Civilisation

Tikal: a Maya city and its wider landscape

c. 600 BCE – 900 CE

Tikal’s temples, palaces, inscriptions, reservoirs and surrounding settlements reveal a major Maya urban world. Its city history spans the BCE/CE boundary; Maya communities and cultures continued beyond this urban phase.

Selected Preclassic-to-Classic urban history

c. 600 BCE–900 CE follows UNESCO’s selected archaeological period, not the entire history of Maya peoples.

UNESCO · Tikal

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Why it matters

A city’s changing fortunes are not the disappearance of a civilisation’s people.

Remember this

Tikal spans the calendar boundary; the Inca capital chapter comes much later.

Place it in context · 2 connected stories

Compare the whole dated phase. Overlap shows shared time; it does not establish contact or cause.

Overlapping in time

Teotihuacan: an ancient monumental city

c. 1 CE – 700 CE · City and monumental development · first to seventh centuries CE

A Mesoamerican urban centre during overlapping centuries.

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After

Cusco: a fifteenth-century Inca capital

c. 1,400 CE – 1,500 CE · Fifteenth-century capital and urban remodelling

A later capital in a different region and tradition.

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Tikal’s temples, palaces, inscriptions, reservoirs and surrounding settlements reveal a major urban world. Its city history spans the BCE/CE boundary; communities and cultures continued beyond this urban phase.

Regions

Americas

Olmec, Maya, Aztec, Inca civilisations and the New World shaping modern global history.

At a Glance

Datec. 600 BCE – 900 CE

ScaleCivilisation

Learn This

Historical Guide

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