Archaeologists at This Ancient Maya Metropolis in the Forest of Belize Are Debunking Long-Held Myths About the Mesoamerican Civilization

Diane and Arlen Chase have spent a good portion of their lives uncovering the once-great city of Caracol. Their groundbreaking research is rewriting everything we thought we knew about the Maya

Photographs by Neil Ever Osborne

November 2026

Caana, a 141-foot-high “sky palace,” was abandoned around the year 900. Over the next thousand years, it was buried beneath jungle overgrowth in remote Caracol. The palace remains the tallest human-made structure in Belize. Neil Ever Osborne

The first visit I made to the Maya ruins in Caracol, Belize, involved a three-hour trip through a labyrinth of deeply potholed dirt roads, in a vehicle helmed by a steel-nerved driver.…