Known for their distinctive temples and cities which stood for centuries but due to factors such as war and disease the Mayans faded into obscurity around 300 years ago.

However thanks to modern technology including radar archaeologists are now able to uncover the civilizations in their native North and Central American countries as Georgina Ranard explains.

Deep in the Central American jungle the trees are hiding treasures.

Radar fired from a plane peers through the canopy to search for ruins.

This is in Guatemala but archaeologists have now discovered another huge city this time in Mexico.

They're calling it Valeriana.

Now we don't have any pictures of Valeriana that's because no one's been there for hundreds of years so we thought we'd show you what it might have looked like here in this virtual studio.

This is a Mayan pyramid temple similar to the ones that would have been found in the city.

People worshipped here, brought riches like jade masks and even buried the dead.

In total the team found almost 7,000 buildings in an area of the jungle about the size of Edinburgh.

Up to 50,000 people may have lived in this area at its peak in the 9th century.

Alongside houses the archaeologists found evidence of amphitheaters, plazas and even a sports field for an ancient ballgame.

What would have been a very colorful, very lush and I think very striking environment to move through things like palaces and temple pyramids all of those would have been covered in lime plaster and then painted red, pink and yellow and black.

There would have been clusters of buildings where people mostly spend their time making ceramics or mostly spend their time shaping stone tools.

This part of the world there's some evidence for marketplaces.

It took centuries but war, climate change and the Spanish invasion caused the collapse of the Mayans.

But their descendants still live in Campeche today and at the new site, just 15 minutes from a busy road, their ancient relatives lie beneath their feet.

Georgina Ranard, BBC News.