Palenque

Can you hear the loud calls of howler monkeys and see colorful parrots flying through the trees. The air here is warm and feels like a soft, wet blanket. All around, you can see tall stone buildings covered in green moss, peeking through the leaves. For hundreds of years, I was a secret, a hidden city of stone kept safe by the forest. I am Palenque, a city built by the amazing Maya people long, long ago in a big jungle in Mexico.

I wasn't always a great city. I started as a small village a very long time ago, around 226 BCE. My most exciting time was much later, during the 600s CE, when a great king named K'inich Janaab' Pakal ruled me. He became king on July 29th, 615 CE, and he wanted me to be grand and beautiful. King Pakal built amazing palaces and tall temples. The most famous one is the Temple of the Inscriptions. He built it not just as a temple to honor the gods, but as his own special resting place. Life here was busy and full of wonder. Artists carved incredible stories right into my stone walls. Crowds gathered to watch exciting ball games in my courtyards. From my tallest towers, smart astronomers studied the sun, moon, and stars to understand the world. But after many wonderful years, around 800 CE, my people started to move away. I grew quiet, and the jungle slowly grew over me, hiding me from the world.

For hundreds of years, I slept under a blanket of green leaves and vines. Then, in the 1700s, explorers pushed through the jungle and saw my stone palaces for the first time in centuries. I was waking up again. The most exciting moment came much later, on June 15th, 1952. An archaeologist named Alberto Ruz Lhuillier found a secret door inside the Temple of the Inscriptions. It led him down a hidden stairway to the tomb of King Pakal himself. What a discovery. Today, I am wide awake and welcome visitors from all over the world. I share the stories of the clever Maya people and hope to make everyone who visits feel curious and inspired by the wonders of the past.