Knife in the water part. 1. Advanced water collection system in ancient Mayan capital

Tikal… When you think of Mayan pyramids, you usually have before your eyes – consciously or not – the ones here, exceptionally soaring, with jagged ridges and high roof ridges. One of them – Templo IV – is the tallest single-block pyramid of these peoples. The other thing that nine out of ten people will probably associate with the Maya is that their civilization collapsed as a result of drought….

That’s not easy to believe, walking through the humid tropical forest here today. Well, that’s not entirely true, as the reasons for the collapse of the classic Mayan civilization were much more complex, but years of protracted droughts were one of the causes. In today’s Belize, in Cara Blanca, we even have remnants of a specific drought cult that arose far from the big cities and the hierarchy of so-called divine rulers, but that’s a topic for a separate story.

The Maya lived in areas almost entirely devoid of rivers and permanent sources of potable water. However, they were able to build advanced systems for its collection, and the Preclassic water distribution system probably led to the creation of a highly differentiated social hierarchy – one that gave them the ability to erect great pyramids (the Preclassic triadic pyramid of La Danta at El Mirador is larger in volume than the Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt).

Water in Tikal at the beginning of time

Tikal (Yucatan, Peten, Guatemala) is one of the earliest cities in the Maya Lowlands – the solar observatory here dates to around 800 BC. However, it must have taken a thousand years for Tikal to come to the forefront of the peloton of prominent centers – trendsetters of the classical Maya civilization. From there, a new culture began to radiate in the first centuries of the first millennium. The earliest traces of the system’s use for water collection, however, go back many centuries.

Tikal was located on a karst ridge. The first inhabitants of the area were attracted by springs. They erupted at the top of a natural ravine, which was quite quickly widened and baffled by a dam. As the population grew, the Maya enlarged the reservoirs, into which rainwater also flowed. They used the selected material to build their pyramids. Then they harnessed the collection of water… the pyramids and stucco-covered large public plazas with an intentional slope. In order to keep the water flowing off them for a longer period of time, as well as to regulate its flow between reservoirs, they built dams. The largest of these, the 80-meter-long and 10-meter-high Palace Dam, is the second-largest hydraulic structure in ancient Mesoamerica in terms of volume of construction material used (14,000 m ³) (after the Early Classic Purrón Dam in the Tehuacán Valley in central Mexico).

Water collection system in Tikal

In the very center of Tikal, two large water reservoirs were carved into the mother rock: Temple (with a volume of 27,140^m3) and Palace (with a volume of 74,631^m3). This was done by widening the arroyos, natural ravines that cut across the already mentioned hill. The Temple one was fed by water from a spring, which first flowed into the sedimentation basin. A massive causeway with a narrow two-meter overflow lined with plaster separated the sedimentation tank from the Temple Reservoir. The water fell 3 meters vertically, then flowed into the main pool 8 meters below. Workers on archaeological digs filled their manners here, preferring this water to that available in the village.

The Temple Reservoir is separated from the Palace Reservoir by the Temple Causeway. Archaeologists have discovered that the reservoirs were connected in a cascade. Water from the Temple Reservoir flowed into the Palace Reservoir through a system of sluices, while from the Palace Reservoir it flowed into the Hidden Reservoir, which was located even farther and lower. He, in turn, had an outflow to the Tikal Reservoir, located 45 meters below, already on the outskirts of the city. The sluices, in the form of a series of ~30 cm diameter holes, were sealed with clay and plaster. They could be closed. This made it possible to cut and deepen the reservoirs, which had to be cleaned of sediment once in a while.

On the outskirts of Tikal were several more water reservoirs, such as the aforementioned Tikal Reservoir, in addition to the Corriental, which, thanks to the advanced technology to be discussed in the third part of the text, sustained the last survivors who were still dozing among the abandoned temples and palaces at the beginning of the 11th century AD, the Perdido, which fed mainly agricultural crops, or the Reservoir of Inscription, which is among them the only natural reservoir – a karst sinkhole. The first three were bordered by bajos, vast floodplains that, thanks to their fertile bottom sediments, gave rise to Mayan agriculture.

What was the purpose of creating this water system? In Peten, even today, there are only two seasons: rainy and dry. The goal of the Mayan Maya of Tikal’s advanced hydroelectric investments was to collect such quantities of water during the rainy season that they could easily survive the dry season, supplying water not only to the ever-growing population, but also to agriculture, which developed methods of harvesting crops twice a year thanks to this.

The system was still in place in the Late Preclassic era, from at least 200 BC, several centuries before Tikal began dealing cards in the Maya Lowlands.

