Temple carvings show Mayan rivals fought 'world war'

Hieroglyphics found on a Mayan temple in Central America suggest a "world war" was fought between two rival superpowers in the seventh and eighth centuries.

The evidence was hidden by thick jungle, which covered most of a set of stone stairs at the Guatemalan temple. A hurricane last year destroyed part of the foliage, revealing more steps bearing inscriptions.

After translating the carvings, scientists now believe that what was previously thought to be a series of local conflicts was a much bigger war with battle lines formed by the vassal states of two Meso-American superpowers.

"The hundreds of new hieroglyphics fill in a vital 60-year gap of unknown Mayan history and clarify many political and military relationships of this critical period," said Federico Fahsen, a Guatemalan expert on Mayan hieroglyphics and a professor at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. "When I read those hieroglyphics, I had to blink to make sure that I was reading [them] correctly."

The hieroglyphics were found on the steps of a temple at the Dos Pilas site in northern Guatemala, close to the Mexican border. Scientists had translated many carvings at the site over several years.

But the hurricane uncovered a further 18 steps, which bore carvings about Dos Pilas, which was established as a military outpost of the great Maya city of Tikal in 629. The king of Tikal placed his four-year-old brother, Balaj Chan K'awiil, on the throne there.

Battles that later broke out between the two communities had been considered a local rivalry between the brothers but the translations reveal a more complex conflict. The step writings say the king of Dos Pilas became a great warrior and for many years was an ally of his brother in Tikal.

Then the city state Calakmul, in what is now Mexico, conquered Dos Pilas, took the king prisoner and restored him to the throne as a puppet ruler. Balaj Chan K'awiil – now loyal to Calakmul – launched a decade-long war against Tikal that ended in his victory. His forces sacked Tikal and brought its ruler, his brother, to Dos Pilas to be sacrificed.

Professor Fahsen said: "The west section of the steps was very graphic. It says, 'Blood flowed and skulls of the 13 peoples of Tikal were piled up'.''

Arthur Demarest, of Vanderbilt University's Institute of Meso-American Archaeology, said the battles took place when Mayan civilisation was on the verge of moving to a higher level of organisation and forming a single empire.

"However, this didn't happen," he said. "Instead, the giant war went back and forth ... and then the Mayan world broke up into regional powers."

The "world war" theory was first suggested by Simon Martin, a research fellow at the University College London. He said yesterday: "What is most important is this is basically a whole campaign battle narrative for a whole continent.''