Temple of the Inscriptions

17.4844°N, 92.0464°W.

The Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico — the funerary monument of king K'inich Janaab' Pakal I (ruled 615–683 CE), built during his lifetime and completed by his son K'inich Kan B'alam II shortly after Pakal's death. Original base 60 by 42 metres; original height 27 metres on eight terraces with a temple at the summit. The summit temple preserves three inscribed stone panels totalling 617 carved hieroglyphic blocks — one of the longest single Maya inscriptions known, recording 180 years of Palenque dynastic history and Pakal's projection of his lineage 4,000 years into the past and millions of years into the future. In 1952 Alberto Ruz Lhuillier discovered a hidden staircase descending 25 metres from the summit temple to a vaulted crypt at ground level containing Pakal's intact tomb — a 5-tonne carved limestone sarcophagus lid depicting the king at the moment of death falling into the underworld, a jade death mask, and the only royal Maya burial recovered intact in the modern era.

A pyramid that is a ruler's autobiography in 617 hieroglyphs, with the ruler still buried inside it under five tonnes of carved stone — undisturbed for thirteen centuries.