By Victoria Woollaston
Hundreds of mysterious golden-coloured orbs have been found buried in a hidden chamber deep beneath the Temple of Feathered Serpent in Mexico.
The discovery was made by archaeologists from the Mexico National Institute of Anthropology and History, who admit they have no idea what the spheres are for.
A tiny robot called Tláloc II-TC, which has been scanning tunnels deep beneath the famous temple, found the orbs using infrared scanners.
They were hiding in a previously unexplored ancient chamber at the end of a stretch of 2,000-year-old unexplored tunnel on the Teotihuacan site, near the Pyramid of the Sun.
Jorge Zavala, an archaeologist on the dig said: ‘They look like yellow spheres, but we do not know their meaning.
It’s an unprecedented discovery.’
The spheres are made of clay and range from 1.5 to 5 inches in circumference.
They get their yellow colour from a material called jarosite.
Lead archaeologist Sergio Gomez explained that the spheres appear to be made of metal because jarosite is formed by the oxidation of pyrite, which is a metallic ore also known as Fool’s Gold.
The walls in the chamber were also found to be dusted in pyrite, which gave it an appearance of a gold room.
The archaeologists therefore think that the orbs would have been used by ‘high-ranking people, priests, or even rulers’ to perform rituals within the tunnels.
Although, the team admit what part they played in these rituals, and what these rituals meant remain a mystery.