On January 16, 378, a Maya king, Jaguar Paw, was killed in what is now Tikal, Guatemala. Jaguar Paw’s death was probably a result of the arrival of an invading army from Teotihuacan, a city in the highlands of the Valley of Mexico, near what is today Mexico City, Mexico. The invading Teotihuacano army did not destroy the Maya, however—they helped expand the culture’s sphere of influence to its greatest extent.

Tikal was a thriving city by the time the Teotihuacanos arrived. More than 10,000 people lived in the city, deep in the rainforest of Central America. Jaguar Paw’s enormous stone palace is still standing, the center of one of Guatemala’s most popular national parks. The written Maya language was a sophisticated series of hieroglyphics, only deciphered in the 20th century. The Teotihuacano period in Tikal’s history contributed to an even more advanced Maya civilization. The city grew to more than 90,000 people. Maya pyramids served as observatories where astronomers calculated seasonal and meteorological changes.

Tikal became part of a trade network expanding from the mountains of what is today southern Guatemala (where jade was exported); to Teotihuacan and the Valley of Mexico to the west (where obsidian was exported) and both the Pacific and Caribbean coasts of Central America (where salt—difficult to find in the rain forest—was exported to Tikal). The Maya civilization of Tikal dominated the lowland region in northern Central America for at least 700 years. Long before Europeans arrived in the New World, the Maya had lost their power to civilizations such as the Aztec, Acolhua, and Tepanec.