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Lo increíble es el templo sagrado que habían tallado en la roca.

Lo increíble es el templo sagrado que habían tallado en la roca.
The incredible thing is the sacred temple that they had carved in the rock.
From Lesson 169:The past perfect tense (había)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about Lo increíble es el templo sagrado que habían tallado en la roca.

Why use habían tallado instead of just tallaron?
Habían tallado is the past perfect tense, meaning "they had carved." It is built using the imperfect tense of the helper verb haber (habían) plus the past participle of the main verb (tallado). We use this tense to talk about an action that was completely finished further back in the past.
Can the past participle tallado change its ending to match la roca or el templo?
No. When forming perfect tenses with haber, the past participle always ends in -o, regardless of the gender or number of the nouns in the sentence. Even if the temple were feminine, it would still be habían tallado.
Who does habían refer to if there's no subject like ellos in the sentence?
The -n ending on habían tells us the subject is "they" (or "you all"). Spanish frequently drops pronouns like ellos when talking about an unspecified group of people or builders, similar to the general "they" in English.
Why is Lo used before the adjective increíble here?
While lo is often a direct object pronoun meaning "it" or "him," here it acts as a neutral article. When you put lo in front of an adjective, it turns it into a noun phrase. So, lo increíble translates to "the incredible thing" or "that which is incredible."

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