A Maya Ruler Called Bat May Have Governed the Newly Found City of Minanbé in Mexico’s Jungle

A lost Maya city in the jungle of Campeche, Mexico, now has a possible ancient name, a named ruler and a rival. Epigrapher Octavio Esparza Olguín of Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM) reads the city’s name as Sakil, and its ruler as Suutz’, which means “Bat.” Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) announced the readings, and Arkeonews reported them on 9 to 10 November 2026. The city is Minanbé, which we first covered in our report on the intact Maya city found in Mexico’s jungle.

How the city was found

A Mexican-Slovenian team led by Ivan Šprajc found the site in May 2026, as part of a long-running survey of the Central Maya Lowlands. Airborne LiDAR first showed structures hidden under the forest canopy. The team then went to see them. Crews and local workers cleared about 5 kilometers of overgrown terrain, and the team used all-terrain vehicles and walked the rest. The team named the city Minanbé, which means “there is no road” in Yucatec Maya, because the journey was so hard.

The city lies in Campeche, north of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. It covers about 15 hectares, with plazas, palace-style and religious buildings, terraces and water-management features. A temple pyramid rises more than 13 meters and shows traits of the Río Bec architectural style. The team saw no sign of modern looting, which sets the site apart from many nearby ones.

The ruler called Bat

The first survey recorded 14 stelae and altars. A later count found nearly 20 monuments, with at least five carrying traces of inscriptions or carved imagery. Esparza Olguín read the glyphs, helped by 3D photogrammetry models of the damaged surfaces.

He reads the ruler’s name as Suutz’, “Bat,” on Stela 7 and Altar 6. The texts give him a title with the signs sak and ajaw, meaning “lord,” and the title kalo’mte’, which powerful Classic-period rulers used. Stela 7 was once a single monument that someone later split into three sections. The reading of the city’s own name, Sakil, a Maya term linked to whiteness, remains a proposal. INAH’s June 2026 announcement also described a possible decapitation scene at the site and a date of AD 849, near the end of the region’s Classic-period political order. That is roughly 1,100 years ago.

A rival 40 kilometers away

The clue to a rival comes from Ocomtún, a larger Maya center about 40 kilometers northwest of Minanbé. Šprajc’s team found it in 2023. Monument 1 at Ocomtún began as a doorway lintel and later became a step. Its relief shows a captive lying face down with bound wrists, and nearby glyphs identify the captive’s origin as Sakil.

This suggests fighting between the two cities in the Late Classic period, roughly AD 600 to 900, or about 1,100 to 1,400 years ago. The evidence does not yet establish the circumstances or who won.

Sources: INAH bulletin “Descifran el nombre original de Minanbé,” with epigraphy by Octavio Esparza Olguín (UNAM), via Arkeonews, 9 to 10 November 2026. Image: the team named the Campeche city Minanbé, “there is no road,” because of the difficult journey. Credit: Vitan Vujanović / INAH.