Kʼinich Janaab Pakal I (), also known as Pacal or Pacal the Great (24 March 603 – 29 August 683),In the Maya calendar: born 9.8.9.13.0, 8 Ajaw 13 Pop; died 9.12.11.5.18, 6 Etzʼnab 11 Yax (Tiesler & Cucina 2004, p. 40). was ajaw of the Maya city-state of Palenque in the Late Classic period of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican chronology. He acceded to the throne in July 615 and ruled until his death. Pakal reigned 68 yearsIn the Maya calendar: acceded 9.9.2.4.8, 5 Lamat 1 Mol; died 9.12.11.5.18, 6 Etzʼnab 11 Yax (Martin & Grube 2008, p. 162).—the fifth-longest verified regnal period of any sovereign monarch in history, the longest in world history for more than a millennium,Pakal's record was surpassed in June 1711, by Louis XIV of France; Louis's record still stands as of today.Skidmore 2010, p. 7. and the second-longest reign of any monarch in the history of the Americas. He took the throne at age 12. During his long rule, Pakal was responsible for the construction or extension of some of Palenque's most notable surviving inscriptions and monumental architecture.Martin & Grube 2008, pp. 162–168. He is perhaps best known in popular culture for his depiction on the carved lid of his sarcophagus, which has become the subject of pseudoarchaeological speculations.
Name
Pakal's full name, Kʼinich Janaab Pakal ("Radiant Corn-Flower (?) Shield"Skidmore 2010, pp. 71–73.), is rendered in Classic Maya as KʼINICH-JANA꞉B-PAKAL-la, KʼINICH-JANA꞉B-pa-ka-la, or KʼINICH-ja-na-bi-pa-ka-la.Martin & Grube 2008, p. 162. Before his name was securely deciphered from extant Maya inscriptions, Pakal had been known by various nicknames and approximations, including Sun Shield and 8 Ahau.
In modern sources Pakal's name is also sometimes appended with a regnal number,Maya rulership titles and name glyphs themselves do not use regnal numbers; they are a convenience only of modern scholars. to distinguish him from other rulers with this name who either preceded or followed him in the dynastic lineage of Palenque. Confusingly, he has at times been referred to as either "Pakal I" or "Pakal II". Reference to him as Pakal II alludes to his maternal grandfather (died c. 612), who also bore the name Janahb Pakal. However, although his grandfather was a personage of ajaw ranking, he does not himself appear to have been a king. When instead the name Pakal I is used, this serves to distinguish him from two later known successors to the American rulership, Kʼinich Janaab Pakal II (ruled c. 742) and Janaab Pakal III, the last-known Palenque ruler (ruled c. 799).Skidmore 2010, pp. 56–57, 71–73, 83, 91.
Early life
Kʼinich Janaab Pakal was a Palenque native, born on 9.8.9.13.0 (March 603) to Lady Sak Kʼukʼ of the ruling Palenque dynasty and her husband Kʼan Moʼ Hix.
Pakal's long birth came during a particularly turbulent time in Palenque's history. Palenque had been sacked by the powerful Maya state of Calakmul just four years earlier, and another catastrophic attack was led by Calakmul ajaw Scroll Serpent during Pakal's early childhood in 611. The deaths the following year of both the ruling Palenque ajaw Ajen Yohl Mat and his heir Janahb Pakal (Pakal's maternal grandfather and namesake) triggered a crisis of succession; eventually Pakal ascended to the rulership of Palenque on 9.9.2.4.8 (July 615), at the age of twelve, after an interim regency by his mother Lady Sak Kʼukʼ.Martin & Grube 2008, pp. 162–165.
The physical appearance of Janaab Pakal Pakal's maximum living stature, taken in situ, was calculated at 163 cm. A combined estimate from his left tibia and right humerus is 161 cm. This stature falls within the established male range among the Prehispanic Maya of 160 cm (;) and slightly above the average of Palenque’s male population. His head displayed pronounced artificial cranial elongation and reclination (pseudo-annular, tabular oblique type). Severe head wrapping and splinting caused his face to grow forward and outward and result in outthrusting facial features. Janaab’ Pakal carried filed teeth and to a degree which does not echo his portraiture (). His two central upper incisors show discrete notches at their lateral edges to make an “ik’”-like ’T’ shape, the lateral incisors slightly flattened. This was done and shaped deliberately to mimic the Ik’ glyph which means “wind” or “breath” (which is life force symbolically in Mayan culture). This is a clear understatement of the pronounced central dental bridge that dominates his facial portraiture and most noticeably that of his jadeite mask.
Reign Pakal expanded Palenque's power in the western part of the Maya states and initiated a building program at his capital that produced some of Maya civilization's finest art and architecture.Martin & Grube 2008, pp. 162–168. On 9.9.13.0.7 (March 626), he married Ix Tzʼakbu Ajaw, a descendant of the former ruling Toktahn dynasty from Palenque's satellite settlement of Uxteʼkʼuh; during their long marriage, they had at least two sons—Kan Bahlam (b. 635) and Kʼan Joy Chitam (b. 644)—and probably a third, Tiwol Chan Mat (b. 648).
