Original subtitles

- The Maya, an ancient civilization

that ruled huge areas of Central America

for more than two and a half thousand years.

- The classic Maya had been one of the most successful

societies in the Americas, if not the world.

- During their Golden Age, or Classic Period, 250 to 900 AD,

there were more than 40 city-states

and over two million people, never united as one empire.

- The Classic Period was a time of intensive interaction

between various kingdoms, alliance networks,

conflicts, intermarriages.

- Powerful city-states rose, fought,

and forged fragile alliances.

In their rivalries lies the story of how their entire civilization fell.

Narratives that we've uncovered carved in their long-forgotten ruins.

- We read an amazing story.

- I'm just thinking about what that heat and flame

and seeing the pyramids burn would have looked like.

- The classic period was dominated

by a brutal 200-year-long battle for control of the Peten region.

Two ancient superpowers going head-to-head.

- We have everything that Game of Thrones has except the dragons.

The most powerful player in the early classic period was

the Kingdom of Tikal.

Its ruins tell of its once-greatness,

and of a leader filled with ambition and a thirst for power.

- Chak Tok Ich'aak was a warrior king.

- And he captured the king of Washaptun,

and he took him back to Tikal, and he sacrificed him.

- This first attack set into motion a chain of events

that would have consequences for many generations to come.

Wars with another powerful kingdom.

Only one of these ancient superpowers could come out on top.

360 AD, the height of Mayan existence

and the midst of the classic period.

This was the time the greatest Mayan city stood,

buried in the forests of the Peten province

in Central America.

Cities that, despite being allied through belief and trade,

had complex, intertwined relationships.

- The Maya are like Game of Thrones in this.

They have people who betray each other,

people who love each other,

people who ally with each other,

people who marry each other.

- They dominated what is today Southern Mexico,

Guatemala, and Northern Belize.

- Tikal was the richest of these Mayan kingdoms

in the early 300s.

- In the beginning of the classic period,

Tikal was one of the major, if not the major,

economical centers of the early Maya world.

- Tikal represented abundance.

This is a paradisiacal place that's forested,

jungled, where cacao trees grow.

Cacao was a major commodity throughout Mesoamerica.

It was even used as money in later periods.

It was a precious goods, the drink of the gods itself.

a place where cotton, jade, the most precious stone was found in

the east. And so this was a

place where they looked at as a place of luxury, of preciousness,

where goods were coming in.

- Tikal was an economic hub. Because of the scale of the architecture

in the 300s, the plazas, the

concentration of people, certainly it is the place that's

attracting visitors from very far away.

- Mayan trade routes were extensive, criss-crossing the Peten

region, Tikal always at their heart.

- Much of this ancient city has been lost to time.

Yet great monuments remain, a symbol of their once-importance.

Its inscriptions on these ancient ruins that have

unlocked much of Mayan history.

Sculpted stones named stele tell long forgotten stories,

epic tales of love and war.

They chart the fortunes of the great Mayan kingdoms, recounting

the lives of their rulers

and revealing their role in society.

- Maya kings and queens were very much like rulers, I think, of

other ancient cultures,

in, say, Egypt or Ancient Greece, where their power was

derived from, of course, politics

and economics, but also their power was drawn from their

supposed connections to the divine

world, through their relationship to ancestors, to deities, to

the forces of the cosmos.

- So there were layers of the above world, and there were

layers of the below world, and

there were people in the middle, on the middle world.

- One of the first sacred Mayan kings was Chak Tok Ich'aak.

- People argue, "Well, is he really divine, or is he just sacred?"

No, they are divine power.

And they called this majesty Awil.

The 14th king of the Mutul dynasty,

Chak Tok Ich'aak, took to the throne as the divine ruler of Tikal.

Experts can only guess as to why.

But under his almighty rule, Tikal started to grow,

to expand, to show its might to the surrounding cities.

One way he did this was through construction.

- The other way for the Maya to exert power was through force.

- For a long time, we have known

that the Maya had constant conflict among kingdoms.

The Maya practiced war like any other civilization

to conquer a city for power, for expanding their kingdoms.

- But it wasn't just power a city gained.

There were other clear advantages.

- The Maya fought wars for many reasons,

but one of them was to obtain tribute

from their adversaries, from their enemy.

So they gave them chocolate, they gave them feathers,

they gave them shells, they gave them fine cloth,

they gave them people, slaves, both men and women.

So tribute was a very important feature of the royal court.

- After 16 years on the throne,

Chak Tok Ich'aak had ensured Tikal continued to thrive,

building palaces and establishing trade routes,

the remains of which can still be seen.

