[Brent] There was a secret city
built by the Maya known as Sac Balam
or the White Jaguar.
The Spaniards spent a hundred and twenty years
looking for this city deep in the jungle.
There is a myth from the Maya,
some white jaguars will come from the sky
to eat all humanity.
Talking about the apocalypse?
You gotta admit, it's a great name for a city
if you're trying to keep people out.
This is like a proper Goonies treasure map.
So, right here should be the lost ruins
of the last Maya city in Mexico.
Careful.
That board's not great.
Machetes at the ready, here we go.
There's not even a hint of a trail here.
Now, it's just jungle.
[man speaking Spanish]
-[Josh] Structures. -[Brent] Hey.
[Josh] Structure.
-Oh, my word. -[Brent] Wow.
These are stones.
This is not natural.
-Oh, look at this. -This is a tomb.
[Josh] This is incredible.
It's alive.
These are most likely foundations for houses.
Definitely.
[Josh] I really think we are in Sac Balam right now.
This is incredible.
[dramatic music playing]
Buenos dias from the state of Chiapas
in Southern Mexico.
These lands were once the dominion of the Maya.
Over the course of nearly 4,000 years,
they created a vast network of city states
that rivaled anything else in the new world.
That is, until the Spanish arrived.
Driven by a lust for gold and glory,
the conquistadors overwhelmed the indigenous people.
And by the early 16th century,
the Maya here in Mexico had fallen,
except for one city.
A small band of Maya fled into the jungle
where they built a secret refuge
guarded by watchtowers and fierce warriors.
A place to live as their ancestors had
called Sac Balam
or the City of the White Jaguar.
For over a century, they remained free and hidden.
The location of Sac Balam bedeviled the Spanish,
who hunted for it relentlessly.
The Maya who lived there were feared by the Spanish
as fierce warriors, but also as phantoms,
who would disappear deeper into the jungle
whenever the Spanish got close.
But eventually, the conquistadors found and subdued
the last independent Maya city in Mexico.
Its people were forcibly displaced
and Sac Balam was abandoned
and lost to the jungle and time,
falling off of maps and into legend.
People have been looking for it ever since.
And now, one archaeologist is convinced he can find it.
In 2019, he led a mission into the interior,
but was rebuffed by the jungle.
Now, using a long-forgotten map
and aerial laser mapping technology,
he believes he can finally pinpoint
the city's exact location.
Sac Balam remains an unfinished chapter
in the saga of Maya civilization.
And finding it would be a major discovery.
So, what are we waiting for?
The City of the White Jaguar awaits.
[Josh] My name is Josh Gates.
Hello.
[Josh] Explorer.
Here goes nothing.
[Josh] Adventurer.
[exclaims]
Oh, this one right now.
[Josh] And a guy who ends up in some very strange situations.
I'm alive, for now.
[Josh] With a degree in archaeology
and a passion for the unexplained,
I travel to the ends of the Earth,
investigating the greatest legends in history.
Ready to rock and roll.
[Josh] This is Expedition Unknown.
In every direction, a sea of green.
This untamed rainforest
is known as the Lacandon Jungle,
which spreads out across nearly four and a half million acres
of Mexico and Guatemala.
To find my first clue to the location
of the lost City of the White Jaguar,
I'm traveling to here,
another Maya city once lost but now found.
This is Bonampak.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] A once bustling metropolis lorded over
by a huge acropolis that looms
150 feet above the open plaza below.
I'm here to meet an archaeologist
who's been searching for the lost city of Sac Balam
for nearly a decade.
Dr. Woodfill, I presume?
It is indeed. Nice to meet you, Josh.
A little warm around these parts.
And it's only going to get hotter, unfortunately.
But an absolutely incredible sight.
This is one of my favorite Maya cities.
Awesome.
And this is a very impressive monument here.
This is actually one of the largest stele,
kind of these standing stone monuments
in the entire Maya world.
And I'm guessing this is our king
or our lord here of the city?
[Brent] This is the greatest and last king of the city,
Chan Muwan II.
[Josh] So, our king here is ruling roughly when?
At the end of the 8th century.
So, this is hundreds of years,
like 700 years before the so-called
lost city of Sac Balam that we're interested in.
Yeah.
So, what is Sac Balam in simple terms?
Sac Balam is the very end
of unconquered Maya civilization.
And the particular Maya that are at Sac Balam are who?
So, they are a group of Maya called the Lacandon.
They were a Maya group who splintered off
to live deep in the jungles.
They spoke a language that was actually
the direct descendant
of the language you see on this text.
[Josh] Okay.
So, how do we go from height of the civilization here
to this lost city of Sac Balam?
So, to really understand how the Maya got to Sac Balam,
you have to look and understand
the rises and falls of the Maya over time.
[Josh] For those of you asleep
in high school history class,
the Maya civilization rose more than 4,000 years ago
and flourished throughout Central America
all the way into the 16th century,
erecting advanced city states
with populations in the hundreds of thousands
and making seriously badass achievements in astronomy,
art, mathematics, and written language.
They were also warriors
who were not to be messed with.
And their powerful ritualistic faith in their gods and divine kings
led to an extended era of prosperity.
It was toward the end of this time
in what's known as the Late Classic Period
when Bonampak's impressive acropolis was erected.
Look at the scale of this.
[Brent] It's insane.
And you never feel smaller
than climbing stairs like this.
