Maya Decipherment

by David Stuart 

The Classic-period names for the days of the tzolk’in  (cholq’ij) are often obscure to us. This is true even where we see clear semantic connections to the familiar names used in colonial Yucatan (the names we still use today in describing the ancient Maya calendar, by convention). Was the day “Kan” actually called K’an in Palenque in 750 CE, or was it something else? The problem comes down to the pervasive use of single logograms in writing the days, with only an occasional phonetic sign attached here and there to offer a partial clue about their pronunciations. An additional stumbling block involves the history of the day glyphs themselves. Their forms changed in sometimes surprising ways over nearly two thousand years, such that late variants bear little resemblance to how they were originally designed. Here and in subsequent studies of the Classic Maya days, I offer a few historical and paleographical observations, looking particularly at the origins and iconographic connections of certain signs. The day glyphs have a deep history, unsurprisingly, and even their earliest examples point to centuries of previous development, reaching far back into the Preclassic era. The recent suggestion that the 260-day calendar can be discerned from architectural plans and alignments dating to the Middle Preclassic (or Middle Formative) is a powerful testament to its antiquity (Šprajc et al. 2023). So here we will look at the “visual etymologies” of certain day signs to tease out clues about their origin, as well as about their important associations with Maya iconography. Even with new semantic clues in hand, the ancient names of the days will probably remain difficult to know, at least in many cases.

We begin our series of observations with the fifteenth day, named Men in ancient Yucatan. This was also the name of the fifteenth day in Ch’ol, as reported by Campbell (1988:375). The only plausible source for the name the root men, which in both Yukatekan and Cholan languages is “make, do,” and forms the basis of the Yukatek word hmeen (“a doer, maker”), best known as the title for a ritual specialist or curandero. When a possessed noun, men can form a phrase that signals causation, as is Yukatek u men, “por causa de” or tu menel, “porque.” The same appears in Ch’orti’ u mener, “por, de, a causa de” (Hull 2016: 278). In Ch’ol, the verb mel, “to do,” may be related. The co-occurrence of the day name Men and root men within both Yukatekan and Ch’olan might suggest that the day name was shared throughout much of the lowlands in ancient times, and perhaps during the Classic period. We will return to this point shortly.

In highland Mayan languages the corresponding name for the fifteenth day is Tz’ikin, equivalent to the proto-Mayan word *tz’ikin, “bird.” Here we see a link to the widespread names meaning “Eagle” in Nahuatl, Otomi, and other languages of highland Mexico (Caso 1967, Kaufman 1989). Based on these widespread name patterns, Kaufman suggested that Men was that of an “eagle god,” whose Mayan name associates “with ‘Bird’ in general, as though he were the protean bird.” I agree with his assessment and would add that the best evidence for an “eagle god” may come from the Men’s historical development as a hieroglyphic form.

Two Classic-period variants of Men, arranged over time, are illustrated in Figure 1. The head variants – what we must assume was its “original” form – appear in the upper row of Figure 1 (a-e). These have received little discussion in the epigraphic literature, and many drawings reproduced in various books and other publications look to be highly inaccurate (see, for example, Thompson 1950: Fig. 9, 36&39). These all show a profile head of what appears to be a supernatural bird, with a distinctive squared inner eye. The eye is one clear indication of its deified nature, as are the “shiner” markings we find on the forehead in Early Classic variants. An avian beak is sometimes hard to make out in these highly abstracted forms, but we see it clearly in a few late examples, as from Piedras Negras Panel 3 (example c). Even by the Early Classic the bird’s head was highly abstracted and conventionalized, probably due to calligraphic practice over time, going back to the Late Pre-Classic (examples a and b).

