Preclassic states such as El Mirador. In the Early Classic Tikal rapidly developed into the most dynamic city in the Maya region, stimulating the development of other nearby Maya cities.
The site, however, was often at war and inscriptions tell of alliances and conflict with other Maya states, including Uaxactun, Caracol,Naranjo and Calakmul. The site was defeated at the end of the Early Classic by Caracol, which rose to take Tikal's place as the paramount centre in the southern Maya lowlands. The earlier part of the Early Classic saw hostilities between Tikal and its neighbour Uaxactun, with Uaxactun recording the capture of prisoners from Tikal.
There appears to have been a breakdown in the male succession by AD 317, when Lady Une' B'alam conducted a katun-ending ceremony, apparently as queen of the city.
Tikal and Teotihuacan
The fourteenth king of Tikal was Chak Tok Ich'aak (Great Jaguar Paw). Chak Tok Ich'aak built a palace that was preserved and developed by later rulers until it became the core of the Central Acropolis. Little is known about Chak Tok Ich'aak except that he was killed on 14 January 378 AD. On the same day, Siyah K’ak’ (Fire Is Born) arrived from the west, having passed through El Peru, a site to the west of Tikal, on 8 January. On Stela 31 he is named as "Lord of the West". Siyah K’ak’ was probably a foreign general serving a figure represented by a non-Maya hieroglyph of a spearthrower combined with an owl, a glyph that is well known from the great metropolis of Teotihuacan in the distant Valley of Mexico.Spearthrower Owl may even have been the ruler of Teotihuacan. These recorded events strongly suggest that Siyah K’ak’ led a Teotihuacan invasion that defeated the native Tikal king, who was captured and immediately executed. Siyah K'ak' appears to have been aided by a powerful political faction at Tikal itself; roughly at the time of