[Brent] There is no way to go up here
with any sort of dignity remaining.
Any foreign dignitary is already humiliated
before they actually get to who they're going to meet with.
I mean, it's like you're climbing a mountain.
[Brent] The word that the Maya used
for temples at least was Witz...
Uh-huh.
...which literally means mountain.
[Josh] Uh-huh.
[Josh] At the top of the rise
is a three-chambered temple.
And what archaeologists discovered inside
is what makes Bonampak a truly historic site.
Oh, my word.
Huh.
Are you kidding me?
This is original.
Original paint,
original murals from centuries ago?
[Brent] Yeah. This was actually done around AD 790.
[Josh] These are perhaps the finest Maya murals
that survive today and the most complete view
of late Classic Maya civilization.
The elites depicted as a kind of paradise
where the people live in harmony
with the land and their gods.
The murals in this room show a celebration.
Bonampak's crown prince
being presented as the heir to the throne.
This looks like a huge party, right?
We've got this huge procession
with people blowing horns and instruments.
I mean, you can feel this life and wealth
and celebration in this room.
And what about our young heir here to the throne?
Is he going to take power?
[Brent] No. He will not accede the throne
because there is no throne for him to accede to.
Wow.
[Brent] Within a decade or two, the city has collapsed.
The city is a ghost town.
In the next room, I can show you why.
[Josh] In the second chamber,
things are decidedly darker.
Gone are the scenes of peace and harmony,
replaced with images of the Maya
at war with each other.
You can see all of these successful warriors
-from Bonampak... -[Josh] Yeah.
[Brent] ...flanking the king and presenting the captives.
You can see some of them have been tortured.
That man right there,
he's bleeding from his fingertips
because his fingernails have been pulled out.
[Josh] Uh-huh.
This is war.
There are many proposed reasons
for the collapse that follows,
including competition for resources,
drought, and foreign invasion.
But it is clear that the centers of power
fail to adapt and collaborate.
And by the 8th century, the Maya abandoned
hard to defend cities like Bonampak
in favor of smaller communities in the jungle,
which is how most Maya are living
when the Spanish arrived in the early 16th century
led by conquistador, Hernan Cortes.
So, Cortes is sort of first man in, but he...
He's not really obsessed with the Maya.
He... He's on a collision course
with the Aztecs in Mexico City.
Yeah, that's where a lot of the gold was.
Right. So, who are the conquistadors
that start to take down the Maya?
[Brent] There was Cortes' right-hand man, Alvarado.
[Josh] Mm-hmm.
[Brent] There was Montejo the Elder.
[Josh] To their so-called new world,
the Spanish brought steel, muskets, cannons,
and, of course, disease.
Much of the indigenous population here
was killed by smallpox,
and this, along with Spain's advanced weapons
and divisions within the Maya world,
allowed the Europeans to conquer this great civilization
in only a century, but not without a fight.
This... So, this is where Sac Balam comes in.
The Lacandon Maya ended up packing up shop
and moving deep into the jungle.
[Josh] By the mid-17th century
the Spanish have conquered every Maya city in Mexico, save one.
A jungle stronghold that continues to defy foreign rule,
with dozens of watchtowers
protecting over a hundred wood and thatch structures
including three massive communal buildings.
And the Spanish don't know where this place is
and I imagine this drives them nuts.
Oh, yeah. The Spaniards spent a hundred and twenty years
-looking for this city. -Wow.
[Brent] The people who live there
had become kind of boogeymen
-who terrified the Spaniards. -[Josh] Mm-hmm.
Right. Because they were so elusive?
[Brent] They were elusive and anytime
there was an encounter was a violent one.
[Josh] Right.
[Brent] They were kind of pioneers of guerrilla warfare.
And it kept them safe and hidden for decades.
But the Spanish eventually find Sac Balam.
The Spaniards find Sac Balam in 1695
after the founding of Harvard.
Right. It's that late.
Conquistador Nicolas de Valenzuela
is the man who finds and conquers the city,
quickly and brutally bringing it under his control.
The Spanish maintain it for a decade
before abandoning it to history,
where it has stayed utterly missing for centuries.
Finding it today would reveal the final secrets of the free Maya people,
a historical and cultural treasure beyond value.
Can Sac Balam be found?
I think so.
Can you find it?
I hope so.
The confidence was fading a little.
Okay.
There's a reason for that.
Brent has gone looking for Sac Balam before.
In 2019, he went into the jungle to find it,
only to be stopped short by the impenetrable wilderness.
But now, he has new information
and a new approach.
How are you gonna find it?
So, I have a colleague who's been using
Spanish colonial texts and cutting-edge technology
to try to really narrow down
where the site could be located.
-[Josh] Okay. -And we have a few good leads.
All right. Well, that's a start.
[Brent] Yeah.
I'd love for you to meet this guy.
-[Josh] Should we do it? -Let's go.
To Sac Balam.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] To meet Brent's colleague,
we leave Bonampak and head north,
deeper into Chiapas.
I've been to Mexico before,
but I've never been to this Mexico.
In 1994, the socialist Zapatista uprising
rocked the region with violence,
and it hasn't really stopped since.
Today, the Zapatistas, the Mexican government,
and let's not forget, the cartels,
all operate along this border zone.
And the roads through here are...
Fine.
It's not what I've read.
I've read that we are basically
in the middle of narco territory here.
Yeah, sure.
