by David Stuart

In a few previous posts I examined the graphical history of certain Maya day signs, and what they reveal about their deeper histories and meanings. So far these have included preliminary examinations of the signs for Men, Caban and Imix, with many others still in development. All these case studies rest on the assumption that tracking the visual development of a given day sign over the long term has the potential to reveal much about the day’s deeper historical significance. I would hazard to suggest that the visual approach is more useful than a linguistic one, based on the names of the days we know from the colonial period and more recent sources (Kaufman 2020). One reason is that the extant visual forms of the day signs are far older, with some examples even dating to the Late Preclassic period. Seeing such changes over time, it becomes clear that many, if not all originated as portraits of specific deities, often visually complex. For example, the sign for the day Men was once the image of Principal Bird Deity, yet this visual origin was largely lost by the Postclassic, when simplified versions of the sign were developed. The standard Imix is a waterlily, a visual reduction of a portrait of the Water Serpent deity. Manik may have started out as a deer’s antler – a reduced form of a mythic deer – which soon took on the form of a contorted human hand. In similar ways, the conventional day glyphs turn out to be highly simplified and abstracted abbreviations for specific iconographic beings, often based on a small diagnostic feature of the god that became highly abstracted. These visual transformations occurred over a great span of time, from the Middle Preclassic to the final uses of the day signs in the sixteenth century.

Here I focus on the ninth day of the Maya system named Muluc in Postclassic Yucatan, and Toj in highland Guatemala. Its ancient sign is consistent in appearance throughout the Classic period (Figure 1). Early examples show that this represents a narrow-necked jar, as first recognized by John Justeson (see Fox and Justeson [1984:74]), and by Schele and Miller (1984:27,40). In most (not all) examples, the jar is inverted, with the mouth facing downward (Figure 1a-c). We ausually find a diagonal or curved line running from top to bottom across the jar, as well as a small darkened circular element to the left. By 700 CE, the contours of the jar are mostly lost, with only a small line or indentation to indicate the jar’s narrow neck. This small feature quickly went away, however, leaving the inner curved line and darkened circle as the standard presentation of Muluc during the Late Classic. Sometimes the inner line also disappeared, leaving just the circle at the very center of the sign. This very simplified form was used throughout the codices and up to the time of Landa’s list of days. By this time any idea of Muluc’s true visual origin as a representation of a jar or vessel was lost. [Note 1].

Muluc also has an animal head variant, first identified, I believe, by David Kelley (1976:123) (Figure 2). This is the BAAH logogoram in other contexts. Earlier studies wrestled with the animal’s identification, and Thompson (1962:354) dubbed it a “jog,” unable to choose between its identification as a jaguar or a dog (although he inclined toward the latter). Schele and Miller (1983:27) later proposed that it was a rabbit. In an insightful study published fifteen years earlier, Proskouriakoff (1968) had surmised that the animal sign could represent “one of the larger gophers.” The gopher identification was later confirmed by studies in the 1980s establishing its true reading as the logogram BAAH, used to represent the word baah “gopher,” and “self, body, person” (Bricker 1986:136, 213, Houston and Stuart 1998, Mora-Marín 2020, Schele 1990, Stuart 1996). The reading for the gopher element was established by the common substitution of the animal by the syllables ba-hi (or at times simply ba). Recently, Mora-Marín (2020) discussed the gopher logogram BAAH in detail, linking it to a sign in the Isthmian script. For our purposes, we can surmise that the animate form of Muluc represents a gopher, before we delve into the question of how this relates to the image of the water vessel [Note 2].

The use of a jar (inverted or upright) as the glyph for the ninth day has clear parallels in other Mesoamerican scripts, where the corresponding glyph represents a container or basin full of water (Figure 3). The resemblance is especially clear in Zapotec writing (Figure 3a, b). The day’s names outside of the Maya region consistently mean “Water” (Caso 1967, Kaufman 2020), as in Zapotec Tuta or Nahuatl Atl.  The jar’s liquid contents are always emphasized or represented in Zapotec, Ñuiñe, and later Nahua writing.  In this way, outside the Maya region, we see a visual throughline where the glyphic forms are consistent and match the widespread meaning of the day [Note 3].

Oddly, the names Muluc or Toj have no direct connection to water, nor to gophers. As Kaufman (2020) notes, Huastec (Mayan) mul is “water jar.” Mulul in Kiche’ is “jar, clay pot” (Edmonson 1965). The corresponding highland name Toj has been interpreted as “shower, thunder, storm” (Fox and Justeson 1984), with an indirect water connection. Kaufman (2020) posited Proto-Mayan *toj, “payment,” as its meaning, linking it to the highland storm deity Tojil. It is revealing that in K’iche’ the verb tojij is “to pour out (grain or liquid)” (Christenson 1990), perhaps relating to the image of the inverted jar we see in the Classic hieroglyph. What is translated loosely as “storm” might be better understood as “pouring (rain).”

Historically attested day names are late, so they may not always be helpful in revealing a given day’s deeper history and meaning. Muluc, like the other Maya days, had its own elaborate iconography. Its visual history also changed over time, obscuring its underlying origin and significance. We will use this “visual etymology” approach to access its nature as the image of a Maya deity, and to see how “Water” later emerged as the day name outside the Maya region.

