::: Tikal::: (Mayan World)
Tikal (or Tik’al, according to the more current orthography) is the largest of the ancient ruined cities of the Maya civilization. It is located in the El Petén department of Guatemala at 17°13'19?N, 89°37'22?W. Now part of Guatemala's Tikal National Park, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a popular tourist spot.
The closest large towns are Flores and Santa Elena, about 30 kilometers away.
The ruins lay on lowland rainforest. Conspicuous trees at the Tikal park include gigantic ceiba (Ceiba pentandra) the sacred tree of the Maya; tropical cedar (Cedrela odorata), and mahogany (Swietenia). Regarding the fauna, agouti, spider monkeys, howler monkeys, ocellated turkeys, guans, toucans, green parrots and leaf-cutting ants can be seen there regularly. Jaguars and coatis are said to roam in the park.
Tikal was one of the major cultural and population centers of the Maya civilization. Monumental architecture was built here as early as the 4th century BC. The city was at its height in the Maya Classic Period, approximately AD to 850 AD, after which no new major monuments were built, some of the palaces of the elite were burned, and the population gradually declined until the site was abandoned by the end of the 10th century.
The name "Tikal" means "Place of Voices" or "Place of Tongues" in Maya, which may be an ancient name for the city, although the ancient hieroglyphs usually refer to it as Mutal or Yax Mutal, meaning "Green Bundle", and perhaps metaphorically "First Prophecy".
Scholars estimate that at its peak its population was between 100,000 -- 200,000.
The site presents hundreds of significant ancient buildings, only a fraction of which have been excavated in the decades of archaeological work.
The most prominent surviving buildings include six very large Mesoamerican step pyramids supporting temples on their tops. They were numbered sequentially by early surveys of the site. They were built during the city's height from the late 7th and early 9th century. Temple I (also known as the Temple of Ah Cacau or Temple of the Great Jaguar) was built around 695; Temple II or the Moon Temple in 702, Temple III in 810; The largest, Temple-pyramid IV or The Bichepalous Serpent Temple, some 72 meters (230 feet) high, was dedicated in 720. Temple V is from about 750, and is the only one where no tomb has been found. Temple VI or inscripntions Temple, was dedicated in 766.
The ancient city also has the remains of royal palaces, in addition to a number of smaller pyramids, palaces, residences, and inscribed stone monuments. There is even a building which seemed to have been a jail, originally with wooden bars across the windows and doors. There are also seven courts for playing the Mesoamerican ballgame.
The residential area of Tikal covers an estimated 60 square km (23 square miles), much of which has not yet been cleared or excavated.
Some of the pyramids of Tikal are over 60 meters high (200 feet).
A huge set of earthworks has been discovered ringing Tikal with a 6 meter wide trench behind a rampart. Only some 9km of it has been mapped; it may have enclosed an area of some 125 km square (see below).
Recently, a project exploring the earthworks has shown that the scale of the earthworks is highly variable and that in many places it is inconsequential as a defensive feature. In addition, some parts of the earthwork were integrated into a canal system. The earthwork of Tikal varies significantly in coverage from what was originally proposed and it is much more complex and multifaceted than originally thought.

:::Petén::: (maya world)
Petén is a department of the nation of Guatemala. It is geographically the northernmost department of Guatemala, as well as the largest in size — at 12,960 square miles (33,566 km²) it accounts for about one third of Guatemala's area. The capital is Flores. The population in 2005 was estimated at 450,000.
By the first half of the 1st millennium BCE the Petén and Mirador Basin of this region were already well-established with a number of monumental sites and cities of the Maya civilization. Significant Maya sites of this Preclassic era of Mesoamerican chronology include Nakbé,El Mirador, Naachtun, San Bartolo and Cival.
Later Petén became the heartland of the Maya Classic Period (c. 200 – 900). At its height around 750 it is estimated that Petén was home to several million people, being one of the most densely populated regions of the world at the time. Some areas are estimated to have had 1,000 people/km². Agriculture was very extensive, and there is some evidence suggesting that the land was depleted by unsustainable over-farming, resulting in a famine which was an important factor in the collapse of the Classic Maya states of this area. The population is estimated to have dropped by two-thirds between the mid 9th century and the mid 10th century.
Ruins such as Tikal, Holmul, Machaquilá, Naranjo, Nakum, Piedras Negras, Ceibal, Aguateca, Uaxactún,Topoxté and Yaxhá preserve important remnants of the Classic Maya in Petén. The first UNESCO World Heritage Site in the world was Tikal, and later Tikal National Park, was the first Mix (Archeologic and Natural World Heritage Site in the World.

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