-But it's fine. -[Brent] It's fine.
[Josh] It's fine, right.
[Brent] Nothing's happened yet.
Nothing's happened yet.
Oh, boy.
Brent and I drive as inconspicuously as possible
to the shores of nearby Lago Izabal.
Running out of road here, Brent.
[Brent] Here...
[Josh] We are here. This is it. This is it.
Where his colleague is waiting,
an archaeologist with Mexico's
National Institute of Anthropology and History,
Josuhe Lozada.
[Brent] Josuhe.
-Hey. Good to see you, Brent. -[Brent speaking other language]
[Brent] Good to see you, man.
So, Josh, this is Josuhe, the guy I was telling...
-Nice to meet you, Josh. -you about.
Hola. Mucho gusto.
[Brent] He's been working in this area for about 15 years,
and he has been looking for Sac Balam for the last 10.
So, you've been looking for 10 years?
For 10 years.
Has it driven you crazy yet?
I think so.
[laughter]
Okay.
He has something very special.
Okay. What's that?
He may have a map to the lost city.
You have a map?
[Josuhe] A map.
-Can we see? -Yes. Yes, of course.
-Please, here. -Let me get it.
Come on.
[Josh] Is it possible that Josuhe and Brent
have figured out a path
that leads to the fabled lost city?
This is the map.
[Josh] Look at this map.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] This is like a proper Goonies treasure map.
Where did this come from?
[Josuhe] It's in the Archive of the Indies in Seville, Spain.
[Josh] Archaeologist, Brent Woodfill,
is attempting to locate the City of the White Jaguar,
Sac Balam,
the last settlement of free Maya in Mexico
before the conquest.
Sac Balam has been missing for 300 years,
but now, Brent's colleague, Josuhe Lozada,
is showing us a map
that could finally put the lost settlement within reach.
Who made this map?
So, this is a friar named Diego de Rivas,
who was actually stationed in Sac Balam
after it was conquered by the Spaniards.
[Josh] Like Spanish priests all over the Americas,
de Rivas was sent to Sac Balam
to convert the indigenous people to Catholicism.
When he was later reassigned, he drew this map
to depict the route from Sac Balam
to another settlement in a lake in neighboring Guatemala.
So, we have this literal hand-drawn map here on the right,
and then a lot of writing on the left.
What is this?
[Josuhe] This is a key of all the places
that he marks on the map.
[Josh] So, it's a literal key, so it's A, B, C, D, E, F,
-and these are all locations on the map? -[Josuhe] Yeah.
These are all locations he was eventually
going to put on the map had he actually finished it.
The map's unfinished?
This is quite literally a map to a lost city.
But there is one big catch.
Does he bother to mark the location of Sac Balam?
Does he... Does he do that?
No.
What?
It's in the key, under letter D.
So, Pueblo de Nuestra Senora de los Dolores.
So, this is the name of Sac Balam,
the Spanish renamed it?
-Yes. -Yes.
-But there's no D over here? -[Brent] No.
No.
Perfect. Okay.
So, looking at this map, what do we know for sure?
For sure, this is the place where he ended the journey.
-So, we have this labeled? -[Josuhe] Right.
-That's the finish line? That's where he's gone? -[Josuhe] Yeah. Yeah.
-It's the finish line. -Okay. So, that's a lot.
I mean, that gives us a geographical pole
in the ground here.
-[Brent] Yes. -That's right.
Right?
Okay. What else do we know?
[Josuhe] We have some directions.
Here is the north.
Norte.
Here's the south.
[Josh] Sur. Okay.
So, we've got our end point
and we've got cardinal directions.
-[Josuhe] Mmm-hmm. -And what else?
What is this symbol?
[Josuhe] Mmm-hmm.
So, the key is actually a really important
salt production zone
that the Maya were using and the Spaniards took over.
[Josh] Okay. And we see that on here, Salinas.
And so, do we know where this location is today?
Well, I've actually been working there for 12 years, so...
So, we better know where it is?
-[Brent] Yeah. -Okay.
So, this is another real geographical pin
that we can put in this map?
So, how do we figure out where Sac Balam was?
Josh, there are two roads
that might be the key to figuring out where it is.
Okay.
[Brent] The first is labeled O right here.
O is the road from Sac Balam to the salt works.
[Josh] Oh, that's huge.
So, that means you follow this dotted line,
and somewhere out here should be Sac Balam?
[Brent] Exactly.
And then, also, this road
that would lead from a town in Guatemala to Sac Balam,
but the road never got built.
[Josh] A planned Spanish road from the Guatemalan town
of Ixtatán to Sac Balam,
along with the road from the salt works,
offers us two paths that lead to a critical intersection.
-May I? -Yeah.
Yeah, of course.
[Josh] X marks the spot.
Now, we just need to find X,
the lost city of Sac Balam should be there.
So, how do we figure out where that X is?
The way to figure out is to look in these lines.
-[Josh] These? -[Josuhe] Yes.
[Josh] Are these rivers? They look like rivers.
[Josuhe speaking]
-We can identify the rivers... -[Josh] Okay.
to figure out the distance to Sac Balam.
I want to show you this map.
Oh, a much better map.
[Josuhe speaking]
[Josh] Okay. So, what is one with all the twists in it?
[Josuhe speaking]
[Josh] Yeah. You can totally see that.
