Temple 216

17.0775°N, 89.4025°W.

Temple 216 is the tallest pyramid at Yaxhá, on the shore of Lake Yaxhá in the Petén Basin of northern Guatemala, rising 30 metres above the East Acropolis platform. The pyramid was built between approximately 250 and 850 CE during the Classic period, of cut limestone faced with stucco, in a steep stepped profile with a single broad central staircase. The summit offers a clear view across Lake Yaxhá to the south and to neighboring Topoxté on its island in the lake — one of the few Maya cities continuously occupied through the Postclassic. Yaxhá was a major Classic centre allied at various points with both Tikal and Calakmul during the long rivalry between the two superpowers. The site was investigated by Nicholas Hellmuth's Foundation for Latin American Anthropological Research in the 1970s and consolidated by the Triangulo project in the 1990s.

Temple 216 is a pyramid whose summit looks across a lake at a city that survived the collapse of every other neighbor it had.