As is often the case with huge ancient ruins , knowledge of the site was never completely lost in the region . It seems that local people never forgot about Tikal and they guided Guatemalan expeditions to the ruins in the 1850s . Some second- or third @-@ hand accounts of Tikal appeared in print starting in the 17th century , continuing through the writings of John Lloyd Stephens in the early 19th century ( Stephens and his illustrator Frederick Catherwood heard rumors of a lost city , with white building tops towering above the jungle , during their 1839 @-@ 40 travels in the region ) . Because of the site 's remoteness from modern towns , however , no explorers visited Tikal until Modesto Méndez and Ambrosio Tut , respectively the commissioner and the governor of Petén , visited it in 1848 . Artist Eusebio Lara accompanied them and their account was published in Germany in 1853 . Several other expeditions came to further investigate , map , and photograph Tikal in the 19th century ( including Alfred P. Maudslay in 1881 @-@ 82 ) and the early 20th century . Pioneering archaeologists started to clear , map and record the ruins in the 1880s .