The Maya City of Tikal at Its Height, c. 700 CE | Calm Bedtime History

In the year 682, a king named Jasaw Chan K'awiil I took the throne of Tikal, a city of limestone and plaster rising from the rainforest of northern Guatemala. His coronation marked the beginning of a second golden age for one of the greatest cities of the Maya world, a place where temple-pyramids would soon pierce the canopy above the Petén. The dry season had begun, and the white plazas caught the morning light as workers prepared the foundations of what would become Temple I, the king's eventual resting place.