Author: David Stuart

Day Sign Notes: Men / Tz’ikin

David Stuart

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.

Figure 1. Classic period variants of Men, (a-e) head variants arranged chronologically, (f0i) simplified forms possibly based on the eye of the head (compare b and f). Drawings by David Stuart.

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).

Figure 2. Principal Bird Deity and accompanying name from K4546. Note resemblance of the portrait head glyph to the Men day sign. Drawing by David Stuart

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.

Figure 3. Names of the four bird deities in the four world quarters, from Tomb 12 at Rio Azul, Guatemala. Note visual equivalence to early Men day sign. Drawings by David Stuart.

 

Figure 4. Directional bird names from Tomb 12, Rio Azul, and incised obsidians from cache at Tikal.

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.

Figure 5. Expanded names of the avian solar god, Wuk Chapaht Men(?) K’inich Ajaw. (a) Tikal, T. IV, Lintel 2, (b) the Cuychen Vase, rim text, (c) Copan, Altar of Stela 13, (d) Terminal Classic vessel in LACMA collections. Drawings a and c by David Stuart, drawing b by Christophe Helmke.

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.

Figure 6. Postclassic example of Men, from the Dresden Codex, Madrid Codex, and the murals of Coba. Drawings by David Stuart
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.

Figure 7. The development of Men. First, a portrait of Principal Bird Deity (Classic), then reduced to its eye as a simplified variant (Classic), then reinterpreted as a head (Postclassic)

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.

Bassie-Sweet, Karen. 2008 Maya Sacred Geography and the Creator Deities. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

Boot, Erik. 2008. At the Court of Itzam Nah Yax Kokaj Muut: Preliminary Iconographic and Epigraphic Analysis of a Late Classic Vessel. Online article. http://www.mayavase.com/God-D-Court-Vessel.pdf

Campbell, Lyle. 1988. The Linguistics of Southeast Chiapas, Mexico. New World Archaeological Foundation, Brigham Young University. Provo, UT.

Caso, Alfonso. 1967. Los Calendarios Prehispanicos. UNAM, Mexico.

Cortez, Constance. 1986. The Principal Cird Deity in Preclassic and Early Classic Maya Art. MA Thesis, Department of Art and Art History, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX.

Guernsey, Julia. 2006. Ritual and Power in Stone: The Performance of Rulership in Mesoamerican Izapan Style Art. University of Texas Press, Austin.

Hull, Kerry. 2016. A Dictionary of Ch’orti’ Mayan-Spanish-English. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.

Kaufman, Terry. 1989. The Mesomerican Calendar: The Day Names. Unpublished manuscript in author’s possession.

Martin, Simon. 2015. The Old Man of the Maya Universe: A Unitary Dimension to Ancient Maya Religion. In Maya Archaeology 3, edited by C. Golden, S. Houston and J. Skidmore, pp. 186-227. Precolumbia Mesoweb Press, San Francisco.

Nielsen, Jesper, and Chrisophe Helmke. 2015. The Fall of the Great Celestial Bird: A Master Myth in Early Classic Central Mexico. Ancient America 13. Boundary End Archaeological Research Center and Mesoamerica Center, UT Austin. Barnardsivlle, NC.

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

Taube, Karl, William Saturno, David Stuart, and Heather Hurst. 2010. The Murals of San Bartolo, El Peten, Guatemala. Part 2: The West Wall. Ancient America 10. Boundary End Archaeology Research Center, Barnardsville, NC.

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

The Solar Eclipse Record from Santa Elena Poco Uinic

David Stuart

by David Stuart

This entry is offered in anticipation of the solar eclipse visible over much of Mexico and the United States on April 8, 2024.

Only one record of a solar eclipse is known from Maya inscriptions of the Classic period. This appears on Stela 3 from Santa Elena Poco Uinic, a remote site in highland Chiapas, as part of a lengthy text relating several historical events of the late eighth century. This large monument was first recorded in 1926 by a team led by Enrique Juan Palacios, and it was shortly afterward that the great Mayanist John Teeple saw the published photographs and drawings (Palacios 1928), taking special note of a glyph showing a K’IN (sun) sign covered by two flanking elements (Figure 1b). Its strong resemblance to some “covered suns” represented within the eclipse tables of the Dresden Codex probably also caught Teeple’s eye.

