Original subtitles

The Maya, an ancient civilization that ruled huge areas of

Central America for more than

2,500 years.

The classic Maya had been one of the most successful

societies in the Americas, if not

the world.

During their Golden Age, or Classic Period, 250-900 A.D., there

were more than 40 city-states

and over 2 million people, never united as one empire.

The Classic Period was a time of intensive interaction

between various kingdoms.

Alliance networks, conflicts, intermarriages.

Powerful city-states rose, fought, and forged fragile alliances.

In their rivalries lies the story of how their entire civilization fell.

Narratives that we've uncovered carved in their long-forgotten ruins.

We read an amazing story.

I'm just thinking about what that heat and flame and seeing the

pyramids burn would have

looked like.

The classic period was dominated by a brutal 200-year-long

battle for control of the Pet'en

region.

two ancient superpowers going head-to-head.

We have everything that Game of Thrones has except the dragons.

In the mid-7th century, the great rivalry between the Kingdom of Tikal

and the Kaanu'l dynasty in Calakmul reached its peak.

First, the Kaanu'ls taking control.

- What I see happening throughout the eighth century

is more or less a balance of power that is reestablished.

- Then, Tikal.

- How is it that he could possibly win

against the forces of God?

I say betrayal.

- But after 200 years of war, who would come out on top?

- Game of Thrones.

I mean, you don't get more Game of Thrones than this story.

These are the events that brought this great rivalry

to its climax.

The Kanul dynasty was one of the great Mayan kingdoms.

In the 7th century, it was at the height of its power,

ruled by Yuknum Chen II, or Yuknum the Great,

the King of Calakmul.

Known as the Serpent King,

inscriptions found on ancient ruins across the Peten region

show that no other Mayan ruler

had ever exercised such vast authority.

Yugnong Chen II lived until 686, which means that he ruled for some 50 years.

His reign had been spectacular.

He had been the all -conquering, most

successful Maya king.

But despite dominating the Mayan world, there was one city

that evaded the Serpent King's

grasp.

One of the most powerful Mayan cities and represented by the Jaguar.

In the lifetime of Yuknon the Great, his goal was to take Tikal again the

way that the kings of old of Kaanu'l had taken Tikal.

He wanted it to be a vassal.

In 657 AD, Yuknum the Great had partial success in his quest.

The Kanuls overpowered Tikal, but did not take full control.

Instead, the defeated king of Tikal, Nun Urolchak,

agreed to submit and marry a Kanul woman.

Yuknum the Great was playing the long game.

He knew that an heir born from this marriage

would have Kaanu'l blood, and therefore, when he took the throne,

Tikal would be a Serpent Kingdom.

Twenty years later, Yharnam's plan came to fruition.

Nun-Ur-Hol-Chak was murdered, and the new Serpent King took

to the throne of Tikal.

His name was Jasaw Chan Kawiil.

And that's why Hasau-Chan-Kawil.

was put into power.

He was put into power by Yuk-Nung Chen.

He said, "Okay, Jasaw Chan Kawiil,

"you can be the king there because you are of my blood.

"You are of my side."

- But this was a turbulent time for Tikal.

- When Jasaw Chan Kawiil becomes Tikal's new king,

we must remember that this was an extremely difficult time

in an extremely unstable time for Tikal itself.

His father, Nunu-Holchak, has been defeated in war.

So he is the son of the defeated Tikal king.

And his uncle, Balachchan-Kawil, is a turncoat,

is an ally now of the Kaanu'l lords.

- Jasaw Chan Kawiil 's father wasn't murdered by a stranger.

His killer was his own brother,

a once-Tikal noble, who defected to the Kanul.

This left Jasaw Chan Kawiil stuck at the heart

of the rivalry between the two kingdoms.

He was the son of a Kanul noblewoman,

but his father was a slain Tikal king.

Placing Jasaw Chan Kawiil on the throne of Tikal

technically gave Yuknam the great control

of the city he longed to rule, but it was a risk.

He had to trust that Jasaw Chan Kawiil

would remain loyal to the Kaanu'l.

A problem that would have to wait,

as taking Tikal wasn't enough for Yuqnam the Great.

He wanted more.

So he turned his attention to another city, El Peru? Huaca -,

-this time using his own offspring to gain a foothold.

