La Danta Pyramid

17.7514°N, 89.9029°W.

La Danta Pyramid sits at the eastern edge of El Mirador, deep in the Mirador Basin of northern Guatemala, and is among the largest pyramids by volume ever constructed — roughly 2.8 million cubic metres of cut limestone, stucco, and rubble fill. The complex rises in three monumental tiers to a height of 72 metres above the basal platform, which itself stands above the surrounding jungle floor. La Danta was built during the Late Preclassic, between approximately 300 BCE and 100 CE, by a civilization that vanished before the Classic Maya emerged. The site was first surveyed by Ian Graham in 1962 and mapped in detail by Richard Hansen's Mirador Basin Project beginning in 1979. LiDAR campaigns since 2009 have revealed a network of raised causeways radiating from the city through the swamp to neighboring centers.

La Danta is a pyramid whose builders abandoned it before anyone alive today knows their name.