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aliks writes:

ArsTechnica has a story about a painted altar in the mesoAmerican city of Tikal, revealing clues about the Aztec takeover of Tikal a couple of thousand years ago.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/04/painted-altar-in-maya-city-of-tikal-reveals-the-aftermath-of-an-ancient-coup/

LIDAR scans effectively strip away the jungle revealing the ruins of ancient buildings and this has triggered a whole mass of new information. The original article is in Antiquity magazine for those who want more detail [link below]:

Here is a quick summary:

"A family altar in the Maya city of Tikal offers a glimpse into events in an enclave of the city's foreign overlords in the wake of a local coup.

Archaeologists recently unearthed the altar in a quarter of the Maya city of Tikal that had lain buried under dirt and rubble for about the last 1,500 years. The altar—and the wealthy household behind the courtyard it once adorned—stands just a few blocks from the center of Tikal, one of the most powerful cities of Maya civilization. But the altar and the courtyard around it aren't even remotely Maya-looking; their architecture and decoration look like they belong 1,000 kilometers to the west in the city of Teotihuacan, in central Mexico.

The altar reveals the presence of powerful rulers from Teotihuacan who were there at a time when a coup ousted Tikal's Maya rulers and replaced them with a Teotihuacan puppet government. It also reveals how hard those foreign rulers fell from favor when Teotihuacan's power finally waned centuries later."

Journal: DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2025.3

Original Submission