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Palenque (; Yucatec Maya: Bàakʼ ), also anciently known in the Itza Language as Lakamha ("big water" or "big waters"), (2025). 9781351029568, Routledge. ISBN 9781351029568 was a Maya city-City-state in southern Mexico that perished in the 8th century. The Palenque ruins date from ca. 226 BC to ca. 799 AD. After its decline, it was overgrown by the Lacandon Jungle of cedar, mahogany, and Manilkara zapota trees, but has since been excavated and restored. It is located near the Usumacinta River in the Mexican state of Chiapas, about south of Ciudad del Carmen, above sea level. It is adjacent to the modern town of Palenque, Chiapas. It averages a humid with roughly of rain a year.
Palenque is a medium-sized site, smaller than Tikal, Chichen Itza, or Copán, but it contains some of the finest architecture, sculpture, roof comb and bas-relief carvings that the Mayas produced. Much of the history of Palenque has been reconstructed from reading the hieroglyphic inscriptions on the many monuments; historians now have a long sequence of the ruling dynasty of Palenque in the 5th century and extensive knowledge of the city-state's rivalry with other states such as Calakmul and Toniná. The most famous ruler of Palenque was Kʼinich Janaabʼ Pakal, or Pacal the Great, whose tomb has been found and excavated in the Temple of the Inscriptions. By 2005, the discovered area covered up to , but it is estimated that less than 10% of the total area of the city is explored, leaving more than a thousand structures still covered by jungle. Palenque received 920,470 visitors in 2017.
The famous structures that we know today probably represent a rebuilding effort in response to the attacks by the city of Calakmul and its client states in 599 and 611.Martin and Grube 2000: One of the main figures responsible for rebuilding Palenque and for a renaissance in the city's art and architecture is also one of the best-known Maya Ajaw, Kʼinich Janaabʼ Pakal (Pacal the Great), who ruled from 615 to 683. He is known through his funerary monument dubbed the Temple of the Inscriptions, after the lengthy text preserved in the temple's superstructure. At the time Alberto Ruz Lhuillier excavated Pakal's tomb, it was the richest and best preserved of any scientifically excavated burial then known from the ancient Americas. It held this position until the discovery of the rich Moche culture burials at Sipán, Peru and the recent discoveries at Copán and Calakmul.
Beside the attention that Kʼinich Janaab' Pakal's tomb brought to Palenque, the city is historically significant for its extensive hieroglyphic corpus composed during the reigns of Janaabʼ Pakal, his son Kʼinich Kan Bahlam II, and his grandson Kʼinich Akal Moʼ Naabʼ, and for being the location where Heinrich BerlinBerlin 1959, 1965, 1968 and later Linda Schele and Peter Mathews outlined the first dynastic list for any Maya city.Mathews and Schele 1974 The work of Tatiana Proskouriakoff as well as that of Berlin, Schele, Mathews, and others, initiated the intense historical investigations that characterized much of the scholarship on the ancient Maya from the 1960s to the present.Schele and Freidel 1990; Martin and Grube 2000 The extensive iconography and textual corpus has also allowed for study of Classic period Maya mythologyBerlin 1963; Wald Schele 1999; Freidel et al. 1993; Freidel and Macleod 2000; Stuart 2005: Chapter 6 and ritual practice.Stuart 1998
When Ahkal Moʼ Naab I died in 524, there was an interregnum of four years, before the following king was crowned at Toktán in 529. Kʼan Joy Chitam I governed for 36 years. His sons Ahkal Moʼ Naab II and Kʼan Bʼalam I were the first kings who used the title Kinich, which means "the great Solar deity". This word was used also by later kings. Bʼalam was succeeded in 583 by Yohl Ikʼnal, who was supposedly his daughter. The inscriptions found in Palenque document a battle that occurred under her government in which troops from Calakmul invaded and sacked Palenque, a military feat without known precedents. These events took place in 599.
A second victory by Calakmul occurred some twelve years later, in 611, under the government of Aj Ne' Yohl Mat, son of Yohl Iknal. In this occasion, the king of Calakmul entered Palenque in person, consolidating a significant military disaster, which was followed by an epoch of political disorder. Aj Ne' Yohl Mat was to die in 612.
It is believed that after the death of Aj Ne' Yohl Mat, Janaab Pakal, also called Pakal I, took power thanks to a political agreement. Janaab Pakal assumed the functions of the ajaw (king) but never was crowned. He was succeeded in 612 by his daughter, the queen Sak Kʼukʼ, who governed for only three years until her son was old enough to rule. It is considered that the dynasty was reestablished from then on, so Bʼaakal retook the path of glory and splendor.
