Last year I posted this blog entry on Maya Decipherment concerning the tomb recently opened in Temple XX at Palenque. It’s worth revisiting now in the wake of INAH’s recent announcement of the conservation efforts now going on in the chamber.
Figure 1. View of the Temple XX tomb chamber. INAH photo.
Some sources speculate that the tomb may be that of the dynastic founder, K’uk’ B’ahlam who reigned from 431-435 AD. But this timeframe is probably far too early for the tomb. As mentioned in the earlier blog entry and also as summarized in our 2008 book, Palenque: Eternal City of the Maya, it more likely dates to the 6th century:
Recent investiagations near the Cross Group have revealed another significant early tomb, as well as a significant archaeological puzzle. Temple XX is located at the southern end of the Cross Group, next to Temple XIX. Approaching the pyramid, it looks to be an imposing structure, but excavations since 1999 have shown that the base is actually a masonry veneer on a small hillock of bedrock. As archaeologists Alfonso Morales Cleveland and Rudy Larrios Villalta have shown, the structure was modified over many years, and the earliest phase seems to date from the first part of the sixth century. After this initial construction later builders demolished part of the upper temple in order to construct a vaulted tomb beneath. The crypt has not yet been entered as of this writing (in 2006), but photographs taken by a camera inserted within the chamber show red-line paintings of nine figures in an unusual style, jade objects, and pottery that looks to be fairly early (Cascada phase), possibly from the sixth century. Its size and elaboration suggests that the Temple XX tomb is a royal burial, but no clues exist to the identity of its occupant. Interestingly, a preliminary assessment of the painted figures indicates that they are portraits of royal ancestors, including Ahkal Mo’s Nahb and Kan Bahlam. If this is the case, then the Temple XX tomb must date to after Kan Bahlam’s death in 583. Could it be the tomb of Ix Yohl Ik’nal, as Merle Greene Robertson has tentatively suggested? Once the tomb is opened, the ceramics within can help greatly to confirm or deny this preliminary dating of the chamber.
Temple XX remained an important building for many years, and intriguingly its final remodeling at the end of the city’s occupation may never have been finished. When archaeologists first began investigating the pyramid, they were greatly confused by the lack of any masonry veneer and terracing on its front and sides; it was an ancient construction site interrupted in mid-project.
The above quotation from Stuart and Stuart (2008:140).
Figure 2. Photograph of standing figure with Kan Bahlam (Snake Jaguar) in headdress, possibly naming the early Palenque ruler who reigned until 583 AD. INAH photo.
Source Cited:
Stuart, David and George Stuart. 2008. Palenque: Eternal City of the Maya. Thames and Hudson, London.
Within a few hours of the publication in the 11 May, 2012 issue of Science of “Ancient Maya Astronomical Tables from Xultun, Guatemala”, by William Saturno, David Stuart, Anthony Aveni and Franco Rossi, Hutch Kinsman contacted colleagues who regularly correspond by email, pointing out that Number A—1,195,740—is evenly divisible by 819. It is the only one of the four which contains this factor. He also noted that the coefficient of the tzolk’in day at the top of the column is 1. Since all tzolk’in dates which are stations in the 819-Day Count have a coefficient of 1, this was further evidence that the purpose of the interval was to commensurate the 819 (2.4.19)-Day Count with the Calendar Round.
Figure 1. Number array from north wall, Structure 10K-2, Xultun, Guatemala. (Preliminary drawing by David Stuart)
For anyone not familiar with this cycle, 819 is the product of 7, 13, and 9—numbers of ritual and calendric significance to the Maya. Following the Initial Series, the count appears as a short distance number leading to the previous station–one of four which are 819 days apart. These are associated with the cardinal directions and their corresponding colors. A verb meaning ‘stand still’ or ‘stop’ appears along with several regular protagonists. Yaxchilan and Palenque are noteworthy in having multiple monuments featuring the 819-Day Count. J. Eric S. Thompson (1950:214) and his contemporaries offered early suggestions about its purpose. Heinrich Berlin and David Kelley (1961) first described the structural similarity between the Dresden New Year pages and the color/direction symbolism of the 819-Day Count. Given the formula [4 x 819] = [9 x 364] one may add nine days to the latter to complete nine haabs. Michael Grofe (personal communication, May, 2012) suggests that it is an idealized system for tracking the sidereal position of eclipses.