The Gopher Wahy

The gopher Muluc can be traced through numerous Early Classic and Late Classic examples, at many sites. Why would this be the head variant of the day, alternating with the jar? It is a functional overlap that is unique to the day sign and does not apply to the identical gopher that is the BAAH logogram. As we have seen with other day sign histories, the animated forms are usually representations of deities, and here we should ask ourselves how a gopher might exist alongside those other days, as a deity. The explanation is once again based on some iconographic particulars. Here we turn to the wahyob, the demonic beings who mostly appear on vase paintings (Grune and Nahm 1994; Houston and Stuart 1989; Stuart 2020; Velásquez García 2020).

Grube and Nahm (1994:699-700) pointed out a prominent wahy they named K’an Baah Ch’o, the “Yellow-Gopher Mouse” (Figure 4). It is possible his name was more correctly K’an Baah Ch’ohok, given proto-Ch’olan *ch’ohok for “rat, mouse” [Note 4].  Like other wahyob, he is shown as a hybrid supernatural character, with close connections to witchcraft, sorcery and disease (Helmke 2009; Stuart 2020; Velásquez Garcia 2020). This “were-gopher” is shown standing in human-like fashion and holding a narrow-necked jar nearly always marked with an ak’bal (AK’AB) sign. Sometimes the jar is worn suspended from the animal’s collar. In one example the wahy is named in a reduced manner as simply K’an Baah, “Yellow Gopher” (Figure 4b). This truncated name corresponds to the gopher sign we see in late examples of Muluc and in the the BAAH logogram, with its k’an marking on the cheek [Note 5]. A carved shell pendant in a private collection depicts a corpulent pocket gopher with the same k’an element on its body (Figure 5). Despite the name, these “yellow” marks never appear in artistic representations of the wahy being.

K’an Baah Ch’o or K’an Baah Ch’ohok can also assume a human form, as a sacrificer prominently displaying a knife or axe along with the same “ak’bal jar” (Grube and Nahm 1994:699) (Figure 6). He has a prominent hank of dark hair above his face, marked with a white “x” (crossed long bones?) or eyes, and his clothing includes bloody strips of cloth or paper. Two captions for this character name him as K’an Baah Ch’ohok (Figure 6a and c). In the latter image, he decapitates another wahy being named Ch’ak Baah Akan (“Self-chopping Akan,” or “Head-chopping Akan”) (his hieroglyphic name is shown behind the leg) (Figure 6c). This particular victim appears in many other representations on vases (Grube 2004, Grube  and Nahm 1994:708), and he seems in turn related to skeletal wahy beings who display decapitated heads [Note 6]. Perhaps it is for this reason that K’an Baah Ch’ohok appears on the Tonina stucco frieze adjacent to the skeletal figure holding a severed head, named there as Ahk Ook Chamiy (or Kamay), “Turtle-Foot-Death (or Illness).” The overlaps and connections among these characters are again indicated by a remarkable juxtaposition of portraits on vase K8936, where Ch’ak Baah Akan, axe and head in hand, kneels atop a round animal that seems hybrid in appearance, with the head of our baah gopher (note the diagnostic k’an marking on its cheek) (Figure 7). Behind them stands the prancing death god, holding another severed human head and jar marked not with an ak’bal glyph, but with dark contents. These prominent wahy characters, including the K’an Baah Ch’ohok, all appear thematically connected to sacrificers and wielders of the ak’bal jar, or “dark” vessel. Here we are entering into a confusing and esoteric series of patterns and associations, showing just how complex K’an B’aah Chohok was, both as a concept and visual form.

While depictions of K’an Baah Ch’ohok are varied, the jar is a consistent feature, always held or worn around the neck. The infixed ak’bal (“darkness”) element probably indicates the jar’s contents in some way, although the reference is difficult to understand. Houston and Taube (2012:45) note that a few representations of these vessels also include serpents, either as handles or shown emerging from the jar. They interpret the jars as vessels with “dark, water-filled rain.” I see ak’bal jars (associated with wahy beings, mostly) as having a somewhat darker sense. To speculate, a dark liquid associated with death and sacrifice might allude to necrochorume, the natural by-product of bodily decomposition (a dark liquid wielded by such characters doesn’t seem pleasant, in any case). Identical ak’bal vessels appear with varied deities and Akans in Maya art, often downturned or askew, and sometimes also associated with flies or other insects (Figure 8). On the Palenque panel at Dumbarton Oaks, an aspect of Chahk impersonated by K’inich K’an Joy Kitam holds just such a vessel, along with his customary axe. I see this as alluding to the iconography of Akan sacrificers, as much as to the storm god. In striking with his axe, Chahk was also a metaphorical destroyer and decapitator of war captives (Zender 2020).