Lady K'abel was one of the late children of Yuknum Chen the Great.

Yuknum was an old man when he died, but he knew these

children would take over for him.

So, Lady K'abel was a favorite, and he took her to Wakka when she was 17.

To honor the old king who had died, and also to marry the boy

who would become the next

king of Waka, and that boy would be crowned by her father

and named by her father.

As leader of the entire Khan dynasty, Yuknum the Great had the

power to choose who ruled

his vassal cities, and by placing his daughter by the new king of

Waka's side, his influence

only grew there.

And she would be the administrator of his kingdom in his

program of war against Tikal

and the conquest of Patan.

That was his goal and that's why he took her there.

I think Yuknong Chen wisely and because of a culture that was

already here at Kuala Lumpur

of the importance of women, saw the strategic advantage

of not only using women to build family ties,

but using women as ambassadors, as diplomats,

as actual partners in alliance building.

- Jachnam the Great couldn't afford to lose Wacca

in his quest to rule the Mayan lowlands.

It was more than simply an ally, or vassal.

By the time K'abel came, Waka had represented to Kanuul, a

stronghold in the western part

of the Maya lowlands.

It was the staging area for people to continue into Paten to

fight the wars, so that when

they brought armies down, when they brought force down, they

brought it through Waka.

This was a very strategic marriage.

With K'abel in Waka, it would ensure the well-trodden

routes to war remained open.

Yuknum Chen's dreams of conquering the Mayan

world stayed alive.

Her father, Yuknum Chen the Great, was a Kalomte, which is why she

inherited the title Ishkalomte.

That title positions her hierarchically as

superior to her spouse.

She is the seal of that vassal relationship.

She was not in any way hesitating when she came in.

She knew exactly what she was doing.

She was highly intelligent.

She was highly motivated.

She knew what her job was.

Under her authority, Waka secured new trade routes and became

one of the key strongholds

in the Khan dynasty, as it exerted control over the region.

I don't think that K'abel had any difficulty

establishing herself as the reigning

queen and oracle of Waka.

I think they were expecting her.

They were honored to have her as a queen.

When a queen came from outside of their kingdom,

it was something to be revered, not reviled.

The Maya revered the outside, the outer world.

They thought of it as magical.

So people that came from the outside world

were intrinsically magical people.

- As well as a key strategic position,

Waka was also a key hub for spiritual activities.

- The ruling monarchs of Waka were, by definition,

sorcerers and diviners and prophets.

This was what Waka was famous for from the beginning.

Yuknum Chen knew it, everybody knew it.

Ancestral Kanu lords knew it.

And K'abel was a great sorceress.

He brought his daughter,

and she became the oracle in her lifetime.

- As an oracle, K'abel was responsible

for communicating with the gods,

performing rituals dedicated

to the city's three guardian deities,

death, the moon, and the jaguar.

As their priestess and conjurer,

her rituals brought protection and health to Waka.

- Royal kings understood to be divine rulers,

Hula Hau. She is also a divine ruler, someone capable as men,

capable of magic, of sorcery.

In Waka, archaeologists have uncovered an inscribed

stone known as a stela,

erected to permanently record K'abel's power.

Standing, adorned with jade,

Holding the scepter of royal authority,

the images confirm her exceptional status

in Mayan history.

- Her portrait on Stila 34

is the quintessential image of a snake queen.

She is extraordinarily powerful, regal.

Her monument is unique in that it is,

it bears numerous signatures

from Calakmul origin artisans and sculptors.

It is carved in high relief.

- This is the masterwork.

It's the best carving ever done at Waka.

And it says, "She is the Kalentei."

She is the Supreme Warlord of Waka.

- Lady K'abel had many roles.

Wife to the King, Administrator, Oracle, and Warlord.

She successfully led the Kanul military efforts

across Piten, just as her father had wanted.

But this didn't last long.

Just over a decade later, her authority was put to the test.

Inscriptions tell us that Yuknum the Great died in 686,

upsetting the balance of alliances in the region.

- With the death of Yuknum Chen,

- It seems that the Kaanu'l Kingdom

entered a period of relative instability,

and this is something that we see

often happening in Maya history.

You have a long reigning king who dies,

and then an uncertain period afterwards.

Kaanu'l is no different.

