Temple 33

16.9000°N, 90.9667°W.

Temple 33 sits high on the acropolis of Yaxchilán above a horseshoe bend of the Usumacinta River on the Mexico–Guatemala border in Chiapas. The pyramid was built around 756 CE under the ruler Bird Jaguar IV (Yaxun B'alam IV) as a monument to his accession and military victories. Temple 33 carries one of the most important hieroglyphic stairway sequences in the Maya world — thirteen stair-block panels depicting Bird Jaguar IV and his predecessors playing the Mesoamerican ballgame, accompanied by long retrospective inscriptions. The carved limestone lintels of the summit shrine, including Lintel 1, depict the king with his principal wife Lady Great Skull — among the finest Maya bas-reliefs surviving in situ. The site was first reported by Désiré Charnay in 1882 and mapped by Teobert Maler.

Temple 33 is a pyramid whose stairs are carved with the king's family tree as a sequence of ballgame moves.