.JPG/960px-055_Palenque_Pakal_Maji_(29).JPG)
Palenque
The number of Wikipedia languages with an article is our measure of how widely known a site is. Counts of visitors and wishes will appear once enough people use the app.
How it came to be
Palenque is a Maya city whose ancient name, Lakamha, means big water. Founded around the start of the Christian era, it became a powerful regional capital around AD 500 and was at its height between 500 and 700. K'inich Janaab Pakal ruled from 615 to 683, and his son K'inich Kan B'alam II, king from 684 to 702, continued his father's projects.
The city was abandoned around the 9th century and the jungle covered its temples and palaces. Spaniards examined the ruins in 1773 and 1784, and Antonio del Río led an expedition there in 1786. In the 19th century Waldeck, Stephens and Catherwood, Charnay and Maudslay all came to record the site.
Alberto Ruz Lhuillier, excavating the Temple of the Inscriptions from 1949, lifted a stone slab in 1952 and found the passage to Pakal's tomb. The tomb of the so-called Red Queen was found in Temple XIII in 1994. Some 1,400 buildings have been recorded, but only about a tenth have been explored. The site was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1987.
Data: Wikidata (CC0). Photos: Wikimedia Commons, under each photo’s license. Prototype; may contain errors. We measure usage anonymously to improve the app (PostHog, EU).