Temple of the Cross

17.4833°N, 92.0444°W.

The Temple of the Cross at Palenque, the principal pyramid of the Cross Group commissioned by K'inich Kan B'alam II between approximately 690 and 692 CE in commemoration of his accession to the throne after the death of his father Pakal. Original base 35 metres per side; original height 27 metres on eight terraces with a temple at the summit. The summit temple preserves a hieroglyphic panel and stone tablet showing Kan B'alam standing before a cruciform world tree — a cross-shaped stylised maize plant with a celestial bird at its summit and a serpent through its base, the central image of Maya cosmology depicting the axis mundi connecting the underworld, the surface, and the heavens. The associated text records the mythological birth of three Palenque patron gods 3,000 years before the founding of the dynasty and links Kan B'alam's accession to that primordial event.

A pyramid whose temple panel depicts the axis of the universe as a cross-shaped maize plant — the source for the modern idea that there were Mesoamerican crosses before Christianity.