey's mask in the famous movie. But it wasn't a magical artifact. That was the face of a forgotten Maya king, staring out at us after 1,700 years of silence. His name was etched into the femur bones, Itzam Kokaj Balam. Historians think this might be the ruler who reigned around 350 BCE. Unfortunately, this period is super underdocumented. We barely know anything about those times. But it looks like he was pretty important to the locals. One of the bones even showed a carved figure holding a deity's severed head. The deity's head looks exactly like the jade mask. Perhaps this was supposed to be the king himself, defeating some mythological villain. Other inscriptions mention the king's father and grandfather. That links Txotxcatl to the mighty Maya capitals we mentioned, Tikal and Teotihuacan. Tikal was once the beating heart of the Maya world. It was a fascinating megalopolis. A city rose from the Guatemalan lowlands with towering step pyramids that scraped the sky. That place was home to tens of thousands of people. It was also a hub of art, astronomy, and culture. The rulers were worshipped almost as living deities. Their deeds were carved into stelae that still stand amid the howler monkeys. Teotihuacan was located even further north. Now that was a mystery of another kind. It wasn't really Mayan but rather Central Mexican. But still, that was a true metropolis, one of the largest cities in the world during its time. It was most famous for its Avenue of the Dead and colossal structures like the Pyramid of the Sun. It was a rich cultural center that had a worldwide influence. For centuries, both Tikal and Teotihuacan seemed to have completely different cultures. Tikal was a flourishing city-state where people loved reading, astronomy, and beautiful architecture. Teotihuacan was a titanic militaristic superpower. Two big centers of Mexico separated by 600 miles of jungle and mountains. Compared to these imperial capitals, Chochquitlán was a whisper. But it looked like this Itzam guy from the tomb wasn't just a ruler of a random village. He seemed to have political ties in ancient Mesoamerica. The craziest part is that we almost lost this piece of history all because of the looters. At some point in the past, grave robbers had tunneled dangerously close. They stopped digging just six and a half feet away from the tomb. That's just like in that meme with the diamonds. Sometimes you stop digging right before you hit it big. But in our case, thank heavens they didn't get there first. That's how close we came to losing a piece of history. In an almost poetic irony, it was the looters' tunnels themselves that led Estrada Belli's team to the site. Archaeologists have been looking around and using the so-called LIDAR technology. That's basically laser beams shot from high above, which help them map the spot. It's like taking x-rays of the jungle floor. And that's when they found the little signs of intrusion. They quickly realized that if someone was digging here, they were probably looking for something important. Without the failing looters, they might have walked past a discovery. In any case, archaeologists want to keep searching. They might even find more chambers buried inside the abandoned pyramid. We just keep finding mysterious things related to the Maya. Recently, buried deep within the ruins of Tikal, archaeologists found a house. And in that house, a limestone altar. It was What's weird is that this build wasn't made by Maya. It was unmistakably Teotihuacan in style. And just like the tomb from before, it was made about 1,700 years ago. The altar was discovered inside a Maya-era residence known as Group 6D-X7. It stood 3.5 by 6 feet right in the center of the home. That was very typical for Teotihuacan traditions. It bore a mural of the storm god. That was also a central deity in the Teotihuacan pantheon. But this altar depicted no kings and no rulers. That's very weird. As we said, Maya worshipped and honored their dynasties and political power, putting them pretty much everywhere, like some merch. But instead, this altar worshipped the deities alone. And it did so in the heart of Maya's main capital, Tikal. When archaeologists dived deeper, they saw it as unmistakable proof that Teotihuacanos not only came to Tikal, they thrived there. This house wasn't some trade outpost. People actually lived in it. Teotihuacanos built homes, practiced their rituals, and left their deities behind in this city. And Maya seemed to be chill about that. Researchers think this was a home for some elite people from Teotihuacan. Or maybe it belonged to Mayans who practiced Teotihuacano culture and deeply respected it. But it might be something darker than a simple, friendly multiculturalism. The two cities weren't in the best relationship. There was some tension, maybe even surveillance. The house and the altar were probably built around 300-400 BCE. That was a period when Tikal was rising in power. This might have caught the attention of the mighty empire to the north. It's almost as if Mayans poked the beast. By 400-450 BCE, that attention may have become something sinister. The altar could have actually been the symbol of domination. Had the Maya of Tikal truly welcomed their guests? Or did they come here and bluntly started building foreign altars in sacred spaces? Did Teotihuacan use this as some kind of soft invasion? In that case, it would make sense for Mayans to destroy that place or vandalize it somehow. Mayans regularly buried their buildings and rebuilt on top of them. But for some reason, this altar remained untouched. Mayans found it and buried it with the surrounding buildings as they were. No vandalism, no destruction, no rebuilding even. Looks like they had some complicated feelings about Teotihuacans. It was a time when cultures clashed, fused, overlapped, and possibly spied on each other. Perhaps one day we'll learn more about what really happened among these ancient civilizations.