The Maya civilization flourished in the 5th century
AD and the stone cities jutting out of the rainforest housed millions.
During this incredible era the Kings, gleaming with jade and vibrant feathers marching through
the jungles with thousands of their obsidian wielding warriors are about to introduce total
warfare to the Maya world.
Two Maya superstates, home to the Temple of the Great Jaguar Paw - Tikal, and the massive
Snake Kingdom - Calakmul will collide and cycle between moments of triumph and disaster
for not only themselves, but their entire world.
Maya warfare worked differently than that of Eurasia.
As there were no draft animals, Maya armies would have to carry all of their own equipment
and food.
Porters were used, so soldiers wouldn’t have to carry everything, but the longer the
campaign the more porters would be needed to carry food, and soon more porters would
be needed simply to carry food for the other porters.
Campaigning was limited to the dry season, as the rains would make it impossible for
the large groups to traverse the swamps and forests of the region.
Therefore, Maya conquests and campaigns were short and they usually never travelled more
than a 2 weeks march.
Only when rivers were nearby do we see far flung warfare as canoes could be used to transport
food and equipment.
So rather than empires or massive kingdoms the Maya instead formed hegemonies and political
leagues.
Each state was technically independent but a complex system of lords and overlords, dynastic
marriages, and intimidation allowed the stronger states to dominate the weaker ones.
When the Maya states went to war they were short, bloody, and chaotic affairs.
Wars were usually conducted by and for the Maya elites and so they were expected to do
most of the fighting.
The King and his entourage of elites formed the core of Maya armies.
The Maya military was entirely infantry based.
Armour wasn’t worn for most of Maya history but when it was worn it was a thick cotton
vest stuffed with rock salt.
This kevlar like vest would have been extremely difficult to slice through.
Nobles would have wanted to stand out on the battlefield in order to gain prestige and
so it was common for them to be dressed in brightly coloured feathers and drape themselves
in many different animal skins.
For their weapons the Maya relied on short spears, usually tipped with chert or flint
but nobles would often have obsidian tipped weapons and these were especially fearsome.
According to the Lacandon Maya “A chert point will usually kill.
An Obsidian point always kills”.
Along with these spears, swords like the Macuahuitl were used along with either hide or wooden
shields.
For their ranged weapons the Maya used blowguns, javelins, slings, and a weapon imported from
the Mexican highlands, the atlatl or spear thrower.
This powerful weapon could launch large spears at speeds up to 150km/h that knock a man off
his feet before killing him.
If the Popol Vuh of the K’iche Maya is to be believed the Maya had developed a type
of early hand grenade.
They hollowed out a gourd and filled it with wasps and bees, this was then tossed into
a crowd of attackers and the furious insects would quickly cause mayhem.
Most Maya books were burned so we have no military manuals or records and therefore
the exact tactics and strategies they used are lost.
But it seems Maya warfare was based on warriors dueling one on one, with the capture of high
value targets such as kings being the primary goal.
As the intensity and frequency of warfare increased defences were quickly erected around
the cities.
Walls and defensive ditches and moats became common towards the end of the Classic period.
Mayapan for example, was surrounded by 9km long walls of stone up to 2.5 meters high
and then topped with palisades.
Cities like Aguateca and Tikal would use walls in combination natural barriers such as swamps
and cliff-sides.
A favourite defensive strategy of the Maya was to surrender their cities with concentric
walls.
One inner wall that was much larger and easier to defend, and a smaller outer wall.
When an attacker managed to get past the first wall they would find themselves stuck in what
has been called a “kill zone”.
Defenders behind the much larger wall would fire down on the now pinned attackers.
These defences combined with the general difficulty of the Yucatán’s terrain made sieges quite
rare and short.
However, we do have evidence of Maya sieges taking place and in murals from Chichen Itzá
we can see what some Maya sieges looked like, this one specifically involving siege towers
against a fortified hill.
During their Classic period the Maya began to chronicle their own history by carving
the deeds of kings and generals upon thousands of giant steles that still dot the Yucatan.
On some of these steles we hear of a foreign intrusion into the Maya world.
The intruder was Teotihuacan, a sprawling metropolis, located in the Mexican highlands,
at this time the most populated city in the Americas with up to 125,000 residents.
Under the command of the warlord Siyaj K’ak (See-Yaw Kah-Ak) or “Fire is Born”, Teotihuacano
soldiers marched over 1000km towards Maya territory.
On the 8th of January 378 they entered Tikal, then a rising power among the Maya cities
and on the very same day the King of Tikal is said to have “Entered the Water”, a
Maya euphemism for death.
A complete political takeover of Tikal was instituted and the ruler of Teotihuacan, Spearthrower
Owl, had his own son put on the throne of Tikal.
This mixed Teotihuacan-Maya dynasty brought the already rising city-state to the new heights.
Soon cities like Bejucal, Rio Azul, Uaxactun, and Motul de San all fell under Tikal hegemony.
It dominated not only the trade routes of the Maya lowlands but also the lucrative Caribbean
Sea trade.
According to Michael Coe “Until the arrival of Fire Is Born, the Maya remained politically
fragmented, each city-state charting its own path.