[Josh] The many undulations of the Lacantun River
align with the twists seen on Don Diego's crude map.
And then, the one that goes across?
This is the Usumacinta River.
[Josh] Don Diego's account was that he arrived
at the intersection of the two rivers
after five days on the Lacantun,
and continuing to work backward,
he arrived at the river
after four days of walking from Sac Balam.
And is that what this big circle is?
[Josuhe] Yes.
[Josh] This is a four-day walk?
[Josuhe] Yes, that's right.
[Josh] The diameter represents a four-day walk
in any direction to this part of the Lacantun River.
But Don Diego wrote
that he trekked from the west,
which means that Josuhe has narrowed down
the location of Sac Balam
to an incredibly tight search zone.
So, somewhere in this red arc is Sac Balam?
This is extraordinary, because it really now, for the first time...
-[Josuhe] Yeah. -...is offering an actual target.
[Brent] Yeah.
It still isn't a silver bullet,
but it takes it down for about 1,500 square miles
to about a hundred and fifty.
Wow. That's a huge jump though.
Yeah.
So, is there any way to get into this target zone?
[Brent] Yeah. We can come in from the west
where there are actually several roads
and established communities.
It doesn't get us all the way there,
but it'll get us close.
So, we've got awesome new data here,
we've got a probable area...
[Brent] Mmm-hmm.
now we need a real X.
Yes.
[Josh] Fortunately, that X may already have revealed itself.
Brent and Josuhe have been contacted by a park ranger
who recently came across stones inside the target zone
that he believes are manmade ruins.
These could be a major break,
but meeting him will be a journey in itself.
We need to travel 120 miles
through narco traffic territory
to the ranger's outpost
on the edge of Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve.
But if this lead pans out,
we might be able to locate the fabled lost city.
Josuhe.
Yeah.
Why did they call Sac Balam the White Jaguar?
Talking about the apocalypse?
That's right.
Okay.
I mean, you got to admit, it's a great name for a city
if you're trying to keep people out.
Right. The city at the end of the world.
Wow.
[Josh] Two hours later, we enter the park.
The ranger's station sits along a river
further inside the reserve.
And naturally,
the hike begins with a challenge.
Okay. Well, that looks safe.
[dramatic music playing]
Maximum capacity, four people?
What size people?
-I... -What kind of people?
I'm assuming not us.
We're at least four and a half people right here I feel like.
[laughs] Okay.
What's the worst that could happen?
We could fall to our deaths,
I think, is the worst that could happen.
After you.
So generous of you.
[Brent laughs]
Immediately, it's sketchy.
It's... This is fine.
These boards look great.
Careful.
That board's not great.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] Okay.
Okay.
[dramatic music playing]
Okay.
And we're alive.
[Josh] Safely across, we walk up river
and into another world.
Look at this place.
Woo.
Wow!
[Josh] Finally, we descend down
to meet the man who may have found
the X on Don Diego's map,
naturalist and ranger, Efrain Guzman Gomez.
[Josuhe] Efrain. Como estas.
-Hola. Josh. -[speaking Spanish]
-[Josuhe] This is Josh. -Hola. Josh.
-Efrain, this is... -Brent. Mucho gusto.
Very nice to meet you.
So, I understand that you saw something out in the jungle?
What did he see?
[speaking Spanish]
There are structures made of shaped stone.
Okay. Ancient structures, old structures?
Uh-huh.
-[Josuhe speaking Spanish] -[speaking Spanish]
[in Spanish]
I only saw a few, but it looked manmade.
About how far is this site from right here?
We're talking more or less 15 kilometers.
Oh, 15 kilometers.
Fifteen kilometers as the crow flies through the jungle?
[Brent] Yeah.
That's a long way.
-Yeah. -Okay.
Can you take us there?
[speaking Spanish]
-In the boat? -[speaking Spanish]
The whole way?
[Brent laughs]
I'm not even gonna ask.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] We can cut some of the distance
to Efrain's find by traveling upriver.
He's leading us to his site
where we'll camp while we investigate.
We steam against the current
as millions of gallons of jade-colored water
flow from the faraway highlands of Mexico.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] But while the views are stunning,
it's not lost on any of us that with each passing mile,
the safety of civilization recedes further behind us.
Luckily we do have directions.
So, hypothetically, where are we on this map?
We are way up this river.
[Josh] So, this is the Lacantun River?
[Josuhe] Yes, the Lacantun River.
And we're what, in like a tributary of that?
Yeah. We're in one of the tributaries.
It's called the Jatate.
The Jatate River?
-[both] Yeah. -[Josh] Okay.
[Josh] We're moving along the same river system
as Don Diego's map,
in the direction of the projected location of Sac Balam.
So, we're in a tributary of this river,
and we're headed upstream?
Yes.
So, ultimately, this is getting us closer
to your investigation zone, yes?
-Yes, in that point. -[Josh] Okay.
And after that, we're on foot?
-Yeah, we're gonna walk. -[speaking Spanish]
[speaking Spanish]
[Josh] And then, we go straight to the X, right?
[Brent] Yeah.
It's just that simple.
-Why hadn't I thought of that before? -So simple.
Should be home by dinner, I would think.
[Josh] To find Sac Balam, we have Don Diego's map
and Efrain's memory.
But we also have other clues.
In detailed writings, Nicolas de Valenzuela,
the Spaniard who conquered Sac Balam,
described a number of distinguishing features
to help us identify the city.
