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Tikal against Calakmul
The Maya world was not one kingdom but dozens of city-states with their own dynasties, and Tikal in Guatemala and Calakmul in Mexico were the two most powerful. The rivalry between the Snake dynasty at Calakmul and Tikal is the best-documented political history in the pre-Columbian Americas, and it became readable only after the script was deciphered. Tikal was defeated in 562 and lay low for over a century — the "hiatus" archaeologists had long observed without understanding. The system resembles the Italian city-states of the Renaissance more than an empire: shifting alliances, dynastic marriages and proxy wars.
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