Figure 1. (a) The lower portion of Stela 3 from Santa Elena Poco Uinic. (b) The eclipse glyph at the bottom of the central column. (Photograph by Miguel Othón de Mendizábal and Frank Tannenbaum; drawing by Nikolai Grube).

 

This “possible eclipse glyph,” as Teeple called it, follows a Calendar Round record of 5 Cib 14 Ch’en. Unlike other historical episodes recorded on the Poco Uinic stela, there is nothing more to the passage – no personal name, nor any other associated event or description. Rhetorically it serves as a simple calendrical statement, much like a Period Ending would be curtly described in a lengthy text, as a day of inherent noteworthiness, with no human actor. The day corresponds to the Long Count 9.17.19.13.16, firmly anchored by the larger narrative, including a Distance Number that connects it to the stela’s dedication date on the k’atun ending 9.18.0.0.0 11 Ahau 18 Mac, 84 days later. Teeple made the simple observation that “according to the Goodman correlation, which we have been using, this 5 Cib 14 Ch’en fell on July 16, 790, and on that day shortly after noon a total eclipse of the sun was visible from the spot where this monument was soon afterward erected” (Teeple 1931:115). Here we should remember that the correlation of ancient Maya and Gregorian calendars was still a matter of great debate when Teeple wrote these words. His masterful compilation of evidence from lunar records in the Classic inscriptions and other lines of evidence made him more comfortable in using a version of the Goodman (Goodman-Martinez-Thompson, or GMT) correlation, although he was still cautious in coming down too strongly in its favor.

Teeple’s eclipse was mentioned here and there in the epigraphic literature after 1931, but its importance was also strangely ignored. This changed in 2012, when Martin and Skidmore revisited the Poco Uinic text, featuring it in their elegant discussion of the correlation question. They made a clear case for its central importance in refining the match between Maya and Gregorian days (Martin and Skidmore 2012). The principal variants of the GMT correlation that most Mayanists used between 1931 and 2012 necessitated placements of the Poco Uinic date on July 13, 790 (using the 584283 Julian Day Number constant) or July 15, 790 (584285). In positing the Poco Uinic eclipse, Teeple had relied on a necessary one-day adjustment (584286), but this variation on the GMT had failed to gain wide acceptance in the years that followed. This was due in large measure to Thompson’s preference for the 584285, and his stubbornness to explore the issue only through postconquest documents of Yucatan (see Martin and Skidmore 2012:6, 9). Today, thanks to Teeple and, more recently, Martin and Skidmore, we can appreciate how a simple statement of a solar eclipse has allowed us to refine the correlation of Maya dates. My own work with new-moon records may offer some small support for it as well (Stuart 2020).

A recent astronomical study of the July 16, 790 eclipse by Hayakawa et al. (2021) noted how the path of totality passed 80 or so miles to the south of Santa Elena Poco Uinic. Still, its maximum magnitude was 0.946 at shortly after noon, and it surely would have been a noticeable event, as the authors note.

The eclipse record is part of a longer text on the Poco Uinic stela, the point of which was to celebrate the k’atun ending 9.18.0.0.0, which fell shortly later on October 8, 790. The inscription also features the accession of a local ruler named Yax Bahlam, which occurred on 9.17.11.14.16 5 Cib 14 Ceh, or September 16, 782. Significantly, the eclipse of 790 occurred on another 5 Cib (Martin and Skidmore 2012:6), as well as on a haab station that fell on the 14th day of Ceh, a “color” month similar to Ch’en. The occurrence of the eclipse on a day so resonant with the accession eight years earlier, and so close to the k’atun ending to come, is striking. It must have been especially meaningful to the Maya of Santa Elena Poco Uinic.

Regarding the eclipse glyph, its reading remains difficult to know. Prager (2006) has suggested that the covering elements around the central K’IN might be read as NAM, but this will need further testing. These strongly resemble the arching element that is part of the K’ABA’, “name,” glyph (Love 2018). The visual form of these covering elements has a complex history of its own, as reflected in one variety of Glyph X from the lunar series, where a reference to darkened suns and moons seems to be included in the proper names of certain lunations (Grube 2018). Love (2018) offers a useful overview of the glyph from Poco Uinic and rightly suggests that many of the so-called “eclipse” glyphs we find in Maya texts and iconography might not all be the same, with some referring to sun-darkening in a more general way.

