LAYOUT & ARCHITECTURE
Tikal consists of nine different plazas and courts connected by causeways and ramps and has, in all, over 3,000 structures. The buildings are spread over some 15 square kilometres, and so the city was relatively low in density. Sometime before 250 CE the Great Plaza and North Acropolis were constructed to follow a north-south axis. This plan was adhered to by later constructions until the 8th century CE Temples I and II were built on an east-west axis. Buildings used limestone blocks around rubble cores with lintels and crossbeams in wood (sapodilla was the preferred choice), often elaborately carved to depict scenes. Besides its imposing temples, the city also had palaces, a market complex, ten reservoirs, two sacred causeways, and a unique triple ballcourt. Another typical Maya feature is the sculpture of stone slabs to depict rulers and record their greatest accomplishments. Such stelae were set up in rows along the sides of the plazas. The oldest example of these stelae in Mesoamerica was discovered at Tikal and dates to 292 CE. It shows a ruler holding in his left hand the Jaguar God of the Underworld, probably a patron god of Tikal.
The earliest structures, such as the North Acropolis, are typically squat with corner apron moldings. These and later architecture at the site all display the usual Maya features of multi-level pyramids, raised platforms, corbel-vaulted chambers, large stucco masks of gods which flank staircases, and a deliberate orientation with the heavens, cardinal directions and, often time itself, as indicated by the 8th century CE pairs of pyramids built every 20-year katun cycle. The large pyramids also had roof-combs which made them even taller, and these may have represented the sacred caves which Mesoamerican people had used as places of worship for millennia. Many tombs within buildings have murals, the earliest dating to c. 50 BCE, typically depicting rulers and gods, no doubt, to emphasise the divine ancestry of the tomb's occupant.