Tikal

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Before I went to Central America I didn't know much about the Maya. I put them in a group with the Inca's and Aztec's as a once great civilisation that were flattened by the arrival of the Europeans. Turns out I was completely wrong.

I can remember thinking when in Peru that while Machu Pichu is spectacular, the church in my village at home in Yorkshire is much older. This didn’t dampen my experience at all but it made me realise that architecturally at least, the Inca’s, and therefore I thought all of the American civilisations were way behind the rest of the world when Europeans reached the continent.

I now know that the Maya had been building mighty pyramids for a thousand years before the Inca’s knocked up anything vaguely comparable. Their ceremonial architecture dates back to about 1000BC and the more famous cities like Tikal or Palenque with the classic square stepped pyramids were constructed between 250 and 900AD. They had a well developed writing and mathematical system, were excellent astronomers and town planners, and produced fantastic artworks in the form of reliefs, sculptures and ceramics. It took a very long time for any another ancient new world civilisation to catch up.

This degree of development has led to many anthropologists claiming that the ancient Maya must have been visited by the Egyptians or Chinese (one nutter suggests Martians) and learnt from these “more civilised” peoples.

The unsolved mystery is the decline of the Maya civilisation. When the Spanish arrived many of the large Maya city states had already collapsed and been abandoned. Theories range from overpopulation, peasant revolt, exhaustion of soils and fauna, or an environmental disaster.

Tikal I would definitely recommend for a visit. The complex includes huge pristine pyramids as well as many temples and structures that are still cloaked by jungle and others that are being painstakingly excavated and restored. Walking between sites is through lush rainforest full of monkeys, toucans and thumbnail sized insects louder than a bus.

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Photos

Temple I
View is from Acropolis del Norte

Little Old Mayan Ladies
Accustomed to sites like this I expected this gang in traditional garb to be asking for money for photo's. But no, they were just tourists like the rest of us.

Temple I and Gran Plaza
Quite a climb up Temple II to get this photo.

View From Temple IV
Star Wars fans might recognise this as the rebel base on the Forest Moon of Endor.

Pyramid and Stellae
The stellae in the foreground were intricately carved but the pictures have all but weathered away.

Pyramid Yet To Be Unearthed
This is what the whole site looked like when it was rediscovered in 1848.