Mesoamerican PantheonCity
Palenque

Maya city of Pakal's dynasty, temples of the sun, cross, and inscriptions that map royal myth onto stone.
About Palenque
Lakamha, Pakal's inscribed mountain
Palenque (Lakamha) is a Classic Maya city in Chiapas whose Temple of the Inscriptions and Cross Group write K'inich Janaab Pakal's dynasty into stone: descent, maize, the world tree, sun and rain gods. This is not the K'iche' Popol Vuh, though the imagery rhymes with later highland myth. The texts are hieroglyphic and royal. The site is a specific court's cosmic autobiography.
On the map
Palenque among other places of the Mesoamerican Pantheon.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Palenque Temple of the Inscriptions and Cross Group texts
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Coordinates mark where the myths place a site, or where the tradition locates it today. Mythic realms are left off the map or marked as symbolic placements.
Keep exploring
One myth a week, with its sources in a short email. The sign-up form is just below.