The grandson of Janaab Pakal is the most famous of the Mayan kings, Kʼinich Janaab' Pakal, also known as Pakal the Great. He began rule at the age of 12 years after his mother Sak Kuk resigned as queen after three years, thus passing power on to him. Pakal the Great reigned in Palenque from 615 to 683, and his mother remained an important force for the first 25 years of his rule. She may have ruled jointly with him. Known as the favorite of the gods, he carried Palenque to new levels of splendor, in spite of having come to power when the city was at a low point. Pakal married the Princess consort of Oktán, Lady Tzakbu Ajaw (also known as Ahpo-Hel) in 624 and had at least three children.
Most of the palaces and temples of Palenque were constructed during his government; the city flourished as never before, eclipsing Tikal. The central complex, known as The Palace, was enlarged and remodeled on various occasions, notably in the years 654, 661, and 668. In this structure, is a text describing how in that epoch Palenque was newly allied with Tikal, and also with Yaxchilan, and that they were able to capture the six enemy kings of the alliance. Not much more had been translated from the text.
After the death of Pakal in 683, his older son Kʼinich Kan Bʼalam assumed the kingship of Bʼaakal, who in turn was succeeded in 702 by his brother Kʼinich Kʼan Joy Chitam II. The first continued the architectural and sculptural works that were begun by his father, as well as finishing the construction of the famous tomb of Pakal. Pakal's sarcophagus, built for a very tall man, held the richest collection of jade seen in a Mayan tomb. A jade mosaic mask was placed over his face, and a suit made of jade adorned his body, with each piece hand-carved and held together by gold wire.
Furthermore, Kʼinich Kan Bʼalam I began ambitious projects, including the Group of the Crosses. Thanks to numerous works begun during his government, now we have portraits of this king, found in various sculptures. His brother succeeded him continuing construction and art with the same enthusiasm, reconstructing and enlarging the north side of the Palace. Thanks to the reign of these three kings, Bʼaakal had a century of growth and splendor.
In 711, Palenque was sacked by the realm of Toniná, and the old king Kʼinich Kʼan Joy Chitam II was taken prisoner. It is not known what the final fate of the king was, and it is presumed that he was executed in Toniná. For 10 years there was no king. Finally, Kʼinich Ahkal Moʼ Nab' III was crowned in 722. Although the new king belonged to the royalty, there is no evidence that he was the direct inheritor of Kʼinich Kʼan Joy Chitam II. It is believed, therefore, that this coronation was a break in the dynastic line, and probably Kʼinich Ahkal Nab' arrived to power after years of maneuvering and forging political alliances. This king, his son, and grandson governed until the end of the 8th century. Little is known about this period, except that, among other events, the war with Toniná continued, where there are hieroglyphics that record a new defeat of Palenque.
Occasionally city-state lords were women. Lady Sak Kuk ruled at Palenque for at least three years starting in 612 CE, before she passed her title to her son. However, these Queen regnant were accorded male attributes. They were presented as more masculine, since they had assumed roles that were typically held by men.
The pyramid measures 60 meters wide, 42.5 meters deep and 27.2 meters high. The summit temple measures 25.5 meters wide, 10.5 meters deep and 11.4 meters high. The largest stones weigh 12 to 15 tons. These were on top of the pyramid. The total volume of pyramid and temple is 32,500 cu. meters.Scarre 1999
In 1952 Alberto Ruz Lhuillier removed a stone slab in the floor of the back room of the temple superstructure to reveal a passageway (filled in shortly before the city's abandonment and reopened by archeologists) leading through a long stairway to Pakal's tomb. The tomb itself is remarkable for its large carved sarcophagus, the rich ornaments accompanying Pakal, and for the stucco sculpture decorating the walls of the tomb. Unique to Pakal's tomb is the psychoduct, which leads from the tomb itself, up the stairway and through a hole in the stone covering the entrance to the burial. This psychoduct is perhaps a physical reference to concepts about the departure of the soul at the time of death in Maya eschatology where in the inscriptions the phrase ochb'ihaj sak ikʼil (the white breath road-entered) is used to refer to the leaving of the soul. A find such as this is greatly important because it demonstrated for the first time the temple usage as being multifaceted. These pyramids were, for the first time, identified as temples and also funerary structures.
The much-discussed iconography of the sarcophagus lid depicts Pakal in the guise of one of the manifestations of the Maya maize god emerging from the maws of the underworld.The direction of the Kʼinich Janaabʼ Pakal's movement between realms has been the subject of debate in recent years. Initially, Linda Schele, David Freidel, and others saw Pakal as descending into the underworld (Schele and Mathews 1998: 115). More recently, David Stuart and Freidel have suggested the opposite based on glyphic texts accompanying similar scenes. In these images the birth glyph (often spelled SIH-ya-ja) describes the depicted event.