With a solar eclipse approaching in a few days, visible over much of the United States and Mexico, it seems a good moment to revisit the unique text from Poco Uinic. A century after its recognition by Teeple, it remains a singular record of an intensive “sun-darkening” from Maya history, from over twelve centuries ago.

References Cited

Grube, Nikolai. 2018. The Forms of Glyph X of the Lunar Series. Research Note 9, Textdatenbank und Wörterbuch des Klassischen Maya. Universität Bonn, Bonn.

Hayakawa, Hisashi, Mistturu Soma, and J. Hutch Kinsman. 2021. Analyses of a Datable Solar Eclipse Record in Maya Classic Period Monumental Inscriptions. Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan. DOI: 10.1093/pasj/psab088

Love, Bruce. 2018. The “Eclipse Glyph” in Maya Text and Iconography: A Century of Misinterpretation. Ancient Mesoamerica 29(1):219-244.

Martin, Simon, and Joel Skidmore. 2012. Exploring the 584286 Correlation between the Maya and European Calendars. The PARI Journal 13(2):3-16. https://www.mesoweb.com/pari/publications/journal/1302/Correlation.pdf

Palacios, Enrique Juan. 1928. En los confines de la selva lacandona. Exploraciones en el estado de Chiapas, Mayo-Agosto 1926. Talleres Gráficos de la Nación, México.

Prager, Christian. 2006. Is T326 a Logograph for NA:M “hide, to go out of sight”? Unpublished Manuscript.

Stuart, David. 2020. Yesterday’s Moon: A Decipherment of the Classic Mayan Adverb ak’biiy. Maya Decipherment (www.mayadecipherment.com), posted August 1, 2020.

Teeple, John E. 1931. Maya Astronomy. Contributions of American Archaeology, No. 2, pp. 29-116. Publication 403. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington D.C.

A New Drawing of the Inscription on the Cross Censer Stand from Palenque

David Stuart

by David Stuart (The University of Texas at Austin)

In 1979 Linda Schele and Peter Mathews published their important catalog, The Bodega at Palenque, Chiapas Mexico, presenting various sculpture fragments and artifacts recovered over the course of many years of excavation from the 1930s to the 1960s. Of significant interest to epigraphers, among many pieces, was a badly damaged stone censer stand that had been found on the slope of the Temple of the Cross in 1945 (Schele and Mathews 1979:281).

The sculpture is representative of a particular type that is distinct to Palenque – an upright stone with a near life-size face on its front, two prominent side flanges showing ear ornaments, and other iconography, often with inscriptions on its side edges and back. These stones were inspired by the famous large ceramic censer stands that adorned many of the temples of Palenque (Cuevas 2008). As with their ceramic counterparts, small shallow bowls with copal were placed on the stands, visually atop the elaborate headdresses.

Other examples of such stones, far better preserved, include the stand representing the nobleman Aj Sul, a contemporary of K’inich Janab Pakal, now in the Museo Regional de Palenque. Another is a larger piece in the Museo Amparo in Puebla with a portrait of an Aj K’uhuun from the same period, carved during the reign of K’inich Janab Pakal. The inscriptions on all of these, including the Cross example, are biographical, recounting events in the lives of the figures portrayed. Their narratives close with records of death and burial. Clearly, these served as funerary small funerary altars, bearing the images of deceased ancestors. I have tentatively identified the name of this type as k’ohob’tuun, “image/mask stones” (Stuart 2019). In function and design, these bear a remarkable similarity to some funerary altars from the Roman world.

Unfortunately, the portrait on the front of Cross censer stand is broken and almost completely gone. A long incised inscription on its rear is also badly damaged (see drawing). Its first publication by Schele and Mathews was accompanied by Schele’s drawing and their tentative chronological analysis. The dates of the text were later revised and corrected in an outstanding study made by Ringle (1996), who also recognized strong overlaps between the texts and the contents of the Temple XVIII stucco inscription. In the late 1980s, I determined that a small stone fragment recovered in the western stairs of the Palace, now on display at the Museo Nacional de Antropologia, was likely to be part of the same stone, bearing the opening Long Count date (see left side in drawing). The discovery of these pieces at a great distance from one another offers a fascinating instance of a monument’s intentional destruction and removal, probably after Palerque’s fall.