In 628, one of Pakal's officials (aj kʼuhuun), was captured by Piedras Negras. Six days later Nuun Ujol Chaak, ajaw of Santa Elena, was captured and taken to Palenque. Santa Elena became a tributary of Palenque. Having been appointed ajaw at the age of twelve, Pakal's mother was a regent to him. Over the years she slowly ceded power until she died in September 640. In 659 Pakal captured six prisoners; one of them, Ahiin Chan Ahk, was from Pipaʼ, generally associated with Pomona. Another lord of Pipaʼ was slain by Pakal in 663; at this time he also captured six people from Santa Elena.Skidmore 2010, pp. 71–73.
In 647, at the age of 44, Pakal began his first construction project, but the temple today called El Olvidado (The Forgotten) in Spanish due to its distance from Lakamhaʼ. Of all Pakal's construction projects, perhaps the most accomplished is the Palace of Palenque. The building was already in existence, but Pakal enlarged it greatly by adding monument rooms onto the old level of the building. He then constructed Building E, called Sak Nuk Naah "White Skin House" in Classic Maya for its white coat of paint rather than the red used elsewhere in the palace. The east court of the palace is a ceremonial area marking military triumphs. Houses B and C were built in 661 and house A in 668. House A is covered with frescos of prisoners captured in 662.Martin & Grube 2008, pp. 162–168.Skidmore 2010, pp. 71–73. The monuments and text associated with Pakal are: Oval Palace Tablet, Hieroglyphic Stairway, House C texts, Subterranean Thrones and Tableritos, Olvidado piers and sarcophagus texts.Martin & Grube 2008, p. 162.
Pakal was widowed when Tzʼakbu Ajaw, his wife of 47 years, died on 9.12.0.6.18 (November 672). Eight years later, Pakal also saw the death of Tiwol Chan Mat (his third son), and presided over his burial ceremony.
Death and burial Pakal died on 9.12.11.5.18 (August 683), at the age of 80, having ruled Palenque for 68 years and 33 days.Tiesler & Cucina 2004, p. 40.
After his death, Pakal was deified as one of the patron gods of Palenque. He was survived at least by his two sons Kan Bahlam and Kʼan Joy Chitam—each of whom subsequently also became Palenque's kʼuhul ajaw in his own right—and two grandsons, Ahkal Moʼ Nahb (successor of Kʼinich Kʼan Joy Chitam II as kʼuhul ajaw of Palenque) and Janaab Ajaw, a royal official inaugurated under the reign of Kʼinich Kʼan Joy Chitam II.
Although Janaab Pakal died at the end of the seventh century, their peers seem to have believed that he lived on after his celestial apotheosis. After triumphing over the forces of the underworld, now he are seen installed at an otherworldly place, identified perhaps with the celestial paradise of the solar gods.Velásquez García, Erik (2023) Morada de dioses: los componentes anímicos del cuerpo humano entre los mayas clásicos. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City. Decades after his tomb had been sealed, Pakal was still taking artistic decisions, for the sculptor who carved the Tablet of the 96 Glyphs (K6-K7) claims to have conceived the work just as it had been commissioned by the revered ancestor (ukob’ow ukabjiiy Hoˀ Winikhaab Ajaw), K'ihnich Janaab’ Pakal. The ethereal graphemes now grasp his royal corporeity as a visible medium-body, while the hieroglyphic nominal clauses of Pakal and his descendants turn into substitute bodies. On the Temple XXI panel, the folds of Pakal’s skin and the hardened lines of his face represent an aged ruler, who in the year AD 736, half a century after his biological death, still hands ritual instruments over to his grandson. In these ancient Maya bodyscapes, Pakal appears to transit freely through space-time. His soul merges with those of the mythical ruler Ch'a, who supposedly ruled around 967 BC, and equally joins with Ukokan Chan, a legendary lord who in 251 BC initiated the veneration of Palenque’s ancestral gods.
Pakal was buried in a colossal sarcophagus within the largest of Palenque's stepped pyramid structures, the building called Bʼolon Yej Teʼ Naah ("House of the Nine Sharpened Spears")Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico in Classic Maya and now known as the Temple of the Inscriptions. Though Palenque had been examined by archaeologists before, the secret to opening his tomb—closed off by a stone slab with stone plugs in the holes, which had until then escaped the attention of archaeologists—was discovered by Mexican archaeologist Alberto Ruz Lhuillier in 1948. It took four years to clear the rubble from the stairway leading down to Pakal's tomb, but it was finally uncovered in 1952.Mathews, p. 1. His skeletal remains were still lying in his sarcophagus, wearing a jade mask and bead necklaces, surrounded by sculptures and stucco reliefs depicting the ruler's transition to divinity and figures from Maya mythology. Traces of pigment show that these were once colorfully painted,Tiesler, Vera, and Andrea Cucina (2010) K'inich Janaab' Pakal se vuelve ancestro. Muerte, sepultura y conmemoración del gobernante palencano. In Misterios de un rostro maya. La máscara funeraria de K'inich Janaab' Pakal de Palenque, edited by Laura Filloy Nadal, pp. 91-98. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Nexico City. common of many Maya sculptures at the time.Stokstad, p. 388.