When I was a young man, a friend of mine and I traveled to ancient Mayan ruins in the North Guatemalan jungle.
We flew on a small plane from Guatemala City to the site of Tikal, a city that flourished from 200 to 900 A.D., the high point of Mayan civilization.
Uncovered from dense vegetation that had overgrown the ancient buildings, the site includes the famous 184-foot-tall "Jaguar temple" pyramid and mysterious passageways decorated with the Mayans' artwork, writings, religious symbols and sophisticated calendars.
A Guatemalan whom I met on our trip to the central American country gave me a tile painting of the Tikal pyramid emerging from the rainforest. The artwork still hangs on my office wall some 50 years later.
Like others who've visited Mayan sites, I was astonished at the Mayans' accomplishments and perplexed about their mysterious collapse.
We saw their descendants in small villages, selling crafts and produce in markets and carrying out Mayan-influenced rituals at a Catholic Mass.
My admiration for the Mayans again took flight when I read a recent report that their civilization was even more advanced than previously believed.
Scientists using sophisticated radar technology to peer beneath the dense jungle have discovered 417 Mayan cities connected by nearly 110 miles of super highways, dating back to 1,000 B.C., according to a recent article by Washington Post reporter Charlotte Lyon.
The highway network found beneath 1,350 square miles of Guatemala's El Mirador jungle region represents "the first freeway system in the world," the article said.
New evidence of the Mayans' well-organized economic, political and social system means that they were not "hunter-gatherers" as long believed, the article said.
Begun in 2015, the investigations using lidar, or light detection and ranging technology, have uncovered a new chapter in human history. The new discoveries confirm that Mayan innovations rivaled or surpassed those of ancient Egypt, Greece and other cultures seen as the foundation of Western civilization.
The Mayans were carrying out complex economic transactions and developing elaborate social structures long before Europeans came to the new world.
Although they lived long ago, the Mayans were like us, experiencing a world of wonder and creativity.
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