Reports

A “Fraternity” of Scribes on a Maya Plate

mayoid

Stephen Houston (Brown University)

“If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient.” [Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen, Vol. 2, Chap. 8]

A renowned example of Chinese calligraphy, Ritual to Pray for a Good Harvest, by Wang Xizhi (王羲之, AD 303 to c. 361), is known less for its size — a mere 15 characters on a slip of paper — than the 372 cm-long scroll in which it is found (Kern 2015:117; Figure 1). On that far larger document, composed of mounted and trimmed snips of silk and paper, three Chinese emperors and a string of connoisseurs left comments and seal impressions. Some were proud to own work by a celebrated calligrapher. They were yet more proud, perhaps, to make that discernment known to later owners and viewers. It could not always have been for content. Cherished by collectors, a few copies of Wang Xizhi’s letters referred to evenings in which the calligrapher “vomited heavily, ate little food, and vomited again” (Harrist 1995:244; Ledderose 1979:3–5). For collectors, there was also a certain anxiety. Was this or that work actually by Wang Xizhi? For Ritual to Pray, the Emperor Qianlong felt sure of it, in that the scroll achieved, in his words, an effect beyond “what a tracing copy can do” (Kern 2015:127).

Figure 1. Ritual to Pray for Good Harvest (Xingrang tie 行穰帖), Eastern Jin dynasty, AD 317–420. Wang Xizhi 王羲之, 303–361. Ink on ying huang paper; Princeton University Art Museum. Bequest of John B. Elliott, Class of 1951 1998-140 (image courtesy of the Princeton University Art Museum).

 

That he was wrong — by some accounts, not a single original work of Wang Xizhi survives today— is less important than the purported tie to a master (Kern 2015:118–19). The association exalted the owner and burnished his reputation as a savant and connoisseur, especially during the second quarter of the first millennium AD. In China, that was when, according to one view, “individual voices within society” came to the fore in a milieu of literati and eminent, identifiable painters (Wu Hung 1997:43–46). [Note 1] Samples of writing by Wang Xizhi and others became the focus of learned discussion (Clunas 2017:110). By the late Ming dynasty, appraisal of calligraphy could clarify one’s sense of self, elevating the appraiser through a process of aesthetic and moral communion with a distinguished calligrapher (Qianshen Bai 2003:10–11). In this sense, at least aesthetically, a formidable figure such as Qianlong could look laterally at — or even up to — Wang Xizhi. He was not alone in these practices. Among the Mughals of India, the Emperor Jahangir (r. 1605–1627) enacted, out of a wish to control representation, a “metamorphosis of the court painter into imperial intimate” (Rice 2023:52, 54). [Note 2] A vast inequality of social station gave way to something else. In Imperial China, at least in the narrow realm of calligraphy, the fiction of collegiality and shared practice could mask profound differences in rank.

Far away, the Classic Maya had roughly similar ideas. Named painters have been known since 1986, when they were first identifed by David Stuart (Stuart 1989; n.b.: the conceptual stress seems to have been on writing per se, not the brush- or quill-work of imagery [Houston 2016:392]). Over twenty signatures are attested, including some that follow an expression for “says,” che-he-na, thus bridging the domains of writing and utterance (Grube 1998; Houston 2016:393). Notably, one painter, Sak Mo’, active in the area of Tikal and Uaxactun (and predisposed to rim-band texts in alternating groups of two glyphs with red and white backgrounds), used only that expression, hinting at further subtleties of practice and meaning (Kerr #1256, 3395; Love and Rubenstein 2021:488–89). [Note 3] To name a calligrapher was unusual. Not one, secure signature is documented for the large and expert production of so-called “Codex-style” pots, yet a large number come from the relatively small kingdom of Motul de San José and adjacent areas of eastern Lake Peten Itza in Guatemala (Just 2012:132–53; Tokovinine and Zender 2012:60–61, table 2.2). These ceramics were plausibly made by only two generations of painters who “almost certainly knew each other or trained in the same ateliers” (Houston 2016:396). Ceramics from the ateliers were much prized, making their way far beyond their kingdom.

An all-glyphic plate from the 8th-century AD is unique in the linkage of owner to calligrapher in a “fraternity” of shared practice (Figure 2). Photographed by Nicholas Hellmuth in the mid to late 1970s, it is documented in the form of 35 mm images, now at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. The object was probably in Guatemala City, and it seems then to have entered a private collection in Florida (Donald Hales, personal communication, 2024). We do know the plate was large. In its holdings, the Canterbury Museum in New Zealand has a rare box of Verichrome Pan Film, with a noted box size of 36 mm in section. Extrapolating from those dimensions and the presence of such a box in Figure 3 yields an approximate diameter of 44 cm, a height of body at 7.2 cm, and of its tripod supports, each in the shape of a slightly misshapen Ik’ sign with central perforation, at 10 cm, for an overall height of about 17 cm. Wall thickness was ca. 1.8 cm, to judge from the surviving slab foot. In comparison, a large plate in Codex-style at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2021.320) is about 42 cm across (this was also a jawte’ ceramic, see below). Ambitious painting needed expansive spaces, even if restricted by the medium of a fired-clay plate.

Figure 2. Late Classic jawte’, northeastern Peten, Guatemala (photograph by Nicholas Hellmuth; LC p2 196, notebook 5, negative sheet 134, row 4, 03; Hellmuth archive, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collections, used with permission).

 

Figure 3. Late Classic jawte’, northeastern Peten, Guatemala (photograph by Nicholas Hellmuth; LC p2 196, notebook 5, negative sheet 133, row 1, 02; Hellmuth archive, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collections, used with permission).

 

The disposition of glyphs is almost numerological: 18 glyph blocks (2 x 9) circle its everted, slightly concave body, and, in its interior, four sets of texts consist of 9 glyph blocks each, with a final, much eroded set of 9 in the center (Figure 4). Together, these total 18 glyphs around the rim, 45 in the interior, for an overall sum of 63 glyph blocks (9 x 7). The numbers “9” and “7” have a distinct resonance in Classic usage, the latter evidently with the meaning of “many,” both “9” and “7” being further tied to supra-kingdom partitions in the southern Lowlands of the Maya world (Beliaev 2000; Tokovinine 2013:98–110, figs. 53–56). The exterior glyphs are approximately 1/2 the height of the support, and the interior glyphs about 1/2 the size of the exterior. For the glyphs within, the awkward shift from sloping to flat surface resulted in a skewing of block alignments. The overall layout of the 5 interior texts seems also to go awry, and the central text in particular has slightly larger glyphs and a misalignment with the other texts. The interior would presumably be read from a seated position, by revolving the plate; the reader would look down at about a 45 degree angle to understand the text. The horizontal, exterior glyphs would be best seen while holding up the plate. As with any Maya painting or inscription, reading was kinetic, the result of grasping or moving around an object or carving.

Figure 4. Late Classic jawte’, northeastern Peten, Guatemala (in order, photographs by Nicholas Hellmuth; LC p2 196, notebook 5, negative sheet 133, row 2, 01; LC p2 196, notebook 5, negative sheet 133, row 2, 02; LC p2 196, notebook 5, negative sheet 133, row 3, 02; LC p2 196, notebook 5, negative sheet 133, row 3, p1; LC p2 196, notebook 5, negative sheet 133, row 1, 02, Hellmuth archive, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collections, used with permission).