The fit of the side fragment prompted the drawing presented here, which will also be discussed as part of the upcoming workshop on the stucco glyphs from Temple XVIII, at Boundary End Archaeology Research Center (April 2024).

I agree with most Ringle’s revised chronology, differing only in a couple of dates from the middle of the text, given here only tentatively. The Gregorian dates are given using the Martin-Skidmore (584286) correlation.

9.10.15.6.8  4 Lamat 16 Pop   /   Mar 15, 648  / Birth of Tiwohl Chan Mat
9.11.5.0.0  5 Ahau 3 Zac   /   Sep 16, 657  /  Period Ending (PE)
9.11.6.16.17  13 Caban 10 Ch’en  /  Aug 14, 659  / Arrival of Nuun Ujol Chahk
9.11.7.0.0  10 Ahau 13 Yax  /   Sep 6, 659  /   PE
9.11.9.14.19  2 Cauac 17 Xul   /   Jul 11, 662  / Youth ritual?
9.11.10.0.0  11 Ahau 18 Ch’en  /   Aug 21, 662  /   PE
9.11.13.0.0  12 Ahau 3 Ch’en  /  Aug 5, 665  /  PE
9.11.15.10.7  3 Manik 0 Uayeb???  /  Feb 18, 668  /  Triad event
9.12.0.0.0  10 Ahau 8 Yaxkin  /  Jun 29, 672  / PE
9.12.0.6.18  5 Etz’nab 6 Kankin  / Nov 14, 672 / Death of Lady Tzakbu Ajaw
9.12.8.9.18  7 Etz’nab 6 Muan  /  Dec 2, 680  /  Death of Tiwohl Chan Mat
9.12.8.10.0  9 Ahau 8 Muan  /  Dec 4, 680  /  Burial
9.12.10.0.0  9 Ahau 18 Zotz’  /  May 8, 682  /  Dedication of stone

We see that the thirteen dates on the stone (an intentional number?) cover a thirty-five-year period, corresponding roughly to the life of the stone’s protagonist, Tiwol Chan Mat. As we find in other funerary texts on small stones, the inscription is biographical, recounting the major events of his life. The censer stand was dedicated at the half-k’atun on May 5, 682, 162 days after Tiwohl Chan Mat’s death. There is a poignance to the mention of Pakal overseeing the burial of his youngest son, only eight years after his wife passed away. In fact, The similarity in the death dates of the mother and the son – 5 Etznab 6 Kankin and 7 Etznab 6 Muan – may have given extra meaning to the narrative, linking the mother and her adult son. Pakal’s own death would come soon after.

The prominence of the 659 arrival of Nuun Ujol Chahk, probably the exiled ruler of the Mutul dynasty, is interesting.  This was a transformative event for Palenque’s court, featured prominently in Pakal’s own story as told in the Temple of the Inscriptions. The visit probably helped to advance Pakal’s own political and military power in the western region, and his conflicts against the great Kanul court and its allies. Tiwol Chan Maat was only eleven years old at the time of this royal visit, and it must have left quite a mark on the boy.

Lastly, the dedication of this funerary stone pre-dates the Temple of the Cross, where it was eventually found. This suggests that it was brought to the Cross a decade or more after it was carved. There it would have accompanied the many other ceramic censer stands found on the temple’s slope. The ancestral themes of the tablet in the Temple of the Cross may signal why it was brought there, adding Tiwohl Chan Mat’s story to his older brother’s greater dynastic narrative.

Sources Cited

Cuevas Garcia, Martha. 2008. Los incensarios efigie de Palenque: Diedades y rituales mayas. UNAM, Mexico.

Ringle, William M. 1996. Birds of a Feather: The Fallen Stucco Inscription of Temple XVIII, Palenque, Chiapas. In Eighth Palenque Round Table, 1993, edited by M.G. Robertson, M. J. Macri, and J. McHargue, pp. 45-61. Pre-Columbian art Research Institute, San Francisco.