He wrote that Sac Balam is in the northern part
of a long narrow valley surrounded by high ridges.
Three large wood and thatch structures
were set on platforms atop mounds
with a hundred smaller house mounds nearby.
All helpful if we can find them.
[suspenseful music playing]
[speaking Spanish] This is us.
-[Josuhe] Yes. -[Brent] All right.
[Josh] Okay.
[speaking Spanish]
I don't wanna lose this.
All right. We're on foot. Here we go.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Josh sighs]
This is brutal.
[Josh] Deep in the jungles of Southern Mexico,
we're following a local ranger
named Efrain Guzman Gomez
on an expedition to find the lost city
of Sac Balam, which was conquered
by Spanish conquistador, Nicolas de Valenzuela.
Finding the ruins would mean locating
the last free Maya city in Pre-Columbian Mexico.
Okay. So, we'll see how far away these structures are
that Efrain's taking us to.
Yeah.
But in terms of the historical sources,
does Valenzuela tell us how far the hike is
from the river to Sac Balam?
He says that the river is about a league and a half from Sac Balam.
A league and a half.
Is this Jules Verne? What the hell?
How far is a league?
-[Josh] 3 miles? -[Josuhe] Yeah.
So, we've got a four and a half mile trek here?
That's also assuming that we parked our boat
right at the closest spot.
And just so I know, what's gonna kill me in this jungle?
Okay. So, we've got lots of venomous snakes.
Uh-huh. Fer-de-lances, things like that?
[Brent] Oh, yeah. Fer-de-lance, corals,
-some pit vipers. -Mmm-hmm.
[Brent] Also jaguars and panthers.
Okay. Great.
A lot of jaguars.
There's a lot of jaguars?
I mean, this is the City of the White Jaguar.
[Josh] Sure. Fair enough.
At least we're out of narco territory, yes?
Huh. So, there are clandestine airstrips all over this park.
-In the national park? -[Brent] Oh, yeah.
Okay. I'm sorry I asked.
Also tropical diseases, uh, killer bees.
[Josh] Enough, Brent.
[Brent laughs] Angry packs of peccary pigs.
[Josh] Good Lord.
[suspenseful music playing]
Hiking here is super challenging.
Not just because the trail is so uneven,
but because there are trees here you definitely
do not want to touch.
Very painful.
-Hey, Josh. -Yeah?
You might wanna roll your sleeves down.
Why is that?
These are plants that I call tears of sadness.
Does that mean they're poisonous?
Oh, yeah.
I mean, you're gonna be itching for weeks.
[Josh] We navigate past the sadness,
and then move up a slope
covered in nonpoisonous plants
that instead are just trying to strangle us.
We swing away for hours, but the foliage is so thick
that we're making a slow progress.
I mean, there's not even a hint of a trail in here.
Now, it's just jungle.
[Josh] Eventually, though, the vines thin out
to let us pass and we emerge into a clearing
that causes Brent to stop in his tracks.
[Brent] Josh, take a look at this valley.
Remember I told you that de Valenzuela
said that Sac Balam was in a long narrow valley
in the northern part surrounded by ridges.
Right.
He even describes a nice breeze.
Which we can feel right now.
And we are at the very northern edge of this valley right now.
-[Brent] Yeah. -[Josh] Right?
And we're about how far from the river?
[Brent] Still over a league.
[Josh] So, this valley matches that description to a T?
To a T.
So, if this is the right location,
then somewhere up there
underneath all that jungle canopy,
there might be a lost city.
We might be on the outskirts right now.
Okay. Well, now, we just got to find it.
-All right. Let's-- -[Josh] All right.
Machetes at the ready, here we go.
All right.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Josh] Efrain leads us even further toward the area
where he saw evidence of manmade structures.
But if Sac Balam is here, it's well camouflaged,
and so is the wildlife.
In the jungle, you gotta be careful
what you touch because even the sticks are alive.
There you go.
Blend back into the jungle.
[Josh] We continue deeper into the humid rainforest
and deeper...
and deeper.
And just as I'm about to lay down and expire,
I hear words that are music to my ears.
[Efrain speaking Spanish]
-[Josh] Structures? -[Brent] Hey.
[Josh] Structure. Hey.
Oh, look at this!
-Oh, my word. -[Brent] Wow.
[Josh] Wow. We got stones. Look at this.
[Josuhe] Yes.
[Josh] Amazing.
This is not natural.
Look at how squared off that is.
[Brent] Look at how this line extends all the way down there.
Y'all, it gives us more right there.
-[Brent] Yeah. -[Josuhe] Yeah.
[Josh] This is a platform.
-We're on a platform. -Yeah.
[Josuhe] On a platform.
Hey. Amazing.
This is a platform.
[Josh] To conquer the unforgiving jungle terrain,
the Maya had to create level ground.
Stone platforms like this were the foundations
for single and multifamily homes
made of wood and thatch.
Valenzuela, when he wrote his report,
he actually said that there were about
a hundred small house mounds just like this.
This might be one of them.
Should we try and clear this off?
-Let's do it. -Yeah.
-Okay. Let's see what else is under here, guys. -All right.
[suspenseful music playing]
These pieces are big. Look at this.
Yeah. Yeah.
[Josh] These shaped stones are all over this area.
More stone here.
[Josh] The ground is full of beautiful,
manmade right angles.
[Josh] It's just perfectly square.