But Chak Tok Ich'aak wanted more, and the only other way to expand

his power was to create

an empire -to attack other Mayan cities.

Inscriptions carved in the stones of Tikal speak of one such vie for power

the attack of a city just 18 kilometres to the north

-Uaxactun.

- So Chak Tok Ich'aak was a warrior king.

We know this from an important monument from Tikal that was

dedicated in the year 376 that

shows him standing atop a captive and probably a ruler from

Uaxactun, which is the neighboring

kingdom to Tikal and also a very important place in the early classic.

- We believe Chak Tok Ich'aak launched his attack

under the cover of darkness. This was typical of a Mayan conquest.

They favoured ambush over direct attack.

Taking a town by surprise to avoid them fighting back, their aim

not to kill all, but to capture

the rival king and other nobles.

to ransack temples, cause chaos.

- Chak Tok Ich'aak attacked Uaxactun,

which was only a few kilometers away to the north.

And he captured the king of Uaxactun

and he took him back to Tikal and he sacrificed him.

- With the old king gone, they wanted to install a new dynasty.

- We can tell that Chak Tok Ich'aak, it seems an aggressor and at

least a victor of a conflict,

victorious over Washaktun.

Uaxactun was defeated.

From then on, Tekal ruled over Uaxactun.

its people forced to pay tribute, to obey.

But as Chak Tok Ich'aak's power in the region grew,

it became a threat to other great ancient powers.

The start of a domino effect

that would have ramifications across Central America

for centuries to come.

- I wonder if this may have caught the attention

in some way of Teotihuacan.

- The King of Tikal, Chak Tok Ich'aak,

attacked Uaxactun in 376.

The Teotihuacan people, they thought this is not good.

There's something bad here.

And so they knew they were going to have a war

with the King of Tikal.

- This would not have been what Chak Tok Ich'aak wanted.

Teotihuacan was formidable, another ancient powerhouse.

Located 1,000 kilometers west of Tikal,

it was a city dominated by imposing pyramid temples

dedicated to the sun and moon that is still visible today.

This was the so -called City of the Gods.

- Teotihuacan was a city like no other in Mesoamerica.

It's famous because it is scale.

About 100,000 people were living in the city

and it's metropolitan nature.

It's sort of like New York of the new world itself.

It was a place that everybody wanted to see for themselves.

And many migrants came from throughout Mesoamerica

in search for job opportunities, connections.

- This was not a Mayan kingdom.

The exact origin of its people remains unknown,

but artifacts show us that Teotihuacan

had a different culture, a different language,

a different religion.

And where Tikal was the hub of the Mayan civilization,

Teotihuacan was at the heart

of the entire ancient American world.

Protected by so -called Jaguar warriors,

their spears able to pierce armor from 50 meters away.

The city was the richest and most powerful,

its reach extending far beyond modern day central Mexico,

all the way into the Mayan heartlands.

- We know that Tikal and Teotihuacan

had a very strong relationship going back decades

decades, we're not sure exactly what the relationship was,

but if anything they

knew each other very well.

- Large portions of ancient Teotihuacan still stand today.

Excavations began in

the 1880s and restorations followed in the early 20th century. The finds here

paint a picture of this great civilization, of trade, of connection.

They go so far as to show that people from other Mayan cities,

from Tikal, were living here.

- The best evidences of a Maya community residing in Teotihuacan

is the Merchant's Barrio,

where we know that there are ceramic materials

from the Maya region,

but more recently at Plaza of the Columns complex we have been

able to identify abundant Maya

materials. The architecture itself also looks very Maya-like,

maybe even Maya palace-like,

and so we're not just talking about migrants coming to Teotihuacan

in search for job opportunities,

but actually Maya dignitaries, maybe even real individuals that

came and even resided in the

the heart of Teotihuacan in the ceremonial core itself.

- But it wasn't just Mayans living in Teotihuacan.

In 2024, archaeologists found the remains of families

from Teotihuacan in Tikal.

- Despite being allies,

the culture and imagery within Tikal and Teotihuacan

were vastly different.

Each city with its own distinct style

that experts can easily recognize.

- With mutual migration,

there would have been ample opportunities

for migrants to spy,

whilst also going about their daily lives,

observing, listening,

and reporting back to the city from once they came.

And rumours are dangerous.

potentially powerful enough to start wars.

- If there were Teotihuacan people living at Tikal,

then I'm sure they were somehow setting the stage

for whatever happened.

But surely there's some very complex relationships

behind it, family relationships,

political relationships.

So whoever was there at Tikal living in the area,

this enclave, surely played a role.

