Tikal Timeline

By the late 8th century and early 9th century, activity at Tikal slowed as the city entered a period of decline.

By the 9th century AD, 43 stelae and 30 altars had been erected in the North Acropolis; 18 of these monuments were carved with hieroglyphic texts and royal portraits.

Construction continued at the beginning of the 9th century, with the erection of Temple 3, the last of the city's major pyramids, and monuments erected to mark the 19th Kʼatun in 810.

Image source: Tikal Temple III

By the 9th century, the crisis of the Classic Maya collapse was sweeping across the region, with populations plummeting and city after city falling into silence. Some of Tikal's population may have migrated to the Peten Lakes region.

Image source: Classic Maya collapse

In the latter half of the 9th century, there was an attempt to revive royal power at the much-diminished city of Tikal, evidenced by a stela erected in the Great Plaza by Jasaw Chan Kʼawiil II in 869.

By the end of the 9th century, the vast majority of Tikal's population had deserted the city, its royal palaces were occupied by squatters, and simple thatched dwellings were being erected in the city's ceremonial plazas.

These events were coupled with a gradual population decline, culminating with the site's abandonment by the end of the 10th century. Even these final inhabitants abandoned the city in the 10th or 11th centuries and the rainforest claimed the ruins for the next thousand years.

In 1525, the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés passed within a few kilometers of the ruins of Tikal but did not mention them in his letters.

Image source: Hernán Cortés

After Spanish friar Andrés de Avendaño became lost in the Petén forests in early 1696 he described a ruin that may well have been Tikal. Second- or third-hand accounts of Tikal appeared in print starting in the 17th century.

Image source: List of mayors of Lima

John Lloyd Stephens and his illustrator Frederick Catherwood heard rumors of a lost city, with white building tops towering above the jungle, during their 1839–40 travels in the region.

Image source: John Lloyd Stephens

Because of the site's remoteness from modern towns, no explorers visited Tikal until Modesto Méndez and Ambrosio Tut, respectively the commissioner and the governor of Petén, visited it in 1848. Their account, accompanied by artist Eusebio Lara, was published in Germany in 1853.

Several expeditions came to further investigate, map, and photograph Tikal in the 19th century, including Alfred P. Maudslay in 1881–82, and more in the early 20th century. During this era some carved beams were removed and taken to museums in Europe, including Lintel 3 from Temple IV taken to Basel in Switzerland.

Image source: Alfred Maudslay

In 1951, a small airstrip was built at the ruins, which previously could only be reached by several days' travel through the jungle on foot or mule.

Tikal National Park was created on May 26, 1955 under government decree via the Instituto de Antropología e Historia, advised by Dr. Shook. It protected the site and 570 square kilometers of surrounding tropical forests, savannas, and wetlands within the Maya Biosphere Reserve, and was the first protected area in Guatemala. The park was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.

Image source: Tikal

From 1956 to 1970 the University of Pennsylvania's Tikal Project mapped the city on a scale not previously seen in the Maya area and carried out major archaeological excavations to restore many of the structures.

Archaeologists led by William Coe of the University of Pennsylvania investigated the North Acropolis and the Central Plaza from 1957 to 1969, revealing centuries of construction history.

Archaeologists uncovered in 1959 the upper portion of a stela deliberately smashed during the 6th century or later, which had been dragged away and dumped in a rubbish tip close to Temple III.

The tomb of the king was discovered by Aubrey Trik of the University of Pennsylvania in 1962, adding significant insight into Tikal's royal burials.

A site museum was completed in 1964 at Tikal National Park, helping to preserve and display artifacts recovered from decades of excavation at the ancient city.

The final version of Temple 33 was completely dismantled by archaeologists in 1965 in order to arrive at the earlier stages of construction beneath it.

Filmmaker George Lucas used Tikal as a filming location for the fictional moon Yavin 4 in the first Star Wars film, which premiered in 1977. Subsequent Star Wars movie Rogue One (2016) and season 2 of TV series Andor (2025) were also filmed at Tikal for the same fictional location.

In 1979, the Guatemalan government began a further archaeological project at Tikal, which continued through to 1984, following the site's declaration as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In 2018, 60,000 uncharted structures were revealed by archaeologists with help of Lidar technology, dramatically expanding understanding of the extent of Tikal and the surrounding Maya lowlands.

To the south of Mundo Perdido, recent 2021 excavations revealed a one-third size replication of La Ciudadela, or The Citadel, in Teotihuacan, underscoring Tikal's ties to that great central Mexican metropolis.

Image source: Parc de la Ciutadella