Where we stayed in Palenque – the park and how to get the right guide – what Palenque is famous for – the mysterious lid of King Pakal’s sarcophagus – different theories about the carvings on the lid – was King Pakal an ancient astronaut? – Palenque Museum.
I am not a historian, nor am I an archaeologist. I am just a simple tourist fascinated by Mayan culture and I watch Ancient Aliens 😜. For me, Palenque was always on top of the list- one of the most mysterious Mayan sites, the most controversial and incredibly interesting, both culturally and historically, and I’d like to take you to with me, so maybe you can see it with my eyes.
Where We Stayed in Palenque
We arrived to Palenque in the evening. It was already getting dark, so we drove through the heart of what Palenque is now: a busy town with people walking around, full of street food kiosks and markets. The road we followed ended abruptly with a big gate, but the GPS suggested we go left. We found ourselves literally in the jungle, with our way being lit only by our head lights.
In the morning we woke to a beautiful natural environment – a small village of El Panchán, catering to Palenque tourists. It consists of several hotels and hostels, situated right in the thick of a rain forest, with monkeys screaming around, a couple of restaurants and tourist stands.
Ours was called Margarita and Ed’s, which offers everything from very cheap camping-like cabanas to air-conditioned rooms with private bathrooms (that was the only choice we could make this time a year, but it didn’t break the bank – it was only US $25 a night)! One of the cool things about it was a huge water dispenser, where you could refill your drinking water bottles free of charge. Later I found out that it was a normal thing in these kinds of places!
The hotel is cash only, so make sure you have enough cash, and if you don’t, there are ATM machines in town.
The gathering place for everyone is Don Mucho’s. The restaurant offers Mexican-Italian cuisine (with hand-made pasta!), but the best thing is that there are live performances every night, varying from traditional dance to contemporary guitar music. Michael even got up and played with a band one evening!
The Park and How to Get the Right Guide
The entrance to the park is literally next door – right at that big gate before the turn to El Panchán. The fee includes the museum ticket.
TIP: There are many tour guides at the entrance, offering tours. One of them seemed particularly good, speaking great English and spiking our curiosity with interesting facts. Keep in mind that they will start at a very high price – at least 100 US dollars! Then they will say they will give you a discount and do the tour for only $80. Just say that you know for a fact that the tour shouldn’t cost most than 500 pesos (which is true). Our new guide Edgar agreed on this price without blinking an eye and was happy.
In the meantime, another guy in the parking lot approached us and offered to wash our car for 80 pesos. The car was really dirty (the last 5 km to Palenque is under construction and you have to take a dirt road for a while), so we agreed. Not expensive at all, and they did a great job.
We didn’t have a chance to eat any breakfast, so Edgar directed us to a sweet lady, making cochinitas. Those are tacos with pork, cooked in traditional orange marinade, and even had a couple with us. We were ready for the tour.
History of Palenque
The archaeological site of Palenque was founded during the Late Preclassic period (about the same time as the beginning of the Christian era). By ca. 500 AD the city rose to be a powerful capital. The most flourishing period of the city occurred from 600 to 800 AD, a lot of it during the rule of one of its most famous king: K’inich Janaab Pakal, or Pakal the Great.
After the researchers deciphered the way Maya counted numbers, it was easy to deduct that King Pakal lived from 603 to 683 AD. All together he lived 80 years – an incredible age for people of his time! Having ascended on the throne in the age of 12, he ended up being the king that ruled the longest in the whole history of the Americas.
King Pakal was involved in the expansion of Palenque’s power to the western part of the lowland Mayan territory, as well as growth of art and engineering. He was the one who built this incredible complex,which had running water fueled by system of aqueducts, dams and pools, and even a sewer system.
The city’s most notable ruin, the Temple of the Inscriptions, is a 90-foot high pyramid. It containssome of the most detailed Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions ever found. The temple was assumed to be a religious center until 1952, when the French-Mexican archaeologist Alberto Ruz discovered the tomb of Pakal underneath. He found a massive sarcophagus, hidden for more than a 1000 years.