Many Maya ceramics, or more accurately those with texts, refer to themselves. As much items of “furniture” as receptacles, certain plates on supports, particularly those of substantial size, went by ja(w)te’, obvious kin to words for “face up” in Ch’orti’, jaw-; the te’, “wood,” potentially reflects the default material for many receptacles — most such materials are long decayed (Houston et al. 1989; see Hull 2016:165, and, on wood, Houston 2014:43–44). On the Hellmuth plate this term occurs at positions G1–N1 and U2–U3 (Figures 4 and 5a, b). The plate has another label: ya-ja-la-*ji-bi, documented on other plates, with a clear instrumental suffix (-Vb) but an opaque root and attached particle (ajal-[a]j, Figure 5c, cf. Figure 5d, private collection, Guatemala City; Boot 2004). [Note 4]. The painter gave himself flexibility by deploying ergative pronouns, agentive particles, and syllabic or logographic reinforcements in separate glyph blocks, hence spellings like u ja-TE’ (U2–U3), ‘a-6-KAB ba (A’1–A’2), KALOOM TE’ (D’2–D’3). Jawte’ appears to have taken pride of place over ajal(j)ib, although, to judge from couplets on other dishes, both described the same ceramic (Figure 5e; see also Polyukhovych and Looper 2019:fig. 4). In addition, the plate was known as a lak, shown in the text as a stylized bowl with two tamales (Figure 5c; Houston et al. 1989). Steamed breads doubtless filled the bowl and, over time, led to erosion of its center. Perhaps, in an etiquette now lost, the layout of text blocks on the plate dictated the positioning and heaping of this or that tamale.

Figure 5. Terms for plates: a, u ja-TE’; b, u ja-TE’; c, u LAK?; d, ya-ja-la-bi; and e, u-ja-wa TE’-‘e ya-ja-la ji-bi (all photographs by Nicholas Hellmuth, cf. Figures 4 and 6 for image citations; Hellmuth archive, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collections, used with permission; drawing by Stephen Houston, 1984, plate in a private collection, Guatemala City).

The owner of the bowl was a “great youth,” chak ch’ok, close to their majority (I1–J1, Figure 6; see Houston 2018:44–50, 67–71). The plate itself may have been bestowed at that life passage. What distinguishes the text is that the scribe is named separately, at positions Q1–R1. He is associated with the Ik’ kingdom, ‘a-IK’-‘a, “he of the wind-water,” probably a reference to Lake Peten Itza, Guatemala, and, in another glyph block, to a region called “7 Tzuk” (Tokovinine 2013:figs. 15b, 53, 54, 60d). Other texts indicate that 7 Tzuk extended in an east-west band from what is now western Belize to a string of lakes in the central Peten; within it were the dynasties of Holmul, Naranjo, Yaxha, and Motul de San José (Tokovinine 2013:98–99). The scribe is said to have raised (t’abayi) the writing (u-tz’i bi), almost in the manner of an offering (N1–P1). [Note 5]. There are other passages in the interior text that moor its owner to the area of Naranjo (‘a-6-KAB ba, A’1-A’2), perhaps from the “land” (ch’e’n, A’3) of a higher-ranking lord (6-KAB AJAW, B’2-C’2). [Note 6]. Seemingly, the overall sponsor (u KAB?, B’3) was yet another person, a kaloomte’ or figure of the highest rank (D’2–D’3).

 

Figure 6. Horizontal text on Hellmuth jawte’, alphanumeric labels specify position and sequence, red outlines indicate the name of the owner, blue outlines the scribal titles (all photographs by Nicholas Hellmuth; LC p2 196, notebook 5, rows 1–4; Hellmuth archive, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collections, used with permission).

The geography of these figure thus ranges from the Ik’ kingdom — homeland of the scribe — to the area of Naranjo, Guatemala, well to the east of Lake Peten Itza, heartland of the Ik’ dynasty. A second epithet, 6 Kab Ajaw, concerns someone involved in the making of the plate and its painted text. He also went by the title, ‘a? TI’-MUT. Difficult to parse, this expression may, in its first glyph, record more than a simple agentive. Option 1: he came from the “edge” or “margins” (ti’) of Tikal (mut). Option 2:  he was the “speaker” or herald (ti’, from “mouth, language”) of that potent city (see Stuart 2023, for discussion of mut). In either case, the description situates him to the west of Naranjo, closer to Tikal. There is much here, then, about a particular object and its nesting within a web of social relations. The plate had an owner, a “great youth,” and a scribe from what a place famed for its calligraphers. Lurking in the background were at least two people of progressively higher rank.

Because of its size, high supports, and use of distinct expressions, the plate resembles pottery from Xultun, a large site northwest of Naranjo. This is reflected, too, in its use of phrases like u-yu-lu and u-CH’E’N-na, along with the separation of ergative pronouns into their own glyph blocks (K2295, 4387, 4909, 8007, 8732, 9271; also Garrison and Stuart 2004; Houston 2021; Krempel and Matteo 2012; Luin et al. 2018; Polyukhovych and Looper 2019; Prager et al. 2010; Rossi and Stuart 2020). One vase, from an area to the north of Xultun, specifies an owner to the north of that site, towards Río Azul, Guatemala (Figure 7, Tokovinine 2013:17–18, fig. 8). It also  mentions a scribe from Lake Peten Itza and underscores his foreign roots: the painter is from the 7 Tzuk province, while the owner hails from “13 Tzuk,” around Tikal, Río Azul, and Xultun (Tokovinine 2013:102, fig. 55). At this time, in the central and northeastern Peten, Guatemala, scribes from a kingdom known for calligraphy stirred from home and found employment with foreign kings. It may be a coincidence, but the large supports of the Hellmuth plate take the shape of the “wind” sign, Ik’, a possible allusion to the scribe’s homeland; multiples of “7” glyph blocks resonate with 7 Tzuk, his land of origin.

Figure 7. Vessel from area north of Xultun, Guatemala: a, K2295 (Portland Art Museum, 2005.29.25, photograph by Justin Kerr); b, closeup of scribe’s label, u tz’-bi ‘a-IK’-‘a OCH-K’IN-ni 7-TZUK[ku]; and c, Hellmuth plate, with scribe’s epithet (for citation, see Figure 6).

One glyph block deserves attention. The original owner of the Hellmuth plate, a youth from an area northwest, perhaps, from Naranjo, south of Xultun, and east from Tikal, was said to be a scribe, ‘a-tz’i-bi (K1). Whether this label was true is less relevant that its assertion. A plate endowed with a large number of glyphs, to the exclusion of imagery, savors of someone who appreciated the calligraphic arts…or, rather, someone who should be so inclined, in a gift offered at the threshold of adult life, under the sponsorship of important lords and magnates. The rhythm of the text leads from his name to that of the actual scribe. He is not alone in joining a “fraternity” of skilled, manual practice. A royal sculptor, offspring of the king, is also recorded at the city of Motul de San José, flanked by the names of two sculptors (Houston 2016:fig. 13.9). Likely the actual authors of the work, they nonetheless conceded a central position to the prince. The Hellmuth plate attests to similar yearnings, claiming an equalization of ability that was more revealing than persuasive.