Let’s return to the day sign. The “dark jar” so often held by the gopher wahy and its Akan relations reminds us of the inverted or upright jar we find as Muluc. I see them as the same, in fact, at least in origin, as indicated by the early Muluc form we see in the early day sign list of Uaxactun, Structure B-XIII, which seems to display a small ak’bal element as an infix (Figure 1a). This is the visual precursor to the simple black spot on the jar, which in turn becomes the sole diagnostic of the day sign in Late Classic and Post-Classic examples. It’s no coincidence that in the iconography of wahy beings, some ak’bal jars are shown simply with dark contents, like the spot (note the one held by the death figure in Figure 7). The Uaxactun example may prove pivotal, linking the day Muluc to the intricate iconography we have been discussing. The jar of Muluc may well be the jar of K’an Baah Ch’ohok and his macabre friends.

This pattern of associations would explain why the gopher serves as the Muluc head variant. I suspect it even came first, as the full animated form of the day sign. Over time (and through an early process we can’t see too clearly) Muluc was graphically abbreviated via its key visual diagnostics. As we have seen, other days routinely go through the same reduction process, as when we see an eye of the deity or animal used as its abbreviation (Lamat, Chuen, Ix, Men). Sometimes it is a prominent feature of the forehead (Imix, Kan, Manilk, Ben, Ahau). Muluc operates much the same way, using a key visual attribute, the dark jar, as the visual cue for the supernatural being, in this case K’an Baah Ch’ohok.

Maya Origins

Taking a wider view of the day and the day sign, the pattern we see in the visual history of Muluc has some important implications. The image of the jar that we find in Maya writing appears in early Zapotec writing as the corresponding day “Water,” a meaning we find throughout later traditions of Oaxaca and Central Mexico (Figure 3) (Caso 1967, Kaufman 2020, Urcid 2001). In very early examples from the Monte Alban I period, the image of water is emphasized in the vessel’s interior, with the jug dropping out altogether by the end of the Classic period. Assuming that the narrow-necked jars used in both the early Zapotec and Maya day signs are related, it is natural to conclude that the Zapotec form was borrowed from the reduced Maya form. This was a visual appropriation, not a semantic one. In other words, the Zapotec script adopted the simplified Muluc hieroglyph into their own system, analyzing it not as an attribute of a particular god, K’an Baah Ch’ohok, but simply as a representation of a water vessel. This is how the day came to be represented and named “Water” throughout Oaxaca and Central Mexico over the many centuries that followed. It is telling that nowhere in Maya writing does the ninth day have anything obvious to do with water.

I believe the Maya glyphs for the days were often the inspiration for the corresponding signs in other Mesoamerican systems. In their original iterations, the Maya days of the tzolk’in were specific deities, what are sometimes referred to today as the “Day Lords,” or Nawales. Here we need only refer back to Thompson (195o:96), who noted that among the Maya of today, “the days were originally gods, and it has been suggested that they were always considered as such.” With the passage of time and through geographic spread, the images of the deified days became generalized, simplified, and abstracted. Examples we have already seen include the day Men, which was originally the image of the Maya Principal Bird Deity. Through a complex history of borrowing, the great bird became “Eagle.” This same process seems to be repeated many times, with different days. The important takeaway here, perhaps controversial, is that the Mesoamerican 260-day calendar seems to have originated in the Pre-Classic Maya lowlands. Such a scenario agrees with our emerging sense that the 260-day system was already present in southeastern Mesoamerica during the Middle Preclassic, as Sprajc et al. (2023) have recently suggested through their study of astronomical alignment patterns in early monumental architecture.

Much more will be said on this broader point in future studies of the day signs. Suffice it to say that when a day’s visual development can be traced over time, we see similar patterns of  borrowing from the Maya tradition.

Acknowledgement: I thank Nathan York for his help in preparing some of the illustrations. All typos are definitely my cat’s fault.

Notes

Note 1. The very same jar sign was used elsewhere in the Maya script as the phonetic sign u (Stuart 1990). This underwent a similar visual process of abstraction during the Late Classic, beginning as a jar or olla (inverted or upright) and morphing into something else. The u diverged from Muluc’s evolutionary track, however, retaining its essential form into the Postclassic codices. This represents an interesting example of visual divergence between signs that once had identical forms, with different functions.

Note 2. It is interesting to read Proskouriakoff’s 1968 paper today. In typical fashion, she perceived the semantics of the common U-BAAH glyph, but without regard to linguistic analysis. Still, she was very close to a full solution, noting the alternation of the “jog” animal head with the syllable ba that Kelley had identified shortly before. Proskouriakoff may have even used this as a clue to identify the animal as a gopher, but she never made this explicit. The barrier seems to have been her reluctance to see the gopher as a logogram, as we do today. The BAAH logographic value was well-established by the late 1980s (earlier than as stated by Mora-Marín [2020]) in the intensive studies of Copan’s inscriptions, especially in the context of the name of that site’s 13th ruler.

Note 3. Aware of these wider Mesoamerican meanings, early scholars such as Beyer, Thompson went to great lengths to interpret the very late variants of Muluc as a visual “water” signs, linking it specifically to jade (Beyer 1926, Thompson 1950:78). In some popular outlets about the Maya days, this connection to jade is still emphasized. The connection seems baseless, however.

Note 4. Regarding the “mouse” sign, we have long known that it is the syllable ch’o, and also a logogram based on the term for “mouse” or “rat.” In proto-Ch’olan the word is ch’ohok, which I use here as an alternate logographic value.

