Original subtitles

- The Maya, an ancient civilization

that ruled huge areas of Central America

for more than two and a half thousand 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 to 900 AD,

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.

Their rivalry tells the story

of how this entire civilization fell,

narratives 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 Pete?n region -.

-two ancient superpowers going head-to-head.

- We have everything that "Game of Thrones" has

except the dragons.

- During the early years, Tikal, the Jaguar City, dominated.

But its ruins speak of a great rival, the Kaanul,

otherwise known as the Snake Kings.

There is no doubt that the Kaanul Kings were intending to

conquer all of Maya kingdoms.

And in order to do that, they had to secure all the kingdoms around Tikal.

They speak of war.

The term Star Wars, it's associated with the

act of catastrophic war.

That's the climax, that's the crescendo, that's what the

whole inscription is building up to.

Who would come out on top?

This is the story of the Serpent Kingdom's rise to power,

their domination over the Mayan world.

In the year 400 AD,

the Maya were spread across the Americas in great cities.

Tikal ruled the lowlands, but it wasn't the only great power.

The Kaanul dynasty is unusual in Maya history

because of its power and influence.

You cannot understand classic Maya political history

without understanding the story of the state kingdom.

As we rediscovered the ancient Mayan world in the early 20th century,

a snake symbol kept appearing amongst Mayan inscriptions.

Archaeologists found it right across the Pite?n region -.

-The problem was, no one knew what it meant.

It took 50 years to decipher its meaning.

The place of snakes.

It spoke of a great central city of the Kaanul dynasty.

In the 1990s, archaeologists finally worked out where it was.

Dzibanche? -.

-The name Kaanul is associated with a place,

and the place is Dzibanche? -.

-Nearly 200km north -north-east of Tikal,

It's in modern-day Mexico, but near the border of Belize.

Dzibanche? is a fascinating place -.

-If you compare it to other Maya capitals in the early classic,

it's actually very impressive.

Its grand architecture and sophisticated urban planning

set Dzibanche? apart fro -m -other kingdoms with potentially

the largest monumental

zone and highest population density of any Mayan city in

the lowlands. This was

a political powerhouse.

At Dzibanche? we see a very powerfu -l -militaristic expansionistic dynasty.

They're conquering their enemies. Some of the earliest

records of Maya warfare

come from the site of Cibanche and about the Kaanul kings.

Monuments covered in inscriptions make their military prowess clear,

and one discovery in particular shows the ruthless

nature of its society.

And the captives are clearly in an altered state of

consciousness because their hair

is way out on the side.

And that tells us that they're in a dream state, they're

in an altered state.

Those people are being prepared for sacrifice, or they're

being prepared for slavery.

Rituals were important to the Maya, and one of the greatest

offerings they could make

to their gods was blood.

Human blood.

The more important the sacrifice's role in

society, the better.

That's why these prisoners were not mere warriors.

They were rulers, the kings of neighboring cities.

The stairway of the captives was therefore a ritual device,

every visitor walking over the symbolic bodies

of defeated enemies.

With each step, it reaffirmed the superiority

of the Kaanul Dynasty and the greatness of its king,

Yuknoom Cheen

This is the first time we have any real information about

their political activities.

and he's certainly claiming a large number of captives

and a large number of places that he's conquering.

- Yuknoom Cheen I laid the foundations

for the Kaanul's territorial expansion.

But despite its many victories,

Sibanche remained too weak to challenge

the greatest power in the Mayan world, Tikal.

Instead, this conquest fell to another serpent ruler.

This sculpted stone monument tells us

that in the year 544, a new king came to the throne.

His name was K'ahk' Ti' Ch'ich

- K'ahk' Ti' Ch'ich was one of the most important kings

of the Kaanul Dynasty.

He ascended to the title of Calomte,

which is supreme leader or emperor.

The first Kannul leader to use that title,

between 550 and 572.

And it's interesting because we didn't know about him

until very recently.

- Archeologists found the first traces of this great ruler

during a dig at Dzibanche? -.

-Carved upon lintel three of building six,

The team published their results in 2017.

- K'ahk' Ti' Ch'ich, he is the person who really

tightens that noose around Tikal's neck.

- The first Kalomte of the East, K'ahk' Ti' Ch'ich,

wanted to expand the Kaanul people

further into Tikal territory than ever before.

A motive that's clear to see within ancient inscriptions.

There is no doubt that the Kaanul Kings were intending to

conquer all of Maya kingdoms.

And Tikal being the most powerful rival,

they immediately realized that this other empire in the

south was a real threat.