- K'abel continued the influence of the Kaanu'l Dynasty

outside of Calakmul,

but she never went on to rule her father's kingdom.

Despite the power she had in Wacca,

it was still expected that a male heir

would take to the throne in Calakmul.

The supreme power passed to her brother, Yichak Kaak.

- Yichak Kaak is the successor of Yuknum Chen,

so he's the second of the Kanul rulers

who reigned at Calakmul.

- Yichak Kaak, it appears as if

he may have had a congenital spinal condition

that was hereditary.

And therefore, his movement would have been challenged.

- Despite this, Yuknam the Great

was confident in his abilities and that of his sister.

Together, they secured his legacy.

- K'abel and Yitzhak Kak were both children

of a favorite wife of Yuknam Chen's maturity.

And so those were the people he was going to use

to implement his conquest pattern in Patan.

So Yitzhak Kok was a great warrior

and K'abel was a great sorceress.

I think they were very close.

- Yuknam had groomed them for success from a young age.

- So I would imagine if they grew up together

that they were probably educated

in the high forms of diplomacy and political etiquette

to really take over this now very complex

hegemonic system of the Kaanu'l.

- Inscriptions, not only in Qalakmul,

but across the Mayan world,

tell us that on the 3rd of April, 686,

Yuqnam Yichak Qaq became the divine king

of the Kaanu'l dynasty.

He inherited an empire built by his father,

forged by war,

and maintained by a complex network of alliances.

On that day, the rulers of the cities of Dos Pilas

and El Peru? Huaca both came t -o -renew their oaths of loyalty.

But despite this ceremonial act,

the ruins tell a slightly different story,

that Yichak K'ak was already in control.

- So the earliest monument we have

with Yichak K'ak's name on it

his steeler nine, but the date of the monument

shows that he wasn't even king.

In fact, he was only 14 years old.

And it seems as if he is being groomed.

He is the apprentice king.

He is the junior co-ruler.

And that may have happened because Yuknam Chen was sick.

He may have thought that he wasn't gonna live much longer.

And in fact, he did.

He lived much longer.

He had essentially been a king in training.

Upon his accession to the throne,

Yuknam Yichak Kak inherited an empire

stretching from the Caribbean coast

to the heart of the Mayan lowlands.

Learning from the successes of his father,

it was controlled not through war and shows of force,

but trade.

- To the south, we would have seen the trade route

going through La Corona,

Then El Peruanhuaca, down the area into the Pateche Batun

area where Dos Pilas was,

on to Can Cuen, and then into the highlands.

It was vital to control this particular north-south route

in order to get really much -needed resources from the highlands,

such as obsidian, which we really don't have because of

the geology of the area.

This was a large operation to remain in command of.

- So he probably had huge pressure

to continue the successes of his father.

And at the same time,

he already counted like with a huge network of allies,

a legion followers,

who would really support his reign and his regime.

- That seems to have been a period

where he's trying to hold on to the power of the kingdom.

Everything begins very well.

He's mentioned positively at a number of sites.

There's a time period where Yichaak Kahk is essentially

assuming the mantle of authority following

the death of their father.

And K'abel is holding strong.

And their political relationship and

that vassal relationship

between Calakmul and Wakha continue

to be important for the political of Kalakmul.

- In the Kanul Empire, maintaining these alliances

not only meant trade, but also public rituals

at the very heart of the cities.

One of the most important being ball games.

It's on these courts that power was displayed

and allegiances between kingdoms were publicly confirmed.

Kanuul would use the ball game for alliance building.

So, vassals of Kanuul would play ball with lords of Kanuul or

their representatives.

We know ball game courts, we know the physical arenas where they played.

We see them in many different sites.

The ball game was very much part of the performance life of a Maya king.

We have depictions of Maya rulers in finery and regalia

and feather headdresses who were very awkwardly

playing the game.

Nobleman from one kingdom is playing a nobleman

from another kingdom.

So there's a diplomatic aspect to the games as well.

At Waka'a, for example, there is an image of the king of Waka'a,

and he's playing ball with the king of Kanu, Yitzhak'ak.

so we see this image of them playing ball together.

Yichak K'ak inherited a stable empire, and games such as

this enforced alliances.

Meanwhile, for more than a century, Tikal had been

contained and marginalized,

not partaking in such activities.

