Great Pyramid

19.4517°N, 96.4050°W.

The Great Pyramid at Cempoala in the coastal lowlands of central Veracruz, Mexico, is the largest temple at the Totonac capital that Hernán Cortés visited in 1519 — making it one of the very few Mesoamerican pyramids the Spanish saw operational and recorded in writing. The pyramid was built between approximately 1200 and 1500 CE during the Late Postclassic, of river stones set in lime mortar and faced entirely in white stucco. Bernal Díaz del Castillo, in his True History of the Conquest of New Spain, recorded that on first sight the white-stuccoed Cempoala buildings appeared to be made of silver. The pyramid rises about 11 metres in stepped terraces with a single central staircase. Cempoala's ruler, the "Fat Cacique," allied with Cortés against the Aztec Triple Alliance in 1519.

The Great Pyramid is a building Spanish soldiers thought was made of metal because it was painted that white.