The Mysterious Lid of King Pakal’s Sarcophagus
The lid of the sarcophagus is made of a single stone. It is rectangular in shape, measuring roughly 9-11.5 inches thick, 7 by 12 feet wide and weighs seven tons. It has carvings both on the sides and the top.
That carving became one of the leading artifacts in the Ancient Alien Theory. The followers are talking about the connection between Maya and the higher intelligence, and even claiming King Pakal to be in close contact with them!
The official version of the Pakal’s tomb lid talks of him being introduced into the afterlife; it is a story of his rebirth in the underworld. It is well presented in the Palenque museum guides.
Was King Pakal an Ancient Astronaut?
But what about the other version? What if the scholars, researching the great carving in the past, and who established the current official point of view, didn’t see something that we, from our technological perspective, can only see in our modern era?
They say if you want to annoy a Maya specialist, talk to him about Erich Von Daniken. The controversial writer of many books, including the world bestseller “Chariots of the Gods?”, has a different view on Pakal’s tomb: he says it is a depiction of the ruler, piloting a spacecraft. Did he really die or did he simply return home to the stars? In fact, it is known, that the analysis of the wear on the teeth of the skeleton found in Pakal’s tomb, places the age of the owner at death as a 40 year old, when we know for a fact that Pakal was 80 when he died. Who is really buried in the tomb, the scientists still argue about this.
The opinion that King Pakal was an ancient astronaut is widely supported in the world of Ancient Astronaut Theory followers. They believe, the artist simply attempted to depict what he’s seen with his own eyes. Because he didn’t understand what it was exactly, he metaphorized it as something Maya knew – ritualistic and cosmology objects. Here is Georgio Tzukalos, the producer of the show “Ancient Aliens”, talking about the carving and the 3D model of King Pakal:
And really, it is not just the astronaut that is thrilling the minds of the researchers. Why are there sarcophagi in Palenque at all? Maya has been known to bury their ancestors in a very simple way. However in Palenque, we find Pakal, as well as the Red Queen, buried in exactly same way, just like the pharaohs of the Ancient Egypt: inside stone sarcophagi, with inscriptions and carvings, within secret rooms in the pyramids. In many temples in Palenque you can see large stone tables, used by the kings to meditate on, apparently in lotus-like positions, just like in India. There are depictions of dragons on the temple walls, which closely resemble those of China.
And last but not least, three of the temples are aligned with the Orion’s belt, just like the Pyramids of Giza.
These nations were not supposed to communicate. Different continents, different eras…Why so many similarities? Coincidence? There’s something out there. We had a great conversation about it, walking around the ancient city.
At one point Edgar said to us with a smile: “hey, you should listen to what the night guards of Palenque say… You know, they’ve seen things…”
The Palenque Museum
After we explored Palenque, we headed to the museum. Don’t miss it! This is where you can process all the information in peace…This is where you will find the chamber with King Pakal’s Sarcophagus. Unfortunately, it is a full-size replica. The real sarcophagus is still inside the Temple of Inscriptions and closed for tourists. No one knows why exactly Maya suddenly left this place around 850 AD, followed by the fall of the Mayan civilization in 10th century – not too long after King Pakal’s departure. Was it because of drought and hunger, or was it because when the extraterrestrials finally left, the native Maya couldn’t keep things running, and slowly everything fell apart…
There are more questions than answers, and even if we ever find the answers, who knows, they might be too overwhelming. They might change our whole perspective on the way we think the world works. And to find them, we only need to keep our eyes and our minds open!
I must say, we left Palenque in awe, and I still surf the net, reading about it and reminiscing. But it was time for new adventures: our next stop was San Cristóbal de las Casas, and to reach it, we needed to drive through possibly the most dangerous road in all of Mexico…