- In 1960, archaeologists discovered a stele buried

in the North Acropolis of Tikal

that explains what happened next.

Carved with highly complex Mayan script known as glyphs,

it took years for researchers to unscramble.

Whilst Western languages use a 26-letter alphabet,

Mayan writing consists of 800 glyphs

organised in double columns that are read from left to right.

This is Tikal Stele 31.

It's one of the most important Maya monuments there is.

This is because it's explaining

the whole political change at Tikal. The back inscription is very long.

When you see long inscriptions,

you tend to think there's something they need to justify.

There's something they need to explain.

And what they're explaining is this big power change.

- One of the glyphs that repeatedly appears

is the name of one of Teotihuacan's greatest rulers,

a king who would change the balance

of the Mayan world forever.

- So here we have the name of Spear Thrower Owl.

His name is composed of a hand

which is holding a wooden spear thrower.

Now this is essentially not really a Maya glyph.

This is already something which is indicating foreignness.

- Spear Thrower Owl is really, I think,

one of the most curious figures of Mesoamerican history.

We read about him at Tikal, and we read about him

at other sites as well.

Most of our information about him comes from the Maya world,

but we believe that he was not a Maya king,

but actually a ruler of Teotihuacan.

He comes to power in 374.

- This iconic ancient character

somehow became entwined in Mayan history

during the late 300s and right at the peak

of Chak Tok Ich'aak's reign in Tikal.

The question archaeologists needed to answer was, why?

By piecing together the stories on this stone and others,

they found that it all came back to Tikal's ruler

and his need for power.

- So Chak Tok Ich'aak and his victory over Uaxactun,

it may have been an event that in some way led up

to the desire of Teotihuacan elites

and the ruler of Teotihuacan, Spear Thrower Owl,

to interfere, to somehow insert himself in the Maya world.

- Teotihuacan readied its warriors.

Artwork on ancient walls show their costumes

incorporated animal elements, symbolizing spiritual armor.

These ancient cultures believed that part of the human soul

could take the form of an animal.

the armies of Teotihuacan taking the form of jaguars.

The remains of their ancient stone monuments

tell us that as they set off to battle,

their leader, Spear Thrower Owl,

didn't leave Teotihuacan.

He stayed, ensuring his throne remained secure.

This meant that someone else had to lead his armies.

At Tikal, the stones talk about two people, not just one. One

of them is Spearthrower Al.

And the other one is Fireborn, Siak-Kak.

The question is, who was Siyaj K'ak?

- I think he was clearly a representative of

Spear Thrower Owl in some way.

They seemed to be acting together.

He was perhaps a Maya warlord or a Maya elite

who had lived at Teotihuacan for a long time,

was part of the Teotihuacan political culture,

but who was chosen or somehow designated to be at the front line

of this intrusion by Teotihuacan into the Maya heartland.

- Siyaj K'ak was a man of Mayan origin

who somehow rose to political power in Teotihuacan.

He was the chosen one,

the man who Spear Thrower Owl trusted

to lead his powerful armies.

But with more than a thousand kilometers

between the two cities,

Siyaj K'ak couldn't simply march on Tikal.

His first role would have been to gain allies,

other cities that would join the fight,

providing guides, troops, and supplies,

a base close to Tikal from which to launch his attack.

- The first mention we have of Siyaj K'ak

and his journey towards Tikal

comes from a stone monument

at a site to the west of Tikal

known as El Peru Waka.

A village west of Tikal,

El Peru Waka is where experts believe

Siyaj K'ak planted his strategic base.

- Waka is on the intersection

of two important riverine arteries.

It's a highly important trading center

situated prominently atop of a high escarpment.

It has great visibility,

a really tremendously strong viewshed.

So tactically and strategically,

It's an important location on a long-existing trade route.

- It's here that one stone in particular

has shed light on the timeline of Siyaj K'ak's attack on Tikal.

- I think what makes Stele 15 so historically important

is the important documentation of the 378 event

and particularly the eight-day prior note

of Siyaj K'ak coming through Wakha.

What's he doing there?

- Well, some people think he's there to impose power on Waka

and take people from Waka with him to go and attack Tikal.

He's on his way with an army from Teotihuacan.

- But would the people of Waka really turn against Tikal,

their long-term ally?

- I wouldn't be surprised if there were promises, alliance, and

then the benefits and outcomes

of that alliance that that would afford Waka.

- If this pact was formed, Kinich-Balaam, the king of Waka,

likely provided warriors to

march alongside the Jaguar army of Teotihuacan.

Tikal had been betrayed.

