Ruler of the Classic Maya city of Palenque, 615-83. His life and death left an indelible mark on the public and private representation of cosmology in art [10: VII]. His reign and that of his son Chan Bahlum display the Maya commitment to royal ancestor worship 10 a vivid degree.

Pacal was born in 603, ascended to throne at the age of 12 in 615 and ruled for 68 years. During his lifetime he utilised religious and political strategies to transform Palenque into a powerful Maya city. c.675 he began the construction of his funerary temple, which is considered one of the masterpieces of Meso-American temple art, representing many of the major religious ideas of the Classic Maya. Lodged beneath the majestic Temple of the Inscriptions, Pacal's tomb contains a huge sarcophagus of creamy white limestone covered with an image of the Maya cosmos and Pacal descending down the Wor1d Tree into the underworld of Xibalba [10' 282]. Pacal chose to depict the three levels of the Maya cosmos in elaborate detail with stylised serpents, mirrors, corn, gods, jewels and other items representing the Over- world, Middleworld and Underworld. Variations of this theme of the cosmic tree at the centre of the world appear in different locations al Palenque. As he descends into the ordeal of Xibalba, Pacal is depicted as a god who is prepared to defeat death and be reborn as both agricultural power and as the solar disk

Pacal's eldest son, Chan-Bahlum, reigned from 684 until 702, when his younger brother Kan-Xul came to the throne and erected another temple to hold the dangerous forces which had accumulated in the ceremonial temples of Palanque during his brother's reign. This illustrates the religious character of Maya temple architecture and the role of dynastic power, which was deeply rooted in supernatural authority.