The Palenque builders used plaster to obtain a smooth finish, unlike the usual Mayan tooled-limestone construction. However, they used carving on the interior walls; the best examples are on tablets affixed to the walls with plaster. Stucco and terra-cotta images have been found. The elaborate palace complex includes three parallel walls housing two corridors covered with pointed vaults of the Palenque style.

Indian tribe of northern Venezuela at the time of the Spanish conquest (16th century). The Palenque were closely related to the neighbouring Cumanagoto (q.v.); their language probably belonged to the Arawakan family. They were a tropical-forest people known to eat human flesh, to be warlike, and to live in settlements surrounded by palisades (palenques). The Patángoro (q.v.) of Colombia were also sometimes called Palenque because of their fortified settlements.