These head variants agree not only with Kaufman’s idea of a “bird god,” but they are identical to representations of the Principal Bird Deity (Bardawil 1979, Cortez 1986, Guernsey 2006, Martin 2015, Nielsen and Helmke 2015), possibly named Kokaj Muut or Yax Kokaj Muut (Boot 2008). The visual equivalence is demonstrated by the name glyph of an aspect of the Principal Bird Deity we find on a codex-style vessel, Kerr 4546, captioning the bird’s portrait nearby (Figure 2). This is a portrait name glyph, and other examples of the bird’s name show the Principal Bird Deity in a more familiar, less abstract way (Figure 2c, d). These are in turn equivalent to what we find in the codices as the name of the more anthropomorphic God D, the Principal Bird being his avian avatar. No other avian figure from Maya art or iconography displays such deified characteristics, so it is clear that the day sign Men originated in the Preclassic and Early Classic as the portrait of the Principal Bird Deity. It seems that the name of the fifteenth day in Postclassic Mesoamerica, whether “Eagle” or “Bird,” are generic reflection of this day’s more mythical origin and identity.

 

In further support of this connection to the great mythic bird, we can turn to other examples of the Principal Bird Diety’s glyphic name. In Tomb 12 of Rio Azul, four similar deity names feature this same head sign, written on the tomb’s four walls and associated with one of the four quarters or world directions (Figure 3). As I and others have argued, these are names of the Principal Bird Deity, each with a different adjectival descriptor (day, night, moon, and star) (Taube, et al. 2010:52-56). Later examples of these same directional names confirm the visual connection to the Principal Bird Deity (Figure 4). This chronological evolution suggests that the Principal Bird Deity used as the Men Day sign often retained an “early look” throughout much of the Late Classic. There are examples of Men, however, that are more representative of the later bird deity heads we see in Figure 4 (see Naranjo, Stela 23 [F17] and Stela 28 [G18]).

A rarer and far simpler variant of the day Men also appears in Classic-era texts (Figure 1, f-i). I believe this to be an enlarged representation of the great bird’s eye, a pars pro toto form meant as a simplification of the head variant (compare examples b and f in Figure 1). It is also remotely possible that it originated as a highly abstracted form of the bird’s head in full (compare a and f). Other day signs show an eye as a simpler form of a complex head variant (Lamat, Chuen, and Ix, are three examples that come to mind, which we will discuss in later notes). The “eye” forms of Men show a squared inner “pupil,” identical to the eyes we see in early representations of celestial deities, such as K’inich Ajaw. Some Late Classic examples also display small dots in the upper portion of the sign (Figure 1, g-h). I suspect that this minor elaboration arose through the sign’s general resemblance to the distinct logogram TAHN (“within”) which displays the line of dots or a quincunx as a consistent feature.  That is to say, in writing the simplified Men day sign, scribes sometimes were inclined to incorporate the dots out of habit, not realizing the origin of the element as an eye. Here it is interesting to note that representations of deities’ eyes changed throughout the Classic period, with the squared pupil moving from the lower left to the upper left. Yet the reduced form of Men retained the early look, supporting the notion that some scribes used the reduced form of Men without realizing its true visual origin.

So, the visual origin of the Men bird was the Principal Bird Deity, the avian aspect of the old God D (and God N) who was perhaps named Kokaj or Yax Kokaj Mut (Boot 2008, Martin 2015). Here the word men may provide an interesting semantic connection, for as the root for the verb “to make” it resonates with the names of certain creator deities among the later contemporary Maya. (H)meen, the religious title of Yucatan, is also analyzable as “maker, creator,” apt descriptions for the celestial god who we otherwise know was a diviner, and scribe, aj tz’ihb. In one text at Xcalumkin, God D or his avian aspect is called an aj k’in, “day-keeper, diviner” — a clear indication of his role not unlike that of Cipactonal of central Mexico (see Martin 2015: 223-225). Whatever the case, the visual history tells us that the Principal Bird Deity was the core mythical basis for Men, not simply a bird or an eagle.