Figure 2. Example of 819-day count record from Yaxchilan, Lintel 30. (Drawing by Ian Graham)
The interval of Xultun Number A—1,195,740 days– is [63 x 18,980] and [4 x 819 x 365]. It is also [9 x 365 x 364], which brings to mind the [9 x 364] = [4 x 819] formula mentioned above. The unit of 364 days is the Maya “computing year” discussed by Thompson (1950:256). The interval of Xultun Number A is also the smallest unit which commensurates the 819-Day Count with the Calendar Round.
Thompson (cited above) wrote: “as only once in every 63 times will a day with a coefficient of 1 also mark the start of the 819-day cycle, the fact that this first day before (13.0.0.0) 4 Ajaw 8 Cumku is a base in the 819-day cycle argues strongly for that count’s being primarily ritualistic”.
The day 1 Kaban before the Era Base 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk’u, per a discussion Carl Callaway and Barbara MacLeod had several years ago, is an 819-Day Count station in the east quadrant—the quadrant in which, for several reasons, we concluded that the count should begin. From this datum, counts both forward and back might reach other stations in the cycle; thus the pre-era date 12.19.19.17.17 1 Kaban 5 Kumk’u need not be the earliest documented station. The earliest station known, 12.9.19.14.5 1 Chikchan 18 Ch’en, recorded on the Palenque Temple XIX bench, is therefore not the base date but rather a distant-past station reached from it.
At the 1974 Segunda Mesa Redonda de Palenque, Floyd Lounsbury presented a meticulous analysis of the pre-era initial date of the Tablet of the Cross at Palenque. This paper is well worth reading and is available on Mesoweb:
Per Lounsbury’s work, the Palenque interval is 1,359,540 days, or [4 x 819 x 415]. While it is not an even multiple of the 18,980-day Calendar Round, it is [5229 x 260] and [1734 x 780] and [3735 x 364]. It demonstrates the application to dynastic mythological narrative of large multiples of [4 x 819] by Maya scribes in deep-time calculations.
Saturno et. al. note that the tzolk’in day at the top of Column A is either 1 Kawak or 1 Kaban. We suggest that it is 1 Kaban—the tzolk’in position of the base date of the 819-Day Count. This in turn sheds light on the function of the other three tzolk’in dates. We tentatively suggest that the 9 K’an date atop Column B is that of the Dresden Codex Serpent Base 9 K’an 12 K’ayab. More will be said about the other three numbers in the near future.
References Cited
Berlin, Heinrich, and David H. Kelley. 1961. The 819-day Count and Color-direction Symbolism among the Classic Maya. Middle American Research Institute Publication 26.
Lounsbury, Floyd G. 1976 A Rationale for the Initial Date of the Temple of the Cross at Palenque. Second Palenque Roundtable, 1974. The Art, Iconography & Dynastic History of Palenque, Part III, edited by Merle Greene Robertson. Pebble Beach, California: Pre-Columbian Art Research, The Robert Louis Stevenson School.
Saturno, William, David Stuart, Anthony Aveni and Franco Rossi. 2012. Ancient Maya Astronomical Tables from Xultun, Guatemala. Science 336, 714.
Thompson, J. Eric S. 1950. Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: An Introduction. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Our article has just published in the latest issue of Science (Vol. 336 no. 6082 pp. 714-717), co-authored by William Saturno, David Stuart, Anthony Aveni and Franco Rossi.
Article Abstract
Maya astronomical tables are recognized in bark-paper books from the Late Postclassic period (1300 to 1521 C.E.), but Classic period (200 to 900 C.E.) precursors have not been found. In 2011, a small painted room was excavated at the extensive ancient Maya ruins of Xultun, Guatemala, dating to the early 9th century C.E. The walls and ceiling of the room are painted with several human figures. Two walls also display a large number of delicate black, red, and incised hieroglyphs. Many of these hieroglyphs are calendrical in nature and relate astronomical computations, including at least two tables concerning the movement of the Moon, and perhaps Mars and Venus. These apparently represent early astronomical tables and may shed light on the later books.