Note 5. During the Late Classic the BAAH logogram incorporated the k’an element as an infix. Early Classic variants do not show it. The same pattern seems to be true for the Muluc day sign.

Note 6. The Akan character has several iterations as a “death” being or cadaver, and many of them are wahy beings with distinct names (Grube 2004). Some generic-looking skull hieroglyphs in the script began as more specific Akan representations, but were visually simplified over time. The skull we find as one of the three variables in Glyph C of the Lunar Series is a case in point (see the Early Classic Copan, Stela 63, for the use of an Akan head, where a skull is usually found in later examples)

References Cited

Beyer, Hermann. 1926. Apuntes sobre el jeroglífico maya Muluc. Memorias y Revista del Sociedad Científica Antonio Alzate 45: 143-146. Mexico.

Caso, Alfonso. 1967. Los calendarios prehispánicos. UNAM, Mexico.

Christenson, Allan J. 1990. K’iche’-English Dictionary. https://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/dictionary/christenson/

Edmonson, Munro. 1965. Quiche-English Dictionary. MARI, Tulane University, New Orleans.

Fox, James A., and John S. Justeson. 1984. Polyvalence in Mayan Hieroglyphic Writing. In Phoneticism in Mayan Hieroglyphic Writing, pp. 17-76, edited by J. S. Justeson and L. Campbell. IMS, SUNY, Albany

Grube, Nikolai. 2004. Akan: The God of Drinking, Disease, and Death. In Continuity and Change: Maya Religious Practices in Temporal Perspective, edited by D. Graña-Behrens, N. Grube, C. Prager, F. Sachse, S. Teufel, and E. Wagner, pp. 59–76. Acta Mesoamericana Vol. 14. Verlag Anton Saurwein, Markt Schwaben

Grube, Nikolai, and Werner Nahm. 1994. A Census of Xibalba: A Complete Inventory of Way Characters on Maya Ceramics. In The Maya Vase Book, Volume 4, pp. 686-715. Kerr Associates, New York.

Hellmuth, Nicholas B., ed. 1976. Tzakol and Tepeu Maya Pottery Paintings: Portfolio of Rollout Drawings by Barbara van Hudson, Persis Clarkson and Lin Crocker. FLAAR, Guatemala City.

Helmke, Christophe. 2009. Hidden Identity and Power in Ancient Mesoamerica: Supernatural Alter-egos and Personified Diseases. Acta Americana, vol. 17 (2): 49-98

Houston, Stephen, and David Stuart. 1989. The Way Glyph: Evidence of Co-Essences among the Classic Maya. Research Reports on Ancient Maya Writing 30. Center for Maya Research, Washington, DC.

Houston, Stephen D, and Karl A. Taube. 2012. Carved Panel. Catalog entry in Ancient Maya Art at Dumbarton Oaks, edited by J. Pillsbury, M. Doutriaux, R. Ishihara-Brito, and A. Tokovinine, pp. 39-47. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.

Kaufman, Terrence. 2020. The Day Names of the Mesoamerican Calendar: A Linguistic Perspective. Unpublished manuscript. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341194005

Kelly, David H. 1976. Deciphering the Maya Script. University of Texas Press, Austin.

Mora-Marin, David. 2020/ Mayan T757/AP9, the “Gopher” Sign, and Its Iconographic Counterpart in Epi-Olmec/Isthmian Writing. Mesoamericanst Linguistics at UNC, Note 2. https://davidmm.web.unc.edu/2020/07/11/note-2/

Proskouriakoff, Tatiana. 1968. The Jog and Jaguar Signs in Maya Writing. American Antiquity 33(2):247-251.

Schele, Linda, and Jeffrey H. Miller. 1983. The Mirror, the Rabbit and the Bundle: “Accession” Expressions from the Classic Maya Inscriptions. Studies on Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology, no. 25. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC

Šprajc, Ivan, Takeshi Inomata, and Anthony Aveni. 2023. Origins of Mesoamerican astronomy and calendar: Evidence from the Olmec and Maya Regions. Science Advances 9,eabq7675. DOI:10.1126/sciadv.abq7675

Stuart, David. 1990. The Decipherment of “Directional Count Glyphs” In Maya Inscriptions. Ancient Mesoamerica, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 213-224.

_________. 2020.The Wahys of Witchcraft: Sorcery and Political Power among the Classic Maya. In Sorcery in Mesoamerica, edited by Jeremy D. Coltman and John M.D. Pohl, pp. 179-205. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.

Thompson, J. Eric S. 1950. Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: Introduction. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, D.C.

Urcid, Javier. 2001. Zapotec Hieroglyphic Writing. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.

Velásquez García, Erik. 2020. New Ideas about the Wahyis Spirits Painted on Maya Vessels: Sorcery, Maladies, and Dream Feast in Prehispanic Art. The PARI Journal 20(4):15-28.

