Pyramid C (Burnt Palace)

20.0644°N, 99.3408°W.

Pyramid C, also called the Burnt Palace, sits adjacent to Pyramid B at Tula in the modern state of Hidalgo, Mexico, and is the largest pyramid at the Toltec capital. Built between approximately 900 and 1150 CE, the pyramid rises in stepped tiers of cut stone and adobe over a substantial plaza-level platform. The structure's name derives from extensive evidence of fire damage — burned timbers, calcined stone, scorched plaster — interpreted as the result of the city's catastrophic destruction around 1150 CE, possibly during internal Toltec conflict or external invasion. The associated palace complex on the pyramid's adjacent terraces preserves polychrome murals and benches with carved processional reliefs. Excavations by Jorge Acosta and INAH from 1940 onward established the construction and destruction sequence. The Aztec later regarded Tula as the legendary Tollan, the capital of their cultural ancestors.

Pyramid C is a building burned down in a single event that the next civilization would remember as their origin myth.