Reuters, Washington

Scientists using an aerial remote-sensing method have discovered the largest and oldest-known structure built by the ancient Maya civilisation - a colossal rectangular elevated platform built between 1,000 and 800 BC in Mexico’s Tabasco state.

The structure, unlike the soaring Maya pyramids at cities like Tikal in Guatemala and Palenque in Mexico erected some 1,500 years later, was not built of stone but rather of clay and earth, and likely was used for mass rituals, researchers said on Wednesday.

Located at a site called Aguada Fenix near the Guatemalan border, the structure measured nearly a quarter mile wide and nine-tenths of a mile long and stood 33 to 50 feet high. In total volume, it exceeded ancient Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza built 1,500 years earlier.