Tikal in 7 artefacts: explore the metropolis of the Maya

• Read more | Your guide to ancient Maya: from the writing system to the truth about ‘human sacrifice’

Stone story

The limestone monolith known as Stela 31, carved in AD 445 and now displayed in the Tikal Museum, isn’t just an artistic masterpiece – it’s also a crucial historic document. The front depicts Sihyaj Chan K’awiil II (Stormy Sky), a powerful warrior king – the Maya civilisation wasn’t a single peaceful society, but a series of often warring city-states . More important still is the text on the reverse, detailing the early history of Tikal from the foundation of its royal dynasty by Yax Moch Xoc around AD 230.

Body language

The writing of the Maya consisted of glyphs (symbols) such as this one on a stela (inscribed column) at Tikal, which was called Mutul by its original inhabitants. The system uses logograms to indicate whole words as well as syllabic glyphs. Knowledge of the script was lost by the end of the 16th century after the Spanish conquest of Central America, and it has still not been completely deciphered after more than a century of study. Today perhaps 90% of Mayan texts can be translated.

First steps

The hulking ‘Lost World Pyramid’ is impressive for its heft – 32 metres high and 80 metres along its base – but also its age. Tunnels dug into the pyramid by archaeologists reveal that the outer shell was built around no fewer than four earlier structures, the innermost of which dates from around 700 BC – the oldest structure at Tikal. It may have served as the royal necropolis for a century from around AD 250.

Royal complex

The rambling North Acropolis was built and rebuilt over many centuries from around 350 BC. Studded with a dozen temples and nearly 100 burials, it served as a necropolis and ancestral shrine for the nobility of Tikal, who lived in the palace complex on the opposite side of the plaza.

High ambition

An ornately carved wood lintel originally graced the pyramid designated Temple IV – at nearly 65 metres high, the loftiest surviving pre-Columbian structure in the Americas. Now in Basel’s Ethnographic Museum, it depicts Yik’in Kan K’awiil (‘Sun Sky Rain’), who consolidated the power established by his father Jasaw Chan K’awiil I, whom he succeeded in AD 734. By AD 900, the Classic-era Maya civilisation collapsed, perhaps due to drought, overpopulation or incursions by invaders from the north, such as the Toltecs.

• On the podcast | Your guide to ancient Maya: from the writing system to the truth about ‘human sacrifice’

Artefacts for the afterlife

Nobles interred in the North Acropolis and other Maya burial sites were accompanied by various grave items such as this red-and-black-painted ceramic pot, topped with a lid bearing a stylised jaguar head and typical of the style of the late Classic era, now at Guatemala’s National Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Other burial artefacts included jade objects, carved bones and stingray spines used for ritual bloodletting by the ruling elite or religious leaders, who would pierce their tongue or penis atop a pyramid.

This article was first published in issue 4 of BBC World Histories