Look at this, more stone under here.
-[Brent] Wow. -[Josh] You could just see stone peeking out
everywhere on the jungle floor.
There's a lot more here.
[Brent] Yeah, for sure.
[Josh] The structures that these stones supported
for now are a mystery.
But the good news is that where there's one
building platform, there should be more.
We ascend further up the hill at the end of the narrow valley
and soon see something that shouldn't be here.
Hey, stone, right there.
[Josuhe] Yes.
-[Josh] Is that manmade? -[Josuhe] Let's see.
[Josh] Look at that.
-[Josuhe] Wow. -[Brent] Oh, yeah, these are some cut stones
-or the-- -[Josh] That's a cut stone for sure.
[Brent] Oh, yeah.
There's a natural outcrop down here,
but these are definitely cut stone.
[Josh] So, what is this?
We're on a huge slope here.
This is a watchtower.
-[Josh] This is a watchtower? -Yes.
[Josh] At Sac Balam, watchtowers like this
might have ringed the entire city,
which may have also helped to keep them hidden.
The presence of a defensive structure here
may be a sign that we're close
to an important settlement.
[Brent] You can see through the trees.
We've got a great view of a huge chunk
-of the valley here. -[Josh] Right.
We're almost at the edge of this ridge here
and you can see everything here.
Would there have been multiple watchtowers here?
Yes, of course.
The Mayas put fire to communicate
with another areas.
Like Lord of the Rings?
-Yeah. -Right?
If somebody sees something in one watchtower,
-they light a signal... -[Josuhe] Yes.
...somebody else lights a signal,
and that's how you alert the perimeter?
Yeah, we're looking for Sac Balam and we found Gondor.
-[laughs] -That's right.
That's incredible though.
The people of Sac Balam managed to evade the Spanish
for over a hundred years.
They pulled out all the stops.
Coming up with any defensive measures they could think of.
So, this would make sense.
All right. Let's keep moving. Come on.
-[Brent] All right. -[Josh] It's getting better and better.
[Josh] We trudge further uphill
to see if there's more to find.
This looks like more stone here.
-[Josuhe] Something here. -[Brent] Yeah, it's--
[Josh] Yeah, for sure.
-Something here. -That's deep.
Is it natural or...
[Josh] I don't think so.
-Oh, look at this. -[Josuhe] This is a tomb.
[Josh] This is incredible.
-This is a tomb. -[Josuhe] Yeah, yes.
[suspenseful music playing]
There's something here.
-[Brent] Yeah, it is. -[Josh] Yeah, for sure.
-Oh, look at this. -[Josuhe] This is a tomb.
-[Brent] Yeah, yes. -[Josh] This is a tomb.
-Wow. -Wow.
This is all stone-lined here and it's just scalloped out.
-This is looted. -Definitely.
-[Josuhe] Yes. -[Josh] Tomb for sure?
Tomb.
[Josh] On a trek with archeologists Brent Woodfill
and Josuhe Lozada, we're hunting for the ruins
of the City of the White Jaguar,
Sac Balam.
We found a tomb that may once have held
precious Maya offerings or ceremonial jewelry.
We're not the first ones here.
[Brent] Unfortunately not.
Archeologists really never are.
-Right. -[Brent] These are living landscapes.
People come here and hunt and pass through
and have for hundreds of years.
[Josh] A stone-lined Maya tomb, even a looted one,
is a remarkable find and one that leads us
to start considering other possibilities.
At this point, there's a lot of architecture out here.
There is no question that there is a community of people out here.
No question at all.
So, in terms of our Sac Balam checklist here,
we now have a lot going for us, right?
Everything we've seen so far
fits the bill 100%.
So, now, what?
So, now, I think it's time to call in some help.
You're feeling that good about it?
I'm feeling better and better about the fact that this could be the place.
-And you? -Absolutely.
-[Josh] You are? -Yes.
So, I already have a team doing work over in San Cristobal.
They have a LiDAR scanner.
There's also a great archeologist
who specializes in this time period.
Some of Efraim's guys could bring them out tomorrow.
That'd be amazing.
And as for us, what's our move?
We need to find some flat ground to camp for tonight.
-Flat ground? -Yeah.
I haven't seen that in a while.
-[Brent] Yeah. Good luck. -[Josh] Good luck.
[Josh] We fan out to find a level campsite,
feeling like we're on the verge
of completing Don Diego's map.
But with any wood and thatch structures
long since decayed,
Brent and Josuhe can't be sure
until an aerial LiDAR scan confirms the extent of the settlement
by looking for more stone platforms.
[Efrain speaking Spanish]
-Oh. -This is pretty flat.
It's a good place to camp.
-Is this our spot? -This is our spot.
-Okay. Let's do it. -Cool.
[Josh] After we find a clearing,
Brent calls in our GPS position
with a SAT phone so his LiDAR team can find us.
And we set up camp for a night in the jungle.
[suspenseful music playing]
All right. Home sweet home.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Josh] All right.
Time to sleep.
[birds chirping]
Hmm.
Just another beautiful...
[screams]
[Josh] Needless to say, I do not sleep in.
Instead, we explore around the campsite
and by early afternoon, we hear a welcome sound.
Other humans.
We got voices.
[Josh] Brent and Josuhe's LiDAR team
has been hiking since before dawn to get here.
-Hey, how's it going, Nick? -Good to see you again, Brent.
