Following up on the last post, here’s something else of possible use to intro-level students and instructors when learning about Maya glyphs and the calendar. The short pdf is a table I prepared for The Order of Days book, listing all of the main Period Ending dates from 8.13.0.0.0 to 10.4.0.0.0, basically spanning the Classic Period. A similar chart appeared in various editions of Morley’s The Ancient Maya. It’s the sort of thing I like to keep handy when looking at inscriptions, even in these days of ubiquitous Maya calendar computer programs.
Some perhaps noticed that the published version of this same table in The Order of Days was mangled a bit by typesetting at Random House, resulting in a shift on several of the day sign number prefixes. This makes the table pretty much incomprehensible (somehow those corrections never made it during late editing stages). Happily all that should be fixed when the paperback edition is out next year.
One of the illustrations in my recent book The Order of Days gives, well, the order of days — a simple list of the twenty Maya day-signs with the Yucatec versions of their names. I thought just now that it might be useful for teaching and intro-level study to post a digital version here on Maya Decipherment, so feel free to use (…fun for the whole family!). Similar charts are found in countless popular books on the Maya, though one nice thing about this list is how it represents the visual forms of all the days from a single time and place; all are from a wall painting unearthed a few years ago at Ek Balam, Yucatan, dating to the earthy ninth century A.D. There are of course variant forms for almost each sign, but this list gives a good overview and starting point.
The latest issue of Arqueologia Mexicana has an article by Juan Yadeun in which he illustrates the two recently unearthed prisoner sculptures mentioned in the previous post. The printed version of the article includes this reasonably good photograph of the more damaged of the two sculptures, which was difficult to see in the previously available images.
Photograph of unnumbered Tonina sculpture (from Yadeun 2011)The text here is shorter and simpler than on its better preserved partner, with four glyphs on the front giving the captive’s name and place title. Let’s begin with the clearest two glyphs at the bottom, where we have a place name familiar from texts at Tonina and well beyond. This consists of a rabbit element (p’e?? — it’s reading remains doubtful) and a reptile-like critter, perhaps a turtle or toad (e?), followed by a clear TUUN-ni in the final block. This same grouping appears with some slight variations in a handful of other Tonina texts as a place name in connection with defeated opponents, so it’s appearance here isn’t too terribly surprising (see Mon. 91). Reading backwards to the second glyph of the text, more or less over the prisoner’s navel, we have the “flaming ak’bal” variant of the agentive prefix AJ- identified by Marc Zender some years ago (Zender 2005). These three glyphs taken in total amount to a toponymic title for the prisoner, AJ ?-e? TUUN-ni, “He of ? Tuun.” There’s some suggestive evidence that this “Rabbit Stone” place (as it’s sometimes called in the epigraphic literature, though not as a literal translation) can be equated with the small ruins of La Mar located near the Usumacinta River, which for much of the Late Classic was a secondary center allied to the court of Piedras Negras.
The top-most glyph over the captive’s chest, though damaged, is surely his personal name. Although it remains a little murky in the photo. I think it likely to be that of a prisoner otherwise familiar in other Tonina texts whose name is spelled 4-ma-su, possibly for Chan Maas, “Four Crickets(?)” (ancient Maya personal names can sometimes be very odd-sounding; I’m reminded of a somewhat similar and bizzare name cited at Piedras Negras, Chan Chiwoj, “Four Tarantulas”!). Chan Maas appears also on Monuments 72 and 84, and in the latter case also in association with the “Rabbit Stone” toponym.
Monument 84 states he was captured on the day 8 K’an, which may correspond to 9.13.1.0.4 8 K’an 7 Woh, or March 12, 693 AD (this is cited as an important capture date on another Tonina monument). This falls only a few months after the celebrated capture of the Palenque nobleman named Buk’ ?, as discussed in the previous post, who is portrayed on the better preserved companion sculpture from the Tonina ballcourt.
So we have in the second bound warrior sculpture another celebrated captive from the reign of K’inich Baaknal Chahk. The ballcourt commissioned and dedicated by this ruler in 696 was apparently covered in these powerful images and texts, many if not all documenting his recent military exploits against different enemies to the north and northwest. It’s important to stress, as before, that far distant Copan was not among them.
REFERENCES CITED
Yadeun Angulo, Juan. 2011. K’inich Baak Nal Chaak (Resplandeciente Señor de la Lluvia y el Inframundo) (652 -707 d.C.). Arqueología Mexicana vol. XIX, num. 110, pp. 52-57.