And so they had to defeat them.

In order to do that, they had to secure all the kingdoms around Tikal.

first.

The Kaanuls wanted to rule the Mayan world, but to do so, they

had to take out its heart,

Tikal.

As they moved through the Pete?n region, they eventuall -y

-reached El Peru? Huaca, the so-calle -d

-city of sorcerers and a strategic neighbor of Tikal.

It's located at the top of a cliff overlooking the junction of

the San Pedro and San Juan

rivers.

Huaca was not a big city, but it was an important city.

It was a pilgrimage place.

People would come there to receive divination, to receive

prophecies, like they went to oracles

in ancient Greece.

And as a result, everybody wanted to control this place.

Tikal wanted to control, Kaanul wanted to control, they were

competing to control Waka.

Tikal was the closer neighbour and the heart of a thriving trade

network of which Waka was a part.

In El Peru?-Waka, we suppos -e -they had a pretty close connection

to Tikal, but that changes.

In the ruins of Waka, archaeologists discovered Stela 44.

It tells of how the Kano'ul king, K'ahk' Ti' Ch'ich,

had an impact here in 556 AD.

- At Waka, we do see evidence

for the accession of Waka's ruler,

which happens under the oversight of K'ahk' Ti' Ch'ich.

The ability for K'ahk' Ti' Ch'ich to have power over, authority

over Waka at this time means

that Waka has shifted its

alliance from Tikal to K'ahk' Ti' Ch'ich.

That is a critical alliance shift.

By losing Waka, Tikal had lost one of its most valuable allies.

But even more worryingly, the archaeological record tells

us that it was about to lose

Teotihuaca?n was a -n -ancient powerhouse, not Mayan.

It controlled trade across all of Central America,

reaching far beyond the Mayan realms.

And it had ties with Tikal.

Now what's interesting here is to think about the timing of all of this

in relationship to what's going on at Teotihuaca?n -.

-Because at Teotihuaca?n, w -e -don't have written history,

but the archaeology tells us that around 550 A.D. more or less,

we see a violent collapse,

the burning of temples and structures at Teotihuaca?n -,

-and a general abandonment

of what had been the greatest city in Mesoamerica.

This was a fairly sudden event.

After 850 years,

and with more than 200,000 inhabitants at its peak,

its peak, Teotihuaca?n was destroyed -.

-Places of worship desecrated.

Its political structure collapsed.

Experts can see the devastation in the wreckage,

but as to why it happened, that remains a mystery.

- People that work at Teotihuaca?n cannot agree o -n

-why did Teotihuaca?n collapse -?

-A lot of people have debated whether it's environmental,

internal politics. It doesn't look like it was an external

influence, a war or something like that.

I think for the community living in Teotihuaca?n, it would hav -e

-been a chaos, right? The flames,

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

seeing the pyramids burn would have

looked like and would have completely ingrained into the eyes of

the population of Teotihuaca?n itself -.

-At this point in time, Tikal was still an enclave of

Teotihuaca?n. Despite being 1,00 -0

-and kilometers apart, their fates were closely bound.

- To me, it seems quite clear

that the demise of Teotihuaca? -n

-must have influenced Tikal's own fortunes.

This may be the time that the Kaanul kings

took advantage of in expanding their own network.

- By 562, K'ahk' Ti' Ch'ich had assembled allies

which surrounded Tikal.

- They have Naranjo, they have Wakha,

they have Lakorun, and they have Karakor.

And those lords agreed to conquer Tikal.

- The survival of Tikal rested on the military strategy

of its leader at the time, Wak-Chan-Kawil,

otherwise known as Double Bird.

- Wakchan Kawil was the king of Tikal,

and so he would be direct rival to K'ahk' Ti' Ch'ich.

- Stellar 17, an ancient stone discovered in Tikal,

is the only monument that describes

the reign of Wakchan Kawil.

It recounts his journey to the throne,

but has no mention of an impending war.

Do I think Wak Chan K'awil saw K'ahk' Ti' Ch'ich coming?

Definitely.

Since the Teotihuaca? -n -invasion of Tikal in 378 AD, it had

benefited from their military genius.

Great defensive structures, walls and ditches protected the city.

Wak Chan K'awil, Tikal's king, was prepared.

All of the defensive systems that we see around the region of Tikal

is probable that some of these features,

these trenches and walls that we see,

were built around the time of this conflict with the kaanul.

Archeologists have used a scanning technique known as Lidar

To study these defences more

By firing laser pulses, they can create maps with incredible precision,

revealing seemingly hidden structures.