Zender, Marc. 2020. Disaster, Deluge and Destruction on the Star War Vase. The Mayanist 2(1):57-75.

by David Stuart

In Part I of this series on Maya regional names, I suggested the reading of a certain hieroglyph in Classic sources as MAAY-HA’, meaning something like “Fawn Waters.” I also posited that this corresponds to the historical name “Maya” (or Maaya’) which referred to the large region roughly corresponding to the Yucatán Peninsula, or the northern part of it. The supposed Maayha’ glyph is also non-local in scope, appearing in three widely dispersed places (Yaxchilan, Tayasal and Río Azul) and in visual settings where it relates to the earth, hills, and caves – the landscape itself. Here I expand on that initial proposal, investigating visual contexts where the glyph for Maayha’ occurs, and examining how the “iconography of place” also emphasized the character we sometimes refer to as Cosmic Caiman, a widespread symbol of the earth’s surface. I believe these settings bolster the proposed Maayha’ reading, and open other avenues of investigation into regional place names and related terms. One of these can be considered the name of the caiman itself, K’inich Ahiin, meaning “The Solar Caiman.” While not exactly a toponym, K’inich Ahiin was, I think, a proper name for the animate being that represented the earth, with close thematic overlaps to Maayha’, peten, and other ancient geographical terms.

As touched on in the first essay, several of these geographical references come together in the paintings of Río Azul, Tomb 1 (Figure 1). The possible Maayha’ glyph appears within a complex visual program that is fully toponymic in nature, marking the tomb as a cosmological place and conforming to a pattern we see in many of the other painted tombs of the site (Acuña 2015). For example, another painted crypt, Tomb 12, emphasizes the world directions and the cosmic eagles associated with those places; Tombs 6 and 25 display directional mountains and the canonical Year Bearers associated with them (4 Caban, 4 Ik’, etc.) (Acuña 2015:178, Stuart 2004). In Tomb 1, the imagery emphasizes water as well as maize, the latter perhaps indicated by the stacked and animated “beads” on each wall, a key diagnostic element in the iconography of the tonsured maize god Jun Ixi’m (Figure 2). This is the deity who of course “entered the water” and  later came to be resurrected as primordial maize.

Whatever the case, it seems that the décor of Tomb 1 presented a symbolic environment for resurrection and rebirth (Acuña 2015). The central text panel records a “birth” on September 29, 417 CE that may be the apotheosis of the deceased occupant, referring to his emergence out of the waters of the earth, as the reborn sun. This of course echoing some familiar themes we know from Pakal’s sarcophagus at Palenque. To the left of the birth text we find the animate signs WITZ and CH’EN stacked one atop the other, and above of these in turn we see the small MAAY-HA’ glyph.  I believe this detail, like a glyph in a royal headdress, serves to name the “hills and caves,” the landscape which is the environment of birth and earth-emergence. An accompanying glyph that shows a skull may be another place reference.  To the right we have another vertical grouping of K’IN atop AHIIN-na, referring to a caiman or crocodilian (ahiin) (Figure 3).

The name K’inich Ahin, or “Solar Caiman,” appears elsewhere in texts and iconography. I mentioned on of these on an inscribed vase from Tayasal, where the IK’-a place name and MAAY-HA’ glyph are also featured (see Figure 4, top). Another  example is on Yaxchilan, Lintel 31, where it appears as part of the proper name of a building, Structure 10 (Figure 4, bottom). There we see the name introduced by the same sequence, in a more conventional glyphic arrangement: K’INICH-AHIN-na. This is followed by a second block, where the initial element is hard to make out (note the rodent’s head in its lower portion), followed by PET-ne, spelling the word peten. The full name of Structure 10 was therefore K’inich Ahiin ? Peten, “the Solar Caiman ? Region(?).” Here the presence of peten in connection with the caiman is of particular significance. It is a very familiar word today, of course, usually in reference to the “Department of Petén” in northern Guatemala. Originally the word had two related senses, which we see in colonial Yucatec sources, as well as in reflections of modern usage. Peten is “island (isla)” and also “region, province (comarca, región ó provincia).” What connects them in the sense of an area that is demarcated and therefore “circled” [Note 1]. The root pet is “round, circular,” and peten essentially refers to the idealized shape of space, whether an island such as Flores (named Peten, “the Island,” among the modern Itzaj), or as a larger unit of territory (u petenil Yucatan means “la provincia de Yucatán”). Structure 10 of Yaxchilan, dedicated on a Period Ending 9.16.13.0.0, was apparently some type of peten as well, at least, of a specific named variety associated with the Solar Caiman. It seems to have been a symbol of a region or place, at least metaphorically.

Step III of Yaxchilan’s Hieroglyphic Stairway 3 displays what I take to be the same place name, but now in a hybrid iconographic form (Figure 5). This complex design (redrawn here) appears at the bottom of the sculpture, as a “toponymic register” below an image of a kneeling prisoner and a lengthy text recording his capture, leading up to the accession of Shield Jaguar IV (or perhaps Kokaj Bahlam IV) (Stuart and Houston 1994: 62). The place name function of the design is clearly indicated by the Pa’chan glyph in the form of the crested CHAN bird with a cleft (PA’) at its top. Its –na suffix lends a further glyphic flavor to the composition. Above this we see a disc with a portrait of the sun god K’inich Ajaw, which forms the body of the caiman or crocodile. In this instance it is the familiar “Cosmic Monster” of Maya art, with its distinctive attributes, including the net-like headband, and the so-called “quadripartite badge” at the base of its tail (a representation of an animate offering bowl or lak, a place of birth and emergence) (Justeson [cited in Frediel and Scale 1988:75], Robertson 1974, Stuart 2005). At the lower left of the composition, we see a cartouche framing a mouse or rodent, connected to the head of the crocodilian by a tendril like element. This confirms a connection the toponym design on Yaxchilan’s Stela 7, mentioned in Part I, with its caiman, solar disc, rodent, and MAAY-HA’ glyph. The ornate composition on Step III’s toponymic register also incorporates many of the elements we have in the proper name of Structure 10 – the K’INICH being the disc with the sun god, the AHIIN being the caiman, and the enclosed rodent element is present as well. No little deer with a HA’ glyph is easily visible on Step III, but inspection of the photograph suggests it may be just to the right of the rodent, slightly smaller in size.

