The ruins of the Maya city Tikal are found in the province of Petén. This city, of which 16 square kilometers have been excavated, forms part of National Park Tikal with an extension of 576 square kilometers, which is nestled inside the Maya Reserve Biosphere with an extension of 1.5 million hectares. The city boasts around 4,000 structures and is totally surrounded by a luxurious forest full of animals and contains Maya temples rising 70 meters, the highest discovered so far. The park was created in May 1955 and in 1979 UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site. By the end of the XIX century Alfred Maudsley and Teobert Maler had photographed some monuments but systematic exploration did not start until 1956. The first sign of inhabitation date from the year 900 BC and believed abandoned at the end of the IX century. Tikal is considered one of the largest Maya cities of the classic period and its location, almost at the center of the Maya world, placed it in a strategic position for commerce. Archeologists think that during its apogee 10,000 people inhabited Tikal. Here as well as in the archeological site of Uaxactún are found the first indications of the Maya pre classic period, such as the stepped pyramids with covered summits of cosmic creatures. In fact, the oldest known recorded date by the Maya is found on stela 29 and reads, 292 AC.

The mystery of the Maya civilization is profound. To this day no one can explain how they managed to achieve such a high degree of civilization in the jungles of Central America nor why that great civilization disappeared so rapidly, so completely and without leaving clues more than 1,000 years ago, leaving the Maya descendants as they were at the beginning of their ancestors rise to glory. In fact their descendants don't know precisely how their ancestors called themselves. A Spanish chronicler was standing near some ruins and asked a local Native American the name of the people that had built them. The answer was "maya"…neither the chronicler spoke well the native language nor the local Spanish…the answer could have been the name of a tree, the time of day or something else. The chronicler true to his purpose wrote: "maya".