AD 556 – 562
Caracol defeats Tikal
Caracol, on the Vaca Plateau in present-day Belize, lies 76 km southeast of Tikal and is at first a client of the larger city. Altar 21 at Caracol records that Yajaw Te' K'inich II takes the throne there in April AD 553 under the authority of the Tikal king Wak Chan K'awiil. In 556 Tikal defeats Caracol in an "axe" war. Caracol then changes sides and accepts the Kaanul king of Dzibanche as its overlord.
Caana, the largest building at Caracol, BelizeWikimedia Commons, Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0 (Caana Caracol.jpg)
In April 562 Caracol and the Kaanul kingdom defeat Tikal in a "star war", named after a glyph that shows a star pouring liquid on the earth. Martin and Grube name the Kaanul king as Sky Witness, later studies of Dzibanche as K'ahk' Ti' Ch'ich'. Wak Chan K'awiil is probably captured and sacrificed, which ends his line on the throne of Tikal.
A Maya vessel with a battle scene, 600 – 900, from the Nebaj region of Guatemala, Cleveland Museum of ArtWikimedia Commons, Daderot, CC0 (Vessel with Battle Scene, 600-900 AD, Mesoamerica, Guatemala, Nebaj region, Maya, ceramic and slip, view 1 - Cleveland Museum of Art - DSC08798.JPG)
Tikal is not sacked, but its power is broken. Its Stela 17, raised by Wak Chan K'awiil, is the last monument set up in the city for more than a century, and much of its public sculpture is deliberately damaged. This gap, the Tikal hiatus, divides the Early from the Late Classic in the usual chronology.
Caracol grows quickly in the following decades, and Yajaw Te' K'inich II rebuilds Caana, its largest building. The account of these wars survives on the damaged Altar 21, which his son K'an II sets in the centre of the Caracol ballcourt in 633.
A stucco mask and a band of glyphs beside a tomb on the summit of Caana at CaracolWikimedia Commons, Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0 (Stucco mask and glyph inscription on Caana pyramid at Maya site of Caracol, Belize.jpg)
Sources
- Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube, Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens (2000), pp. 88 to 91 and 104.
- Diane Chase and Arlen Chase, Texts and Contexts in Maya Warfare: A Brief Consideration of Epigraphy and Archaeology at Caracol, Belize, in Ancient Mesoamerican Warfare (2003), pp. 171 to 188.
- David Webster, The Fall of the Ancient Maya (2002), pp. 192 to 193 and 262.
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