🖋️ Lost cities, forgotten ruins and archaeological expeditions deep into the Mexican jungle. Ivan Šprajc combines real-life adventure with a fascinating introduction to the world of the ancient Maya.

Ciudades perdidas: Búsquedas arqueológicas en la tierra de los mayas is the Spanish translation of the expanded second edition of Ivan Šprajc’s Izgubljena mesta. It follows the Slovenian archaeologist through years of fieldwork in remote and difficult-to-reach regions of southeastern Mexico, where his teams searched for, documented and studied previously little-known Maya archaeological sites.

Written as a first-person account, the book follows Šprajc’s expeditions and discoveries chronologically. The reader encounters the practical reality of archaeology far from roads and settlements: exhausting journeys through tropical forest, unexpected obstacles, dangers and disappointments, but also the excitement of reaching forgotten ruins and making new discoveries. The result reads at times almost like an adventure story – except that the expeditions, places and discoveries are real.

Šprajc also uses these experiences to introduce the reader to the ancient Maya civilization. Along the way he discusses Maya settlements, economy, social and political organization, religion and dynastic history, as well as the development and decline of individual centres. The expanded edition also touches on advances in archaeological research, the lives of people inhabiting the region today and the challenges of protecting Mexico’s cultural heritage.

Richly illustrated and accompanied by two overview maps, this Spanish edition combines archaeological knowledge with the personal perspective of an experienced field researcher and science communicator. The book has travelled almost as widely as its author: Šprajc’s account has previously appeared in Slovenian, German and English, with the English edition published as Lost Maya Cities: Archaeological Quests in the Mexican Jungle.

🇸🇮 O knjigi:

Ciudades perdidas je španski prevod razširjene izdaje Šprajčeve uspešnice Izgubljena mesta, v kateri avtor pripoveduje o svojih arheoloških odpravah in odkritjih v osrčju nekdanjega majevskega sveta. Osebne terenske dogodivščine prepleta z dostopnim pripovedovanjem o majevski civilizaciji, njenih mestih, zgodovini in kulturi. Bogato ilustrirana knjiga je namenjena tako ljubiteljem arheologije kot bralcem, ki jih privlačijo resnične raziskovalne pustolovščine.

📌 For readers interested in:

• Maya civilization and Mesoamerican archaeology
• archaeological expeditions and field research
• Mexico and the Yucatán Peninsula
• lost cities and ancient civilizations
• first-person accounts of scientific exploration

✍️ About the Author:

Ivan Šprajc is a Slovenian archaeologist and one of the leading researchers of Maya archaeology and archaeoastronomy. His fieldwork has taken him repeatedly into remote areas of the Yucatán Peninsula, particularly southeastern Mexico, where he has led archaeological surveys and contributed to the documentation of previously little-known Maya sites.

In Ciudades perdidas, his scholarly expertise is combined with something rather rarer: the ability to explain archaeological work through the experiences, complications and discoveries of the people actually doing it in the field.