 

[Note 1]  Calligraphy from the legendary “inventor” of Chinese script, Cangjie, was said to have survived to the Ming period, but the idea was ridiculed at the time (Clunas 2017:7–8, fig. 1.4).

[Note 2]  For Persian analogies, see Welch (1976:190–91), who also emphasizes how such relationships depended on the personality of the patron and the ability of painters to leave such service. For an especially esteemed image, the Mughal emperors might award an elephant(!) to a favored artist; other paintings, some of them war booty, were collected by the emperors or sent as diplomatic gifts (Beach 1997:212). Jahangir delighted in being able to recognize the hands of certain painters, who began to be labeled overtly in his reign and that of his successor, Shah Jahān, r. 1628–1658 (Beach 1997:212).

[Note 3]  Names identified with che-he-na or u tz’ib/tz’ihb, “his writing/painting,” may be mutually exclusive. There is also the suspicion that variant spellings of tz’ib (tz’i-bi) or tz’ihb (tz’i-ba) signal different meanings, the first being, perhaps, the residue of ink on a surface, the second the act of leaving that ink. There is another morphological difference. An appended -IL sign tends to be preceded by u-tz’i-ba, not u-tz’i-bi. That is, the patterns are non-random, and the spellings are not in free substitution. There are two che-he-na spellings on the Hellmuth plate, at Y1 and less clearly at E’1, in a pattern being studied generally by Morgan Clark for her doctoral work at Brown University. One spelling is followed, at Z1, but what appears to be glyph for formal utterance or prophecy: u-mu-ti?-IL?, u muutil, “his news, fame, word” (Barrera Vásquez et al. 1980:542; see Dresden Codex 17b, 18b).

[Note 4]  The scribe on the plate favors phonological elisions, as in the missing /w/ in jawte’ or second /j/ in –ajaljib.

[Note 5]  In a personal communication, Donald Hales notes that there is another ceramic, a jay or drinking cup, by this very scribe, evidently with the same owner (K5838, for jay reading, see Hull 2003:419, photograph below by Justin Kerr). This flat-bottomed bowl is now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (M2010.115.604, ex-Lewis Ranieri Collection). Its exterior text is highlighted by the same blobs of pink as on the Hellmuth plate, although with a misspelling, the ja and na syllables being incorrectly transposed. 

Compare with an image sent by Mr. Hales, photographed by Lee Moore, composited by Paul Johnson:

To speculate: these two objects may well have been made as a set — not as a bridal trousseau, naturally, for they belonged to a chak ch’ok, but as equipment for another rite of passage, the transition to male adulthood at court. Mary Miller has explored such sets in an incisive study of mortuary materials (Miller 2022).

[Note 6]  In these contexts, the exact meaning of the ch’e’n expression is unclear. Does it refer to “land” or “cave,” as David Stuart proposed (Vogt and Stuart 2005), or is there some topographic metaphor for a concave or cylindrical receptacle, hence referring to the ceramic itself?

Acknowledgements  My thanks go to Nicholas Hellmuth for allowing use of images from his archive at Dumbarton Oaks (DO), Morgan Clark for reminding me of these photographs, which I first saw in 1985 as a Junior Fellow at DO, and Bettina Smith of DO’s Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives (ICFA) for guiding me as to their use. Jeffrey Moser gave good leads, as did Donald Hales. I was further encouraged by comments from Simon Martin and David Stuart.

References

Barrera Vásquez, Alfredo, Juan Ramón Bastarrachea, and William Brito Sansores. 1980. Diccionario Maya Cordemex. Mérida, Yucatan: Ediciones Cordemex.

Beach, Milo C. 1997. The Artists of the Padshahnama. In King of the World: The Padshahnama, an Imperial Mughal Manuscript from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, by Milo C. Beach and Ebba Koch, p. 212. London: Azimuth Editions / Washington, D.C.: Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

Beliaev, Dmitri D. 2000. Wuk Tsuk and Oxlahun Tsuk: Naranjo and Tikal in the Late Classic. In The Sacred and the Profance: Architecture and Identity in the Maya Lowlands, edited by Pierre R. Colas, pp. 63–81. Markt Schwaben: Verlag Anton Saurwein.

Boot, Erik. 2004. Classic Maya Plates Identified with a Rare Vessel Type Spelled as ya-ja ji-b’i and ya-ja-la ji[b’i]. Wayeb Notes No. 12.

Chang, Chʻung-ho, Hans H. Frankel, Guoting Sun, and Kui Jiang. 1995. Two Chinese Treatises on Calligraphy Introduced, Translated, and Annotated by Chang Chʻung-Ho and Hans H. Frankel. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Clunas, Craig. 2017. Chinese Painting and its Audiences. The A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, National Gallery of Art, Bollingen Series XXXV: Volume 61. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Garrison, Thomas, and David Stuart. 2004. Un análisis preliminar de las inscripciones que se relacionan con Xultun, Petén, Guatemala. In XVII Simposio de lnvestigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 2003, edited by Juan Pedro Laporte, Barbara Arroyo, and Hector Mejía, 851–62. Guatemala City: Instituto de Antropologia e Historia de Guatemala.

Grube, Nikolai. 1998. Speaking Through Stones: A Quotative Particle in Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions. In 50 años de estudios americanistas en la Universidad de Bonn, edited by Sabine Dedenbach-Salazar Sáenz, Carmen Arrellano Hoffmann, Eva König, and Heiko Prümers, pp. 543–58. Bonner Amerikanistische Studien 30. Markt Schwaben: Verlag Anton Saurwein.

Harrist, Robert E., Jr. 1995. A Letter from Wang Hsi-Chih and the Culture of Chinese Calligraphy. In The Embodied Image: Chinese Calligraphy from the John B. Elliott Collection, by Robert E. Harrist, Jr., and Wen C. Fong, with contributions by Qianshen Bai, Dora C. Y. Ching, Chuan-hsing Ho, Cary Y. Liu, Amy McNair, Zhixin Sun, and Jay Xu, pp. 241–59. Princeton: The Art Museum, Princeton University.

Houston, Stephen. 2016. Crafting Credit: Authorship among Classic Maya Painters and Sculptors. In Making Value, Making Meaning: Techné in the Pre-Columbian World, edited by Cathy L. Costin, pp. 391–431. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.

______. 2018. The Gifted Passage: Young Men in Classic Maya Art and Text. New Haven: Yale University Press.

______. 2021. Queenly Vases. Maya Decipherment: Ideas on Maya Writing and Iconography, Boundary End Archaeological Research Center.

______, David Stuart, and Karl A. Taube. 1989. Folk Classification of Classic Maya Pottery. American Anthropologist 91(3):720–26.

Hull, Kerry. 2003. Verbal Art and Performance in Ch’orti’ and Maya Hieroglyphic Writing. PhD dissertation, University of Texas, Austin.

______. 2016. A Dictionary of Ch’orti’ Mayan-Spanish-English. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

Just, Bryan. 2012. Dancing into Dreams: Maya Vase Painting of the Ik’ Kingdom. Princeton: Princeton University Art Museum.

Kern, Martin. 2015. Made by the Empire: Wang Xizhi’s Xingrangtie and Its Paradoxes. Archives of Asian Art 65 (1-2):117–37.

