Editing Tikal (section)

====Tikal and Dos Pilas====

In 629, Tikal founded [[Dos Pilas]], some {{convert|110|km|mi|sp=us}} to the southwest, as a military outpost in order to control trade along the course of the [[Pasión River]].<ref>Salisbury et al. 2002, p.1.</ref> [[Bʼalaj Chan Kʼawiil]] was installed on the throne of the new outpost at the age of four, in 635. When he was older, for many years he served as a loyal vassal fighting for his brother, the king of Tikal.<ref>Salisbury et al. 2002, pp.2-3.</ref> Roughly twenty years later, Dos Pilas was attacked by Calakmul and was soundly defeated. Bʼalaj Chan Kʼawiil was captured by the king of Calakmul but, instead of being sacrificed, he was re-instated on his throne as a vassal of his former enemy.<ref>Salisbury et al. 2002, p.2.</ref>

He attacked Tikal in 657, forcing [[Nuun Ujol Chaak]], then king of Tikal, to temporarily abandon the city. The first two rulers of Dos Pilas continued to use the Mutal emblem [[glyph]] of Tikal, and they probably felt that they had a legitimate claim to the throne of Tikal itself. For some reason, Bʼalaj Chan Kʼawiil was not installed as the new ruler of Tikal; instead he stayed at Dos Pilas. Tikal counterattacked against Dos Pilas in 672, driving Bʼalaj Chan Kʼawiil into an exile that lasted five years.<ref>Webster 2002, p.276.</ref> Calakmul tried to encircle Tikal within an area dominated by its allies, such as El Peru, Dos Pilas, and Caracol.<ref>Hammond 2000, p.220.</ref>

In 682, [[Jasaw Chan Kʼawiil I]] erected the first dated monument at Tikal in 120 years and claimed the title of ''kaloomteʼ'', so ending the hiatus. He initiated a program of new construction and turned the tables on Calakmul when, in 695, he captured the enemy noble and threw the enemy state into a long decline from which it never fully recovered. After this, Calakmul never again erected a monument celebrating a military victory.<ref name=w193>Webster 2002, p.193.</ref>