Structure I

18.1061°N, 89.8094°W.

Structure I sits adjacent to Structure II in Calakmul's central plaza in Campeche, Mexico, forming part of the monumental core of the Snake Kingdom capital. The pyramid was raised in successive Late Preclassic through Late Classic phases between roughly 400 BCE and 800 CE, faced in cut limestone and finished with stucco. At approximately 50 metres in height, it is one of the tallest pyramids at Calakmul, set on a multi-tiered platform with a stairway on its western face. The site was rediscovered in 1931 by botanist Cyrus Lundell and mapped extensively by the Carnegie Institution and later the Universidad Autónoma de Campeche. Calakmul preserves more than 6,750 ancient structures within a 30 km radius, the densest concentration of Maya monumental architecture documented in the Petén. Recent LiDAR surveys conducted by the Pacunam initiative since 2016 have continued to reveal new outlying causeways and platform clusters connected to the central acropolis.

Structure I is a building whose final form hides every other form it ever had inside it.