Krempel, Guido, and Sebastián Matteo. 2012. Painting Styles of the North-eastern Peten from a Local Perspective: The Palace Schools of Yax We’en Chan K’inich, Lord of Xultun. Con­tributions in New World Archaeology 3:135–72.

Ledderose, Lothar. 1979. Mi Fu and the Classical Tradition of Chinese Calligraphy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Love, Bruce, and Meghan Rubenstein. 2021. La colección del Museo Juan Antontio Valdes [sic], Uaxactún, Guatemala: Volume 1. [Photographs by Bruce Love, assembled by Meghan Rubenstein] Contributions to Mesoamerican Studies, http://www.brucelove.com.

Luin, Camilo A., Federico Fahsen, Dmitri Beliaev, and Guido Krempel. 2018. Dos vasijas maya desconocidas de la colección del Museo Popol Vuh. Mexicon XL:156–57.

Miller, Mary E. 2022. The Trouble with Sets: Renewing the Contexts of Maya Vases. In The Science and Art of Maya Painted Ceramic Vessels: Contextualizing a Collection, edited by Diana Magaloni and Megan E. O’Neil, pp. 444–55. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Polyukhovych, Yuriy, and Matthew Looper. 2019. A Plate from the Xultun Area in the FUNBA Collection. Glyph Dwellers Report 62.

Prager, Christian, Elisabeth Wagner, Sebastian Matteo, and Guido Krempel. 2010. A Reading for the Xultun Toponymic Title as B’aax (Tuun) Witz Ajaw, “Lord of the B’aax–(Stone) Hill” Mexicon XXXII:74–77.

Qianshen Bai. 2003. Fu Shan’s World: The Transformation of Chinese Calligraphy in the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center.

Rice, Yael. 2023. The Brush of Insight: Artists and Agency at the Mughal Court. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

Rossi, Franco D., and David Stuart. 2020. Stela 30: A New Window into Eighth Century Xultun. Mexicon XLII:12–15.

Stuart, David. 1989. The Maya Artist: An Iconographic and Epigraphic Analysis. BA thesis, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University.

______. 2023. Further Observations on the MUT Logogram. Maya Decipherment: Ideas on Ancient Maya Writing and Iconography — Boundary End Archaeological Research Center.

Tokovinine, Alexandre. 2013. Place and Identity in Classic Maya Narratives. Studies in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology 37. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.

______, and Marc Zender. 2012. Lords of Windy Water: The Royal Court of Motul de San José in Classic Maya Inscriptions. In Motul de San José: Politics, History, and Economy in a Classic Maya Polity, edited by Antonia E. Foias and Kitty F. Emery, pp. 30–66. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

Vogt, Evon Z., and David Stuart. 2005. Ritual Caves among the Ancient and Modern Maya. In In the Maw of the Earth Monster: Mesoamerican Ritual Cave Use, edited by James E. Brady and Keith M. Prufer, pp. 155–85. Austin: University of Texas Press.

von Euw, Eric, and Ian Graham. 1984. Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, Volume 5, Part 2: Xultun, La Honradez, Uaxactun. Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University.

Welch, Anthony. 1976. Artists for the Shah: Late Sixteenth-Century Painting at the Imperial Court of Iran. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Wu Hung. 1997. The Origins of Chinese Painting (Paleolithic Period to Tang Dynasty). In Three Thousand Years of Chinese Painting, by Yang Xin, Richard M. Barnhart, Nie Chongzheng, James Cahill, Lan Shaojun, and Wu Hung, pp. 14–85. New Haven: Yale University Press/Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.

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.

RRAMW 64: The Logogram for Wax, “Grey Fox,” in Maya Hieroglyphic Writing

David StuartLeave a comment

With this post we are pleased to present another new issue of the long-running series Research Reports on Maya Hieroglyphic Writing, published by the Boundary End Archaeological Research Center. Number 64 of the series is available here for download as a pdf, and future numbers will be posted here on Maya Decipherment. The full digital archive of the RRAMW series (1984-present) will soon be available on the BEARC website, and announced here as well.

RRAMW 64: A Logogoram for WAX “Grey Fox,” in Maya Hieroglyphic Writing by Christian Prager.

A Parallel Long-Reckoning between the Chilam Balam of Chumayel and a Hieroglyphic Inscription from Yaxchilan

David StuartLeave a comment

by Jorge L. Orejel (Infosys Limited)

Editor’s Note:

In 1990 Jorge Orejel, then a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin, made an important contribution to Maya epigraphy with his decipherment of the “axe/comb” hieroglyph as ch’ak, “to chop” (Orejel 1990). This glyph appears in the Dresden Codex as well as in historical inscriptions where it represents a term for conquest and military defeat, as we have explored recently in the complex chronicles of warfare on Naranjo’s Stela 12. Jorge wrote his decipherment in the series Research Reports on Ancient Maya Writing, published by The Center for Maya Research and its later iteration, the Boundary End Archaeological Research Center. Several years ago he submitted another study on the fascinating text on Step VII of Yaxchilan’s Hieroglyphic Stairway 2, where the same ch’ak verb occurs three times in a mythological context. My father George Stuart, the editor of the RRAMW since it inception, was ill around the time Jorge submitted his second contribution, and with my dad’s passing in 2014 the paper failed to appear as part of that long-lasting series. The Research Reports may yet be re-conceived as an ongoing publication, but in many ways its function has been supplanted by other outlets, including this Maya Decipherment blog. In that spirit we here present Jorge’s paper at long last in on-line form, without further delay, appearing many years after it was first written.

I would like to thank Jorge for his infinite patience, and to Jeff Splitstoser for his hard work in getting the article formatted.

– David Stuart

Reference:

Orejel, Jorge L. 1990. The “Axe/Comb” Glyph as ch’ak. Research Reports on Ancient Maya Writing, number 31. Center for Maya Research, Washington, D.C.

Click here for A Parallel Long-Reckoning between the Chilam Balam of Chumayel and a Hieroglyphic Inscription from Yaxchilan, by Jorge L. Orejel.

YAX HS2 Bl7
Step VII of Yaxchilan Hieroglyphic Stairway 2 (Drawing by Ian Graham, Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions Program, Peabody Museum, Harvard University)

 

A Captive’s Story: Xub Chahk of Ucanal

David Stuart

by David Stuart (University of Texas at Austin)

The written history of the Classic Maya names many important war captives, most of whom are only vague to us as historical figures. Typically they appearin terse statements such as “so-and-so was captured,” with little if any historical context. For example, we know precious little about “Jeweled Skull,” the celebrated prisoner of Yaxuun Bahlam IV (Bird Jaguar IV) of Yaxchilan, nor do we know the backstory of K’awiil Mo’, the Palenque lord taken by the king of Tonina. This shouldn’t be too surprising, since many of these obscure characters were warriors or junior members of rival courts, not terribly prominent even in the records of their home communities. Exceptions come about when high kings are defeated and taken, such as the Copan ruler Waxaklajuun UBaah K’awiil, who was famously defeated in war by his Quirigua rival.

