A teen just discovered a lost ancient city from his bedroom using Google Maps

If MTV Cribs taught us anything (aside from how we should all be a little more like former Fulham goal celebrating machine Luis Boa Morte), it’s that the bedroom is where the magic happens.

But ‘the magic’ (albeit a very different type) isn’t just confined to celebs with tigerprint sheets and a mirror on the ceiling.

Canadian schoolboy and proper brainiac William Gadoury has not only cooked up a theory that links the locations of long-lost ancient Central American cities with constellations in the sky, but he’s put his findings into practice to discover a never-before-found Mexican civilisation – all from the comfort of his room.

The fifteen-year-old (yes, fifteen) created the theory whilst poring over diagrams of the stars and maps of Mayan settlements. Once he found the two were associated, noting that 117 Mayan cities through Mexico, Guatamala, El Salvador and Honduras all matched positions in 22 constellations, he jumped onto Google Maps to see if he could discover his very own settlement using a star that was at the time yet to be linked to a settlement. It bloody well worked.

Buried deep in the jungles of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico (one of the most remote areas in the country) and at the precise coordinates he punched in, Gadoury stumbled across the ruins of a Mayan pyramid and dozens of smaller structures around it. What’s more, once the photos are verified, it could well be one of the largest Mayan settlements ever discovered.

Gadoury has christened his new-found ruins as K’aak Chi, which translates to Fire Mouth. After becoming fascinated with the Mayans on reading about their predictions for the end of the world, the schoolboy now hopes to trek through the jungle to see what’s left of the structures with his own eyes.

"It would be the culmination of my three years of work and the dream of my life,” he told Journal de Montreal.

Fifteen years old. Fifteen. Incredible stuff. 

(Images: Canadian Space Agency)