Copán

A Maya city in western Honduras right up against the Guatemalan border, occupied from the Early Preclassic onward but at its height in the fifth to ninth centuries. Two things here are unmatched. The Hieroglyphic Stairway carries the longest known Maya text anywhere, about 2,200 glyphs, begun by Uaxaclajuun Ub’aah K’awiil around AD 710 and extended by his successor. And Altar Q shows all sixteen rulers of the dynasty in order, with the founding recorded at AD 426 to 427, which is about as close as Maya archaeology gets to a signed family tree. Temple 16 alone has at least five buildings stacked inside it, each one raised over the last across centuries. UNESCO World Heritage since 1980.