Many ancient peoples have built pyra- honored the dead: mids. Some pyramids others were temples. The pyramids of the Maya Indians in southern Mexico were long thought to be temple sites only. but in 1949 a Mexican archaeologist began an excavation that exploded the temple theory Alberto Ruz had just become director of research for the area that had been the civilization. He had cradle of the Mayan already visited the ruins at Palenque Lik earlier explorers, he had noticed. at the top of the Pyramid of the Inscriptions. a stone slab with holes in it. He wondered what la beneath. Many pyramids in Central America