nque, another of Calakmul's victims. Calakmul itself thrived during Tikal's long hiatus period.
The beginning of the Tikal hiatus has served as a marker by which archaeologists commonly sub-divide the Classic period ofMesoamerican chronology into the Early and Late Classic.
Tikal and Dos Pilas
In 629 Tikal founded Dos Pilas, some 110 kilometres (68 mi) to the southwest, as a military outpost in order to control trade along the course of the Pasión River. B'alaj Chan K'awiil was installed on the throne of the new outpost at the age of four, in 635, and for many years served as a loyal vassal fighting for his brother, the king of Tikal. Roughly twenty years later Dos Pilas was attacked by Calakmul and was soundly defeated. B'alaj Chan K'awiil was captured by the king of Calakmul but, instead of being sacrificed, he was re-instated on his throne as a vassal of his former enemy, and attacked Tikal in 657, forcing Nuun Ujol Chaak, the then king of Tikal, to temporarily abandon the city. The first two rulers of Dos Pilas continued to use the Mutal emblem glyph of Tikal, and they probably felt that they had a legitimate claim to the throne of Tikal itself. For some reason, B'alaj Chan K'awiil was not installed as the new ruler of Tikal; instead he stayed at Dos Pilas. Tikal counterattacked against Dos Pilas in 672, driving B'alaj Chan K'awiil into an exile that lasted five years. Calakmul tried to encircle Tikal within an area dominated by its allies, such as El Peru, Dos Pilas and Caracol.
In 682, Jasaw Chan K'awiil I erected the first dated monument at Tikal in 120 years and claimed the title of kaloomte', so ending the hiatus. He initiated a programme of new construction and turned the tables on Calakmul when, in 695, he captured the enemy king and threw the enemy state into a long decline from which it never recovered. After this, Calakmul never again erected a monument
