Item Size:  14.5" High     Type:  Wall Plaque

Material:  Casting Stone, with Antique Stone Finish

Original:  From Temple of Inscriptions, Palenque, Mexico, 692 C.E.

Current Location of Original:  Temple of Inscriptions, Palenque, Mexico

In 1952, in the Mexican city of Palenque, in a temple on top of a pyramid, the archaeologist Alberto Lhuillier discovered a way to access a funerary crypt that houses the sarcophagus of the King Pacal Votan the Great (615-683 C.E.). Soon after, the Russian writer and ufologist Alexander Kazantsev began to advance a theory that the relief on the lid of the sarcophagus represented an astronaut and his spaceship; and this idea has gained some popularity among those who believe in UFOs and a possible connection to advanced ancient civilizations. Swiss author Erich von Däniken later made a similar claim. For this reason, the lid is sometimes said to depict the "Maya astronaut." But according to the Maya’s own legend, the symbology of the lid shows King Pacal falling into the jaws of the Earth monster each night, to rise again with the power of the sun each morning. Its teeth are enlarged to demonstrate its encompassing power. At the top is the mythological Moun bird. The pillar-like construction above Pacal"s head is the tree of life. The original lid is twelve feet long.