The defensive structures

stretched 30 kilometers around the city.

Fortresses to the north and south

protected the trade routes.

La Cuernavilla was an entire fortified settlement

with walls over seven meters high,

watchtowers, moats, and slingshots.

Everything indicates that Tikal

was ready to withstand a prolonged siege.

the power the Serpent Kingdom wanted.

There are inscriptions going back hundreds of years

that chart Kaanul attempts to take on Tikal,

every time the great city held.

But would Kak Tishish have more success?

He gathered his armies in the city of Choshkitam,

ready to wage war on the nearby Tikal.

The Maya have a hieroglyph for warfare, general warfare.

It's called a star war glyph.

We've had recent breakthroughs in

understanding the glyph

that's called Star Wars.

It consists of a bright celestial body.

It's called a star, but it could be a comet.

It could be a meteor.

It could be a constellation.

It's a bright object in the sky.

So what we now know that it means

is deluge, as in a great flood, a wipeout.

We would say wipeout.

- The term Star Wars, it's associated

with the act of catastrophic war.

And did K'ahk' Ti' Ch'ich practice Star War?

Yes, he did.

Against Tikal, for sure.

- On the 29th of April, 562 AD,

K'ahk' Ti' Ch'ich and his allies descended on Tikal

with the aim of destroying not only the people

who lived there, but all of its religious symbols.

Tikal's leader, Wapchankawil, was captured,

the city forced into submission.

There would be no record of a new ruler

for more than a hundred years.

Altar 21 in Karakol,

a city just 70 kilometers southeast of Tikal,

commemorates the Kaanul victory

and has revealed Wapchankawil's fate.

- The defeat of Tikal was a very important turning point

because there was a lot of conflict leading up to that

in various parts of the Maya lowlands,

especially in the kingdoms around Tikal.

But after that, there was a relative peace and stability

because the Kaanul had defeated the most important rival.

- Archeologists have estimated that the Serpent Kings

ruled the lowlands for some 130 years.

Within that time, it appears no kingdom dared to challenge Dzibanche? -.

-But as is always the case, nothing can last forever.

Wars of succession were to be their downfall.

Particularly, the appearance of Yuknum -Chin II, also known

as Yuknum the Great.

He emerges around 600 in the early years of the 7th century

as a powerful Kaanul ruler.

But there seems to be a conflict, an internal conflict, between him and it

might be a rival to the Kaanul throne.

Experts aren't exactly sure of Yakhnum Sheen's heritage.

But he wasn't in line for the throne of the Kaanul

capital, Dzibanche? -.

-Instead, he was likely the son of a king and queen

from another Kaanul city.

- This pitched two characters, Nyup Nong Ch'en II,

against the legitimate king of Sipan Che.

- The Kaanuls had a unique system

to avoid conflict over the throne.

Two kings ruled at the same time.

The more senior managed foreign affairs,

whilst the other took care of the day-to-day administration

and importantly, warfare.

When the more senior died,

the deputy took his place

and then chose his own future successor.

But Yuknum the Great refused to follow these rules.

- My father's king, my mother's queen, I will rule.

So there was a civil war.

The Civil War is recounted on many hieroglyphic texts in the

Maya world, which is absolutely

wonderful, because it gives us a sense of these people as real

human beings, motivated

by pride and by anger and by strategy, to fight each other.

And we really see the human side.

They were fighting up until 636, and this is when there seems

to be a decisive victory.

And Yuknong Chen II is the person who has this success.

- But civil war weakened the Kaanul.

- Sibancay failed after that.

It was diminished in power.

It became inconsequential.

And Yuknong the Great, he moved the capital to Calakmul.

- Calakmul, a city approximately

130 kilometers southwest of the old capital.

- Yukong Chen probably decided to move his capital

to Kuala Lumpur for several different reasons.

His mother was a Kuala Lumpur princess

and she had strong family ties to this area.

But secondly, and probably equally importantly,

- Calakmul was already a vastly wealthy city at that time.

And as we all know, wars cost money.

And so he might've needed the resources

in order to expand the Kainu influence

throughout the Maya lowlands.

- This was the dawn of a new era.

Calakmul was to become a new great power in the region.

And Yakunum the Great, a king like no other.

a master manipulator and political genius.

Details of his reign are documented upon Stele 33,

a stone found in Kalakmul.

It shows Yuknum as an almighty ruler.

- Yuknum the Great certainly declared himself

to be a kalamte, a supreme overlord.

