PACAL the GREAT

A MAJOR MAYA (CENTRAL AMERICA)

REIGN: 615–683

FATHER: K’an Mo’ Hix / MOTHER: Lady Sak K’uk’

SUCCESSOR: K’inich Kan Bahlam II (Radiant Snake Jaguar)

OTHER NAMES: K’Inich Janab Pakal, King of Kings, Lord Pacal, 8 Ahau, Sun Shield

WHAT WAS SO GREAT ABOUT PACAL?

Pacal was responsible for some of the greatest art, architecture, and engineering in his time—and in all of Mayan civilization. These achievements were possible thanks to the peace and stability he brought to his kingdom. The stories recorded in stone carvings in Pacal’s city of Palenque helped preserve Mayan culture long after this civilization had vanished.

THE LOST CITY

Palenque was abandoned and lost in the jungle for almost a thousand years. When Spanish explorer Ramon de Ordonez y Aguilar rediscovered it in 1773, there was a lot of speculation about the city’s origin. Because they didn’t believe that the indigenous people of Central America could have been advanced enough to create the city, the Spanish came up with outlandish theories. Perhaps the amazing temples and pyramids had been built by the ancient Egyptians who had crossed the ocean in “big canoes,” or by survivors from the lost city of Atlantis. We now know what the early Spanish colonizers didn’t: that the Maya were one of the most sophisticated ancient cultures in the world.

A MIGHTY MAYA

Imagine a great city of limestone pyramids, temples, and palaces surrounded by dense, lush jungle. You see aqueducts that bring water from an underground stream and tall towers for astronomers to watch the skies. The sounds of macaws and howler monkeys can be heard echoing through the canopy of the nearby forest. This was Palenque at its height, the city ruled by the mighty Pacal.

MAYA FEVER!

In 1839, the adventurers John Stephens (an American) and Frederick Catherwood (from Britain) slogged and hacked their way through the Mexican and Guatemalan jungles on an expedition. They were looking at forty-four different Mayan sites, including Palenque. They even bought the entire ancient city of Copan for $50 with the hopes of taking it apart and sending it to the United States on a boat so they could put it in museums (until they realized how heavy it was).

When Stephens and Catherwood returned to the United States, they wrote a nine-hundred-page book about their adventure. It became one of the world’s first international bestsellers. That’s when Mayan fever took hold in Europe and America. People wanted to read, see, and hear everything they could about the mysterious Mayan civilization. After a few years the fervor for all-things Mayan died down. Amazon-mania became the next craze. But Stephens and Catherwood’s adventure drew attention to the Mayan culture so that future archeologists could study and learn from it. The increased attention to Mayan civilization eventually led to the rediscovery of Pacal’s tomb.

THE HIDDEN STAIRCASE

Archeologist Alberto Ruz Lhuillier was working on the Temple of Inscriptions in 1948 when he noticed something unusual. Part of the floor wasn’t like the rest—there were two rows of holes with plugs in them in one section. The walls didn’t end at the floor as in the rest of the room. Lhuillier worked to remove the plugs and discovered the start of a secret underground staircase. The staircase was blocked with huge stones and dirt. It took four years to clear all of it away and, finally, in 1952, his team was able to access the seventy-two steps leading down to another blocked door, then another and another. At each blocked door, there were curious items that led the archeological team to believe it was on the trail of an important discovery: a box of jade beads, six human skulls, and red painted shells. Finally, beyond the third door, they discovered Pacal’s tomb. It hadn’t been opened in more than a thousand years!

Inside, they found Pacal’s coffin, with his remains still inside. For the archeologists, it was like discovering King Tut’s tomb: a once-in-a-century find.

PACAL’S HEAVENLY HOTLINE

Pacal was buried under the Temple of the Inscriptions. He was laid to rest wearing a mosaic mask made from hundreds of pieces of jade, plus lots of other jewelry. But he was too important to just bury and forget. His tomb was designed with a speaking tube that led from an upper platform of the temple down to his sarcophagus. When there was a problem, the priests of the court would speak into the tube to ask him for advice from beyond the grave.

PACAL, THE ANCIENT ASTRONAUT?

After Pacal’s tomb was uncovered in 1952, the world experienced Mayan fever all over again. No one had deciphered the Mayan writing system yet, so people were taking wild guesses about what all those symbols in the Temple of the Inscriptions meant.

In 1968, Erich von Däniken wrote a book called Chariots of the Gods: Unsolved Mysteries of the Past. In the book, he proposed that many ancient civilizations, including the Maya, had been visited by ancient extraterrestrial astronauts and that they were welcomed as gods. He thought the pictorial scene on Pacal’s sarcophagus lid showed the king taking off in a space ship or possibly on an early form of motorcycle. As crazy as his premise was, the book became a bestseller.

In the 1980s, a team finally cracked the code of the Mayan glyphs and started to translate them. It turned out that the picture was really a representation of Pacal falling backward into the underworld, where he would be reborn as a god.

Even if it’s a bit wacky, the spaceship theory caught people’s attention and increased interest in Mayan culture once again. The interest generated helped make preserving Palenque a priority so that it will be visited and appreciated by future generations.

THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT?

The Mayans followed a calendar system that had been used by cultures before them in Central America. This system had different ways of counting time. The Tzolkin was a 260-day calendar with 20 periods of 13 days each. This calendar was used to determine the time of religious ceremonies.

They also had a 365-day solar calendar, but instead of 12 months like we currently use, their calendar had 18 months of 20 days each and one month that is only five days long. The third calendar was the Long Count calendar for the universal cycle—about 5,125 years long. The Maya believed that the universe was destroyed and then recreated at the start of each universal cycle. The last date on the most recent Long Count calendar was December 21, 2012. Some people believed that this meant the world was going to end that day.

A poll showed that one in ten people had anxiety about the fate of the world that year. Some even prepared for the end of the world. Of course, in reality, life went on. (According to ancient Mayan time, we’re now living in the early years of a new world.)

When Pacal came to power at the age of twelve, Mayan civilization had already been in existence for more than a thousand years. The Maya had a written language (called glyphs), art, and mathematics. They were skilled in astronomy, too. In the early days of his reign, Pacal helped rebuild Palenque (which was then known by its Mayan name of Lakhma, or “Big Water”) after it had been devastated by multiple wars. He raised an army to defend his city and sent his enemies a message by taking prisoners from invading armies and sacrificing them to the gods. His plan to project an image of strength worked, and rival cities decreased their attacks on Palenque. The relative peace allowed Pacal to begin working on what he is best known for today: Palenque’s incredible buildings.

Although there was already a palace in the city when Pacal came into power, he expanded it to include inner courtyards and corridors, creating a breathtaking complex. He commissioned carvings that celebrated the city’s military victories. Pacal oversaw the creation of an underground channel to bring water to the city—a remarkable feat of engineering for the time. He had the Temple of the Inscriptions built as high as a modern ten-story building. Although it wasn’t finished until after he died, he even had his own tomb built inside the massive temple.

Pacal’s Legacy

Pacal had the longest reign of any king in the Americas and the fourth longest of any monarch in history! He is the best known of all Mayan kings, and the city of Palenque is now one of the most popular tourist destinations in Mexico.

WHEN PACAL WAS KING…

Mohammad began preaching Islam, and the religion spread rapidly throughout what’s now called the Middle East, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and present-day India

paper money was developed in China

the game chatrang (which later developed into chess) was invented in Persia

the world population reached about 50 million