The connection to the Lintel 31 name is confirmed by a closer inspection of the circular frame that forms the body of the caiman, surrounding K’inich Ahau. This looks to be a disc, simple and unadorned. However, to its right we also see a distinctive curved element, with a lower detail that reveals it to be tail, the hieroglyphic sign ne (Figure 6). This combination can only be understood as the hieroglyphic combination PET-ne, where the PET logogram works doubly as the solar disc for K’inich Ajaw. Now we have more of the components of the proper name cited on Lintel 31: K’inich Ahiin ? Peten. This reveals that the toponymic register of Step 3, while citing Pa’chan (Yaxchilan) is also displaying something broader as its geographical setting — the name of the caiman and of region. The point here is to show the earthly caiman’s body as a peten, as a “region.”[Note 2]

In the design from Step III we also see the small rodent within a floral cartouche, linked by a tendril-like line to the head of the caiman (see lower left of Figure 5). This relates again to the toponymic register on Yaxchilan Stela 7, where a similar rodent is in one of the two cartouche that emerges from a solar caiman’s eye. The opposite cartouche on Stela 7 is the MAAY?-HA’ glyph previously discussed, suggesting that the Step III design, with its emphasis on peten and the caiman, may refer to expansive named regions, with K’inich Ahiin as their overall setting.

Step VIII of Yaxchilan’s Hieroglyphic Stairway 2 offers another depiction of the same cosmological elements, this time incorporated into ballgame regalia (Figure 7). This is a portrait of Yaxun Bahlam III, who is identified in the accompanying text as an embodiment of the sun god, K’inich Ajaw. Curiously, we see the ruler with his back toward us, displaying his elaborate “back-rack” regalia in the form of a cosmic caiman or crocodile, its tail rearing upward, transformed into a cluster of quetzal feathers. The center of the caiman’s body is once more a solar cartouche (the telltale centipede heads emanate from the cartouche, only visible in photos). Within the disc we see what looks to be another small, rodent-like animal. I take this to be a representation of the “Solar Caiman,” K’inich Ahiin, which is included as part of the sun god’s ceremonial regalia.

Yet another image that I take to be K’inich Ahiin occurs in the stuccoes of the Subterraneos (subterranean passages) within the Palace of Palenque (Figure 8). Here we see a solar cartouche in the very center of the caiman’s body, suggesting that it is the sun coursing within the earth before its reemergence. This also relates to the iconography on the cosmological throne or bench placed nearby in the Subterraneos, carved in the form of the caiman’s body (Figure 9).  This is clearly one of the “caiman thrones” or scaffolds used in Period Ending ceremonies (Stuart 2005:98, Taube 1989[2019]). The inscription that forms the body of the caiman includes a sequence of glyphs states the elaborate name of the building in which the throne once stood: numul ta kab, numul ta chan ahiin(?)nal yotoot, “passing through the earth, passing through the sky, the ‘Caiman Place,’ is the house of…” (Stuart 2003). Although I did not address this point in my 2003 study, I see this extended phrase as an architectural reference, perhaps even the proper name given to the Subterraneos themselves, an underground “house.” The image of the sun in the body of the caiman in the stucco decoration may be a visual correlate to this complex name [Note 3].

The stucco image of the caiman is part of a series of decorations above the interior stairwells in Palenque’s Subterraneos, the best-preserved of which shows the Maize God in swirling water bands – again emphasizing a theme related to the earth’s interior (Robertson 1985:32-25). These iconographic details help to indicate how the dark passageways beneath Palenque’s palace formed a figurative underworld that was directly incorporated into the throne room of K’inich Janabpakal, shown on the nearby Oval Palace Tablet as an embodiment of the reborn sun, K’inich Ahau, and as the Maize God, Jun Ixi’m. This agrees with the possibility that these labyrinthine passageways of the Palace were explicitly conceived as a replication of the underworld – a series of  built-in passages symbolizing descent and re-emergence, associated with K’inich Janabpakal, the initial embodiment of the sun god in Palenque’s dynasty. This remarkable recreation of mythic space within the Palace will be explored in a future essay.