A painted ancestor, perhaps Kan Bahlam, from the Temple XX tomb. Drawing by M. G. Robertson.Many of the recent headlines about a new tomb discovery at Palenque are a bit misleading, to say the least. The painted tomb within Temple XX was first found and remotely photographed in 1999 by the PARI Proyecto de las Cruces Project, led by the late great Merle Greene Robertson. The recent small press frenzy was prompted by an post from INAH Noticias announcing the lowering of a video camera into the sealed chamber.
It will be very interesting to learn more about the tomb’s contents and occupant once the chamber is opened and carefully documented (that occasion will be newsworthy). As I mention in our book Palenque: Eternal City of the Maya, there’s some circumstantial evidence that it dates to the middle years of the dynastic history, not quite so early as some have said. I believe Merle also thought such date a date, in the sixth century, was also most likely. The painted figures on the walls of the tomb are in a very curious and unusual style, but iconographically they are very similar to the ancestors depicted in stucco relief in the far more famous tomb of K’inich Janab Pakal.
A few on-line resources on the Temple XX tomb, long available:
Among the many buildings and chambers of Palenque’s Palace is House B, facing the Northeast Court and located, as one might expect, between Houses A and C. The well-preserved structure was built sometime in the early reign of K’inich Janab Pakal, although no written dedication date survives. In fact, the only hieroglyphic text we know from House B is painted on the back wall of one of its rear room, evidently a name caption that accompanied an elaborate stucco relief now largely destroyed. In the late 18th century this scene was still intact, recorded by the artist Armendáriz who accompanied the 1787 expedition to Palenque led by Antonio del Río. His drawing is reproduced here (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Armendáriz
The painted text (Figure 2, below) was not included in Armendáriz’s drawing, but it today survives near the upper right portion of the now-missing scene, just above the seated figure to the right of the central “T” window. The glyphs were photographed and drawn by Merle Greene Robertson (1985:Fig. 170-1); here I include a new drawing based on her photograph that reveals a number of key details that help in its decipherment, and which bring up one very interesting epigraphic detail.
Figure 2. The House B text (Sketch by David Stuart)
The text is a name phrase, although it’s difficult to know who it refers to in Palenque’s known history. Here’s my tentative analysis and translation of it, to be discussed in some detail below:
Let’s first look first at the final three or so glyphs. The fourth and fifth block (AJ-pi-tzi-la? / OHL-la) clearly show a title or name found elsewhere in Palenque’s texts. Aj pitzlal ohl is found in the Cross Group and elsewhere, for example, as a common reference to K’inich Kan Bahlam, to eldest son of K’inich Janab Pakal. The full phrase is difficult to translate — “ballplayer” (aj pitz) is surely inadequate — but it does incorporate two known roots: pitz, “to play ball” and ohl, “heart, center.” However one translates the full phrase, aj pitzlal ohl is known to be a pre-accession name for K’inich Kan Bahlam, and was also used by the later K’inich K’uk’ Bahlam (see the Tablet of the 96 Glyphs).
The final discernable glyph of the caption looks to be a day sign “Ben” with a 7 number prefix. Here I doubt “7 Ben” functions as a date, for it’s location suggests it work as a calendar name in reference to some historical individual. In other Palenque inscriptions we find a similar use of such 260-day records as names, as with the sculptor named “5 Kan” mentioned on the so called “Death’s Head” from the Cross Group, and the lord named “4 Ahaw” who is portrayed on the bench platform of Temple XIX. Here I take 7 Ben — if that’s what the glyph is — to be a reference to the individual named also by the aj pitzlal ohl title.
Near the front of the name phrase, in the first and second blocks, we find a much clearer and readable title for this person: itz’i(n) winik ch’ok, “younger brother youth” (see Stuart 1997). This points to the obvious conclusion that the subject of this caption is some junior sibling, but just who’s brother is he? We can’t know for sure. In Palenque’s texts we find the same term applied to the ruler K’inich K’an Joy Chitam, the younger brother of K’inich Kan Bahlam. These glyphs look to be early in style, possibly contemporaneous with the architecture of House B, dating to the mid-seventh century, during the reign of their father. “7 Ben,” if a personal name, seems an unlikely designation for Pakal’s younger son, so might it be the younger brother of Pakal? Not being sure of the generation of the subject, his historical identity remains unclear.