Here I point to another interesting exception, a prisoner who seems to have had an eventful life both before and after he was taken as a prisoner of war. His name was Xub Chahk (or perhaps Xuxub Chahk, “Whistling Chahk”), and he ruled at the present-day site of Ucanal during the late eighth century (Note 1). In 796 CE he was captured by the king of Yaxha, K’inich Lakamtuun, during a time of unusual political instability and warfare in the eastern Petén, spurred by the wars of an aggressive ruler of Naranjo named Itzamnaaj K’awiil. A handful of inscriptions of the period highlight these wars, especially Naranjo’s Stela 12 and the recently excavated “Komkom Vase” from Baking Pot, Belize. Xub Chahk (as we will call him) was on the losing end of the conflict with Yaxha, but from there his story continued and took on new complexity. As I will explore here, he was later displayed as a prisoner of Caracol’s king, years after his capture. Somehow he was “transferred” from one kingdom to another and perhaps even had a longer life than most war captives. Xuxub Chahk’s complex story consists of short, terse episodes of written history, and the means by which we can interpret them relies (as is usually the case) on circumstantial evidence and a good deal of reading between the lines. Nevertheless, his narrative seems unique in the annals of Classic Maya history, as a ruler of one realm who became a prisoner of two others.

Yaxha Stela 31 and the Capture of Xub Chaak

Figure 1. Front of Yaxha Stela 31. Drawing by I. Graham, Photo (replica) by D. Stuart

What we know of Xub Chahk’s story begins in 796 CE with Stela 31 of Yaxha, a Late Classic monument that was erected in that site’s Plaza E, just to the south of the impressive North Acropolis (Figure 1). The front of the stela displays a complex scene of what might be called “ritual capture,” with a richly dressed warrior-king – clearly a god-impersonator – standing above a diminutive captive who is stripped of nearly all clothing. The inscription of six glyph blocks (A1-B3) provides some key historical information about the scene (Figure 2).

The Calendar Round (CR) date is 13 Ix 2 Zac, followed by a playfully conflated spelling of the verb chuhkaj, “(he) was captured” (chu-ka-ja, with the first and third syllabic elements graphically combined). Using a date recorded on the left side of the stela (to be discussed momentarily) we can narrow down the CR date to 12 Ix 2 Zac CR date to 9.18.5.16.14, or August 11, 796 CE. The name of the captive comes in the following two blocks followed by what seems to be a title at B3, with a damaged glyph topped by AJAW.

Figure 2. Main caption from Yaxha’s Stela 13. Photo by D. Stuart

Inspection of the details on the original monument shows that the name is spelled xu-bu (B2) CHAHK-ki (A3), and the final glyph is surely K’AN-na-WITZ-NAL-AJAW(B3). This is the place or emblem glyph we know to be associated with the archaeological site of Ucanal, Guatemala, located approximately 22 kilometers to the south of Yaxha (first identified by Peter Mathews) (See Stuart 1987). The text on the stela’s front is therefore a simple and direct statement of a conflict with Ucanal and of Xub Chahk’s capture.

We also find two small glyphs within the scene, placed just above the head of the small captive (see Figure 1). The two glyphs are somewhat eroded but they clearly seem to constitute another Calendar Round date. Visible is the day 12 Ben and an eroded month sign that is surely one of the Sihoom months (Ch’en, Yax, Zac, and Ceh). I suspect that this msut be 12 Ben 1 Zac, exactly one day prior to the date recorded in the main caption, thus 9.18.5.16.13 12 Ben 1 Zac. Why would it be included here as a “secondary text”? We can speculate that the smaller date, more integral to the scene that the larger caption above, gives us the specific time of the defeat in battle, whereas his formal capture and tying-up came a day later. Whatever the case, it is interesting that the ancient historian and designer who composed this complex scene decided to differentiate the two events.

The inscribed sides of the monument begin with a Calendar Round for the Period Ending 9.18.7.0.0 9 Ahau 3 Ceh, which is most likely the stela’s dedication date. Some hieroglyphs are difficult to make out due to erosion and damage, but the last three on the left side, following the date, seem to record one or more ancient place names corresponding to the location of the stela. One of these locational glyphs reads hi-HIX-BIH-TUUN-ni, hix bihtuun, “Jaguar Causeway(?),” perhaps the proper name of the plaza or alternatively of the long sacbe feature running roughly north-south from Lake Yaxha towards the Maler Group. Stela 31 is located directly on this path, just to the east of the site’s massive E-Group. Several hieroglyphs on the right side of the stela are also damaged or missing, but clearly at the end we find mention of a scattering ceremony and the recognizable name of K’inich Lakamtuun, one of only a handful of historical names we can associate with Yaxha’s dynasty (Figure 3). This ruler, the last we know from Yaxha’s history, is otherwise known from his portrait on Yaxha Stela 13, dedicated a few years earlier on 9.18.3.0.0, and, as we will see, also through several mentions in historical texts from Naranjo and Baking Pot, Belize, where he appears as the victim of military attacks against Yaxha in the year 799 (Helmke, Hoggarth and Awe 2018:70-71). We can be sure that K’inich Lakamtuun is the victorious warrior depicted on Stela 13 a few years before this own defeat at the hands of Naranjo’s ruler.

Figure 3. The name K’inich Lakamtuun, from Yaxha Stela 13 (drawing by D. Stuart)

Stela 31 is an unusual sculpture. K’inich Lakamtuun wears a massive ornate headdress and he seems to move with a bit more dynamism than we usually see in a Maya king. His spear appears as a diagonal line running toward the prisoner, clearly indicating the moment of capture. Depictions of captives are common on stelae, of course, but such scenes of violence and defeat are exceedingly rare on the monuments of the central lowlands. Far more common are the standard portraits of kings or queens in their ritual attire, overseeing a Period Ending and from time to time accompanied by a depiction of a bound prisoner.

The scene is also highly unusual among other capture scenes in Maya art in being overtly mythologized. K’inich Lakamtuun is far more than an armed warrior; he displays the features of the Jaguar God of the Underworld, and his massive headdress looms above, replete with cosmological and ancestral imagery. The three large hieroglyphs at the very bottom of the scene emphasize the ruler’s divine attributes, stating that the capture “is the work of Chak ? Ik’ Chiwooj?,” a name that corresponds nicely with the jaguar attributes of the portrait. We can assume that this is the supernatural identity of K’inich Lakamtuun, given he is the protagonist of the stela and the side inscription.

Stela 31’s record of a war between the rulers of Yaxha and Ucanal is the first known historical connection between these two important centers of the eastern Peten. Their relationship must have been eventful over the course of the Classic period, however, given their close proximity, yet this history is largely missing due to the relative lack of legible texts at both sites, despite their importance, have very few legible inscriptions. Those of Yaxha are badly fragmented and date mostly to the Early Classic era. Of its Late Classic monuments, only Stela 13 and 31 have any legible contents and both date to the reign of our protagonist K’inich Lakamtuun. Ucunal’s surviving texts are small in number as well, and cluster more toward the Terminal Classic era, without a single identifiable mention of Yaxha. One of its prominent rulers of the Classic period was Itzamnaaj Bahlam, who would later be captured by K’ahk’ Tiliw Chan Chahk of Naranjo in 701 CE; presumably he was Xub Chahk’s distant predecessor on the throne, and likely a royal ancestor.