Zener, Marc. 2005. ‘Flaming Akbal’ and the Glyphic Representation of the aj-Agentive Prefix. The PARI Journal 5(3):8-10. Electronic version.
Within the past few months important inscriptions and sculptures have been recovered during excavations near Tonina’s ballcourt overseen by archaeologist Juan Yadeun. Nothing has been presented formally, but two well preserved captive sculptures have recently been featured in the news, alongside the claim that one beautifully preserved sculpture depicts a bound warrior from distant Copan (Figure 1). As I present here, the Copan connection seems dubious, with a Palenque affiliation for the prisoners far more likely, based on comparative evidence from Tonina’s written history. Figure 1. The captive "Buk' ?" of Palenque. The Tonina sculpture is as yet un-numbered (AP photo by Moyses Zuniga).
Eight glyphs grace the captive’s body — one on each shoulder and a vertical column of six blocks running down the chest and loincloth. The shoulder glyphs mark the beginning and end-point of the text.
uxlajuun(-eew) buluch winikij
k’altuun ta Juun Ajaw
i uht ochk’ahk’ ta ?n
Buk’ ? bolon eht?
“Thriteen-and-eleven score days (before)
the stone binding on 1 Ahaw,
then occurs the fire-entering at the ballcourt.
(It is) Buk’ ? of the nine companions(?).”
The final two glyphs present an interesting question in term of discourse and syntax. The captive’s name (Buk’ ?) at the base of the loincloth seems to “hang” somewhat relative to the surrounding syntax and the fire-entering verb — how would be be connected with that event as either an agent or patient? As my translation above indicates, one might cosnider a rhetorical transition occurring after the ballcourt term, with the personal name serving as a simple caption for the figure, much like we see in other Tonina captive sculptures. It’s possible, too, that the name is cited in this context as part a supplemental clause of some sort, in the sense that the fire-entering at the ball-court takes place “with regard” to the named prisoner. In any case, it’s a rare structure.
The text juxtaposes two dates that can be easily identified. “1 Ahaw” is surely the period-ending 9.13.5.0.0 1 Ahaw 3 Pop (February 15, 697 AD), cited here as a future anchor to the contemporaneous event, the ritual dedication of the ballcourt. The distance number that opens the text would place this earlier och-k’ahk’ event at 9.13.4.6.7 2 Manik’ 15 Yaxk’in (June 27, 696). This same date is cited also on M. 140 (at pBa and pCb), although the associated event description is missing (see Graham and Mathews 1999:171). Figure 2. Monument 145 from Tonina, citing the capture of "Buk' ?" on the day of battle with Palenque (CMHI photo by I. Graham).
The captive Buk’ ? is cited also on Monument 145 (Figure 2), which states that he was taken prisoner (chuhk-j-iiy) on 9.13.0.10.3 3 Ak’bal 11 Keh (October 2, 692) (see middle glyph block of bottom row). This is the same date given on Monument 172 as the military defeat of Palenque, when the captive K’awiil Mo’ was captured by the Tonina ruler K’inich Baaknal Chahk (see Miller and Martin 2004:185; Graham, Henderson, Mathews and Stuart 20o6: 117). Evidently, then, Buk’ ? was another prominent prisoner taken in this same battle with Palenque.
Despite claims in the media, I doubt Copan was part of this Tonina-Palenque conflict, at least on the evidence available. The confusion here may lie in the fact that a name that is visually similar to Buk’ ? occurs in a number of Copan texts. There a name is spelled k’u-yu-?-AJAW (K’uy ? Ajaw) and refers to a patron deity of the Copan kingdom. The two names are utterly distinct, however, and on present evidence there is little reason to draw any connection between Copan and the prisoners so vividly depicted at Tonina.
REFERENCES CITED:
Graham, Ian, and Peter Mathews. 1999. Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, Volume 6, Number 3: Tonina. Cambridge: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.
Graham, Ian, Lucia Henderson, Peter Mathews and David Stuart. 2006. Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, Volume 9, Number 2: Tonina. Cambridge: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.
Miller, Mary Ellen, and Simon Martin. 2004. The Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya. New York: Thames and Hudson.
Middlebury Magazine has recently published a fine story on James Fitzsimmons of Middlebury College and his on-going important rescate work at the ruins of Zapote Bobal, Guatemala. Zapote Bobal and its neighbor El Pajaral were centers of the ancient Hix Witz kingdom during the Classic period. James and I will soon be preparing drawings and photographs of the monuments of Zapote Bobal for eventual publication in the Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions.
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