Cosmic Crocodiles of Earth and Sky

The use of crocodilians as earth symbols has a long and deep history in Mesoamerican cosmology and art. Well-known is the mythic reptile known as Cipactli, the Nahuatl term for the animate earth that takes the form of a supernatural caiman, often represented in the Postclassic pictorial books, and even in sculpture from time to time (Figure 10). It is the name of the first day of the Nahuatl day list-corresponding the Maya Imix or Imox, a cosmic serpent associated with water and sustenance (although not a caiman in origin) (see Stuart 2024). In Maya art caimans of different types can serve as representations of the animate earth, perhaps best exemplified by the image carved onto the top of Copan’s Altar T (Figure 11). Here its aquatic aspect is emphasized, surrounded by numerous mythological figures and a hieroglyphic text along its back [Note 4].

For the Postclassic Maya of Yucatán, the crocodilian symbol of earth was named Itzam Cab Ain, perhaps translatable as the “Magic Earth Caiman,” and discussed in detail by Taube (1989[2018]) (Taube specifically cited the image in Figure 5 as a Classic period depiction of the same entity). It may also be described mentioned in the following passage from the Relacion de la Ciudad de Merida, written around 1580:

Tuvieron noticia de la creación del mundo y un creador de cielo y tierra, y decían, que éste que los creó no podía ningun hombre pintarle como era. También tuvieron noticia de la caida de Lucifer y del Diluvio, y que el mundo se había de acabar por fuego, y en signficación de esto hacían una ceremonia y pintaban un lagarto que signficaba el Diluvio y la tierra, y sobre este lagarto hacían un gran monton de leña y ponian fuego y, después de hechos brasas, allanábanlo y pasaba el principal sacerdote descalzo por encima de las brasas sin quemarse, y después iban pasando todos los que querían. entendiendo por esto que el fuego los havia de acabar a todos.

They heard about the creation of the world and a creator of heaven and earth, and they said that no man could paint the one who created them. They also learned of the fall of Lucifer and the Flood, and that the world would end by fire. To signify this, they performed a ceremony and painted a crocodile, which represented the Flood and the earth. On top of this crocodile, they made a large pile of wood and set it alight. After it turned to embers, they leveled it, and the high priest walked barefoot over the embers without being burned. Afterward, all who wished to could cross over. By this, they understood that the fire would destroy them all.

Erik Velásquez Garcia (2004, 2006) has closely studied these myths and discusses their reflections in the Books of Chilam Balam. There, the name Itzam Can Ain comes up again in relation to a primordial flood, after which the earth is brought about through his sacrifice and destruction.

[In the reign of 13 Ahau and 1 Ahau were the days and nights that fell without order and pain was felt throughout the land. Because of this] Oxlahun ti Ku [and] Bolon ti Kuh [the Nine Gods] created the world and life; and there was also born Itzam Cab Ain [Iguana Earth Crocodile]. [Ah Mesencab] turned the sky and the Petén upside down, and Bolon ti Ku raised up Itzam Cab Ain; there was a great cataclysm, and the ages ended with a flood. The 18 Bak Katun was being counted and in its seventeenth part, Bolon ti Kuh refused to permit Itzam Cab Ain to take Peten and to destroy the things of the word, so he cut the throat of Itzam Cab Ain and with his body formed the surface of the Peten. (Craine and Reindorp 1979:117-119; quoted in Velásquez Garca 2006:6).i

The description of how its “body formed the surface of the Peten” (the “province”) offers a striking parallel to what we see depicted in the toponymic design from Yaxchilan’s HS 3, with the PET-ne hieroglyph fused with the caiman’s body (see Figure 5).

So we can easily see how the name K’inich Ahiin closely relates with certain “Cosmic Monsters,” including the crocodilian being who displays a skeletal head on its tail or rear-end, ritual offering bowl (lak) decorated with the sun glyph and holding sacrificial instruments (Figure 11). This isn’t always an earthly beast, however, adding some confusion to its interpretation. Other key iterations are celestial, as the “Celestial Monster,” or “Starry Deer Crocodile,” or sometimes as a less-specific serpent [Note 5] (Freidel and Schele 1988:74-76, Martin 2015, Stuart 1988, 2005). The latter is the croc has stars attached to its body and deer hoofs for its appendages — but not always. Its body may also be formed by “stone” (tuun) or otherwise by celestial bands. Cosmic crocodiles therefore occupy both the earth and sky, as Martin (2015) rightly emphasizes in his excellent discussion of these iconographic characters as “sky-earth crocodilians.” On the inner doorway sculpture of Temple 22 of Copan, the Starry Deer Crocodile has a body made of S-shaped clouds, perhaps a figurative image of the Milky Way arcing across the nocturnal sky. In a previous study (Stuart 2005: 71-74, 166-168) I suggested that many of the elongated crocodilians in Maya art were symbols of the solar pathways, both celestial and terrestrial. In its earthly aspect, the caiman gives birth to the sun from the k’in-marked bowl at its rear end. As an aspect of the animate earth, the crocodile is where the sun is both consumed and reborn. Thus the name under discussion here, K’inich Ahiin, would seem to refer to this role. As a celestial being, the crocodile reflects the same pathway, sometimes as a nocturnal track. The description on the Palenque throne mentioned earlier makes this explicit, noting the path of the sun  as “passing through the earth, passing through the sky” — an apt description. The caiman is perhaps one means of depicting the pathway in animate form.