Schele, Linda, and Peter Mathews. 1979. The Bodega of Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.

Stuart, David. 2019. A Possible Logogram for K’OJ or K’OJOB, “Mask, Image.” Unpublished talk (slides only) on academia.edu.

Further Observations on the MUT Logogram

David Stuart

by David Stuart

Figure 1. The complements mu and tu on the Tikal/Dos Pilas emblem glyph.

Back in 1993 I proposed that the main sign of the emblem glyph of Tikal and Dos Pilas/Aguateca is read as MUT, based on the affixes mu- and -tu that appear with it in different contexts, apparently as phonetic complements (Figure 1). My colleague Christian Prager noticed this pattern around the same time, also seeing these syllables as essential clues to the sign’s reading. Many examples of the emblem also show an additional -la suffix, suggesting that MUT-la is a fuller spelling that has led to the various reconstructions Mutal, Mutul, Mutuul. Mutu’l, or something similar (the precise nature of the vowel in such -Vl suffix remains a point of minor debate among epigraphers). My inclination is to see the ancient court name as related to the historical attested place name Mutul, known from both Yucatan and the Petén, as in the modern names Motul de San José, or Motul, Yucatan (home of huevos motuleños, a staple of restaurant breakfasts in Yucatán). “Mutul” is the form I will use here as the reading the full Tikal emblem. In the Classic period Tikal seems to have gone by the name Yax Mutul, “The First Mutul,” perhaps as a way of distinguishing it from earlier centers who also had claimed the Mutul name.

One key lexical item of support of the MUT reading – or so it seemed at the time – was that the sign represented tied bundle of hair, seeming to agree well with the Yukatek term mut pol, cited in the Vienna Dictionary meaning rodete hacer la mujer de sus cabellos (“bun made by a woman from her hair”), clearly related to mut as rodete para asentar olla o vasija (“[round] support for a jar or vase”). However, mut here this may be a corruption or even mis-transcription of the better-established noun met, meaning ruedo, rodete, o rodillo sobre que se asienta alguna vasija (from the Calepino Motul). This possibility had set some doubt in my own mind about the lexical basis of the MUT sign reading, despite the evidence of the syllabic complements we had found. The lack of any non-Yukatek sources for the reading seemed problematic as well, and I’ve long thought MUT needed a bit more backing. Still, it is important to note that there were several signs that ubstitute with one another in the context of the Tikal emblem, each featuring bound hair or a twisted braid, as first patterned out by Linda Schele (1985).

Here I point out a helpful substitution of signs that would appear seems to confirm the MUT value once and for all, in the spelling of the name of a royal woman cited in the inscriptions of Yaxchilan and environs (Figure 2). She was a noblewoman from the court of Hixwitz, a spouse or consort of Yuxuun Bahlam IV (Bird Jaguar IV) named Ix Mut(?) Bahlam. She is depicted on Lintels 17, 40, and 43, identifiable by her name, which damaged in two of the three instances. The best-preserved examples of from Lintel 17, where the name is IX-MUT-tu BAHLAM (Figure 2b). It was this example that gave us the final –tu as a likely phonetic complement to the supposed MUT sign.

Figure 2. Portrait of Ix Mut Bahlam, royal woman of Hixwitz, from Yaxchilan, Lintel 17. Name caption from Dos Caobas (a) compared to Lintels 17 (b) and 43 (c). Drawings by Ian Graham except (a) by David Stuart.

 

Figure 3. Dos Caobas, Stela 2. Photograph by David Stuart.

 

Another portrait of Ix But Bahlam comes from Stela 2 from Dos Caobas, a satellite of Yaxchilan whose two monuments are now on display in the Museo Regional of nearby Frontera Corozal, Chiapas (Figure 3). Stela 2 is a fascinating and unusual monument, depicting the ruler Yaxuun Bahlam seated high upon a pillow-throne, facing a standing male figure who holds an object to him. Standing behind are two women, one named Ix Wak Jamchan Ajaw, of the Ik’ or Ik’a’ court of the central Peten lake area. She is also portrayed on Yaxchilan’s Lintels 5 and 41, and perhaps also 15 and 38, with a slightly different spelling. The second woman is a slightly eroded caption that contains a Hixwitz title (IX-hi-HIX wi-tz-AJAW) (see Figure 2a), and is surely Ix Mut Bahlam. Indeed, the BAHLAM logogram of her name is clear, as is a revealing spelling of the first part of her name in the initial block: IX-mu-tu. This substitutes directly for the IX-MUT-tu from Lintel 17’s caption, and offers another welcome piece of evidence to bolster the MUT reading. 

