Structure 1

17.6763°N, 89.8333°W.

Structure 1 at Nakbé in the Mirador Basin of northern Guatemala is among the earliest large pyramidal structures of the Maya world — built during the Middle Preclassic between approximately 1000 and 400 BCE, predating most other monumental Maya construction by several centuries. The pyramid rises about 45 metres above the surrounding swampy bajo, of cut limestone and rubble fill faced with stucco. Nakbé was the immediate predecessor of El Mirador and established the architectural conventions — the triadic temple group, the massive limestone-veneered pyramid — that El Mirador would amplify and that Classic Maya cities would inherit. The site was first investigated in detail by Richard Hansen's Mirador Basin Project beginning in 1989 and is the earliest documented major Maya urban centre.

Structure 1 is a pyramid built before the Classic Maya era began, by people whose architecture set the rules every Maya city after them would follow.