Editing Palenque (section)

==Modern investigations==
[[File:PalenqueAc.jpg|thumb|upright|right|Detail of a [[relief]] at the Palace drawn by [[Ricardo Almendáriz]] during the Del Rio expedition in 1787]]

After de la Nada's brief account of the ruins, no attention was paid to them until 1773 when one Don Ramon de Ordoñez y Aguilar examined Palenque and sent a report to the Capitan General in [[Antigua Guatemala]], a further examination was made in 1784 saying that the ruins were of particular interest, so two years later surveyor and architect [[Antonio Bernasconi (architect)|Antonio Bernasconi]] was sent with a small military force under Colonel [[Antonio del Río]] to examine the site in more detail. Del Rio's forces smashed through several walls to see what could be found, doing a fair amount of damage to the Palace, while Bernasconi made the first map of the site as well as drawing copies of a few of the [[bas-relief]] figures and sculptures. Draughtsman Luciano Castañeda made more drawings in 1807, and a book on Palenque, ''Descriptions of the Ruins of an Ancient City, discovered near Palenque'', was published in London in 1822 based on the reports of those last two expeditions together with engravings based on Bernasconi and Castañedas drawings; two more publications in 1834 contained descriptions and drawings based on the same sources.

[[Juan Galindo]] visited Palenque in 1831, and filed a report with the Central American government. He was the first to note that the figures depicted in Palenque's ancient art looked like the local [[Indigenous peoples of Mexico|Native Americans]]; some other early explorers, even years later, attributed the site to such distant peoples as [[Ancient Egypt|Egyptians]], [[Polynesia]]ns, or the [[Lost Tribes of Israel]].

Starting in 1832 [[Jean-Frédéric Waldeck]] spent two years at Palenque making numerous drawings, but most of his work was not published until 1866. Meanwhile, the site was visited in 1840 first by Patrick Walker and Herbert Caddy on a mission from the governor of [[British Honduras]], and then by [[John Lloyd Stephens]] and [[Frederick Catherwood]] who published an illustrated account the following year which was greatly superior to the previous accounts of the ruins.

[[Désiré Charnay]] took the first photographs of Palenque in 1858, and returned in 1881&ndash;1882.  [[Alfred Maudslay]] encamped at the ruins in 1890&ndash;1891 and took extensive photographs of all the art and inscriptions he could find, and made paper and plaster molds of many of the inscriptions, and detailed maps and drawings, setting a high standard for all future investigators to follow. Maudslay learned the technique of making the papier mache molds of the sculptures from Frenchman Desire Charnay.

[[File:Palenque - Grabschmuck des Pakal.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Jade mask of King [[Kʼinich Janaab Pakal]]. National Museum of Anthropology and History, Mexico City.]]
[[File:ChanBahlumCatherwood.jpg|thumb|upright|Kʼinich Kʼan Bʼalam II ("Chan Bahlam II").]]
Several other expeditions visited the ruins before [[Frans Blom]] of [[Tulane University]] in 1923, who made superior maps of both the main site and various previously neglected outlying ruins and filed a report for the Mexican government on recommendations on work that could be done to preserve the ruins.

From 1949 through 1952 [[Alberto Ruz Lhuillier]] supervised excavations and consolidations of the site for Mexico's [[National Institute of Anthropology and History]] (INAH); it was Ruz Lhuillier who was the first person to gaze upon Pacal the Great's tomb in over a thousand years. Ruz worked for four years at the Temple of the Inscriptions before unearthing the tomb. Further INAH work was done in lead by [[Jorge R. Acosta|Jorge Acosta]] into the 1970s.

In 1973, the first of the very productive [[Palenque Round Table|Palenque ''Mesa Redonda'' (Round table)]] conferences was held here on the inspiration of [[Merle Greene Robertson]]; thereafter every few years leading [[Mayanist]]s would meet at Palenque to discuss and examine new findings in the field. Meanwhile, Robertson was conducting a detailed examination of all art at Palenque, including recording all the traces of color on the sculptures.

The 1970s also saw a small museum built at the site.

In the last 15 or 20 years, a great deal more of the site has been excavated, but currently archaeologists estimate that only 5% of the total city has been uncovered.

In 2010, [[Pennsylvania State University]] researchers, Christopher Duffy and [[American Treasures|Kirk French]], identified the Piedras Bolas Aqueduct as a pressurised [[aqueduct (watercourse)|aqueduct]], the earliest known in the [[New World]]. It is a spring-fed conduit located on steep terrain that has a restricted outlet that would cause the water to exit forcefully, under pressure, to a height of {{convert|6|m|ft|}}. They were unable to identify the use for this man-made feature.<ref>[http://live.psu.edu/story/46532 Maya plumbing, first pressurized water feature found in New World] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130208225152/http://live.psu.edu/story/46532 |date=2013-02-08 }}, [[Pennsylvania State University]], 4 May 2010, accessed 5 May 2010</ref>

In June 2022, archaeologists from the Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) announced the discovery of a 1,300-year-old nine-inch-tall [[stucco]] head statue in a pond, believed to be a young [[Hun Hunahpu]], the Maya's mythological maize god. The figure's [[Tonsure|semi-shaved haircut]] that resembles ripe corn was the reason they identified it as a young maize god. Researchers assume that the Mayan inhabitants of Palenque possibly placed a large stone statuette over a pond to represent the entrance to the underworld. According to archaeologist Arnoldo González Cruz, the Mayan people symbolically shuttered the pool by breaking up some of the stucco and filling it with animal remains, including pottery fragments, carved bone remains, shells, obsidian arrowheads, beads, vegetables, and other items.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Magazine |first1=Smithsonian |last2=Kuta |first2=Sarah |title=1,300-Year-Old Corn God Statue Shows How the Maya Worshipped Maize |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1300-year-old-corn-god-statue-shows-how-maya-worshipped-maize-180980206/ |access-date=2022-08-09 |website=Smithsonian Magazine |language=en}}</ref>