Figure 4. The name Ix Ch’ajan(?) Mut, showing possible substitution of hair-bundle and bird. Drawings by William R. Coe (a,b) and Stefanie Teufel (c).

One last connection that may be relevant is the name of another woman who is cited on Tikal’s Stela 23, whose name I tentatively read as IX-CH’AJAN?-MUT-AJAW?, or Ix Ch’ajan Mut Ajaw (Figure 4a). This surviving passage from the stela’s text records her birth, with no other names or titles, so she was clearly a person of great importance. This name seems related to another woman or female deity mentioned on the much earlier Stela 26 (Figure 4b), where we see the same combination of elements with the addition of a “mirror” or “shiner” sign, perhaps read as li or LEM before the MUT, possibly for Ix Ch’ajanil Mut. Yet another possible variation of this name or reference comes from a much later context, on a carved bone from Topoxte’, Guatemala (Figure 4c). This object was owned by an individual whose mother is also named, bearing the royal title of Tikal (IX-MUT-AJAW). Here the personal name may be distinct, displaying the sign TAL, but I wonder if this is instead the same twisted cord sign I consider as CH’AJAN followed by a full-figure of a bird, easily recognizable as MUUT (“bird”). The combination could suggest the possibility of a logographic substitution between two near homophones: MUUT, “bird,” for the hair-bundle MUT we find in the spellings at Tikal.Differences among these names makes their equivalence somewhat iffy, but such a substitution fits a pattern we see elsewhere in texts after 750 CE or so, which disregard certain traditional distinctions in the internal vowels near-homophones. In this case, the scribe may to have replaced the logogram MUT (mu-tu) with a short /u/ with MUUT (mu-ti), with its long vowel /uu/. By the time this late text was composed the old distinction may have been lost, and the pronunciation of the two signs may have been quite close. 

All of this, especially the Dos Caobas example, is to buttress the original MUT reading of the hair-bundle sign that is the basis Tikal emblem glyph and its court name Mutul, as proposed three decades ago. Questions still surround the lexical background of this reading, but from an epigraphic angle the logogram’s value seems secure.

Reference

Schele, Linda. 1985. Balan-Ahau: A Possible Reading of the Tikal Emblem Glyph and a Title at Palenque. In Fourth Palenque Round Table, 1980, Vol. VI, edited by M.G. Robertson and E. P. Benson, pp. 59-66. Pebble Beach, CA: Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute.

A New Drawing of the Marcador Inscription

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by David Stuart

The Marcador from Group 6C-XVI of Tikal. Note the name of Eagle Striker in the center of the upper rosette, prossibly a war shield.

Posting a new drawing of the hieroglyphic texts on the famous Marcador sculpture of Tikal. I made this as part of my upcoming publication on aspects of Teotihuacan-Maya history, slated to appear next year with Dumbarton Oaks. The drawing is based on inspection of photos and digital scans, and corrects a few minor errors in other drawings that have appeared since the Marcador was discovered back in the early 1980s.

Each text panel focuses on a particular event. The first recalls the conquest of Tikal in 378 CE led by the famous Sihyaj K’ahk’, who in some capacity seems to have acted at the behest of the Teotihuacan ruler who I prefer to call Eagle Striker (“Spearthrower Owl” being an old nickname). Sihyaj K’ahk’ arrival to the Peten in that year was a transformative political event, broadly affecting the Maya political order of the Early Classic. The second text panel focuses on the dedication of the Marcador itself sixty years later in 414, highlighting its association with Eagle Striker, whose name is also prominently displayed within the center of sculpture’s rosette-like shield. As background for this, Eagle Striker’s accession in 374 is cited at the beginning of the second text panel (E1-E5).