Leaving the speculation aside, we still need to address the very first part of the initial glyph, a sequence that looks to be ha-ta. This is perhaps a previously unrecognized spelling of the 2nd person independent pronoun ha’at, “you,” known from at least a few other inscriptions at other sites (Figure 3). One of the more interesting aspects of the decipherment during the last two decades has been the identification of similar first- and second-person pronouns in numerous inscriptions, like “my,” “you,” “we” and so on (see Stuart 1993; Hull, Carrasco and Wald, 2009). The Palenque example is, I suggest, another case, incorporating a form a address to an otherwise conventional-looking name caption: “You, younger brother, the ??, 7 Ben (?)…”
Figure 3. Two possible examples of the pronoun ha’-at. From Copan, St. 49 (left) and the ‘Birth Vase’ (right; see Taube 1994)
Considering the possible presence of the unusual pronoun, it might prove useful to review that there are two basic types of pronoun classes attested in the glyphs — and known in Mayan languages — known as the “ergative” and “absolutive” sets. Ergative pronouns are prefixes that mark possession on nouns and also the subjects of transitive verbs. The most common ergative prefix in the hieroglyphic script is the third-person u- or (u)y- (pre-vocalic), but there are others. We have attested thus far:
ERGATIVE SET:
1st person singular: ni- / w-V
2nd person singular: a- / aw-V
3rd person singular: u- / y-V
1st person plural: ka- / k-V-
2nd person plural: unattested (reconstructed in proto-Ch’olan as *i- / *iw-V by Kaufman and Norman)
3rd person plural: u-…(-oob) / y-V…(-oob)
Absolutive pronouns work differently, as suffixes that specify the subjects of intransitive verbs or else the subjects of stative statements when attached to nouns or verbs. These are also known from the Classic inscriptions, if a bit incompletely:
ABSOLUTIVE SET:
1st person singular: -een
2nd person singular: -at ~ -et
3rd person singular: -ø
1st person plural: -o’n(?)
2nd person plural: unattested (-ex? ~ -ox?)
3rd person plural: -oob
These absolutive suffixes can in turn appear with the demonstrative particle ha’- to make a class of demonstrative or independent pronoun (ex. ha’-at, “[it is] you here”). These include some irregular forms, but the relationship is clear:
DEMONSTRATIVE SET:
1st person singular: hiin(?) < *ha’-in(?)
2nd person singular: ha’-at
3rd person singular: ha’-i ~ haa’-ø
1st person plural: unattested (ha’o’n)
2nd person plural: unattested (ha’ex)
3rd person plural: ha’-oob
So, returning to our Palenque text, we may have a possible second person independent pronoun in an unusual context, introducing a name caption. If this is the case, one question becomes: just who is addressing the younger brother? Who is saying “you”? Perhaps one of the standing figures in the scene? Or, in an odd discursive twist, could it be the viewer of the artwork? Such questions often come into play when assessing the voices behind such obscure, non-third person texts, especially when they are incomplete or lacking context.
Another vexing issue, of course, centers on the historical identity of the mysterious “younger brother,” and whether he lived in Pakal’s generation or the next.
REFERENCES:
Hull, Kerry, Michael Carrasco, and Robert Wald. 2009. The First-Person Singular Independent Pronoun in Classic Ch’olan. Mexicon, vol. XXXI, no. 2, pp. 36-43.
Robertson, Merle Greene. 1985. The Sculpture of Palenque: Volume II. The Early Buildings of the Palace and the Wall Paintings. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Stuart, David. 1993. Breaking the Code: Rabbit Story. In Lost Kingdoms of the Maya, by G. Stuart and G Stuart, pp. 170-1. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society.
_________. 1997. Kinship Terms in Maya Inscriptions. In The Language of Maya Hieroglyphs, ed. by M. J. Macri and A. Ford, pp. 1-11. San Francisco: Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute.
Taube, Karl A. 1994. The Birth Vase: Natal Imagery in Ancient Maya Myth and Ritual. In The Maya Vase Book, Volume 4, pp. 650-685 New York: Kerr Associates.
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