Tikal

This is a Maya village which was built in 700BC. It is set in the jungle, and we could hear the Howler monkeys while looking at the ruins. The park is 550sq. km's, and contains thousands of ruins. It's was a long day at Tikal, we spent approx. 7 hours looking around. We saw quite a few different ruins, and many old chambers. It was very neat and exciting to see old ruins, and get to see what took many generations to build. The pictures that I took are of temples, and of stairways to the top of village entrances. The temples are from where emperors would go and sit in there chambers or sit on a throne at the top of the stairs. Some of the stairs would lead you to another village Or different temples. Tikal was an amazing place to visit, I didn't know there were so many old places, or buildings. It was breath taking!

Picture 1 is of Temple 1, also known as the Big Jaguar. It is 47 meters in height, and was built in the year 700AD by Jasaw Chan K'awiil. His tomb was discovered inside this temple.

Picture 2 is of Temple 2, also known as the Mascarones Temple. It is 38 meters in height, and was built in 700AD by the same man. The wooden carved lintel seems to resemble his wife.

Picture 3 is of a staircase in the Grand Plaza, this is the most important part of the park because its buildings show the most impressive of Tikal's architecture. These buildings took more than 1000 years to build.

Picture 4 is taken from the top of Temple 4, also known as the two headed snake temple. It is the tallest temple in Tikal. It was built in 740AD and is 64.6 meters tall. We climbed to the top to get this picture!