Temple of the Inscriptions, Palenque, Chiapas

The Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque, set against the rainforest hills of Chiapas. The Maya king K'inich Janaab' Pakal began it as his own funerary monument, and his son K'inich Kan B'alam II finished it soon after Pakal's death in 683 CE. In 1948 the archaeologist Alberto Ruz Lhuillier lifted a floor slab in the temple on top and began clearing a rubble-filled stairway; in 1952 he reached Pakal's tomb deep inside the pyramid, with its carved sarcophagus lid still in place. The panels of glyphs in that upper temple give the building its name.