4D3 known as El Tigre by local chicleros, or gum sappers, is the second tallest structure at El Mirador towering over the forest canopy and 53 meters (174 feet) from the base to the top of the temple, oriented 5 degrees East of the Magnetic North. It measures 150 meters x 145 meters (492 feet x 476 feet) at the base and covers an area of 58,000 square meters (190,289 square feet).

It was built on a platform whose surface has two plazas, one to the East and another to the West. divided by a pyramid, around which several smaller public buildings were erected. The building consists of a 30 meter (98 feet) high truncated pyramid that holds 3 smaller buildings arranged in the triadic pattern, characteristic of Late Pre Classic Maya architecture. The main stairway to access the first level was 30 meters (98 feet) wide, while the central buiding on the superior plaza reaches 23 meters (76 feet), and the lateral buildings are 10.5 meters (34.45 feet) tall, each on the northeast and southeastern ends of the plaza up there.

Archaeologist Ian Graham of Harvard University's Peabody Museum, photographing details at El Tigre Complex on May 4th, 1970.
© Photograph by Douglas R. Pilling

According to Hansen not all triadic buildings may be compared as perhaps they didn't all have the same meaning. However, we may say that the style implies using three buildings to finish the strongly pyramidal structures.

El Tigre Pyramid Complex is so massively huge that all of Tikal's main plaza, the North & Central acropoli at Tikal and Temple 3 would all easily fit into it. Tigre stands 55 meters tall and is only the second largest compound at El Mirador, after La Danta, from where this picture was taken... El Mirador, Jul 2008

Hansen once guided an awe-struck CNN film crew through the site and explained, “…We're walking into one of the great parts of the city which is called the Tigre Complex…” [these are] “…the buildings that surround the massive Tigre pyramid, which is the second largest pyramid in El Mirador. We're on the south side of the plaza which is a building called the Jaguar Paw Temple and it's a beautiful building, about eighty yards long and eighteen yards high.”

A triadic structure consists of a great platform in the shape of a T and characterized by the presence of 3 buildings sharing the same plaza or patio to form a compound looking like a structural triangle. This type of architecture is usually associated to religious ideology or political and religious beliefs that rulers expressed through monumental architecture marking a differentiated ceremonial pattern. It was first noticed and described by Tatiana Prouskouriakoff in 1946 as the seat of power of the three main lineages in the sites of the Central Petén . This type of architecture prevails and is used as a diagnostic trait in Pre Classic Maya architecture, although some examples of Early and Late Classic Maya triadic buildings have been identified.