Vegetation all but obliterates the urban spaces of once-mighty Tikal. Yet the few visual axes that archaeological work has managed to retrieve from the grip of the jungle allow us to imagine how the ancient city must have looked, with its towering temples ablaze in bright colors, billowing smoke rising from a multitude of censers, while dense crowds below went about their business in the plazas and avenues of this vibrant center of commerce and politics. Here is the view of the back of Temple III from the so-called Bat Palace.