Outside of the context of the day, the same avian head appears as a part of the expanded name phrase of the solar god, K’inich Ajaw (Figure 5). Clearly, the Principal Bird Deity, or an aspect of it, was considered a solar being, a precedent for the Postclassic Mexican idea of the solar eagle. The name phrase is introduced by Uuk Chapaht (“Seven Centipede”), followed by our Men bird (or its reduced form) and then K’inich Ajaw. Semantically we can interpret this as “Seven-Centipede-BIRD.DEITY-Sun Lord.” Whereas I had previously considered TZ’IKIN as a possible reading of the bird logogram, this now seems unlikely. Tellingly, the noun tz’ikin, “bird,” while very old and traceable to proto-Mayan, is nowhere to be found in lowland languages. The day name Tz’ikin is restricted to the highlands as well (in both Eastern and Western Mayan), where it may well have been borrowed across languages and communities.  To reiterate, the attested name in both Yucatec and Ch’ol was Men. We might therefore entertain MEN or some cognate form as an alternate reading, both as a day name and as a logogram. The -na suffix on the head would conceivably agree with this, appearing on examples from the altar of Copan Stela 13, and a Terminal Classic polychrome vessel in the collections of LACMA (M.2010.115.685) (Figure 5c, d). So, while tentative, I believe we can entertain an analysis of the solar god’s full name as Wuk Chapaht Men(?) K’inich Ajaw. I should emphasize that a MEN reading and still needs to be tested outside the context of the tzolk’in.

Finally, we should turn to the very late forms of Men found in the codices (Figure 6). These are consistent in presenting a profile face with a series of parallel lines behind its mouth.  All are derived from the earlier reduced Classic variant where the face is not present (see Figure 1, f-i). I suspect that the eye had already been in long use in manuscripts as a more calligraphic form of the day and that this carried over into the manuscript tradition of the Postclassic. By then, scribes had fully lost any sense of its true visual origin, misinterpreting the eye as a human-like face, taking the small square at the lower left as a mouth, and the small dots above as “eyes” (the dots, we will recall, may have arisen out of yet another mistaken evocation of the TAHN logogram). No attempt was ever made to make it resemble a bird. It seems that the original head variant representing the Principal Bird Deity did not survive at all past the collapse of the Classic period. A visual summary of this proposed development, covering over a thousand years, is shown in Figure 7.

Ancient misinterpretations of the Men’s visuals have led to at least one erroneous interpretation of the day’s meaning. In his lengthy discussion of the day signs Thompson (1950:82-84) was confident that it was “the day of the aged patroness of weaving (and) the aged moon goddess.” He was surely mistaken in this, however, basing his ideas only on the late forms of Men as found in the codices. Thompson’s take reflected a common methodological bias of his time when relatively few early Maya inscriptions were known. The early variants were unknown to him, as was the Principal Bird Deity itself.

Spanning over two millennia, the histories of the day signs are full of similar evolutionary twists and visual turns. Late forms often bear little resemblance to their Preclassic originals, which perhaps isn’t too surprising. Indeed, the signs of the tzolk’in often seem as if they operated within their particular ecosystem, set apart somewhat from the many other elements of the script. Tracking of similar paleographical sign histories remains an under-appreciated aspect of Maya epigraphy, in my view, and we will explore similar sign histories in future “Day Sign Notes.” To anticipate where some of these analyses will go, I feel confident in saying that the mundane-sounding names found in later Mesoamerican calendars – such as “Bird” or “Monkey” – can often obscure older, far meanings that were rooted in Maya mythological identities. Likewise, Men was no generic “Eagle,” as the day was dubbed in Postclassic central Mexico. Being Maya in origin, it was first and foremost the Principal Bird Deity, a celestial and solar symbol par excellence. I suspect that each day of the tzolk’in had, in the Preclassic, its own specific iconographic identity as a deity. These are at times only dimly perceptible in later language and scribal usage, but they can still be accessed through the day signs’ visual histories, and the vestiges of meaning they convey.

References Cited

Bardawil, Laurence W. 1976. The Principal Bird Deity in Maya Art – An Iconogrpahic Study of Form and Meaning. In The Art, Iconography and Dynastic History of Palenque, Part III: Proceedings of the Segunda Mesa Redonda de Palenque, edited by Merle Greene Robertson, pp. 195-209. Robert Louis Stevenson School, Pebble Beach.