And what it tells us about civilisation, collapse, and the fragility of everything we build
Still Being Found
In 2025, LiDAR surveys — laser scanning technology that can see through dense jungle canopy — confirmed what archaeologists had long suspected : the ancient Maya city of Palenque is far larger than anyone had imagined.
The excavated area covers roughly 2.5 square kilometres. But the full extent of the city, now revealed by LiDAR, stretches far beyond — hundreds of structures still buried under centuries of jungle growth, waiting.
It is estimated that less than 10% of Palenque has ever been excavated.
A city that flourished for over a thousand years. That produced some of the finest sculpture and architecture in the ancient Americas. That was home to one of the greatest rulers in Maya history. And we have seen, so far, less than a tenth of it.
The jungle keeps its secrets well.
A King Who Wanted Eternity
To understand Palenque, you must understand Pakal.
K’inich Janaab Pakal — Pakal the Great — ascended to the throne of Palenque at the age of 12 in 615 CE, following a period of devastating military defeats that had left the city weakened and demoralised. He ruled for 68 years, dying in 683 CE at the age of 80 — one of the longest reigns in the ancient world.
In those 68 years, he transformed Palenque from a battered city-state into one of the most powerful and artistically sophisticated kingdoms in the Maya world. He commissioned the Temple of the Inscriptions — a nine-level pyramid whose walls contain one of the longest hieroglyphic texts ever found in the Americas, recording nearly two centuries of Palenque’s history. He built the Palace, with its extraordinary four-storey tower — unique in all of Mesoamerican architecture. He created a city that, even in ruins, takes the breath away.
And then he did something that no Maya ruler had done before in quite the same way : he built his own tomb inside the pyramid.
In 1952, Mexican archaeologist Alberto Ruz Lhuillier noticed something unusual in the floor of the Temple of the Inscriptions — a single stone slab with curious holes, as if designed to be lifted. Beneath it, a staircase descended into darkness. At the bottom, sealed for 1,268 years, was the burial chamber of Pakal the Great.
The sarcophagus lid — a carved limestone masterpiece depicting Pakal at the moment of death and rebirth, descending into the Maya underworld along the cosmic World Tree — is one of the most analysed and debated artworks in the history of archaeology.
It also, notoriously, inspired one of archaeology’s most persistent conspiracy theories : that the figure on the lid was an astronaut piloting a spacecraft. The theory, popularised in the 1960s, has been definitively debunked by Maya scholars — the imagery is entirely consistent with Maya cosmological symbolism. But the fact that it captured global imaginations for decades says something interesting about us : we find it easier to believe in ancient astronauts than in the extraordinary capabilities of ancient human beings.
Pakal needed no spaceship. He was remarkable enough as he was.
The City That Collapsed — And Why It Matters
Palenque’s decline was as dramatic as its rise.
In 711 CE, the city was sacked by the rival kingdom of Toniná. Though it partially recovered, the blow marked the beginning of the end. By around 800 CE, Palenque was abandoned — its temples silent, its hieroglyphic inscriptions unread, its population scattered into the surrounding jungle.
The reasons for the collapse of the Classic Maya civilisation — of which Palenque’s abandonment was one episode among many — remain a subject of intense scholarly debate. The evidence points to a combination of factors : prolonged drought, agricultural overextension, deforestation, political instability, and the breakdown of trade networks.
In other words : a sophisticated civilisation that had mastered astronomy, mathematics, architecture and agriculture was undone, in part, by its own success. Population growth drove agricultural expansion. Agricultural expansion drove deforestation. Deforestation disrupted rainfall patterns. Drought followed. Cities that had fed thousands could no longer sustain themselves.
The parallels with our own moment in history do not require elaboration.
What the Maya collapse tells us — and what Palenque embodies more vividly than almost any other site — is that civilisations are not permanent. They are achievements, hard-won and fragile, dependent on the health of the natural systems that sustain them. The jungle that now grows over Palenque’s temples is not a failure. It is a reminder.
The Green That Grows Over Everything
There is something about Palenque that no photograph fully captures and no description entirely conveys.
It is the presence of the jungle. Not as a backdrop, but as a participant.
The moss that grows on the bas-reliefs. The roots that probe the walls. The sound of water — Palenque means “Big Water” in Maya, and the city was built around streams and cascades that still flow today. The air, heavy and green, that makes every breath feel like something living.
Palenque is not a dead city. It is a city in conversation with the forces that will eventually reclaim it entirely — as they reclaim everything, given enough time.
Standing in front of one of its carved stone panels, watching a face that was chiselled thirteen centuries ago slowly disappear under a layer of moss, you feel something that is difficult to name. Not sadness, exactly. Something closer to perspective.
We build. Time passes. The jungle grows.
And somewhere beneath the canopy, a city waits to be found.
Palenque inspires several creations in the Anthereos collection.
Discover them at archeovision.store
Stephen Rimorini — The living past