INTERNATIONAL: A wooden canoe used by the ancient Mayan 1,000 years ago was found on Friday while workers building a tourist rail project championed by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador were inspecting the area surrounding the cenote which is near a section of the project that will connect with Cancun, Mexico's top beach resort.

The extremely rare canoe was found almost completely intact, submerged in a fresh-water pool known as a cenote, thousands of which dot Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, once a major Maya city featuring elaborately carved temples and towering pyramids.

Measuring a little over 5 feet in length and 2-1/2 feet wide, the canoe was possibly used to transport water from the cenote or deposit ritual offerings, according to a statement from Mexican antiquities institute INAH. The institute described the extraordinary find as "the first complete canoe like this in the Maya area," adding that experts from Paris' Sorbonne University will help with an analysis of the well-preserved wood to pin-point its age and type.

A three-dimensional model of the canoe will also be commissioned to facilitate further study and allow for replicas to be made.The canoe is tentatively dated to between 830-950 AD, near the end of the Maya civilization's classical zenith, when dozens of cities across present-day southern Mexico and Central America thrived amid major human achievements in math, writing and art.

^{PHOTO: RECENT FOOTAGE OF DISCOVERY OF CAVE WITH MAYA ARTIFACTS AND WOODEN CANOE}