Many people know about the famous sights of the Mayan civilization - cities, pyramids, frescoes, artifacts, etc. But for some reason, few people know that the Mayan state had a developed network of roads, which are called sakbe and are partially preserved to this day. Moreover, the sakbe have not been practically studied, and many of them have not been cleared of the trees that have grown on them.
However, those sakbe that have survived are amazing. Sakbe are powerful structures made of rubble, pebbles and limestone.
In some places they are about 20 meters wide and about 3 meters high. Moreover, such roads stretched for hundreds of kilometers, connecting all significant Mayan cities. Interestingly, these structures are clearly visible on satellite maps - and they amaze with how straight they are - even modern roads do not have such perfect accuracy.
In some places of the Sakbe there are arches and tunnels, and next to them there are grandiose structures.
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It is possible that sakbe are ancient highways. Maybe these are embankments that were used for some form of transport, like our trains. It is possible that there were rails or a system of magnets on the embankments, as in the transport of the future - hyperloop.
By the way, in some places on the sakba rails have already been laid and are used to transport goods.
By the way, in the scientific world it is believed that the Mayan civilization did not have a wheel. Perhaps that is why we know so little about sakba, and they are almost never studied - if their secrets are revealed, then history textbooks will have to be rewritten entirely.
Author: Natalia Trubinovskaya