Tikal National Park
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How it came to be
Tikal lies in the rainforest of Petén in northern Guatemala. Traces of farming there go back to about 1000 BC, and major pyramids and platforms were going up by around 400–300 BC. Later inscriptions name Yax Ehb Xook as founder of the ruling dynasty, perhaps in the 1st century AD.
On 14 January 378 King Chak Tok Ich'aak died on the same day that Siyaj K'ak' arrived from the west, and Tikal became closely tied to Teotihuacan in central Mexico. A long rivalry with Calakmul began in the 6th century; in 695 Jasaw Chan K'awiil I defeated Calakmul, and Temple I, raised over his tomb, stands 55 m above the Great Plaza.
The last dated monument was erected in 869, and the city fell silent in the Classic Maya collapse. Modesto Méndez and Ambrosio Tut, the commissioner and governor of Petén, visited in 1848. Tikal became a national park in 1955 and a World Heritage Site in 1979.
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