Main Temple

16.2822°N, 88.9564°W.

The Main Temple at Lubaantun in the Toledo District of southern Belize is the principal pyramid at a Late Classic Maya city remarkable for an unusual construction technique — finely dressed limestone blocks fitted together without mortar, much like the dry-stone work of Inca Cuzco. The pyramid was built between approximately 730 and 890 CE, rising about 12 metres in stepped tiers, with the blocks cut in slightly curved profiles that interlock with their neighbors above and below. The site was first systematically explored by Thomas Gann in 1903 and investigated by Frederick Mitchell-Hedges in the 1920s — the latter expedition is the source of the controversial "Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull," whose authenticity is rejected by mainstream archaeology. Norman Hammond's Cambridge University project conducted the definitive excavations in 1970.

The Main Temple is a pyramid built of stones cut to lock together without mortar, by people who had no metal tools to cut them with.