But as it rebuilt from war, something shifted.

Archaeologists have found evidence that Tikal started to

engage in diplomatic exchanges

and it wasn't submitting to the powerful Kaanu'l dynasty.

So we have a painted polychrome vessel. The date on it is

691 and it shows a Tikal lord

getting a delegation. There is an emissary that has come from

Yichak Ak and he is delivering

tribute or a gift, and he certainly has a pose of

submission to the Tikal lord.

But this is, you know, political rhetoric.

This is produced by Tikal, would it be the kind of thing that

they want to talk about

themselves?

I mean, I think that these diplomatic interactions are

happening all the time.

They're always sending gifts to each other, even enemies.

This is the kind of thing we see the world over, is, you

know, people are still trying

to maintain or manage relationships even

with their worst enemies.

With ancestral links back to

both Calakmul and Tikal, Jasaw Chan Kawiil , King of Tikal,

grew up at the heart of two opposing political legacies.

But at the end of the 7th century, he chose a side.

In Tikal, he asserted a new ambition.

to restore the Jaguar Kingdom's prestige and autonomy.

So Jasaw Chan Kawiil uses this very important title, Kalom-Teh,

that we associate with the most influential and

powerful of Maya warrior-kings.

I think to symbolize this idea of resurgence, this idea of

Tikal not being the defeated foe,

but being a new kingdom on the rise.

He seems to be powerful enough to put up a couple of monuments at Tikal.

Constructing great monuments was a sign of power, requiring

huge amounts of raw materials

and manpower.

They were statements of divine authority, human

achievement, and political prowess.

they immortalized their leaders.

Teotihuacan was one of the great Central American cities.

Not Mayan in its origins,

it gained control of Tikal

during the Great Entrada 300 years before.

Jasaw Chan Kawiil wanted to restore Tikal's power

by evoking the greatness of its past.

There is a wooden lentil inside of the shrine that shows Hasao Chan

K'aw'il dressed as a Teotihuacan warrior.

And this is clearly connecting himself to that era of the Entrada.

Connecting himself to a great Teotihuacan king who, 300 years

earlier, took over Tikal and masterminded its meteoric rise.

Jasaw Chan Kawiil's attempt to invoke imagery from this time made his

motives clear to archaeologists.

He wanted to restore the power of his forefathers.

He wanted revenge from his most powerful enemy, the serpent

ruler Yichak K'ak, king of Calakmul.

This time would have been when Jasaw Chan Kawiil was still

coming up in the world.

So he had not done anything significant that we know about.

Yi-Chak-Ak was probably still feeling very

confident and very powerful.

But I think that when Jasaw Chan Kawiil , he's the

culmination of Tikal's revival,

he's probably also relying on the help of enemies of the Snake Kings.

And, in fact, there's some little bones that reference

other kingdoms from far away.

Kopan and Edsna, Altunhar, places which are not close at all.

But, yeah, credibly, they might even be the allies which helped.

Regional tensions rose as Tikal vied to become the most powerful city.

Confrontation with Calakmul became inevitable.

Meanwhile, in Waka, K'abel occupied a unique position.

Both a political figure and an oracle,

her viewpoints and prophecies would have been taken very seriously.

- My hypothesis is that K'abel divined, prophesized,

that her brother would defeat Jasaw Chan Kawiil

in battle in Tikal, as his father had won.

K'abel may have given Yichak Kak the confidence

to attack Jasaw Chan Kawiil.

She may have encouraged him.

- In the South, the two dynasties met.

Yichak Kak, King of the Kanole Empire, and Rasol Chan Kawil,

driven by the desire to restore Tikal to its former power.

War was inevitable.

- I think Yichak Kak always expected

to fight against Tikal, always.

Because he had been a warrior for years

at the point that he took on Jasaw Chan Kawiil.

He knew he was going to have to confront Jasaw Chan Kawiil.

I mean, just knew it.

Jasaw Chan Kawiil had declared independence.

He wasn't a vassal to Kanur.

So he had to fight him.

So he knew he was going to.

K'abel predicted that Itzhakkot would win.

The year 695 is a turning point in the history of the Kaanu'l

dynasty because Tikal, which

had been rebelling the rule of the Kaanu'l, somehow was able

to build strength enough

to challenge the Kaanu'l.

