Pakals Tomb

The Palace

On Saturday we went to the ruins in Palenque and walked around for several hours. The ruins were really big and they had a lot of steep stairs so we got a good workout. The Mayans started building the city of Palenque in 100 BC and they flourished from around AD 630 to 740. Palenque is a good example of Mayan civilization. The big ruins that we visited are really cool, but they are not the only place you could find Mayan artifacts because the Mayan civilization was huge and there were villages and cities everywhere.

Exploring Palenque is a good way to learn more about Mayan civilization. It was a big city that is well preserved and has been extensively excavated by archeologists. The archeologists have made many good finds there including the discovery of Pakal who was Palenque’s greatest king.

They found his tomb in 1952 and it is considered one of the greatest Mayan archeologist finds. The Mayans buried valuable things with their leaders but over time people looted the tombs so archeologists didn’t have much to work from. Pakal’s tomb is unique because it was found completely intact.

A stucco carving at the museum

It was found by an archeologist who was exploring the Temple of the Inscriptions and he noticed on the stone slab floor that there was one slab with holes in it and he was instantly curious. He pulled up the stone slab and there was a stair case leading down but it was covered with rubble and it took him four years to clear out. When they had cleared it out they saw a huge crypt with stucco relief carvings on the walls and five human skeletons on the floor, most likely sacrifices. That was when they discovered the giant sarcophagus (a big stone coffin) with an image of Pakal falling to the underworld. Inside the sarcophagus was a bunch of jade jewelry and a jade mask on Pakals body, he was also wearing a red tunic. Jade was the city’s most valuable material—so they must have really liked him. He had the entire temple built while he was living.

The Temple of the Inscriptions

They do not let you go into Pakal’s crypt but at the museum they have a reproduction of his sarcophagus and some of the stucco relief carvings. The only temple we couldn’t walk in is the Temple of the Inscriptions but we did get to go to all the other temples. My favorite building was the palace (very creative name archeologists). The palace was huge and there was a little meeting area where the war chiefs met, but before we knew what it was my dad joked that it might be a swimming pool. There was also another courtyard where we think they tortured their prisoners of war. The Mayans really liked to torture their prisoners so during war they weren’t very effective because they just wanted to capture the enemy and torture them. One of the tortures was cutting their fingers off until they put their hand on the opposing shoulder which meant “I give up”—we saw carvings showing this image.

Some masks from the museum