Tikal was first occupied as a small village in the Middle Formative Period (900–300 BCE); subsequently, in the Late Formative Period (300 BCE–100 CE),
Starting in the first century A.D., the city began to flourish culturally and politically, overtaking the city of El Mirador to the north in terms of power and influence within the Mayan empire, which stretched as far north as the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.
Like people of other Maya cities, Tikal's residents used a system of glyptic writing inscribed both on stone and on a perishable material made from the bark of trees.
Most of the city’s edifices were built during what is called the Classic period of Maya history, from 250 CE to 900 CE.
Historians believe that the more than 3,000 structures on the site are the remains of a Mayan city called Tikal, which was the capital of one of the most powerful kingdoms of the ancient empire. At its peak from 682 CE to 909 the city spread over at least 50 square miles (130 square kilometers).
The city's prosperity was based on exploitation of natural resources such as cedar wood, dye from brazil wood, copal resin, flint, and cultivating maize in cleared areas of rainforest and fertile swamp areas.
By 900 CE., the city, like much of the Mayan empire, was in sharp decline. Decades of constant warfare started to take their toll.
Tikal in Guatemala