But being such a spiritual people, the Maya weren't

alone in this conflict.

The gods were on the battlefield in the

form of great effigies.

Jaguars and other monsters were carried onto the battlefield and

those gods were fighting each other.

- So on August the 5th of 695,

we see this spectacular turn of events,

which was the defeat of the Kunl king

by Jasaw Chan Kawiil of Tikal.

- For the first time in generations,

the power of the Serpent Kings was defeated

and their political domination

over the Mayan lowlands came to an end.

Yichaak Kahk escaped with his bodyguard.

He escaped to the west, to La Corona.

He ran away.

It's a little bit of a mystery why Yichaak Kahk lost the

battle against Tikal,

which had been subjugated for centuries now.

But it must have been because Tikal, being a great regional power,

just like the Kaanu'l, before they were subjugated,

was able to maintain its strength.

and the tribute that he was receiving from his more immediate ally kingdoms.

Tributes were a key part of the ally structure.

Subordinate cities would pay taxes to the more powerful kingdoms.

Luxury goods like jade, feathers, and cacao.

Foods such as maize, honey, fish, even slaves.

Workers to build temples, work the royal land, or even join their armies.

Tikal certainly was important enough that we were able to build a

new coalition and big armies,

big enough to challenge the biggest armies around at the time,

which were the Kanul armies.

Even with such support, Tikal should have been the weaker force.

Its victory has left archaeologists questioning how it

might have been possible.

Why did Kaanu'l lose to Tikal?

Jasaw Chan Kawiil was a junior king.

He was a nothing.

Tikal had been defeated repeatedly.

He'd been defeated by Yuknum the Great a few years before.

They'd killed his father.

How is it that he could possibly win against the forces of Kaanu'l?

I say betrayal.

In 650 AD,

Jasaw Chan Kawiil 's uncle, Balakh Chan Khawil, betrayed his

Tikal heritage and sided with the

Kaanu'l. For decades he was an ally to the Snake Kingdom, doing their

bidding, fighting their wars.

But something changed. In the year 695 AD, he may have

swapped sides again,

going back to his Tikal roots and aiding his nephew.

This withdrawal, if true, would have been enough to tip the

balance of the battle

and seal the defeat of the Canol dynasty.

After victory in 695 AD, Jasaw Chan Kawiil returned to Tikal as a victor,

a moment that's very clearly laid out in its monuments.

The main record of this great victory comes from Temple One.

And on this, we see a fantastic image

of Jasaw Chan Kawiil seated.

Behind him, looming over him, is this figure of a jaguar.

And what we're looking at here is actually

representation of a sacred palanquin or a litter associated

with the Kaanu'l dynasty.

This was much more than just military success.

These images depict the appropriation of

Calakmul's symbols of power.

- So capturing an enemy god was very important

because you would take that person

and it's like having a thermonuclear weapon.

You take it apart very, very carefully

so that it doesn't hurt you

and that power is then transformed

into something helpful to you and not dangerous to you.

- Other sacred objects were also taken from the battlefield.

- When Jasaw Chan Kawiil defeated his adversary,

the King of Kanur, he took from him a small jade mosaic cup.

- That cup represented all the power

of all the rulers of Kaanul,

a gathering of the souls of Kaanul.

And he kept that cup and turned it into his power

by inscribing his name on it.

- With the power of a once Kanu god now on their side,

this great victory set the stage for Tikal

to increase its authority over the Mayan world.

- And now Tikal has expanded its power.

- It surely saw itself as getting back to the glory days.

The center of Tikal is transformed.

So new temples, new palaces, they're sucking in resources.

- Jasaw Chan Kawiil erected what we now call Structure 2,

opposite Temple 1.

He built Complex N, a set of twin pyramids,

and the North Acropolis was enlarged and embellished.

New royal palaces were constructed, reflecting the consolidation of power

and the return of Tikal as a major political center in

the Mayan lowlands.

They clearly have benefited economically from their success

and they're able to convert that into physical capital.

But it doesn't necessarily mean the utter defeat of the Kaanu'l kings.

What I see happening throughout the 8th century

is more or less a balance of power that is re-established.

- I think it's true to say that that defeat of 695

is the beginning of the end.

