by David Stuart (The University of Texas at Austin)
One of my current projects is to update and prepare for publication my transcriptions and analyses of the art and inscriptions of the Cross Group temples at Palenque, Mexico. These three shrines (the Temples of the Cross, Foliated Cross and Sun) were major elements in the architectural landscape of the site, known in ancient times by the name Lakamha’. The integrated design and narratives of these temples is conveyed through a triadic framework of space and time, integrating the dynastic history of Palenque with a primordial mythology involving the so-called Palenque Triad, the deities who were the patron gods of the city. The three temples were dedicated on January 8, 692, in anticipation of the looming k’atun ending 9.13.0.0.0, and at a time of major political change at Palenque, in the wake of the passing of K’inich Janab Pakal. My preliminary transcriptions and analyses of the inscriptions were presented in raw form a number of years ago at the 2006 Maya Meetings at UT-Austin; the current book project will present this data in a more analytical and interpretive way, looking at architecture, landscape, art and narrative in terms of a holistic design.
As part of this project I made the decision to produce new drawings of the main Cross tablets – the first to be made in over four decades. Here I post my newish rendering of the Tablet of the Foliated Cross, the large panel placed in the back of the inner shrine of the Temple of the Foliated Cross. It is based on a variety of sources, including stunning new photographs kindly provided by Jorge Pérez de Lara. Working with these tablets over many years, it became increasingly clear to me and colleagues that earlier drawings had many subtle but important inaccuracies. Redrawing them has very time consuming, but I think worthwhile effort, given new digital rendering methods. And rather than sit on this while I very slowly churn them all out, I thought I would share it for others to use for study. I will be making corrections and tweaks (and more stipples) to this and and other drawings from time to time, so it will be updated at some point.
Palenque’s Temple of the Foliated Cross in 2012 (Photograph by D. Stuart)
It’s almost imposssible to summarize the significance of this image in a few sentences, but here goes: the tablet shows a central icon of bejeweled maize, a symbol of the deity Unen K’awiil, a personification of young maize and the most important of the three Triad gods. The corn plant is flanked by two portraits of K’inich Kaan Bahlam, Pakal’s eldest son, corresponding to important moments in his life as adult king (left) and as six-year old heir (right). The inscription links Unen K’awiil’s mythic birth with the making of his new god effigy to be housed in the temple (a rebirth of sorts), offering parallels to K’inich Kaan Bahlam’s own biography, including his own birth and accession. It’s a masterful presentation of narrative symmetry, especially when viewed in relationship to the art and texts of the two neighboring shrines.
The drawing is for free use, but please contact me for any use in publications, or if higher-res versions might be needed. Any reproductions for teaching, etc., can simply include the credit “Drawing by David Stuart.”
Back in 1977 I helped my mentor Linda Schele make corrections to her own drawings of these same beautiful tablets. Making fresh versions has taken me back to our long afternoons together in the Cross shrines 42 years ago, where I learned so much about Maya art and writing.
With the recent passing of the winter solstice it seems a good time to revisit some ideas I penned in 2009, regarding a possible ancient Maya record of the shortest day of the year. This appears on Zacpeten, Altar 1, an inscribed disc-shaped stone discovered broken and re-used as blocks in Postclassic masonry (Pugh, et. al. 1998) (Figure 1). It was originally dedicated on or near the important period ending 10.0.0.0.0, in the year 830 C.E.. The design of the altar is a carefully conceived cosmogram emphasizing four lateral points around a circle and center-point, a layout that echoes the familiar Mesoamerican model of space-time. The 36 hieroglyphs are arranged as a play on the important cosmological numbers 20 and 4 (20 + 4 x 4). And, as I argued some years ago, its self-contained text just might present the only Classic Maya description of the solar “birth” at winter solstice.
Figure 1. Zacpeten, Altar 1, top. Drawing by David Stuart.
One date is written on the altar: 9.18.19.8.17 8 Caban seating of Cumku. In the standard GMT correlation (584283) this falls on December 21, 809, whereas on the newer Martin-Skidmore correlation (584286) is falls on December 24 (Martin and Skidmore 2012). Either way, it falls on or reasonably close to the winter solstice.
Figure 2. Portion of the Altar 1 text with possible solstice date, birth verb, and mountain location.
A few details of the inscription suggest that the text describes the cosmic rebirth of the sun, later linking this cosmological event to the life of a historical ruler. The main event, recorded after the CR date, is birth (Figure 2). Here though we see the unique addition of locational information, recorded in several hieroglyphs after the birth verb (no record of a historical birth states location in this way, as far as I’m aware). The place(s) mentioned strongly suggests a mythological setting, beginning with the glyph immediately following “birth,” a prepositional phrase based on the hieroglyph often described as the “portal” sign or “centipede’s maw” (see the fourth hieroglyph in Figure 2). This logogram is perhaps read as WAY, with the related meanings“chamber, basin, cistern” (Lacadena, personal communication 2003; see Grube, Lacadena and Martin 2003) (not to be confused with the very different term wahy, referring to demonic, transforming wizards and animal-spirits).
Figure 3. Drawing of carved bone showing sun K’inch Ajajw emerging from or consumed by the night (ak’ab) via the centipede’s maw. Drawing by K. Taube (from Taube 2003, Fig. 4c).