After 378 Maya culture blossomed, alliances were formed between city-states, and great
advances in science and technology took place.”
But Tikal’s dominance could not last forever.
Directly to its north a serious contender was taking shape, Calakmul, a kingdom whose
rulers referred to themselves as the Divine Lords of the Snake.
Calakmul was the largest Classical Maya city, with an urban population of at least 50,000
and core covering 30km2.
The entire kingdom had a population of over a million inhabitants.
As the power of Calakmul grew so did the ambitions of its Snake kings.
By installing dynasties in other cities, arranging well placed marriages, and through ingenious
diplomacy a net of Calakmul aligned cities wrapped around Tikal.
These two superpowers soon began to try and smoother but avoided direct conflict.
They fought through a series of proxy wars instead in a Maya style Cold War.
But an opportunity to directly strike at Tikal arose in 553AD.
The King of Tikal Wak Chan K’awiil (Whack Can Kah-Wheel), had placed his preferred candidate
on the throne of the city of Caracol. 3 years later relations between them collapsed completely
and Caracol joined the Calakmul’s league.
The balance of power had tipped in Calakmul’s favour.
This is a “Star War” glyph.
These star wars were usually decisive attacks that were coordinated to occur while Venus,
the heavenly body the Maya associated with war, was passing overhead.
In 562 a Calakmul Star War assault ended with Tikal being overrun and its leader Wak Chan
K’awiil found himself upon a sacrificial stone at Calakmul.
A dark age was started and for 130 years we hear nothing from Tikal.
While Calakmul enjoyed its total control over the region a split seems to have formed within
the Tikal dynasty.
B'alaj Chan K'awiil (Baal-Ah), the son of the King of Tikal seems to have been sent
to establish a new dynasty and rule the city of Dos Pilas in 629AD.
Both cities still claimed the same royal title and used the same ancient Maya name.
Shortly after this Tikal begins to step back out of the shadows.
The brother of B'alaj Chan K'awiil, Nuun Ujol Chaak (Noon U-whole Cha-Ak) ascended to the
Tikal throne.
An energetic and strong leader seems to have reinvigorated the declining city.
A powerful figure, Yuknoom The Great had been ruling in Calakmul for over a decade and he
was determined not to allow his rival any chance of recovery.
Yuknoom attacked Dos Pilas in 650 and seems to have convinced it’s King, B’alaj Chan
K’awiil to join the Calakmul League.
This turn of events must have horrified Nuun Chaak in Tikal.
Calakmul was supposed to be the sworn enemy of them both, and yet now his brother was
on Calakmul’s side.
Yuknoom pressed his advantage.
In another Star War attack he attacked Tikal, storming over the walls and sacking the only
recently recovered city, as Venus gleamed in the sky above.
His kingdom was once again shattered and Nuun Ujol Chaak was forced to accept Yuknoom as
his overlord.
It would take 15 years of waiting in order for Nuun to feel like Tikal had the strength
to reclaim its independence.
He wanted to strike quickly and decisively and his first target was his brother.
In 672 he attacked and captured Dos Pilas and sent his brother running.
For five years the chase him across the Yucatan and just as he was finally within his grasp,
Nuun was unexpectedly met in battle by Yuknoom in 677 and was defeated in battle.
B’alaj was restored to his throne at Dos Pilas once again.
Nuun did not lick his wounds for long.
This brother’s spat came to its bloody conclusion in 679 when Nuun met B’alaj and forces from
Calakmul in their final battle.
Again, we do not have the written records of the battle, but the inscriptions tell us
that it was one of the largest in Maya history.
Pools of blood soaked the Earth, broken spears and piles of skulls littered the battlefield
and Nuun Ujol Chaak, the man that attempted to bring Tikal out of its dark age was dead.
Surprisingly this was not the end of Tikal.
Nuun’s son, Jasaw Chan K’awiil (Yah-Saw), took his place on the throne in 682.
He seems to have bided his time, built up relations with his subjects and allies and
also reasserted Tikal’s Teotihuacan heritage.
Yuknoom would die in 686 and B’alaj would follow in 692.
Jasaw used this transition phase to the advantage of Tikal.
In the Maya’s own words, he brought down the flint axe and shield on Calakmul’s new
King.
In a battle timed to occur exactly on the 256th anniversary of the death of Spearthrower
Owl, the forces of Jasaw defeated Calakmul in battle and captured a sacred effigy of
one of their Gods.
This was not only a military defeat but a painful spiritual one.
A month later a triumph was held for Jasaw in Tikal and he entered the city to a cacophony
of chanting and adulations with a trail of captives and plunder pouring in behind him.
The cement his victory he had the captured Calakmul king sacrificed.
The Second Tikal-Calakmul War ended with Tikal’s prestige restored and Calakmul started to
decline.
However, Tikal would not bask in the glory of this victory for long.
The collapse of the Calakmul hegemony along with the decades of constant warfare had caused
an irreversible shift in the Maya world.
It is about to enter a spiral that will rip people away from their cities and cast a shadow
across their history.
To find out what happens in the next episode - The Fall Of The Maya, subscribe to our channel
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