and drive the agriculture on which the city de-
pended. It was the ajaw’s role to intercede with
the gods to help protect and feed his people.
Around a.d. 431, Palenque’s ruling dynasty
was founded by a leader named K’uk’ B’alam I.
Palenque would reach new heights a couple
centuries later in the seventh century when its
greatest ajaw—Pakal the Great—came to power.
Known as K’inich Janaab’ Pakal (meaning “sun
face shield”), he became ajaw when only a child,
and his mother, Lady Sak K’uk’, ruled as regent
until he came of age. He held power from 615
until his death in 683 at about 80 years of age.
During his reign, Pakal transformed Palenque
from relative obscurity into a city that rivaled
other great Maya cities such as Tikal.Palaces and Temples
Pakal’s city was divided into two areas: a cen-
tral public area—the Great Plaza, surrounded
by monuments—and a separate residential
zone. The sophisticated city had aqueducts,
public squares, and recreational ball courts.
Civil power was focused on the Great Palace.
Other structures had stood on the same site
in previous eras, but this soaring structure,related to rivers, and reflecting the place’s abun-
dant sources of water.
Palenque’s first inhabitants likely settled
the site around the first century b.c. As the
city grew, it prospered enough to later assert
its influence over other peoples in the region.
Palenque grew wealthy from trade as well as
from tributes collected from subjugated cities.
Like other Maya cities, Palenque
was ruled by an official known as an
ajaw. The position has been compared
to a king, but many scholars liken it
more to that of a powerful governor
or lord. The title seems to have been
hereditary with power passing from
fathers to sons.
The ajaw served as a link between
the gods and the people. Glyphic in-
scriptions found at Palenque revealed
that the people believed the gods con-
trolled the weather. The city’s mysteri-
ous mist and storms could both disruptBUILDERS OF
PALENQUE
S
PAIN’S CHARLES III commissioned a
survey of Palenque by Antonio del
Río and artist Ricardo Almendáriz
in 1784. At that time, the Span-
iards could not conceive that indigenous
peoples were capable of creating such
marvels, and del Río misguidedly con-
cluded that the Phoenicians or Romans
“pursued their conquests even to this
country, where they remained long enough
to enable the Indian tribes to imitate their
ideas.” In 1840 American J.L. Stephens and
English artist Frederick Catherwood vis-
ited the site, and they concluded that the
writings in the Temple of the Inscriptions
matched those they had seen at Copán.
Their theory that these and other sites
formed part of an extensive, indigenous
civilization helped pave the way for the
Maya studies of the 20th century and the
decipherment of Maya glyphs.ROYAL SEAT
In 1832 Jean-Frédéric
Waldeck sketched a
relief from Palenque
(above) depicting a
seated ruler adorned
with jewelry on a
jaguar throne.
BRIDGEMAN/ACI
CERAMIC CENSER FEATURING AN EFFIGY OF AN
UNKNOWN DIGNITARY, A.D. 600-900. MUSEO
REGIONAL DE CHIAPAS
AKG/ALBUM