But you know, it's really, in my view,

likely that people of Kaanul thought of Yuknum Chen as a god,

because they called him Ka-wil.

- Ka-wil is a deity associated with power,

fertility, and lightning.

The scepter of Ka-wil, a means by which kings

could harness the power of this great god.

A power that Yuknum the Great appears to have gained.

During Yuknung Chen's lifetime, the city seems to have expanded.

What we see in the outlying areas is fairly astonishing.

So what had already been big, they make even bigger.

They had a boom in construction of palaces.

They built palaces in Calakmul that were grander than any of the

palaces elsewhere in the Maya world.

We can imagine Calakmul itself growing from a densely urban

area to a large megalopolis

where you have much sprawl throughout the region,

region, taking advantages of new areas for farming

to supply this magnificent city.

The remains of this expansion are clear to this day.

I'm sitting here on top of Structure 2,

and I'm wondering what the Kaanul kings must have thought

as they looked out over this vast kingdom.

At its peak, Calakmul controlled

about 13,000 square kilometers.

That's an area 10 times the size of Los Angeles.

It became a new center of political, commercial,

and religious power throughout the Pete?n region -.

- This structure is -considered the heart

of the Qanun dynasty during its time at Calakmul

because of its prominent location in the heart of the city.

It is the largest structure in the city,

the most prominent structure in the city,

and would have been the focus

of major ritual activities in the city.

It's also on a plaza where many people from within the city,

as well as dignitaries from throughout the kingdom,

would have been able to watch the performances.

Yachnun the Great would have welcomed nobles

from allied cities, performing rituals to prove his power.

And this was important.

Calakmul's allegiances with Ziranche, the previous capital,

protected the north-south trade routes in the region,

and Karakol and Naranjo took care

of those traveling east-west.

But just how strong were these alliances?

- It's easy to conquer someone,

but they don't necessarily become your allies.

It's much more important to bring somebody in willingly,

to be your ally, to engage in building

long-term relationships.

Something very particular is happening

at Calakmul, which doesn't happen everywhere

and doesn't happen possibly anywhere.

The heirs to the throne of many other places, who were due to

become the kings of these

subject polities, go to live at Calakmul.

- With the idea that this is going to solidify

political control, but in any case,

it means you have a collection of hostages.

It wasn't just about allying with Calakmul,

but it was about creating a greater alliance within the Maya region for

trade and prosperity for everyone.

And because of this, not only was it the height of his reign

here at Calakmul, but I think

it also was the height of the Kanuul influence throughout the Maya region.

But when we start to really get into his story, we can see that

he has a problem, and the

The problem is the revival of Tikal.

- Tikal, the Jaguar Kingdom.

Despite being badly damaged,

it was not completely destroyed in 562.

There is a gap of around a hundred years

where archeologists find no evidence of inscriptions

or monument building,

but it's believed the city continued to function,

likely subordinate to the Kanu?l -,

-but not ruled by them directly.

After this period, Tikal rose from the ashes.

It was still the only kingdom

capable of overthrowing the Serpent Empire,

and Yakhnu?m the Grea -t -did not control it.

Tikal had never previously completely submitted to the Kanoor.

This time, Yuknum the Great seized

an extraordinary opportunity to establish control

over his rival once and for all.

Whilst Tikal had grown stronger

and was now a threat to the Kanoor,

experts have found evidence that Yuknum the Great,

the political mastermind that he was,

found a way to influence the internal affairs of Tikal

by creating conflict within its nobility.

- Our understanding of this complicated political situation

and the story of Yukonomche?n -,

-a lot of this crystallized many years ago, back in 1990.

The excavations we were conducting

at the site of Dos Pilas in Guatemala,

that we found a new inscription.

It was an inscription on a staircase.

And it was very close to the surface.

In fact, it just had to brush away some dirt in order

to see the hieroglyphs.

And in that extraordinary moment, over a few weeks,

we read an amazing story.

And this is all taking place in the mid-7th century.

So you had a prince of Tikal living in Dos Pilas, and a prince

of Tikal living in Tikal.

The one in Tikal is named Nunuholchak, and the one living in Dos

Pilas is Balachan Kawil.

Balachan Kawil was established at Dos Pilas as a satellite

kingdom, as kind of an arm

of the Tikal dynasty.

- When the father of these two boys died,

Balachan Kawil, the prince of Dos Pilas,

thought he should become the king of Tikal.

- The steps of Dos Pilas tell us that in 648 AD,

Prince Balachan Kawil, then aged 21,

gave Yakhnum the Great what he'd been waiting for,

a way to take Tikal.

