"Twenty-five hundred or more years ago a group of peoples settled on and about a barely seen hill in the lowland jungles of northern Guatemala. Their descendants were soon to create by almost unfathomable means one of the most astonishing civilizations the world has ever seen. We now know that hill and the surrounding area as Tikal. Tikal, a traditional name whose meaning is unknown to us, became the prime city of the Maya people populating the Peninsula of Yucatán. Today, in what is geographically the southern part of this peninsula, the pre-eminence of Tikal is still asserted by the ruined roof combs of huge white temples rising above an undulating rain forest that ends only at the distant Caribbean sea. "-- Introduction.