Temple Q (Main Temple)

14.8833°N, 90.6500°W.

Temple Q is the principal pyramid at Mixco Viejo in the Guatemalan highlands north of modern Guatemala City, the late Postclassic capital of the Poqomam Maya. The pyramid was built between approximately 1400 and 1525 CE, of stone and adobe with stuccoed surfaces, rising about 10 metres in stepped tiers with a twin-stair plan inherited from the central Mexican tradition that influenced the highland Maya during this period. Mixco Viejo sits on a steep defensive ridge above three converging ravines, accessible only by a single narrow approach — a natural fortress. The Poqomam under their war chief held the city against Pedro de Alvarado's Spanish forces in 1525 until Alvarado destroyed the access route. Excavations by the French Archaeological Mission to Guatemala under Henri Lehmann from 1954 to 1967 mapped the site.

Temple Q is a pyramid in a city that fell to the Spanish only after the road in was cut from beneath it.