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Type
CityMythology
Mesoamerican Pantheon
Coordinates
17.48°N, 92.05°W
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. Do not invent a Palenque chapter of the Hero Twins. The site is a specific court's cosmic autobiography.
“Pakal entered the road of the dead beneath the Temple of the Inscriptions; the tablets name his line and the gods of the Cross Group.”

The Maya underworld, 'Place of Fear,' ruled by the death lords One Death and Seven Death. Souls must pass through houses of darkness, knives, cold, jaguars, fire, and bats. The Hero Twins descended here to defeat death itself.

The Aztec paradise where the gods created humanity from the bones retrieved from Mictlan. A place of flowering trees and eternal spring, Tamoanchan represents the original state of creation before the current world age.

The legendary Toltec capital associated with Quetzalcoatl as priest-king. A place of artistic and cultural perfection where corn grew in brilliant colors and cotton grew already dyed. Quetzalcoatl was tricked into disgrace here by Tezcatlipoca.

The mythical homeland of the Aztec people, 'Place of Whiteness' or 'Place of Herons.' From this island city, the Mexica began their long migration south, guided by Huitzilopochtli, until they found the eagle on the cactus that marked Tenochtitlan.

The great Maya-Toltec city dominated by El Castillo, the pyramid of Kukulkan. During the equinoxes, shadows create the illusion of a serpent descending the stairs. The cenote here received sacrificial offerings to Chaac.

The mythical mountain where Huitzilopochtli was born fully armed to defeat his sister Coyolxauhqui and four hundred brothers. The Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan was a recreation of this sacred mountain.