- It is not just a stopping point on the route, although for all

the reasons I've said,

there's a tremendous gain to be had coming and sort of stopping

and having this be probably

one of the last points along the route before the final push

into Tikal. But I think that

there's more to it than that regarding the symbolic and ritual

significance of Waka.

- Waka was a kingdom of sorcerers and magic and a long-term

ally of Tikal. Taking this

settlement was the ultimate show of intent. Teotihuacan was

capable of taking anything it

chose. Yet, Chak Tok Ich'aak, king of Tikal, would have been

unaware of this impending threat,

of the betrayal of Teotihuacan and Waka. Sixty-five

kilometers to the north,

Stele-24 tells us that another city, Naachtun, had

also joined Siyaj K'ak,

despite its previous allegiance with

Chak Tok Ich'aak and Tikal.

- This was not just some isolated event, some random attack,

but rather that it involved many Maya kingdoms.

Perhaps these were allies against Tikal.

Artwork shows Teotihuacan's new allies

also gave them other Mayan skillsets.

- The Maya had a deep understanding of the night sky.

Archeologists have found tables detailing lunar cycles,

the movements of Venus and Mars,

and predictions of solar eclipses

all calculated with remarkable precision.

But this knowledge wasn't only used

to understand the cosmos.

It was a weapon.

The Maya believed Venus, in particular,

played a key role in the planning of conflicts,

and use of the moon was strategic.

- The lunar cycle also acted as a form of communication.

The strike was meticulously recorded on a monument in Tikal.

- So as part of the narrative on Stele 31, these extraordinary

events that took place in the

year 378, what we call the Entrada.

- This was the moment Tikal's destiny was forever changed.

The stones tell us that the attack was swift, coordinated.

The jaguar warriors and their allies

struck simultaneously from several directions.

Tikal, despite its power, was taken by surprise.

- This was a moonless night, clearly

a violent event of some sort.

It really does seem like it's a hostile takeover

of the dynasty of Tikal.

- In this story, Siyaj K'ak had a militia

of a group of powerful mercenary warriors

who used their very special weapons,

the projectiles that were thrown with a throwing stick.

- Within the chaos, Siyaj K'ak,

the leader of the Teotihuacan army,

had one aim, capture Chak Tok Ich'aak, King of Tikal.

- Here is the name of Chak Tok Ich'aak.

This term here tells us that he dies,

and he dies on the same day that Siyaj K'ak,

with the Teotihuacanos, arrives at Tikal.

- Surrounded, overwhelmed, and betrayed by his once-allies,

Chak Tok Ich'aak 18 -year rule came to an end

when he was executed on the night of the 16th of January,

378 AD.

- They overcame Chak Tok Ich'aak and killed him.

- With Chak Tok Ich'aak gone, Tikal fell. It was no longer to be a

Mayan city. Instead, the

kingdom took on Teotihuacan's jaguar emblem, and Monument Stele

31 tells us that Spear Thrower

Owl, the Teotihuacan king, chose another to rule his

new enclave, Yashnunayin, his own son.

- Yashnunayin seems to be quite young, he may even be a few

years old at most when he is

installed as the new king of Tikal.

- With a Mayan mother and Teotihuacan blood

on his father's side,

he was the perfect symbol of the new order that Spear

thrower oWl wanted to impose.

But it was to be short-lived.

In the early part of the 5th century, Spear Thrower Owl died.

Then Siyaj K'ak disappeared from inscriptions.

In 404 A.D., at the age of just 25, Yashnunayin passed away.

- He was quite young when he died, but he already had a son.

And that son we know as Sihyaj Chan K'awil.

A ruler who took the throne in the year 411 A.D.

and would go on to become one of the greatest kings of Tikal's golden age,

his reign marked with spectacular inscriptions.

- On the front we see a king in full regalia,

his name is Sihyaj Chan K'awil,

and he is at this moment in time the king of Tikal.

He's dressed as a really traditional Maya king,

he is in a sense re -establishing the dynasty of Tikal,

because that dynasty has been ruptured and that's really the

story of this monument.

- Like his father, Sihyaj Chan K'awil was a descendant of Mayan

royalty on his mother's side

with a Teotihuacan lineage from his father.

He was the ultimate symbol of the merge that had taken place in Tikal.

- Sihyaj Chan K'awil becomes a central figure.

He anchors his authority at Tikal, I think, in a new way.

Almost see himself as coming out of this complex history

as a singular figure, a singular ruler at Tikal,

and able to consolidate all of these different types of power.

Tikal solidifies its role, I think,

as the central power player in Maya politics.

