The El Peru Regional Archaeological Project has announced some significant epigraphic discoveries made over the past two seasons, focusing on two new inscribed monuments, numbered Stela 43 and 44. These include some interesting new historical characters and hints at wider regional politics of the 6th century, a time that is still poorly understood in Maya history overall.
Press release from Washington University in St Louis
Press Release from the Guatemalan Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes
Very interesting stuff, and congratulations to the project team for yet another cool find (and it’s been yet another great season of important discoveries in Maya archaeology).
I would suggest a slightly different reading of one of the royal names on the side of Stela 44. It looks to be spelled wa-o-ma U-CH’AB AHK, using an early head variant for ahk, “turtle,” in the final block (rather than TZ’IKIN as given in the reports).
Dear David – a carved mirror back with hieroglyphs from the Guatemalan Lowlands (K4829), now in the Jay I. Kislak Collection (034.01.00), contains another occurence of the syllabic spelling /wa-o-ma/ followed by the bird variant of CH’EN and prefixed by /ch’o-ko/. Maybe there is a connection between this example of wa-o-ma and the new text from El Peru, although the names mentioned on the mirror back a associted with the kan-kingdom.
A superb hires of this piece can be found on http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/EarlyAmericas/PreContactWorld/RecordingHistory/ExhibitObjects/CarvedMirrorBackWithHieroglyphs.aspx