It was not as decisive as we thought it was

because we now know more about how other kingdoms

were maintained within the hegemony.

But given that Tikal is finally the people who

overturned Calakmul's power,

that's the first step in that process of decline.

One of the areas the Kanil still held great power was Waka.

Here, the Kanil Queen Lady K'abel remained a figure of authority.

But things were changing.

She would have known that she had to be very careful now.

So, my guess is that she consoled her family,

consoled her husband, and kept working,

and prepared for the next generation to rule.

So she had real work to do.

But Lady K'abel must have been totally astonished

and heartbroken by the defeat of her brother in 695.

For Yoknum Yichak Kak, on the other hand,

the defeat marked the end of his reign.

The prospect of a resurgence

and the Kaanu'l Empire dominating the Mayan lowlands

then died with him in 697 A.D.

- Tomb four here is a very, very wealthy burial

that shows evidence that it was the tomb of Yichacoc.

Most kings here at Calakmul had mortuary masks made of jade.

The masks of jade were the Ba, the spirit, but they were

made in a material that would

contain that spirit indefinitely.

So eternal life is represented by the jade masks.

What's interesting, though, is that there's a jade mask in

this tomb with the name of

which again suggests that either there was one jade mask

and Nichakop just could not bear to part with it

upon the death of his father and kept it as a precious memento,

or that Yuknomchen had more than one jade mask

and was buried with one, and one was given to his son.

The death of his sister, Lady K'abel, followed just a few years

later, sometime between 702

AD and 711 AD.

It marked the loss of a great Mayan queen and oracle, evidence

of her departure reflecting

her importance.

When K'abel died, there was an enormous ceremony.

It would have been in the reign of K'nitch Balam, her husband.

He would have organized that funeral.

He would have organized the burial of her oracle temple.

He would have organized the creation of a great performance

space in that new place

that he had buried her temple in, buried her in, and carried

out a big ceremony there.

He would have buried that whole upper plaza over her tomb and

created a new fire shrine.

I had the honor of meeting Lady K'abel, encountering her in 2012 with

the discovery of her royal tomb.

There's that burial I told you about, kind of there.

Dare I say, maybe the one and only K'abel.

Lady K'abel's tomb was re-entered.

I think that the revisitation of K'abel's tomb,

as well as the longer term revisitation of the building

itself that she's buried in,

and it would have absolutely been known

that this is where she is buried,

is indicative of the reverence and respect

and the renown that she had,

not just in the immediate aftermath of her death,

but for generations after.

- Whilst the reigns of K'abel,

Yuknum Yichak-Kak and Hasao Chan-Kawil came to an end,

the conflict between Tikal and Calakmul

did not disappear with them.

Instead, a new generation came to power.

In Tikal, Yikin Tsangkawil succeeded his father in 734 A.D.

In Calakmul, their defeat at the hands of Tikal in 695 A.D.

did not put an end to the ambitions of the Serpent Kings.

After the death of Yitzhak Hax and his catastrophic failure,

the Kaanu'l lords re -energized themselves

and a new king arose, Yuknum Tikawil.

He was working very hard then to create a new form of governance

that would allow him to prevail against Tikal.

This is a portrait of Yukon Tokawil.

He's the successor of Yicha Kak.

So all this huge labor of bringing the stone here,

selecting the stone, carving the stela, erecting them,

really shows that Yukon Tokawil wanted to make clear

that there was still power to do things at Calakmul.

And this is a great testimony to that attitude.

But he affirmed his alliance in Wakka.

He affirmed his other alliances on the eastern side.

He made sure that he was ready for isolation

and attack of Tikal and its forces in the middle.

And we don't know the battle that he had with Tikal,

but he had a battle.

- That battle seems to have been quite decisive.

- For nearly two centuries,

The rivalry between Tikal and Calakmul had continued.

These great kingdoms were slowly drained by war.

giving way to a steady decline

that would forever transform the Mayan world.

- It isn't a simple story of things that happen overnight.

It's a process of decline.

- By that time, you have, I think,

all of the elements in place

for what ultimately leads to the collapse

a few decades later.

- Was this the beginning of the end

of the Mayan civilization?

Amidst great climatic shifts, Tikal has one final resurgence of power.

But will it survive?

Sometimes not even the Gods can save you