Martin (2015) also notes how the Maya cosmic crocodiles resonate strongly with myths from central Mexico, which describe a primordial cosmic monster named Tlalteotl (literally “Earth Deity”) who was slain and severed in two, one part representing the sky, the other the earth. The best Classic Maya precedent we have for these late myths, all centered on the sacrifice and cutting of a caiman to form the earth and the sky, comes from Temple XIX at Palenque (Stuart 2005:68-77, Velásquez García 2002, 2006). There, in the extraordinary mythic accounts leading up to the birth of the Palenque Triad gods, we read of the sacrifice of a starry caiman who has two specific aspects. One is names the WAY-PAAT-AHIIN? “Hole-Backed Starry Caiman” and the other the tz’i-ba-la-PAAT-AHIIN? “Inscribed-Backed Starry Caiman.” These esoteric descriptions refer to the body of the earth-caiman as having the “hole” or void from which the sun emerges. The “inscribed” caiman is an odd description, but it is surely related to Late Postclassic images of the earth-caiman that show a sequence of day signs along its body. These appear in both late Maya and central Mexican iconography (Taube 1989[2018]). I suspect that day sequences are conceptually related to the k’in signs we see as the bodies of the caimans at Yaxchilan, Palenque and elsewhere. That is, the individual days, like the sun, pass through the caiman’s body. This is perhaps another basis for the simple descriptive name K’inich Ahiin, the Solar Caiman [Note 6].

Conclusion

We have departed a bit from the possible MAAY-HA’ glyph and reading mentioned at the outset, but the complex story of the Cosmic Caiman is part of the larger discussion of regional names and geographical concepts. Given the glyphic and iconographic cases mentioned here, I take K’inich Ahiin to be a proper name as well (perhaps one of many) given to the Cosmic Caiman, the consumer of the sun before its daily rebirth. This would be the Classic Maya correlate to Itzam Cab Ain of ancient Yucatan, and to Cipactli in central Mexico. The appearance of the glyph for peten as part of K’inich Ahiin’s extended name phrase, even visually integrated into his image at Yaxchilan, indicates its important as a regional name of a sort, wide-ranging in scope, an expanse of land. I think this also is true of the glyphic combination of witz and ch’en (“hills and caves”) presented with K’inch Ahiin in the Río Azul tomb. This resembles a pairing of nouns that could describe the Maya landscape in broad terms. That the supposed MAAY-HA’ glyph accompanies several mentions of K’inich Ahiin is significant, for its strengthens the case that Maayha’ was an ancient region or peten set upon the animate, crocodilian earth.

Notes

Note 1. The many senses and scales of peten reflects how important circular ideas of space were for the Maya, encompassing totality. We see this in indigenous maps of the colonial era, in k’atun wheels, and in many other fundamental categories. Pet kah refers to an “aldea,” a peten tun is a large round stone used as a grindstone, etc.

Note 2. It is very possible that that these two Yaxchilan mentions of peten in connection to the earth-caiman are referring to the distinctive loop the Rio Usumacinta takes where Yaxchilan is situated. That is, a formation of land that is both circumscribed and circular.

Note 3. The Palenque throne text employs a “caiman” head sign that is slightly different from the standard AHIIN logogram. Here it displays the features of the Starry Deer Crocodile (see Note 5 below), with a star element on its eye and ear, corresponding to the head on the left end of the throne’s front edge. Do we reading this as AHIIN as well? It is difficult to say, but it seems best for now to consider them separate. This is the portrait of the starry crocodilian, the animate form of the sign for “star,” as opposed to the more generic AHIIN we see in the K’INICH AHIIN-na spellings discussed here, for instance (see Stuart 2005:fig. 44).

Note 4. The front face of Altar T shows a playful representation of two calendar dates, one the accession day of the ruler Yaxpasaj Chanyopat, and the other its one k’atun anniversary. The day signs for Caban are animated as full human figures. I have to wonder if their prominence in the design has something to do with the meaning of the day Caban as “earth,” given the dominant image of the earth-caiman on top. In other words, the caiman and the earth iconography of the altar may hinge on the underlying meaning of date being celebrated.

Note 5. This is a term I coined a couple of decades ago, also referring to it erroneously at times as the “Starry Deer Alligator.” As I’ve been reminded by several colleagues, true alligators are not native to Central America. Crocodiles and caimans were both called ahin or ayin in Mayan languages (from port0-Mayan *ahiin).

Note 6. The Palenque Temple XIX passage offers a tantalizing connection between the Classic period to the later mythic narratives of the Books of Chilam Balam and of Cipactli, in central Mexico (Stuart 2005:68-70, Velásquez García 2002, 2006). The “chopping” of the caiman on 12.10.12.14.18 1 Etznab 6 Yaxkin was clearly an act of world creation (note the verb i patlaj, “then it is made”), establishing the two complimentary aspects of the caiman. The Temple XIX text also emphasizes how this primordial act established the ritual significance of two fundamental “elements” of Maya ceremonial life – flowing blood (u ch’ich’el) and the drilling of ritual fire (joch’ u k’ahk’). Each would constantly need to be replicated in sacrificial ceremonies of world-renewal, even up to the rites described in the Relacion de la Ciudad de Mérida, quoted earlier.

Works Cited

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