-1 101 Z The largest urban centre of the early Classic Maya, Tikal housed around 50,000 people in an area of over 120 square km. This provides an interesting contrast to contemporary highland cities like Teotihuacan, which had a population of 200,000 in only 20 square km, and underlines the dissimilarity in layout of Maya ceremonial centres to conventional towns. Around its compact ceremonial core of pyramids, ballcourts, plazas and palaces, Tikal's residential neighbourhoods extended over the city's vast area, house compounds interspersed with reservoirs, gardens and cultivated swamps.
# Tikal - opening PW
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#IW Economy
2 102 A The heart of Tikal was its monumental centre, several complexes of plazas, ballcourts, and pyramids surmounted by temples and palaces. These were linked by broad causeways used for processions and probably regularly renewed. Within the pyramids were buried kings and other important individuals.
#Monumental centre
3 103 F Occupied by at least 600 BC, the North Acropolis developed into an important ceremonial focus in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC when platforms with public buildings and elite burials were constructed. Wall paintings accompanying some of these early burials depict the rulers' ancestors, emphasizing the legitimacy of their rule.
#North Acropolis, burial 85
4 101 X Temple I is typical of Maya architecture. A broad stair leads up the front of a stepped pyramid, on which the ruler performed public ceremonies. At the top a narrow temple surmounted by a roof with a high decorative extension was the scene of more private ritual, when the king offered his own blood in sacrifice.
#Temple I, Fiedel
5 101 X One of ten reservoirs located around Tikal. These often began as quarries for soft limestone from which was made the gleaming white plaster used on Mayan buildings. The reservoirs were important for storing water both for drinking and for watering garden crops.
#Reservoir
6 101 X A burial in this temple was of a mutilated man lacking both his head and his hands. Probably he was a great lord killed on the field of battle. Accompanying him were not only grave goods such as food, stingray spines and marine shells but also two sacrificed adolescents.
#A burial
9 101 X The Great Plaza is the very heart of Tikal, flanked by temple pyramids, the royal sanctum of the North Acropolis and the enormous Central Acropolis. In the plaza itself were innumerable stelae (carved monoliths) recording events of great significance in Tikal's interlinked sacred calendar and secular history.
#The Great Plaza
10 101 X The earliest dated stela in the Maya lowlands, this bears the portrait of an early king, Scroll-Ahau-Jaguar, and an inscription dated AD 292. Above the king's head is that of the dynasty's founder, validating the king's claim to rule. The king's elaborate headgear, containing religious elements, emphasizes the sacred dimension of Maya kingship.
#Stele 29, stela 29
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#IW Architecture
12 101 X Most of Tikal was composed of groups of house platforms, on which were built the huts of commoners, often clustered around the larger dwelling of a minor nobleman. Generally small gardens surrounded the houses, in which herbs, vegetables and fruit were grown.
#Suburban neighbourhood
13 102 H A Ballcourt marker here records the victory of Smoking Frog over the king of Uaxactun. It is more than likely that this unfortunate king met his end in this ballcourt. Although the rules of the Maya version of the ballgame are not known, in later times it often culminated in human sacrifice.
#Ballcourt, Ballcourt marker
32 101 X Suburban houses were concentrated on ridges around the swampy ground where highly productive raised fields were constructed. Here commoners raised crops for themselves and their lords. The patchy arrangements of housing and fields make it difficult to define the boundaries of Tikal and other Maya settlements.
#Swamp, optional: raised field system
34 101 X A sealed pit here contained a cache of early pottery, showing that Tikal was inhabited before 500 BC. Such pits may have begun life as quarries for fine lime; they have been shown experimentally to be suitable for storing breadnuts, the fruit of the ramon tree.
