K'inich Janaab Pakal

If the registry was going to hold one Maya person it should have been this one, and it held none. Sixty-eight years on the throne, a city rebuilt from nothing much into the finest architecture in the Maya world, and a tomb so elaborately hidden that it took until 1952 to find. His mother ruled before him and his claim came through her, which is irregular enough that his son spent the 690s building three temples to argue that gods do it too. The sarcophagus lid — a king falling into the underworld down the world tree — has been read as a great many things by people who will not learn the script; what it says, in the script, is who he was and when he died.

Parentage

• Lady Sak K'uk'

Children

• K'inich Kan Bahlam II
• K'inich K'an Joy Chitam II

Domains

• kingship
• architecture

Relations

• father of: K'inich Kan Bahlam II
• father of: K'inich K'an Joy Chitam II

Sources

• Reference treatments of K'inich Janaab' Pakal, his reign, his parentage and his tomb.