Maya City of Palenque Flourishes
Around 600 AD, the Maya city of Palenque, in the rainforested foothills of what is now Chiapas, Mexico, was entering the period that would make it one of the most admired centers of Classic Maya civilization. Though not the largest Maya city, Palenque became renowned for its elegant architecture, refined sculpture, and long hieroglyphic texts, which together give historians an unusually detailed picture of a Maya royal court. The date given here is approximate: it marks the rise of the city's golden age rather than a single moment, and its most famous ruler, K'inich Janaab' Pakal, came to the throne in 615.
Palenque's dynasty traced its origins to a founder figure in the early centuries AD, and the city's inscriptions list a succession of rulers. By the sixth and seventh centuries it was a regional power, but it was also vulnerable. It suffered a damaging attack, generally attributed to the rival city of Calakmul and its allies, in the 6th and 7th centuries, and the royal line passed through periods of instability. Pakal took the throne as a young man, reportedly at around twelve, and his mother, Lady Sak K'uk', appears to have played an important role in legitimizing his rule.
Pakal's reign lasted nearly seven decades, and he used it to transform the city. Under his direction and that of his sons, Palenque's builders created the Palace, with its tower and courtyards, and a series of temples decorated with finely modeled stucco and carved limestone panels. The Temple of Inscriptions, a stepped pyramid rising in nine levels, was begun in his lifetime as his funerary monument. Its walls carry some of the longest Maya hieroglyphic texts known, recounting the dynasty's history and its claims to divine and ancestral authority.
In 1952 the archaeologist Alberto Ruz Lhuillier discovered a hidden stairway inside the pyramid, leading down to Pakal's burial chamber. There lay a massive carved sarcophagus lid, whose imagery is often interpreted as showing the king's rebirth or descent into the underworld, linked to the Maya world tree and cosmos. Pakal's body was found wearing a jade mosaic mask and jewelry. Some popular writers have offered fanciful readings of the lid, including claims of ancient astronauts, but scholars firmly reject them in favor of Maya religious interpretations.
Pakal died in 683, and his son K'inich Kan Bahlam continued the building program, notably the Temple of the Cross group. Palenque declined in the late eighth and ninth centuries, as did many lowland Maya cities, and it was eventually swallowed by the jungle. Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, valued both for its beauty and for what its inscriptions reveal about Maya kingship, belief, and memory.