You don’t have to bushwack to get to Lord Chocolate’s tomb, but you do have to walk a sweaty mile on a jungle path. Along the way, you can ogle ceiba trees that soar far above the Guatemalan rain forest canopy and listen to the unholy shriek of howler monkeys.
This rutted path was once the Maya Causeway, a great highway connecting ancient Central American cities. Now it’s overgrown with cedar and mahogany and inhabited by leaf-cutter ants, neon-color macaws and parrots.
Suddenly, the limestone top of a pyramid juts above the green canopy, a vision straight out of “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” It staggers the imagination.
But a little imagination is all it takes to appreciate the grandeur that was Tikal, Guatemala’s finest ruin. It was once the glory of the Mayan world. From 600 to 900 A.D., during the late classic period, it was a community of 100,000 people living in a city of more than 3,000 buildings.
The people who lived here developed a sophisticated water system, carefully laid out the pyramids and waged brutal wars.
Walk around this pyramid and you’ll be standing in the midst of a vast ruined square that once rivaled the Roman forum. Two enormous pyramids face each other as components of a grand celestial plan. One of them, Temple I, concealed the tomb of King Ah Cacau or Lord Chocolate, who was the powerful ruler of Tikal around 700. He was buried under the massive pyramid along with precious jade objects and carved bones, which are now in the Tikal Museum. The top platform of the 145-foot pyramid supports three rooms, where priests once performed rituals.
“Imagine the sound of trumpets and drums,” says guide Willy Atmly. “At the door, there is a figure with a jade headdress and ear flares, necklaces and bracelets.”
He claps, and the cracking sounds bounce off these massive structures. We jump, once, twice.
“This was the city of voices,” he says. “This was the way the priests and nobles impressed the people. The common people could only come in here for ceremonies.”
Archeologists believe Lord Chocolate’s wife is buried across the huge plaza in Temple II because a reference to her was found on a carving on this temple. But excavators have yet to find her tomb.
Temple I has two kinds of steps. There are shallow, but climbable, steps that reach to the top and are called construction steps, which workmen used to haul masonry to the top. There are also stairways with high ceremonial steps reserved for priests and nobles. A few of these have been restored at the base of this pyramid.
The great plaza is fully cleared, so clipped green lawns stretch between the two soaring pyramids. The plaza level is actually a raised terrace created so that as one approached, the pyramids seemed even more awesome and the commoner more lowly.
“There was layer upon layer of terraces,” Willy says.
Flanking the plaza on one side is the North Acropolis, which was begun about 200 B.C. Its final version, which we now see in ruin, was completed by Lord Chocolate and had more than 12 temples on its platform. More than 100 structures and tombs are buried in its rubble with only the temple tips showing.
By climbing to one of the lower terraces and walking through a tunnel, you can find two huge wall masks with great hooked noses, which may represent the Mayan rain god Chac.
On the south side of the plaza is another vast stone pile where you can still make out small rooms and passages. Part of this complex is called Maler’s Palace, for Teobert Maler, an archeologist who camped in some of the rooms early in this century.
Scattered at the base of the North Acropolis are stelae, or free-standing inscribed stone slabs, which were brought from other parts of the site. They often bear relief drawings of feather-bedecked rulers and glyphs, which describe the ruler’s exploits. The Tikal stelae are not so grand as those at Copan or Quirigua. Still, much of Mayan history remains a mystery because the glyphs are only partly understood. There is no Rosetta Stone for this culture.
No one really knows why Tikal declined after 900, when the greatness of the Mayan world shifted to the city-states in Yucatan.
Tikal’s Great Plaza is just one part of the huge, 6-mile-square site. Much of the rest of it lies under the jungle, awaiting the archeologist’s brush and measuring tools.
Beyond the plaza is Temple III, which appears to be a tree-covered steep hill. If you didn’t know it was once a great temple with carved lintels on the doorways of ceremonial chambers, you’d probably pass it by.
