Siyaj Kʼakʼ “arrives” at Tikal: Teotihuacan intervenes in the Maya lowlands

The event is known from Maya inscriptions, above all the long text on the back of Tikal Stela 31, carved in the 5th century for Yax Nuun Ahiin’s son Sihyaj Chan Kʼawiil II. It records that Siyaj Kʼakʼ passed through El Perú (Wakaʼ), west of Tikal, eight days before and arrived at Tikal on 8.17.1.4.12 11 Ebʼ 15 Mak — 13 or 15 January 378 in the Julian calendar, depending on the correlation constant (14 or 16 January in the proleptic Gregorian calendar usually used by Mayanists). On the same day Chak Tok Ichʼaak I, king since 360, died. Stela 24 at Naachtun, which mentions the two days before the arrival, calls the local ruler a vassal (yajaw) of Siyaj Kʼakʼ — a sign, David Stuart suggests, that he already had a political foothold in the Petén before he reached Tikal. Siyaj Kʼakʼ is shown in Teotihuacan battle dress, and the texts link him with a figure whose name glyph, a spear-thrower with an owl, is well known at Teotihuacan; Stuart has also suggested that this Spearthrower Owl was the ruler of Teotihuacan, whose accession in 374 is recorded on a monument at Tikal.

Siyaj Kʼakʼ did not take the throne of Tikal himself. In September 379 (8.17.2.16.17) Yax Nuun Ahiin I, called a son of Spearthrower Owl, was enthroned while still a boy and remained under the tutelage of Siyaj Kʼakʼ as long as the latter lived; Siyaj Kʼakʼ also extended his control to Uaxactun and other centres. The monuments of Chak Tok Ichʼaak were smashed, and the new dynasty probably married into the old one. Tikal became Teotihuacan’s key ally and trading partner in the Maya lowlands, absorbed Uaxactun and came to dominate the northern and eastern Petén; its monuments now showed Teotihuacan dress, weapons and gods.

How the change came about is debated. Stuart, in “The Arrival of Strangers” (2000), read the texts as evidence of a Teotihuacan military intervention in which the Tikal king was killed; Linda Schele and David Freidel had seen rather friendly diplomatic relations that led the Maya elite to emulate Teotihuacan. Siyaj Kʼakʼ seems to have had supporters at Tikal itself, where people from Teotihuacan were apparently living near the Lost World complex, and the archaeologist Linda Manzanilla has suggested that the newcomers were a group of the Feathered Serpent faction expelled from Teotihuacan.