Calakmul

The dynasty that ruled here called itself Kaan, the Snake. Its emblem, a snake head, appears on monuments across the Maya world, a measure of how far its influence spread. The Kaan line first ruled from Dzibanche to the north, and in the seventh century it made Calakmul the centre of its power.

Under Yuknoom Ch'een II, remembered as Yuknoom the Great, the Snake Kingdom reached its peak. Through marriage, patronage, and war it drew a long list of cities into its orbit and dominated the southern lowlands for much of the seventh century. Few Maya states before or after held comparable reach.

Calakmul's great rival was Tikal, and their contest ran for well over a century. It shaped Maya politics much as the struggle between Athens and Sparta shaped the ancient Mediterranean, with lesser cities forced to take a side.

In 562 the Snake kingdom and its allies defeated Tikal, opening a long stretch of Calakmul ascendancy. Tikal recovered, and in 695 it turned the tables, beating Calakmul in battle and capturing its king. Calakmul never fully regained its former dominance, and both cities faded in the collapse that followed.

The name Calakmul, coined in the twentieth century, means roughly the city of two adjacent mounds, and its two great pyramids still dominate the site. Structure II, among the largest buildings the Maya ever raised, climbs more than 45 metres and holds royal tombs deep inside.

Around it archaeologists have mapped thousands of structures, from palaces and plazas to small platforms, and recorded 117 carved stelae, more than any other Maya city. In the Chiik Nahb complex, painted murals show ordinary people eating and trading, a rare glimpse of daily life rather than kings and gods.

The ruins sit at the core of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, the largest tract of tropical forest in Mexico and part of one of the largest surviving forests in the Americas. The jungle shelters the country's highest concentration of jaguars, along with tapirs, howler and spider monkeys, and hundreds of bird species.

In 2014 UNESCO joined the ancient city and its forest into one mixed World Heritage Site, recognising the cultural and the natural together rather than apart.

Getting to Calakmul takes effort, and the reward is a site almost free of crowds. Climb Structure II and the canopy runs unbroken in every direction, cut only by the crests of other pyramids and the calls of howler monkeys.

Standing above the trees, it is easy to feel the scale of the power that once ruled from here, and just as easy to see how completely the forest reclaimed it.