Temple of the Owl

18.6414°N, 88.7614°W.

The Temple of the Owl at Dzibanché in southern Quintana Roo, Mexico, is a Late Classic pyramid built between approximately 600 and 800 CE during the city's tenure as a centre of the Kaan dynasty. The structure rises in tiered platforms of cut limestone and takes its name from a stucco owl effigy uncovered on its summit — the owl being a death-and-warfare omen in Maya iconography. The pyramid contains a royal tomb opened by Enrique Nalda's INAH project in the late 1990s, yielding jade ornaments, Spondylus shell, and ceramic offerings. The interior chamber was reached by a vaulted internal staircase. Dzibanché's identification as the seat of the Snake Kingdom before Calakmul has been increasingly accepted on epigraphic and ceramic grounds since the early 2000s.

The Temple of the Owl is a pyramid built around a tomb, with the death-bird carved on the summit pointing the way in.