Flores, El Peten, Guatemala 🇬🇹
Tikal is the ruin of an ancient city, which was likely to have been called Yax Mutal. It would be a relatively modern name meaning "at the water's point". It was discovered in the heart of the rainforest north of Guatemala. It is one of the largest archaeological sites and urban centers of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. Located in the Petén basin region, it is part of the Tikal National Park.
Tikal was the capital of a conquering state that became one of the most powerful kingdoms of the ancient Maya. It was inhabited from the 6th century BC to the 10th century AD. Its ceremonial center includes magnificent temples and palaces and public squares to which one reaches by ramps. Several remains of dwellings are scattered in the surrounding countryside. Although the monumental architecture of the site dates back to the fourth century B.C., Tikal reached its peak during the Classical period, around 200 to 900. During this period, the city dominated much of the Maya region politically, economically, and militarily, while interacting with regions throughout Mesoamerica, such as the great metropolis of Teotihuacan in the distant Valley of Mexico.
Despite the lack of water resources nearby, the Maya managed to make the city livable by building dams that concentrated the reserves collected from the rain. This is an exceptional fact: a large city fed only by water from the accumulated seasonal rainfall. The city had up to 10 reservoirs. Through this irrigation system, the city benefited from a very advanced agricultural system using certain techniques of intensive agriculture. Cultivation was done through the partial clearing of the forest and the Maya managed to create their own soils suitable for growing corn and beans.
Tikal is the best known of all the great lowland Maya cities, with a long list of dynastic rulers, the discovery of the tombs of many of the rulers on that list, and the study of their monuments, temples and palaces. There is evidence that the palaces of the elite of Tikal were burned. These events were associated with a gradual decline of the population, which resulted in the abandonment of the site in the late tenth century.
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