And it started with betrayal.

- Balacang Coahuila started traveling back to Tikal

to contest in the court against his brother,

who was taking the throne.

He was met on the way by a group of Tikal lords,

including members of his family.

A Tikal lord of his family was killed.

And that ended it because it meant that

now Balachankawil was outlaw.

He could not return to Tikal

and his brother would take the throne.

Well, they became great enemies.

- So Balachankawil is a member of the court of Tikal

of the Mutul dynasty, yet he switches his alliance

to fight his own family.

- We found the name Yuknum the Great inscribed

on the Dos Pilas staircase.

It tells us that he became involved in the conflict,

taking advantage of the situation in the year 650 AD.

- Balachanka wheel was weak.

He was angry, he was in Dos Pilas.

Yuknum the Great came down and put siege on his town.

Yuknum Chen, he said, "Let me make you an offer you can't refuse.

"I'm going to give you the armies to defeat your brother and

you will be my vassal.

Is that a good deal?" And Balachankawil said,

"Yes, that's a good deal."

Yakhnoom the Great was instigating a war that he himself

need not be part of.

He was about to take on Tikal without committing all of his forces.

And so Balacan Kawil became the general of the armies in the

southwest for Kaanul and he attacked

against his brother Nunu Holcak and they fought each other for

years and years back and forth.

In total the war raged on for almost 10 years, battlefields

spanning the entire Peten region.

- In 657, Kahnul came into Tikal

and drove Nunu Holchak, the king of Tikal, out of Tikal.

- Nunu Holchak has to escape.

He's ejected and he is an exile.

But the consequence of that 6-5-7 war

seemed to come a little bit later in maybe 662

or somewhere around there,

where the kings of Dos Pilas and Tikal are brought together.

- Eukenom went down south of Tikal to a neutral zone.

And he had those guys together and he said,

"Okay, here's what's gonna happen.

"You and Balachankuil, you're my vassal,

"you're the general of the armies in the west.

"You, Nunu-Holchak, are my conquest.

"I can kill you if I want, but I won't.

"I'm not going to kill you.

"I'm going to marry you to a woman of my side."

- We tend to interpret that as some sort of attempt

to impose Calakmul control over the whole region.

- Yaknum the Great held all the power,

Yet the rivalry between the two brothers was not yet over.

- The grand summation of all this,

and we keep hearing bits and pieces

about what Calakmul is doing,

is Bala Cankawil saying that he defeats Nunu Holcak in 679.

- So Nunu Holcak was decisively defeated

by Balachankawil with the forces from Kaanul.

- The brothers and their armies had battled for years,

yet in 679, there was finally a victor.

The inscriptions make it clear

that Balachankawil beat Nunu Holchak.

The Kaanuls had won once and for all.

Tikal was defeated.

That's the climax, that's the crescendo, that's what the

whole inscription is building

up to.

And the hieroglyphic staircase commemorating this at Dos

Pilas says, "And they pooled

the blood, and they piled the skulls."

These great piles of skulls were part war trophy, part

religious sacrifice, part show

of political power. Not only a very visible symbol of the

Kaanul victory, they would have

also represented cosmic order being restored, an offering to the gods.

It describes how there is a mass execution of captives, of

prisoners taken in battle.

And again, Tikal is subdued.

And this can only have happened

with the help of Calakmul,

who is mentioned multiple times in this narrative.

This is Yuknob-Chen, who is the real victors here.

- Like the Kaanul King a century before him,

Yuknum the Great gained victory over Tikal.

Inscriptions commemorating the event,

cementing his place in history.

- One of the last records we have

is of a grand celebration that takes place,

probably at Calakmul.

It's a celebration, I think, of this victory over Tikal,

over Nun Uholchak.

The King of Kaanul and the King of Dos Pilas dance.

They perform a dance together.

In Mayan culture, dance was seen as a way to connect to the gods.

And it shows him wearing the regalia with a back rack of

feathers and a god, the regalia

of alliance.

- When kings danced together in alliance,

they danced with the backpacks.

And they celebrated the maze god's resurrection.

- But it's still not the end.

- In a reign lasting 50 years,

Yuknum the Great led the kingdom of the serpents to its peak.

He forged alliances further afield

than any king had ever done before.

But in the depths of a beaten down Tikal,

a new king emerged, one who was after revenge.

- Game of Thrones, I mean, this is,

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

- The great rivalry between Tikal and the Kaanul

reaches a climax.

But it's not all about epic battles and bloodshed.

This was a time of political power moves and manipulation