Temple of the Inscriptions

The Temple of the Inscriptions, in Classic Maya Bʼolon Yej Teʼ Naah, meaning House of the Nine Sharpened Spears, is the largest Mesoamerican stepped pyramid structure at the pre-Columbian Maya site of Palenque, in the modern-day state of Chiapas, Mexico. It was built as the funerary monument for Kʼinich Janaabʼ Pakal, ruler of Palenque in the 7th century, whose reign lasted almost 70 years. Construction began in the last decade of his life and was completed by his son and successor Kʼinich Kan Bahlam II.

The structure is a temple sitting atop an eight-stepped pyramid, for a total of nine levels. Five entrances in the front are surrounded by piers bearing carved images and hieroglyphic texts. Inside, a stairway leads to the crypt containing Pakal's sarcophagus. The temple stands at a right angle to the southeast of the palace. It was finished a short time after 683. Palenque had been visited and studied for more than two hundred years, but Pakal's tomb was not found until 1952, when the Mexican archaeologist Alberto Ruz Lhuillier removed a stone slab from the temple floor and revealed a stairway filled with rubble. Two years later the cleared stairway led into the tomb.

The temple is named for three hieroglyphic tablets on its inner walls, the East, Central and West Tablets, which are among the longest known Maya inscriptions, at 617 glyphs. They stress the idea that past events will be repeated on the same calendar date, record events in Pakal's life, and end by announcing his death and naming Kan B'alam II as his heir. Apart from the final two columns, they were completed in Pakal's lifetime.

The six piers, labelled A through F, carry texts and stucco reliefs. Piers B through E show people holding an infant-like figure, thought to be God K, with a snake for one leg. The human leg ends in a six-toed foot, probably referring to Kan B'alam II, who is portrayed with six fingers and six toes. The standing figure on Pier C is thought to be a woman, possibly Pakal's mother, Lady Zac-Kuk, linked to the tomb by a psychoduct compared to an umbilical cord. The piers were once extraordinarily colorful, in bright red, yellow and blue.

To prevent collapse under the pyramid's immense weight, the tomb's hut-shaped chamber used cross vaulting and recessed buttresses. The sarcophagus lid shows Pakal lying on the earth monster, between the heavens and the underworld, with his ancestors going back six generations. Merle Greene Robertson alone photographed it, after which the tomb was resealed. The finds include a death mask with a jade face and eyes of shells, mother of pearl and obsidian, several smaller jade heads, a stucco portrait, and five skeletons of sacrificial victims at the crypt entrance.

The structure consists of a "temple" structure that sits atop an eight-stepped pyramid (for a total of nine levels). The five entrances in the front of the building are surrounded by piers bearing both carved images and the hieroglyphic texts in Maya script for which the temple was named. Inside the temple, a stairway leads to the crypt containing the sarcophagus of Pakal.