“This is the way all the Mayan temples looked to the archeologists when they first came here,” says Willy. “It takes only about 35 years for the jungle to fully cover the pyramids.”
Tikal wasn’t “discovered” until 1848, when the Guatemalan government sponsored an exploration. Spanish priests had heard stories about the site and mentioned it in writings in the 16th and 17th Centuries, but it remained more or less hidden in the Petin, a jungle-shrouded, isolated area in northern Guatemala. It was never visited by John Stephens, who explored many other Mayan sites in the 19th Century and wrote about them.
The Guatemalan expedition was followed in 1877 by a Swiss team, which resulted in the removal of the carved wooden lintels from Temples I and IV. They were taken to a Basel museum, where they are still on view.
English expeditions came in the late 1800s, followed early in this century by exploration by scientists from Harvard’s Peabody Museum. In the 1960s, the University of Pennsylvania excavated here, and since 1970 the Guatemalan government has coordinated archeological projects.
Our path takes us to the Temple of the Lost World, used as an observatory by the Mayan priests. Tikal kings tended to leave their mark on the pyramids by adding a layer in their distinctive architectural style. The massive, flat-topped structure, however, dates to preclassic Mayan times.
Some of the most recent excavation has been done in this area. The government, though, has little money to study and maintain the site, says Flor Aguilar of Kim’ Arrin Travel, a tour company that arranges guides. The European Community has contributed most of the funding within the last decade.
Since the Guatemalan government and guerrillas signed a peace treaty in December 1996, things may change. “There is hope some of the money from the military will be diverted to these sites, but I’m not very optimistic,” she says. “First comes health and then education and then community. The cultural programs are last.”
We are strolling along Tozzer Causeway, named for one of the archeologists. And then, once again, one of those mind-boggling stone towers appears above the ceiba trees. It is Temple IV, which soars over the jungle canopy to 212 feet, the tallest structure in the Mayan world. The temple of the double-headed serpent sits at the top.
The bottom of the pyramid is covered with cedar and mahogany trees. You must climb up a series of six wooden ladders, which feel safer than the narrow stone steps of other pyramids. Then comes a mound of fallen stones jumbled at about a 45-degree slope. It has to be negotiated before the final ascent on a steel ladder.
But then, after this white-knuckle climb, you are rewarded with an almost surreal sight. The rain forest canopy has now become a green carpet. And sticking out of it are the tops of several pyramids, like stone ships sailing on a vast green sea. It’s beyond belief.
So much so, that on the way to the buffet lunch spread at the Jaguar Inn, two young women in our party let their imaginations take full flight. When we passed a stelae, which can be dated to 791 by its calendar glyphs, they draped themselves around it as if they were sacrificial maidens.
DETAILS ON TIKAL
Getting there: Tikal is located in the Petin, the jungle lowlands in northern Guatemala. Aviateca, the national airline, serves Flores/Santa Elena, about an hour’s bus ride from the site. Call 800-327-9832.
Tours: Most people visit Tikal on an organized tour because it’s more convenient and safer. We visited on an excursion from a Holland-America cruise ship that docked at Santo Tomas de Castillo. It costs about $450 per person. Companies offering tours to Guatemala are Pacific Adventures of Riverside, Mayan Adventure Tours of Seattle and Expeditions Inc. of Arlington, Texas. Backroads in Berkeley offers a 12-day tour of Guatemala for $2,150. Ask your travel agent.
Staying there: There are three hotels at the site, the Jungle Lodge, Jaguar Inn and Tikal Inn. Accommodations are about $40 per room and are usually a part of the tour.
Background: “Tikal” by William R. Coe (University of Pennsylvania, $12) is for sale at Tikal and offers excellent background information. “La Ruta Maya: Guatemala, Belize and Yucatan” by Tom Brosnahan (Lonely Planet, $16.95) is also excellent.
