Maya-region site listed in The Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions "Sources of Sculpture and their Codes" and designated TIK (Graham and Mathews 1999).

Whether measured by the height, bulk and number of its structures, the size of its population or the chronological span of its ruling dynasty, Tikal was one of the greatest cities of the Maya and indeed of the world in its era.

As first suggested by Christopher Jones, Tikal may have exploited its location on an effective continental divide between two vast watersheds to prosper from the control of overland trade (Harrison 1999:13-14).

At Mesoweb see "A Tour of Tikal and Brief History of its Rediscovery and Archaeological Work at the Site" by Jorge Pérez de Lara (online).

At FAMSI, see the Tikal Digital Access Project photo database (online).

In accounting for the large and densely clustered population of Tikal, Mary W. Helms (1982:70) considers the enigma that the practice of swidden agriculture in an area with few topographical barriers would have led to a dispersed rather than a centralized settlement pattern. She considers countervailing factors:

With respect to population pressure, it is feasible to suppose that populations would tend to cluster around those areas — rivers perhaps, or uplands near lakes and bajos — where a diversity of resources, good soils and adequate water could be most readily exploited. Under the growing press of population, leaders of centrally located villages might gradually assume important roles in intercommunity political and managerial activities. Organization and control of crucial long distance trade with far-off highlands and seacoasts in order to exchange local forest products for necessary yet locally unavailable household items such as salt, obsidian, and hard grinding stones (which archaeological data show to have been imported), followed by the local distribution of these goods, could also have encouraged the rise of a more powerful elite. The largest or perhaps the oldest community in the area could rise to prominence via religious leadership, too (1982:71).

Helms (1982:76) notes that long distance trade apparently included "substantial amounts of shellfish, dried fish, and other marine resources...from the coasts of Yucatán, probably in exchange for inland agricultural products." She suggests that Tikal and Teotihuacán were directly linked by trade:

Clear evidence here is scant, although green obsidian flakes and clay earspools from central Mexico are found in burials at Tikal, and sherds of Tzakol ware (characteristic of the early lowland Classic) have been found in a section of Teotihuacán. There also may have been a brisk market at Teotihuacán for perishable luxury items from the lowlands such as salt, bright feathers from tropical birds, jaguar pelts, cotton textiles, objects of rare lowland woods, and copal, a resin obtained from various tropical trees and widely used throughout Mesoamerica as incense at relgious rituals (1982:76-77).

Following Tatiana Proskouriakoff and adducing new evidence, David Stuart has suggested that Tikal and Teotihuacan were connnected by more than trade. At Mesoweb/PARI see an excerpt from Stuart's The Arrival of Strangers (Stuart 2000).