-Hey, man, I'm Josh. -Hi, Josh. Nice to meet you.
Yeah. So, this is the rest of the team
that was over in San Cristobal.
This is Nick and his crew from Juniper Unmanned.
You guys are here to do the aerial scanning, yeah?
-Yes. -[Josh] Great.
-That's correct. -And these are the archeologists
working with me.
This is Yuko and Ruben.
Nice to meet both of you.
So, now that we're all here, what's the plan?
Yuko and Ruben are going to start digging some test pits.
-[Josh] Okay. -Just small little pits, seeing if we can hit anything
so we get an idea of dates and times and people.
-Got it. -And the LiDAR folks
are gonna start doing their thing.
[Josh] While the archeologists begin excavating in this area,
I walk to a small clearing with the LiDAR team
as they set up to scan the valley.
All right. So, talk to me. Obviously, this is a drone.
What is this bad boy?
This is a multirotor hexacopter
made to carry heavy payloads.
And in this case, the heavy payload
is this black and yellow unit here.
-That's LiDAR? -Yes, sir.
-That's the LiDAR unit. -Okay.
And LiDAR is obviously magic.
[chuckles] Yeah.
So, LiDAR stands for light detection and ranging.
-Or magic. -Magic. Yeah. [laughs]
[Josh] Aerial LiDAR sends millions of laser pulses
to the ground.
It's alive.
[Josh] And measures the distance to fractions of a millimeter,
allowing scientists to digitally peel away
layers of foliage that have been growing for centuries.
Foliage that may be obscuring ancient structures,
rendering them invisible to the naked eye.
In our case, we're hoping the LiDAR
can show us the full extent of this settlement
and if it's large enough to be Sac Balam.
So, what do we wanna see more of?
Everything.
It's really hard to see anything here,
-as I'm sure you've seen from walking around. -Yes.
What we know from de Valenzuela
is that he talked about three larger mounds
in the center of the site
where there are communal architecture.
[Josh] Got it.
[Brent] But they're all made of wood and the thatch roofs.
[Josh] Right.
So, all we're really gonna see is probably
structures about this high.
-Mmm-hmm. -Maybe some a little bit higher,
-maybe some even lower. -Right.
But those are really hard to find.
We can walk right next to a mound
and not even know it's there.
Right.
[Josh] With our air game covered,
it's time to see what else is on the ground.
And it so happens that Yuko and Ruben
are making discoveries in the test pits.
[Josh] Look at this. Huh.
[Yuko] So, this is flat limestone.
It's really nicely cut and shaped.
[Josh] This is crazy.
This looks like a modern floor tile.
So, no question, this is a cut piece, right?
[Yuko] Mmm-hmm.
So, this was primarily used for what, floor surfaces?
Floor surfaces and also the wall facade.
-[Josh] Oh, this is like a facing stone? -[Yuko] Facing stone.
So, should we go a little deeper? See what's there?
Yeah, I'd like to see the edge of the stone.
Okay. Great. Let's dig.
[Josh] Quarried limestone was quite literally
the building block with which the Maya created their cities.
To find it here is to see the Maya's hands at work.
Look at this.
Ooh, is that pottery? Look at this.
We've seen all this evidence of stone working up here,
but now, we've got pottery.
So, Yuko, you're the expert.
What can you tell us about that?
Looks like it had red slip on it.
Okay. Red slip is like the coating
-or the surface decoration. -Yeah, surface cording.
-[Josh] Okay. -[Yuko] Got the orange paste color.
And there's some calcite temper.
So, dating-wise, we think this is from when?
In the Postclassic period.
-You think it's Postclassic? -Mmm-hmm.
So, this is what they would've been making at Sac Balam up until that period?
[Brent] Yeah, they haven't been conquered yet.
So, they're still in the Postclassic.
Awesome. Okay. Let's see if there's more.
[intense music playing]
[Josh] We've got limestone. We've got pottery.
And soon enough, we have something even more special.
[Brent] Hey, what's that?
[Yuko] Oh, hey. Yeah.
[Josh] Obsidian.
Obsidian.
It's a very, very tiny blade.
We're really far away from any obsidian source.
So, this was a very precious commodity.
So, obsidian really is like the steel of Mesoamerica, right?
I mean, this is what you're making your cutting implements out of.
[Josh] Obsidian is a type of brittle volcanic glass
that was crafted by Mesoamericans
into both household tools and lethal weapons.
Its presence here far from the volcanoes
to the South may bolster the idea
that this place was a haven for fleeing Maya.
[Josh] You look at this and you think,
"Oh, this is nothing.
This is just a tiny thing."
But this really is a razor sharp implement.
[Brent] Oh, yeah. Be careful with it.
That is incredible.
So, from a mine somewhere in Guatemala
to the middle of the jungle in Mexico.
-Yeah. -[Josh] Wow.
That's a little piece of a Maya knife right there.
I'm becoming more and more convinced
that this is the place.
Yeah, we have a lot of good circumstantial evidence at this point.
It's all gonna come down to the LiDAR.
That's the only way we're gonna see this place
-in its entirety. -Yeah.
[dramatic music playing]
Beautiful. Awesome.
-Nice work, man. -Thank you.
-Yeah. -[Josh] Good flying.
[Josh] The LiDAR drone touches down,
and then we gather around a nearby computer
to analyze its results.
Okay. So, do we have data?
