Few people visit the interesting ruins of Pajaral, El Petén, Guatemala, located, not far from Laguna San Diego, to the west of Lake Petén Itzá, and in the general vicinity of another important and related site, Zapote Bobal. Ian Graham paid a brief initial visit to Pajaral in the 1970s, and several archaeologists from IDAEH and the Proyecto La Joyanca surveyed briefly around the ruins staring about eight years ago. I had an opportunity to visit there over the course of two days in 2001, recording fragments of sculpture that had been revealed earlier by my colleagues Veronique Breuil and Salvador López, both then of the Proyecto La Joyanca, and they kindly provided me the chance to photograph and record a number of these new monuments, including this Early Classic stela (still un-numbered).

Only the base of the stela exists today, showing the feet of a standing ruler above a large rectangular panel, depicting the face of a witz, or mountain. The two hieroglyphs near the feet are surely the name of this local king, readable as Yajawte’ K’inich. Interestingly, this same name was used by a much later Pajaral king shown on another stela (dating to 9.16.0.0.0) we recorded that same season. The Yajawte’ K’inich name appears at other sites as well, including with at least one ruler at the neighboring Ik’ polity, centered at nearby Lake Peten Itzá.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this monument fragment is the witz design below, with its two snakes eminating from the mouth, and passing through the BIH earspools. This appears elsewhere in Early Classic iconography, and Karl Taube has rightly equated this with the och bih (“road-enter”) expression for death. I suspect that it reinforces the common notion in Mesoamerican thinking that hill and mountains are abodes of deceased ancestors. To me, the most striking detail of the witz mask are the jaguar ears seen above the earspools, marking this place — that is, Pajaral — as “Jaguar Hill,” or Hixwitz.

Before 2001 we had known of the Maya kingdom called Hixwitz from mentions at other sites (Yaxchilan, Piedras Negras, Itzimte), but it was the discovery of this and two other monuments at Pajaral and nearby Zapote Bobal that finally nailed its location, once and for all. Pajaral and Zapote Bobal were evidently served as captitals of Hixwitz, perhaps at different times during the Classic period. The large isolated hill at Pajaral, with its huge staircase and acropolis on top, is very likely the original “Jaguar Hill.”

Looking recently at Frederick Catherwood’s 1839 rendering of the back of Copan’s Stela F (published in Stephens’ Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan), I was struck by the presence of three glyphs that I had never seen, now missing or damaged on the original monument. The first photograph of the stela, taken by Alfred Maudslay in 1884, shows that the glyphs were already missing over four decades after the Stephens and Catherwood visit. All modern studies of the inscription have passed over this wonderful old drawing, but it’s obviously worth a very close look.

The general gist of this inscription has long been known (Stuart 1986, Newsome 2001). The dedication date is 9.14.10.0.0 5 Ajaw 3 Mak, and the text refers to the placement of the stela (lakamtuun) of Waxaklajuun Ubaah K’awiil (Ruler 13) on that day. The monument also seems to have had its own proper name, probably referencing Ruler 13’s own god impersonation on that ceremonial day.

Blocks A3 and A4 are now destroyed, but just enough can be seen in Catherwood’s drawing to propose their reconstruction. A3 looks to be the preposition TI- or TU- in front of a larger, murky glyph with a numerical superfix. As we will see, the context strongly suggests it is reconstructable as TI-4-AJAW, “In (K’atun) Four Ajaw,” given the mention of “15 K’atuns” (9.15.0.0.0) in the next block. A4 is half-effaced, but there is little doubt in Catherwood’s image that it is I-tz’a-[pa] or I-tz’a[(pa)-ja], for the verb i tz’ahpaj, “then it is erected…”. This makes perfect sense, given that the verb for the following dedicatory statement of the stela has been thought missing. Now we have it.

Like a number of Copan inscriptions, the Stela F text is unusual in some ways. The placement of repeating ti– and tu– propositions in front of the chronological glyphs (B1-B3) is noteworthy, after the “Initial Series Introducing Glyph” (A1) where no Initial Series exists. Reading from B1 through A4 we have:

ti Jo’ Ajaw Uxte’ Mak
ti tahnlam-il
ti Chan Ajaw
tu Jo’lajuun Winikhaab(?)
i tzahpaj…

On Five Ajaw, the Third of Mak,
At the half-diminishing
in Four Ajaw,
in the Fifteenth K’atun,
then it is erected, …

So, the dedication day 5 Ajaw 3 Mak (9.14.10.0.0) is halfway into 9.15.0.0.0 4 Ajaw (13 Yax, not recorded). This is short-hand method of recording a Long Count date, not unlike examples known from the inscriptions of northern Yucatan. The proper name of Stela F comes in blocks B4-A6, before u k’aba’ u lakamtuun, “it is the name of his large stone” (B6, A7). Interestingly, block A5 is also much clearer in Catherwood’s drawing, showing a very clear spelling U-CHOK-ko-K’ABA’-a (u chok k’aba’, “its young name”) as part of the complex name phrase for the monument. Later, after A6, we come to an extended name phrase for the king, continuing up to A9. The text closes with some sort of descriptive phrase involving a collection of “lords” (ajawtak), possibly royal ancestors who oversaw the ritual and the king’s impersonation.

Catherwood’s drawing was made with a camera lucida under very difficult conditions, and at a point when he had no familiarity with the intricacies of Maya art and writing (Copan was the first great ruin they investigated). His careful rendering confirms what we had suspected was missing in the Stela F inscription, and so there is no great surprise in this analysis. But it’s good to see that this first great artist in Maya archaeological research still provides valuable information for modern epigraphy.