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Calakmul
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How it came to be
Calakmul is a Maya city in the tropical forest of the central and southern Yucatan Peninsula. From about 500 BC to AD 1000 population and society grew in this region. In the 7th century the Kaan, or Snake, dynasty moved its capital from Dzibanche to Calakmul.
Calakmul became Tikal's great rival, and in 562 its king Sky Witness defeated Tikal. The city peaked under Yuknoom Che'en II, who took the throne in 636, but declined after a defeat by Tikal in 695. In the Classic Maya collapse of the 9th and 10th centuries it was almost entirely abandoned.
On 29 December 1931 the biologist Cyrus Lundell spotted the ruins from the air and named them Calakmul, the City of the Two Adjacent Pyramids. A 3,000 ha archaeological site was inscribed in 2002 and later extended to 331,397 ha, taking in the surrounding forest and adding natural criteria to the cultural ones.
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