The temple also has a duct structure that still is not completely understood by archaeologists. It has been suggested that the duct aligns with the winter solstice and that the sun shines down on Pakal's tomb.
Within the Palace there are numerous sculptures and bas-relief carvings that have been conserved. The Palace most unusual and recognizable feature is the four-story tower known as The Observation Tower. The Observation Tower like many other buildings at the site exhibit a mansard roof-like roof. The A-shaped corbel arch is an architectural motif observed throughout the complex. The Corbel arches require a large amount of masonry mass and are limited to a small dimensional ratio of width to height providing the characteristic high ceilings and narrow passageways. The Palace was equipped with numerous large baths and saunas which were supplied with fresh water by an intricate water system. An aqueduct, constructed of great stone blocks with a three-meter-high vault, diverts the Otulum River to flow underneath the main plaza. The Palace is the largest building complex in Palenque measuring 97 meters by 73 meters at its base.
The site also has a number of other temples, tombs, and elite residences, some a good distance from the center of the site, a court for playing the Mesoamerican ballgame, and an interesting stone bridge over the Otulum River some distance below the Aqueduct.
Juan Galindo visited Palenque in 1831, and filed a report with the Central American government. He was the first to note that the figures depicted in Palenque's ancient art looked like the local Native Americans; some other early explorers, even years later, attributed the site to such distant peoples as Ancient Egypt, , or the Lost Tribes of Israel.
Starting in 1832 Jean-Frédéric Waldeck spent two years at Palenque making numerous drawings, but most of his work was not published until 1866. Meanwhile, the site was visited in 1840 first by Patrick Walker and Herbert Caddy on a mission from the governor of British Honduras, and then by John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood who published an illustrated account the following year which was greatly superior to the previous accounts of the ruins.
Désiré Charnay took the first photographs of Palenque in 1858, and returned in 1881–1882. Alfred Maudslay encamped at the ruins in 1890–1891 and took extensive photographs of all the art and inscriptions he could find, and made paper and plaster molds of many of the inscriptions, and detailed maps and drawings, setting a high standard for all future investigators to follow. Maudslay learned the technique of making the papier mache molds of the sculptures from Frenchman Desire Charnay.
Several other expeditions visited the ruins before Frans Blom of Tulane University in 1923, who made superior maps of both the main site and various previously neglected outlying ruins and filed a report for the Mexican government on recommendations on work that could be done to preserve the ruins.
From 1949 through 1952 Alberto Ruz Lhuillier supervised excavations and consolidations of the site for Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH); it was Ruz Lhuillier who was the first person to gaze upon Pacal the Great's tomb in over a thousand years. Ruz worked for four years at the Temple of the Inscriptions before unearthing the tomb. Further INAH work was done in lead by Jorge Acosta into the 1970s.
In 1973, the first of the very productive Palenque Mesa Redonda (Round table) conferences was held here on the inspiration of Merle Greene Robertson; thereafter every few years leading would meet at Palenque to discuss and examine new findings in the field. Meanwhile, Robertson was conducting a detailed examination of all art at Palenque, including recording all the traces of color on the sculptures.
The 1970s also saw a small museum built at the site.
In the last 15 or 20 years, a great deal more of the site has been excavated, but currently archaeologists estimate that only 5% of the total city has been uncovered.
In 2010, Pennsylvania State University researchers, Christopher Duffy and Kirk French, identified the Piedras Bolas Aqueduct as a pressurised aqueduct, the earliest known in the New World. It is a spring-fed conduit located on steep terrain that has a restricted outlet that would cause the water to exit forcefully, under pressure, to a height of . They were unable to identify the use for this man-made feature. Maya plumbing, first pressurized water feature found in New World , Pennsylvania State University, 4 May 2010, accessed 5 May 2010
In June 2022, archaeologists from the Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) announced the discovery of a 1,300-year-old nine-inch-tall stucco head statue in a pond, believed to be a young Hun Hunahpu, the Maya's mythological maize god. The figure's Tonsure that resembles ripe corn was the reason they identified it as a young maize god. Researchers assume that the Mayan inhabitants of Palenque possibly placed a large stone statuette over a pond to represent the entrance to the underworld. According to archaeologist Arnoldo González Cruz, the Mayan people symbolically shuttered the pool by breaking up some of the stucco and filling it with animal remains, including pottery fragments, carved bone remains, shells, obsidian arrowheads, beads, vegetables, and other items.
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