K’inich Lakamtuun’s own personal history as a ruler of Yaxha provides a good case study of the political infighting among kingdoms in the region at the end of the eighth century. We have direct indications that he ruled at Yaxha in 793 (Stela 13) and in 796 (Stelae 31), but he was defeated by Naranjo’s king Itzamnaaj K’awiil only short time later, in 799, as recorded as part of a very complex historical narrative recounted on the back of Stela 12 of Naranjo (see Figure 6). In that inscription Yaxha is repeatedly cited as a target of attacks and conquests throughout the summer of that year, seemingly led by Itzamnaaj K’awill against his enemy K’inich Lakamtuun, who ultimately was captured on or before September 4, 799 (9.18.9.0.13 1 Ben 6 Ceh). K’inich Lakamtuun’s capture of Xub Chahk was only a short-lived victory, therefore, for he himself was forced to flee Yaxha on at least two occasions before being captured only three years later. But what was the fate of his own illustrious prisoner?

Caracol Altar 23 and the Display of Xub Chahk

Altar 23 of Caracol was dedicated on the Period Ending 9.18.10.0.0 10 Ahau 8 Zac (August 16, 800 CE), just shortly after the accession of the new local ruler K’inich Joy K’awiil (Figure 4). It was one of several monuments dedicated on this date, representing a time of significant political and artistic revival at the site after a number of years of relative quiet. The well-preserved sculpture presents two bound captives who each sit upon large table-like stones or “altars” in a bilateral composition, surrounded by text captions (Chase, Grube and Chase 1991:7-11). It is likely that Altar 23 itself was once such a pedestal monument, and that the carved image is self-referential, depicting two unfortunate prisoners who were separately displayed on Altar 23 as part of the celebration of the new king’s Period Ending.

Figure 4. Caracol Altar 23. Xub Chahk of Ucanal is depicted on the right. Drawing by N. Grube, A. Chase and D. Chase (from Chase, Grube and Chase 1991)

The main text of the altar is placed in a vertical band between the two prisoners, opening with a record of the 10 Ahau 8 Zac (A1-B1) or 9.18.10.0.0. The ensuing two glyphs note that the Peried Ending is u k’altuun, (U-K’AL-TUUN) “his stone-raising,” ti tahnlamaw, “at the half-diminishing” (a half-period). The name of the ruler K’inich Joy K’awiil comes next at C1 (K’INICH-JAY-K’AWIIL-li), followed by the standard Caracol emblem title at C2 (k’uhul k’antu[?] maak). The main passage continues with a second verbal statement directly related to the scene, opening with chuhkaj, “he is captured” and a non-specific subject, simply given as U-BAK-ka, u bak, “his prisoner(s).” The owner of the captives is then given with the following three blocks as a lord named Tum Yohl K’inich (C4: tu-mu-OHL-K’INICH), accompanied by the titles “three k’atun lord” (B4) and baahkab (B5: ba-ka-ba). It is noteworthy that Tum Yohl K’inich – no longer the king at this time — lacks the distinctive Caracol emblem glyph we found earlier with K’inich Joy K’awiil. The final glyphs of the main passage tell us that the capture episode was “overseen” by K’inich Joy K’awiil (D1), who does take the emblem (D2) and an additional bahkaab title (D3). Evidently we have a complex relationship to ponder here, between the current Caracol king and another person who bears a familiar name found with several other Caracol rulers. We will return to this question momentarily.

Each of the captives is identified by name and place of origin. The short glyph caption behind the figure at left reads LEM?-TI’-BAHLAM, probably for Lem Uti’ Bahlam, “Shining is the Mouth of the Jaguar.” He also has an emblem glyph title, labelled as the k’uhul ajaw or ruler of a dynasty or place bi-TAL or BIH-TAL. No archaeological site has been ideitified as yet with the name “Bital” (as I will provisionally refer to it) but we know of three other mentions of the site, two from war records at Naranjo (see Chase, Grube and Chase 1991:9), and another from an Early Classic vessel more recently excavated in a tomb at Caracol. The place named Bital presumably exists somewhere in the area of these two sites. The caption continues with ye-te, a relationship term perhaps based on et or eht (y-et, “his companion”[?]), and then with the name we have already seen, Tum Yohl K’inich or Tutum Yohl K’inich.

Turning to the portly captive shown at the right on Altar 23, his caption reads xu-bu-cha-ki (G1) and he carries the Ucanal emblem glyph (G2: K’UH-K’AN-WITZ-NAL-AJAW). This of course repeats the prisoner’s name on Yaxha Stela 31. He again is named as the y-eht, “the companion(?) of” Tum Yohl K’inich (G3, G4). Given the proximity of the dates, the two mentions of “Xub Chahk, the Holy Lord of K’anwitznal (Ucanal)” at Yaxha and Caracol must refer to the same individual. On Stela 31 his capture by K’inich Lakamtuun was given as August 11, 796, and on Caracol Altar 23 we see him presented — and also “captured” — nearly four years later to the day, on August 16, 800.

To my knowledge this this the first attested example of one captive being portrayed as a prisoner at two sites, and it naturally raises a number of interesting questions. These center not only on Xub Chahk’s unfortunate history, but to some extent on the nature of Maya warfare and history during this turbulent period at the beginning of the Terminal Classic.

The Wars of 799

How did Xub Chahk, captured by Yaxha’s king, end up four years later on display at Caracol? As with much of Maya history this is impossible to answer through direct evidence. Apart from Stela 31 and Altar 23, no historical sources at our disposal make reference to Xub Chahk, nor do any texts fill in the blanks about his apparent “transfer” or movement from one site to another. However, it is important that we view his story in the larger historical context of those times, and specifically within the setting of wider political instabilities at the very end of the eighth century.

As we have seen, this was an era of frequent conflict and strife in the region of the eastern Petén, as especially revealed by two important sources — Stela 12 of Naranjo and the extraordinary “Komkom” Vase recently excavated at Baking Pot, Belize (Helmke, Hoggarth and Awe 2018). Stela 12’s very long text (Figure 5) focuses on a series of military engagements waged by the Naranjo king Itzamnaaj K’awiil against Yaxha (Stuart 1993:414-5), leading up to the Period Ending 9.18.10.0.0 (Note 1). This important narrative has gained renewed attention based on fascinating parallels between it and the lengthy text on the Komkom vase, which Helmke has found to repeat much of the same historical informatiot with a slightly different “spin” and perspective (see Helmke, Hoggarth and Awe 2018:82-86). The vase was produced much later than the history its text recounts, in the early ninth century, as a record of retrospective history – perhaps as a gift or “momento” of wars in the recent past.

Figure 5. The back of Naranjo Stela 12, with two passages relating the “fleeing” of K’inich Lakamtuun. Photo by T. Maler, drawings by D. Stuart.