We know because it was the base, I think,

of this Teotihuacan enclave.

And it was in this time that they forged this network,

this alliance system, with various Maya kingdoms.

And this is something that was new.

It had not really existed before.

Former enemies were brought together.

So Naachtun, El Ruacan, Rio Azul, La Sufricaya, Holmul,

- These were all centers of courts and dynasties

that were now really under the sway

of this singular new Teotihuacan system.

- For 45 years, Sihyaj Chan K'awil ruled over this empire.

He forged alliances, not only with Nashtun

and El Peru Waka, but his name also appears

in Uaxactun, El Zapot e Berrucal, and Rio Azul .

Under his reign, Tikal experienced a new golden age.

The splendor is clear to archaeologists even now,

some 1,500 years later,

especially in Sihyaj Chan K'awil tomb.

- Royal Mayan tombs often contained a stone sarcophagus, jade

mosaic masks, intricate

pottery, and shell figurines. They were generally oriented west or

north to represent the underworld.

Being a people to whom ritual was a vital part of life,

we can only imagine those surrounding a royal death.

- Even the burial was steeped in tradition and ritual,

something that can be seen in the remains themselves

despite the cause of death.

Experts believe Sihyaj Chan K'awil was captured

and sacrificed by a rival king in the year 456,

his head and hands removed

before he was brought home for burial.

- Generally speaking, they would bundle a king

and wrap him in material

and then cover that material with smelling resin.

And they would place that person on a wooden bed,

pallet, and they would put offerings next to them.

They would put jewels on the chest.

They would prepare that person to continue to be

a ruler for the rest of time.

So when they started burying people that way,

the things they buried with them were very important

because they were not just offerings for an afterlife.

They were living things that interconnected,

that together would create power.

- The Maya believed that death was only a passage.

The offerings in the tomb were to be used by their rulers

in the underworld of Xibalba.

Dead kings joined the ancestors there,

existing between the living and the gods.

This is exactly what the people of Tikal

would have believed of their departed king, Sihyaj Chan K'awil

- So our best indication of the end of the reign

of Sihyaj Chan K'awil is burial 48.

And lucky for us, when archeologists opened this tomb,

they noticed that there was a date written on the wall.

- We know it's his tomb, because it's got hieroglyphic inscriptions on it,

and those are about the time of his death.

Now, it's probable that they're not exactly when he died,

because he's died without his hands and his head.

It's quite possible that he was captured and sacrificed by an enemy,

and his body was ransomed and put back in the tomb by his son.

- What he was buried with speaks to the late king's heritage.

Sihyaj Chan K'awil thought of himself as part of the Teotihuacan legacy,

rather than simply a Mayan king.

- Many of the ceramics from Burial 48, in fact, are in the

style of Teotihuacan.

They are a very nice indication, I think, of Sihyaj Chan K'awil's

connections to Teotihuacan itself.

rather than being this enemy-conquering power,

was rather part of his own personal history.

- For over a century, a hybrid dynasty ruled.

Tikal controlled the lowlands with the support of Teotihuacan,

but it wasn't to last.

With the death of Sihyaj Chan K'awil on the 3rd of February 456 AD,

this period of Mayan history

came to a close. Beyond the deep forests of Peten, a new power

was rising. Its symbol, a serpent.

- It's what we call an emblem glyph, and that's basically a royal

title that Maya kings carried,

and it's different for each city, each dynasty.

For the Kaanul, it was the head of a serpent.

- Around 500 or so, we see this extraordinary rise

of the Kaanuls as the new power.

- When we began to understand political relationships and political

mentions in the inscriptions,

it was very clear very quickly that there was one kingdom

that was mentioned in more

More places than anyone else, more times than anyone else, and

that was particularly intriguing

because this was a kingdom of which we did not know where it was based.

We knew its name, we knew it was a Kaanul, that it's the

snake place, it's the kings

of the snake place, but we didn't know where the snake place was.

- It wasn't until the 1990s that we finally found it.

A place today known as Dzibanche.

It's from here that the Kaanul dynasty grew

and plotted its next move.

- The Kaanul lords were clearly interested

in coming into the world of Tikal.

He wanted the chocolate and jade and slaves

going across the Maya world through Tikal.

- A new war was brewing.

Longer, more destructive, more decisive.

The jaguars of Tikal against the serpents of the Kaanul.

This time, it was to be a war between Mayans.

- And that's another story.

- Amongst the chaos of a fallen kingdom,

a new order rises,

ready to take on the other great superpower

in the ancient Peten region, jaguars versus snakes.

Only one could win