The hydro-technical achievements of the Maya of Tikal and the collapse of the Preclassic civilization

The Maya transformed natural arroyos into a multi-level reservoir system with flow control. The system of reservoirs and canals was developed in the Late Preclassic era (450 B.C.- 150 A.D.) as a response to intensifying droughts, which led at the end of this era to the collapse of major Maya centers with triadic architecture, such as El Mirador, Nakbe, Yaxnohcah or El Tintal in the Mirador-Calakmul Basin, and farther-flung centers such as Cerro Maya in present-day Belize and Ichkabal in Mexico.

Tikal survived thanks to its innovative water management system, but also thanks to politics, although that’s a topic for another story… During the Classic Period (250-909 AD), the golden age of the Maya, Tikal became one of the most important foci of the new civilization. With varying fortunes, including through politics, it led the way until its collapse in the second half of the 9th century AD and the second collapse of Maya civilization, symbolically dated to the beginning of the 10th century (909 AD).

Located remotely from rivers and lakes, Tikal effectively managed water for nearly two thousand years. A system of dams with sluices allowed the reservoirs to be periodically turned off and cleared of sediment. While volcanic ashfrom volcanic eruptions in the Maya Highlands enriched soils to support agriculture, it also required efficient removal from the water collection system. Sedimentation basins, dams, sluices… At the Corriental reservoir, a switching station was constructed to control the direction of water flow depending on the season. We will read more about the Maya’s most advanced hydrotechnical invention ahead of its time in the second part of the text.

Problems in paradise

However, the modification of the landscape and the incorporation of large public squares into an extensive system for water collection also had unintended consequences. The sealed surface diverted water directly into the reservoirs. This weakened the spring fed by water seeping through the ground. The spring water was of much higher quality than the water that flushed dirt and dyes from the palaces and pyramids. We will return to this problem in the third part of the text.

All the water reservoirs located in Tikal had quite large catchment areas. Thus, along with rainwater, civilization pollutants – especially waste directly from humans – also seeped into them. Researchers assume that the Maya may have protected their reservoirs by sand filtration systems. Traces of such measures have been encountered only in the case of the Corriental reservoir, and I will write more about this invention in the second part of the text.

Massive deforestation caused major climate changes in the Late Preclassic era (150-250 AD). Deforestation in the Maya was not only caused by population growth and the occupation of more land for milpas – seasonal plots with crop rotation used until the soil was completely exhausted. The main problem was construction megalomania.

The Maya’s vast plazas and great pyramids were covered with a thick layer of stucco, sometimes as thick as several centimeters, for the production of which large quantities of slaked lime were used, which fueled the logging. And it was in that, the oldest era of their civilization, that the largest volume structures were built, such as the triadic complex of La Danta in El Mirador (2.8 million^cubic meters) or the 24-kilometer-long and average 40-meter-wide road (2.88 million^cubic meters) erected in the form of a causeway connecting El Mirador with El Tintal in the Mirador-Calakmul Basin, also covered with stucco. When the forests disappeared, the rain stopped….

The Maya did what they could to understand the world around them, of which they felt a part. To this day, there is no word for nature in any of their thirty languages to denote the separateness of nature and people. In the catchment areas of Tikal’s water reservoirs, no corn was grown, or the crop was severely restricted. Dangerous volcanic ash deposits were removed from the water, and perhaps some sort of filtration systems were used, although this topic requires more extensive research. What was not realized, however, was the harmful effects of the dyes covering the pyramids.

While the lack of in-depth understanding of the broader cycles of various substances in nature was not the only reason for the collapses of their Preclassic (1000 BC – 250 AD) and Classical (250-909 AD) civilizations – as will be discussed in turn in the third part of the text – it certainly had a negative impact on the physical and mental condition of the ruling class during the most sensitive period for their civilization.

Lesson unlearned

Seven hundred years after the collapse of the preclassic Mayan civilization, the problem of droughts has returned, while the health- and spiritually-declining aristocracy of Tikal has failed to rise to the occasion this time. A human sacrifice was found under the overflow from the settler to the Temple Reservoir. Apparently, this did not help. The dam separating the Palace Reservoir from the Hidden Reservoir has eroded and partially collapsed. It is apparent that it was repaired in the Late Classic era (830-870 AD there), but the work bears the hallmarks of a stopgap. Dredging of key reservoirs was discontinued, while increasing amounts of poisons began to appear in their waters.

The Maya water collection system of Tikal, however, operated efficiently for more than a thousand years, which, with their modest technical capabilities and Stone Age tools, inspires justifiable admiration and can inspire. An analysis of past solutions shows that their sustainability depends on the harmony between technology and local environmental conditions. Returning to the past is not the solution, but understanding simple, ecosystem-rooted strategies can help us today avoid at least some of the mistakes of today’s profit-driven environmental exploitation.

MAIN PHOTO: Przemek Trześniowski Archaeophotography