Stela 12’s long storyline contains a nine very closely grouped dates, beginning in February 15, 799 and leading up to the Period Ending 9.18.10.0.0 on August 16, 800 (the same date we saw recorded on Caracol’s Altar 23). A number of war-related events such as conquest and “fleeing” are mentioned over these eighteen or so months, several involving attacks on Yaxha. The first of these occurs on 9.18.8.8.16 12 Cib 9 Uo, or February 18, 799, when we read of a conquest of some unknown locale named Ux K’awiil, said to be “within Yaxha” (tahn ch’een yaxa’) (see Helmke, Hoggarth and Awe 2018:68) (Figure 5b). Part of the passage is damaged, but it continues with a verb reading ahn-i “he flees” (AN-ni, using an interesting logographic variant of the more common syllabic a-ni spelling also found in this text), suggesting an event of conquest or disruption (Note 2). The subject is effaced, but given patterns later in this same text and parallel metnions on the Komkom Vase, it was surely K’inich Lakamtun who “fled” on this day (Helmke, Hoggarth and Awe 2018:70-71). An accompanying verb of movement t’ab-iiy, “goes up (to)” appears next on Stela 12, with an unclear place name and subject. Again we find a parallel on the Komkom Vase, where the a place name is preserved, spelled u-su-la, possibly for Usu’l (ibid.:71). Even these ambiguities and unclear participants, it is clear that this passage on Stela 12 features an attack on Yaxha and the displacement K’inich Lakamtuun as a result. And it is the first of several such statements, each echoing the same general pattern.

Fifty-five days later, on 9.18.8.11.11 2 Chuen 4 Tzec, we read:

2-KAj?-yi K’INICH-LAKAM(TUUN) YAX-a-AJAW ?-?-?K’AWIIL?-li MUT-AJAW-wa
cha’ kahji k’inich lakamtuun yaxha’ ajaw u kabjiiy(?) k’awiil mutul ajaw
He settled(?) again, K’inich Lakamtuun, the Yaxha Lord, by the doing of ?, the Mutul Lord.

This statement (not illustrated here) is important in bringing Tikal into this complex political mix, as the overseer or patron of the K’inich Lakamtuun. The main verb at the beginning of the text refers to the establishment or “founding” of ruling centers, and perhaps reads KAJ, for kaj, “start, begin, settle,” as suggested by Dimitri Belaiev (personal communication 2015). Evidently K’inich Lakamtuun had been in exile from Yaxha, perhaps having fled at the time of the initial attack recorded against Yaxha, on 12 Cib 9 Uo. This new statements suggests that he may have returned from exile after a period of 55 days, or was otherwise somehow reinstated, under the watchful eye of Tikal’s own ruler. Tikal’s role here is fascinating, for the use of the term u kabjiiy implies a hierarchical relationship as the political superior of Yaxha – a relationship that resonates also in the archaeology and architectural layout of Yaxha, with its Twin Pyramid group. And it is worth noting that around 799 CE Tikal’s own dynastic record is largely invisible. No monuments of the time appear at Tikal, so that the royal name on Stela 12, while damaged and unreadable, would have filled an important gap in the later portions of Tikal’s dynastic sequence.

Stela 12 continues by noting that 91 days after K’inich Lakamtuun’s possible re-enstatement at Yaxha he was again attacked by Narnajo on 2 Ik 15 Ch’en (9.18.8.16.2)(Figure 5c). The verb has the numerical adverb cha’, “two,” or “again,” and his destination is different, though unclear. The first glyphs of the passage read:

2-CH’AK-ja YAX-a a-ni K’INICH-LAKAM(TUUN)-ni T’AB-yi ya-?-?
cha’ ch’ahkaj yaxha ahni k’inich lakamtuun
“Again Yaxha was attacked and K’inich Lakamtuun fled”

As Helmke, Hoggarth and Awe (2018:69) note, a parallel episode is recorded on the Komkom vase, coming four days later on 9.18.8.16.6 6 Ik 19 Ch’en. On this day K’inich Lakamtuun (with a misspelled name) was the victim of an attack. The common phrasing and circumstances suggests that this must refer to the same overall episode as recorded on Stela 12, although on a slightly different historical time-frame.

K’inich Lakamtuun’s fate gets worse, as we continue to read the account on Stela 12. On 9.18.9.0.13 1 Ben 6 Ceh he falls victim to yet another “axe” event, a defeat at an unknown locale when for a third time the Yaxha ruler must flee (ahn-i) to another place. Subsequent passages on Stela 12 go on to refer to the Naranjo’s sacking and taking of Yaxha’s wealth (in the final columns of the text we read y-ikaatz yaxa ajaw, “the load ([of jade] of the Yaxha lord”), an extraordinary statement regarding the material consequences of Maya warfare (Note 3).

The day 1 Ben 6 Ceh appears to represent the culmination of prolonged warfare by Naranjo against Yaxha.  In fact the same date is highlighted as a single, freestanding event in the fascinating inscription on Naranjo’s Stela 35, a monument dedicated on the same Period Ending as Stela 12, but couching the conflict in more mythological terms. There war is described as a like-in-kind recurrence of a primordial “burning” of a god, or group of gods, whose names look identical to those cited on Stela 31 of Yaxha as the supernatural identities of K’inch Lakamtuun. The attack on Yaxha’s king on 1 Ben 6 Ceh involves the “axing” of a temple and the defeat of K’inich Lakamtuun’s god, clearly a historical reflection of that earlier myth. Thus Stela 12 and Stela 35, both dedicated on the same day, serve complimentary roles as historical and mythic records of warfare.

These two Naranjo texts can be analyzed in far more detail, but I need not go over them here, especially given the excellent new comparative analysis of Stela 12 by Helmke and his colleagues. Suffice it to say that Xub Chahk’s capture and subsequent “transfer” must be understood in terms these unusually detailed records of conflict in the year 799, when his own captor was constantly on the run across the eastern Peten.

The attacks against Yaxha by Naranjo’s king in the 790s apparently involved some degree of inter-familial strife, given the close dynastic connections between the two centers. Several mentions of Itzamnaaj K’awiil’s mother in the texts of Naranjo refer to her with the royal title Ix Yaxa’ Ajaw, “The Noblewoman of Yaxha,” revealing that she was married into the Naranjo dynasty as the wife of Itzamnaaj K’awiil’s father, K’ahk’ Kalaw Chan Chahk. Itzamnaaj K’awiil’s wars were therefore against his mother’s home community, and presumably against some fairly close relatives, who might have included K’inich Lakamtuun himself. And the conflicted connections between these two neighboring centers appear to have run very deep. Earlier in Naranjo’s history we read of another conquest or defeat of Yaxha on 9.13.18.4.18 8 Etznab 16 Uo (March 20, 710), given as the Initial Series date on the side of Naranjo, Stela 23. The young king K’ahk’ Tiliw Chan Chahk, the grandfather of Itzamnaaj K’awiil, was the agent of this war. That was a particularly destructive episode, involving the “burning” of the city of Yaxha (its “cave,” ch’een) and the opening and defilement of the tomb of its deceased king, Yax Bolon Chahk. Just a few years later another Yaxha lord participated in a dance performance by K’ahk’ Tiliw Chan Chahk, in 714, as recorded in the opening passage of Stela 30. The wars against Yaxha at the end of the eighth century exhibit a rupture within a complex family network that existed throughout most of the previous decades.

Xub Chahk is nowhere to be found in Naranjo’s own detailed narratives of the Naranjo-Yaxha war. Was he taken by Naranjo’s court? Or was he set free by Naranjo’s king, as an enemy of an enemy? There is no satisfactory answer at present, but we should keep in mind that Ucanal had itself once been a long-standing enemy of Naranjo, conquered, as we have seen, by Itzamnaaj K’awiill’s grandfather earlier in the seventh century. This might suggest that Xub Chahk would not have met a friendly fate at the hand of the Naranjo king when he defeated K’inich Lakamtuun. By 820 CE Naranjo’s relationship with Ucanal seems to have warmed, as indicated by the ritual visit of a subsequent Naranjo king to that site as recorded on Stela 32. In short, we can’t know the nature of political relations between Naranjo and Ucanal in 799, whether they were amicable or not.