Yes, we have lots of data.
Do we have good data?
-Yeah, it's great. -I like great.
-Let's take a look at it. What do we got? -[Nicholas] Fantastic.
All right. So, what we're looking at right here
is about two square kilometers of this valley.
Brent is literally smiling ear to ear already.
It would take us months to machete through all that.
And how much data are we looking at here visualized?
Around 500 million points covering the entire valley.
-Five hundred millions? Wow. -Wow.
-The half-a-billion data points. -[Nicholas] Yeah.
We have our canopy here
and now, I'm gonna strip that away.
-Look at this. -[Josuhe] Wow, wow.
[Josh] After a long day of trekking in the Mexican jungle,
we gather around the campfire hoping to relax.
Well, first of all, cheers.
-Cheers. -I have to say, even though I'm exhausted,
I feel thrilled
because of where we might be sitting.
If this is Sac Balam,
then just over 300 years ago,
there would have been hundreds of Maya people
right in these jungles, right here.
If this is where we think it is,
this is one of the last holdouts
of free indigenous people anywhere in the Americas.
[monkey howling]
Howler monkey?
-Yeah. -Yes.
Or King Kong just got out.
[laughter]
Howler monkeys are like this big, right?
-Oh, yeah. They're tiny. -They're tiny.
They're buff, but they're tiny.
But they sound like that.
Yeah, I heard that they actually have bones
in their larynx so you can hear 'em
3 miles away if the wind's right.
Terrifying. Terrifying.
[monkey howling]
This is incredible.
Look at all the geography that you can see
that you totally can't detect under that canopy.
Oh, that's amazing.
[Josh] In the jungles of Chiapas, Mexico,
we're examining the LiDAR data of a site we believe
could be the legendary Maya city of Sac Balam.
Question is, did you find structures?
Yes. Yes, we did.
-Yes? -Structures.
Show us. Where?
[Nicholas] On the valley floor
we found some mound structures.
Look at these. These are foundation mounds.
Brent, does this look like where a house would be built?
Definitely. About how big are they?
They're approximately seven meters by seven meters.
[Josuhe] This is the perfect size for a Maya house.
[Josh] That's incredible.
These are most likely foundations for houses.
Definitely.
So, people were living here.
-People were living here. -This is awesome.
Did you find any other structures?
Oh, yeah. We found more along the ridges.
-Really? -What's on the ridge?
[Nicholas] Up on the ridge,
we found these rectangular structures.
-[Brent] Look at that. -[Josh] Wow.
Sitting right at the top of the ridge,
that would lead me to believe
they were miradors, or lookouts.
Oh, which we think we found in the jungle.
-One of these watchtower structures. -[Brent] Yeah.
[Josuhe] Maybe watchtower, right?
[Nicholas] It's approximately 10 meters by 10 meters
sitting right at the top of the ridge.
It allows them a full view of the valley
from north to the south end.
As we go farther south along the ridge,
we found more groupings of these rectangular shapes.
Small platforms just raised above the ridge.
This shows us that there is a perimeter
of defensive structures up there.
This shows that the people who lived here
were investing a lot of time and energy
trying to make the best defensive system they could.
Absolutely. Okay.
Anything else?
We found one more structure
that I think you guys will like.
[Josh] Holy [bleep].
[Nicholas] It's the largest one we found.
It's approximately 34 meters in length.
It's a hundred-foot long structure.
de Valenzuela says that there are three
big public structures in the middle,
which he says were actually 36 meters long.
[Josh] 36-meter long structures.
That's incredible though.
I mean, that's almost an exact match.
[Josh] This is what we've been looking for.
This discovery not only mirrors the description
from the conquistadors,
but its sheer size speaks volumes.
The fact that there is a hundred-foot long structure
sitting in this valley
definitely tells us
that this is not some backwater place
with a few inhabitants.
That is a larger scale project.
This might end up being the silver bullet.
-Right here. -[Brent] Right here.
Do you think this could be Sac Balam?
I think when we first saw it,
I was maybe about 80% sure.
-Uh-huh. -I'm up to, like, 99%.
All of this screams Sac Balam.
-That's incredible. -[Brent] Yeah.
[Josh] What about you?
I think we find Sac Balam.
-You do? -Yes, for sure.
Lost city, found.
Absolutely Great.
-Great. -Amazing. Brent, what a pleasure.
-Josuhe, awesome. -Yeah.
This is incredible.
[Josh] It's no wonder that the fabled Sac Balam
has been so elusive.
After all, it was built to not be found.
But here, in the deepest reaches of the jungle,
the White Jaguar seems to have revealed itself.
In the weeks that follow, the LiDAR data is refined
and the results are remarkable.
The laser scans detected more platforms
buried in the jungle,
including a huge set of terraces for homes
and on the ridge above us, what appears to be
a sizable building with what may be an altar
at one end.
If we have found Sac Balam, it's impossible to overstate
how historic a discovery it is
and how important the work ahead will be.
Now, it must be fully ground truth as they say,
an excavation will need to be launched to interrogate
these hidden features, which will help us preserve
the final refuge of the free Maya in Mexico.
Though Sac Balam fell, the fact is,
the conquistadors failed to extinguish Maya culture.
Throughout Mexico, it endures in the people,
in the traditions, in the history,
and even here intertwined
with the rainforest itself.
The Maya are a part of the land
and this discovery shows us
they always will be.