A buried ancient altar at the center of the Maya city of Tikal points to the tensions between the Maya and their neighbors in the late 300s C.E. According to a new study in Antiquity, the altar wasn’t made by artisans trained in Tikal. Instead, it was made by artisans trained in Teotihuacan, an ancient city around 630 miles away that had a heavy influence — and a heavy hand — over Tikal in the fourth century C.E.
“It’s increasingly clear that this was an extraordinary period of turbulence at Tikal,” said Stephen Houston, a study author and an archaeologist and anthropologist at Brown University, according to a press release. “What the altar confirms is that wealthy leaders from Teotihuacan came to Tikal and created replicas of ritual facilities that would have existed in their home city. It shows Teotihuacan left a heavy imprint there.”
According to the study authors, the altar is a testament to the tensions within the ancient world and reveals important insights into the Maya’s response to Teotihuacan influence in Tikal.
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Tikal Versus Teotihuacan
The Maya city of Tikal arose in modern-day Guatemala around 850 B.C.E. It started out small and uninfluential. But by around 300 C.E., Tikal had grown in size and in influence and had started interacting consistently with the city of Teotihuacan in modern-day Mexico. Though the relationship between the two communities was initially commercial and centered on trade, it gradually turned contentious by the late 300s C.E., with the people of Teotihuacan overthrowing and potentially occupying the city of Tikal.
“It’s almost as if Tikal poked the beast and got too much attention from Teotihuacan,” Houston said, according to the release. “That’s when foreigners started moving into the area.”
Over the years, researchers have gathered a good amount of evidence on the movement of elites from one city to the other. In 2021, for instance, researchers reported that they had found a citadel in Tikal, which indicated that people from Teotihuacan had arrived in the city — and had probably occupied it — in the lead-up to its overthrow. Similarly, in the 1960s, researchers found an inscription in Tikal suggesting that elites from Teotihuacan had removed the city’s ruler around 378 C.E. and had replaced him with a ruler “who proved a useful local instrument to Teotihuacan,” Houston said, according to the release.
The authors of the new study say that the ancient altar at Tikal adds to this tale of political takeover. Constructed in the same time period as the coup, in the late 300s C.E., according to the press release, the altar seems to have appeared at the center of the city as a part of its overthrow.
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Responding to Rivalry
Depicting a figure in feathered regalia, the altar’s painted panels resemble depictions of the “Storm God,” a deity seen in art from Teotihuacan. But this paneling isn’t the only indication that the altar was made by an artist trained in Teotihuacan. Indeed, the altar’s contents — the body of a child placed in a sitting position — bear a stronger similarity to Teotihuacan’s traditions of ritual sacrifice and burial than Tikal’s.
With its paintings and its contents, the altar testifies to the Teotihuacan influence in Tikal. But it also testifies to the aftermath of that influence, as the altar and its surrounding area were later buried.
“The Maya regularly buried buildings and rebuilt on top of them,” said Andrew Scherer, another study author and archaeologist and anthropologist at Brown University, according to the press release. “But here, they buried the altar and surrounding buildings and just left them, even though this would have been prime real estate centuries later. They treated it almost like a memorial or a radioactive zone. It probably speaks to the complicated feelings they had about Teotihuacan.”
Tikal’s relationship to Teotihuacan and to the Teotihuacan takeover was certainly “complicated,” as the tensions in the fourth century C.E. preceded a period of power for the Maya, Houston said in the press release. Tikal’s success spanned several centuries, though the Maya always remembered their rivalry with Teotihuacan.
“There’s a kind of nostalgia about that time, when Teotihuacan was at the height of its power and taking increasing interest in the Maya,” Houston said in the release. “It’s something exalted for them; they looked back on it almost wistfully.”
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Sam Walters is a journalist covering archaeology, paleontology, ecology, and evolution for Discover, along with an assortment of other topics. Before joining the Discover team as an assistant editor in 2022, Sam studied journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