The immediate fate of Xub Chahk is unclear, at least until he reappears at Caracol. It is surely significant that Xub Chahk’s display occurred only a very short time after the accession of its new king K’inich Joy K’awiil on 9.18.9.5.9 6 Muluc 2 Kayab, or December 9, 799. This came after a noticeable gap or hiatus in Caracol’s own history, and within a short time K’inich Joy K’awiil erects a number of new and ambitious monuments, evidently reviving Caracol’s dynasty, at least for a time. We know little of his own family history or genealogical connections, but one possible key in our consideration of Xub Chahk is this new Caracol ruler’s relationship to the person named Tum Yohl K’inich, the “owner” of the captives mentioned three times on Altar 23. That altar says very little regarding Tum Yohl K’inich’s status, only that he was a “three K’atun Lord” and a baahkab. It might seem natural to assume that he was the predecessor of K’inich Joy K’awiil, as Martin and Grube (2000) suggest. Significantly, his name appears also on Caracol, Altar 12, perhaps in association with 9.17.10.0.0 12 Ahau 8 Pax (November 29, 780). The event there seems to refer to the “return” of someone at Ucanal, apparently in the wake of the latter’s defeat by Ixkun (Note 4).

Xub Chahk’s story, framed by these complex and vague interactions between Yaxha, Naranjo and Caracol, represent an especially belligerent moment in Classic Maya history when distinct conflicts, perhaps inter-related in some way, raged over much of the southern lowlands. The wars of the eastern Peten in 799 and 800 seem unusual in their character, at least rhetorically, compared to previous time periods (some earlier Naranjo narratives do anticipate it, however) . Naranjo’s Stela 12 and the Komkom Vase illustrate this interest in the presentation what might be called “concentrated warfare,” with its remarkably detailed narrative presentation, containing numerous dates and episodes of war spanning a remarkably short span of time. Of the ten dates recorded in Stela 12’s inscription, eight are concerned with the narrative of the Yaxha conflict and the ultimate victory over the desperate K’inich Lakamtuun. The similarly unfortunate Xub Chahk was an unwilling companion in the content movements of his captor.

Here it is also important to recall how Stela 31’s scene of violent, mythologized capture also falls well outside of the local traditions of stela design and thematic content. Before 800 or so, such overt images of war are virtually non-existent in Yaxha’s own monuments, nor are they very present in the overall artistic traditions of monument production in the central Petén. Such active depictions of capture simply don’t exist at Tikal, Uaxactun, Naranjo, and nearby centers. They are of course more standard in sculptures of the Usumacinata region, where reminiscent scenes of violent encounters occur at the centers of Dos Caobas (a regional vassal of Yaxchilan) and Moral-Reforma, also in the western region. Yaxha’s Stela 31 may possibly reflect some influences from western modes of sculpture, and at the very least represents an important departure in subject matter, much in the same way as the narrative presentation of war seems different and more intensified in the case of Stela 12, dating to just a few years later.

Conclusions

This lengthy note shines a spotlight on a curious group of events from Maya history when a prominent captive seems to have been kept and displayed at two different centers within the span of a few short years. The political context of Xub Chahk’s capture and transfer remains murky, despite the detailed war records references that come from his time. That his troubled captor was “on the run” during this time is surely part of that larger story, and may well account for Xub Chahk’s own curious movement and displacement. His situation was not unique, perhaps, but it represents a previously under-reported aspect of captives and prisoners in Maya history – that even as prisoners of war, they could have their own complex stories and biographies.

Notes

Note 1. Stela 12’s narrative has been studied by several epigraphers since my first notes on its connections to Yaxha in 1993. Most important are Helmke’s excellent consideration of its close parallels with the Komkom Vase, as well as the detailed reading of the texts presented in Beliaev and de Leon (2016:50-60). All of these studies have reached similar conclusions about the inscription’s historical content.

Note 2. The syllabic reading a-ni for ahn-i, “he ran, fled,” was first suggested to me by Stephen Houston in the late 1990s, in connection with its occurrence in the painted cave text of Yaleletsemen, Chiapas. The logographic form showing two legs and a lower torso was first identified by Alfonso Lacadena.

Note 3. In my previous brief study of Stela 12 (in Stuart 1993) I suggested that the mention of y-ikaatz on Stela 12 pertained to bundles of tribute paid by Yaxha as a consequence of its defeat. However, Dmitri Beliaev has shown me (personal communication 2019) that the verbal statement associated with the term is likely baak-w-aj, an alternate term for “capture” that indicates that the bundles were considered war booty.

Note 4. Ucanal’s own history during the Late Classic is extremely patchy, but it seems to have been regularly venerable to military attacks during the eighth century. According to the text on Ixkun, Stela 2, Ucanal (K’anwitznal) was “burned” on 9.17.9.3.4 2 Kan 12 Pop, or December 19, 779. This is probably a statement of military defeat, although the possibility ought to be considered that this also refers to a ceremonial fire of some sort being lit at K’anwitznal. This event came fifty days after Ixkun itself was burned by a ruler of Ucanal, probably indicating a military tit-for-tat between these centers (see Carter 2016). All of this came two decades before Ucanal’s defeat at the hands of Yaxha. The date of Ucanal’s possible defeat in 799 came less than a year before the 9.17.10.0.0 (780) Period Ending recorded as a retrospective date on Caracol, Altar 10, when Tum Yohl K’inich was involved in some sort of noteworthy ceremony at Ucanal. We must wonder therefore if Caracol was somehow indirectly involved in Ucanal’s “burning” in 779. We find no mention of Xub Chahk being present at Ucanal in connection with the events of 779 and 780, perhaps because he was not yet an adult actor.

Sources Cited

Beliaev, Dmitri, and Mónica de Leon. 2016. Informe Técnico de Piezas Arqueológicas del Museo Nacional de Arqueología e Etnología. Proyecto Atlas Epigráfico de Peten, Fase III. Centro de Estudios Yuri Knorosov, Guatemala.

Carter, Nicholas P. 2016. These are are Mountains Now: Statecraft and the Foundation of a Late Classic Maya Court. Ancient Mesoamerica 27: 233-253.

Chase, Arlen F., Nikolai Grube and Diane Z. Chase. 1991. Three Terminal Classic Monuments from Caracol, Belize. Research Reports on Ancient Maya Writing, no. 36. Center for Maya Research, Washington, D.C.

Helmke, Christophe, Julie Hogarth and Jaime Awe. 2018. A Reading of the Komkom Vase Discovered at Baking Pot Belize. Precolumbia Mesoweb Press Monograph 3. Precolumbia Mesoweb Press, San Francisco.

Martin, Simon, and Nikolai Grube. 2000. The Chronicle of Maya Kings and Queens. Thanks and Hudson, New York.

Stuart, David. 1993. Historical Inscriptions and the Maya Collapse. In Lowland Maya Civilization in the Eighth Century A.D., edited by Jeremy A. Sabloff and John S. Henderson, pp. 321-354. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.