Mysterious building structures in sight: an archaeologist reports on a building complex in the Mayan city of Tikal, which was apparently modeled on a model from the distant imperial metropolis of Teotihuacan. The facility may have served as a foreign agency – but it could also have highlighted the dominance of foreign power over Tikal, says the scientist.
Their culture shaped large parts of Central America until around 1000 years ago: ruins of monumental settlement structures bear witness to the mysterious Mayan civilization. Tikal in Guatemala is one of the best known and best researched cities. Scientists have been carrying out extensive studies there since the 1950s. But there is still something exciting to discover in the Maya city, as has been shown time and again in recent years. Above all, a new technology has provided new insights into the former structures of the city: Researchers from the “Pacunam Lidar Initiative” are investigating the area using laser technology. In the so-called “Light Detection And Ranging” (LIDAR), the topography of the landscape is scanned by aircraft using a laser beam. By analyzing the data, archaeological structures can then be made visible that can hardly be seen on site.
The hidden made visible
Archaeologist Stephen Houston from Brown University in Providence, who was involved in the research, now reports on special discoveries in Tikal that have been made using LIDAR in recent years, as well as subsequent archaeological findings. According to this, it becomes clear that an astonishing building complex was located in an area near the former center of Tikal: Its features were similar to well-known building structures from Teotihuacan, about 1000 kilometers away, the largest and most powerful city in America at the time. “What we thought were natural hills turned out to be structures that were apparently adapted to the citadel in Teotihuacan – the area that might represent the Imperial palace there,” says Houston. As he explains, these clues now shed new light on the connections between Tikal and Teotihuacan.
These were very different cities from the time of the first millennium AD, Houston emphasizes: Tikal was a splendid and important city-state of the Mayan culture, but modest compared to Teotihuacan: the metropolis located near today’s Mexico City was the center of an empire. Although this culture remains mysterious, it is clear that it has had far-reaching influence and power. It is already known that Teotihuacan was linked to Tikal for centuries through trade and cultural exchange. But that’s not all: there is evidence from around the year 378 AD that the empire of Teotihuacan conquered Tikal.
More than a foreign representation?
However, the newly discovered complex is estimated to be around 1800 years old and therefore came from an earlier time. From this it appears that imperial power in today’s Mexico did more than just trade with Tikal and culturally influenced it before conquering it. “The architectural complex we found appears to have been built for the Teotihuacan people or for those who were under their control,” says Houston. “Maybe it was something like an embassy complex, but it could also be used for crewing or surveillance. At least it shows the attempt to implant part of a foreign city map in Tikal, ”summarizes Houston.
Archaeological findings following the lidar investigations confirmed this: Some buildings were built with clay plaster instead of the traditional Mayan limestone. The structures were designed as smaller replicas of the buildings of the Teotihuacan Citadel, right down to the intricate cornices and terraces and the specific 15.5-degree east-north orientation of the complex’s platforms. “It almost suggests that the local builders were instructed to use completely alien building technology in building this sprawling complex,” Houston says. According to him, other archaeological evidence in connection with the building complex also suggests a rather less diplomatic function. “We have previously seen evidence of mutual interaction between the two civilizations, but here we seem to be dealing with strangers who have behaved aggressively,” said the archaeologist.
But many questions about the relationship between Teotihuacan and Tikal still remain unanswered. Houston and his colleagues hope that the further excavations and analyzes that are now planned will provide more insights. They could also be of overriding importance, says Houston: “Even before the European colonization of America, there were great powers there that interacted with smaller civilizations. Exploring Teotihuacan’s influence on Mesoamerica could be a way of exploring basic patterns of colonialism ”.
Source: Brown University