It has long been known that this “portal” sign represents a vertical hole or cavity in the earth. Some contexts suggest that it has architectural associations as well, referring to inner vaulted chambers of buildings (Carrasco and Hull 2002; Carrasco 2012). I believe its essential meaning is as a vertical hole in the earth — a planting hole, a chultun-like waterhole, or perhaps (in Yucatan) an open-air cenote. It refers to places that hold water, from where plants grow, and by extension as spatial and temporal points of emergence. Its common presence in the hieroglyph for the month Uayeb is probably related to this general idea, reading in full U-WAY?-HAAB, perhaps for the place or point of the year’s emergence and beginning. In iconography the sun god is sometimes shown emerging from such a space, depicted in its animate form as the jaws of a bony snake or centipede (see Taube 2003:411) (Figure 3). These probably are in reference to the sun’s rise from (or descent into) the earth. Long ago I argued that images of emergence from open maws of serpents and bony snakes — one of the most common tropes in Maya iconography — were visual metaphors for birth (Stuart 1988). Here on the Zacpeten altar the “maw” or “portal” sign thus marks the location of the birth event, a usage related to these same emergence themes.
The altar’s text goes on to specify a place called K’inich Pa… Witz, “the solar ? hill,” which is described as a chan ch’een, “sky-cave,” a spatial term that I believe describes ritual centers and nodes of ceremonial activity (Stuart 2014). The choice of terms and phraseology may again point away from a typical record of a ruler’s birth, and more towards an event of religious or cosmological importance. If we consider the solar references, the “maw,” and the date recorded, it seems natural to think that the Zacpeten altar shows a Classic Maya record of a winter solstice, using language that describes the event as the birth of the sun from the earth.
Nevertheless there seems to exist an important historical dimension to this inscription as well. After the record of the solar birth at the “maw” and mountain we find the name of a local ruler who ruled over the Mutul dynasty in the later years of the Classic period, sharing the same emblem glyph we know from the ruling family of Tikal. The names of his mother and father complete the circular text. The father is named Bahlaj Chan K’awiil, identical to the name of the noted ruler of Dos Pilas (also a claimant to the Mutul title) who ruled in the seventh century.
The protagonist’s name looks to to begin as K’inich ? Tahn, and follows directly after the location statement. It’s probably significant that he carries the same solar honorific k’inich in his name, indicating that the sun is embodied either as the living king or as a recently deceased royal ancestor. Yet there’s some ambiguity in all of this since we’re unsure of the name of the living king at the time the altar was dedicated. It remains possible that the altar records a local king’s historical birth which happened to fall on or near a winter solstice, prompting its description as an event of cosmic renewal. In any case, there seems to be something more “cosmic” going on here than we would expect with a straightforward historical record of a king’s birth.
As noted in my 2009 paper, the altar’s possible mention of a solar birth from a maw-like “portal” may offer a textual parallel of one of the most famous images in Maya art and iconography – the sarcophagus lid of K’inich Janab Pakal (Figure 4). This scene also features a figurative birth, with Pakal centrally placed as both infant (embodying the patron deity Unen K’awiil) and as adult at the moment of his resurrection as the rising eastern sun. He also appears at the base the large cruciform tree (the “shiny jewel tree”) that is emerges from the centipede’s maw (the earthly “portal”) at the lower part of the scene, enclosing the front-facing skull that I believe represents as an animate seed from which the tree emerges. The skull is in turn is conflated with the solar k’in bowl that we other know as an incense burner or sacrificial container, as Taube (1998) has demonstrated (many elaborate clay incense burners are, I believe, conceived of as “seeds” that “sprout” through emanating smoke). It is surely significant that the k’in bowl beneath Pakal serves as the hieroglyph for EL, “to emerge, come out,”which in turn is the basis for the word and hieroglyph for “east,” elk’in. In sum, the infantilized Pakal, in death, is the newborn manifestation of Palenque’s patron deity, shown rising as the eastern sun and ascending into the sky.
Figure 4. The lid of the sarcophagus of K’inch Janab Pakal, perhaps showing his cosmic rebirth as the eastern sun. Photograph by Merle Greene Robertson.Figure 5. View of the front (southern) edge of Pakal’s sarcophagus, showing its record of birth and death highlighted in red paint, in direct relation to the scene atop the lid. Photograph by David Stuart.
Pakal’s (re)birth and death are conceptually fused in this design, an interpretation that is bolstered by the text on the viewer’s “front” (or southern) edge of the sarcophagus (Figure 5), which may serve as a sort of caption for the scene atop the lid. This glyph sequence is integrated to the larger text around the perimeter which records a long series of deaths (och bih, “road-enterings”) of Pakal’s prominent ancestors (see Lounsbury 1974; Josserand 1995; Stuart and Stuart 2008; Hopkins and Josserand 2012). However, when viewed from the doorway of the tomb this band of glyphs also can serve as a self-contained statement about the scene and its protagonist. The inscription first gives a chronological statement of Pakal’s lifespan, from birth to road-entering, and then notes how his passing “follows the actions” of his many deceased ancestors (mam). The longer text around the perimeter of the lid provides the background and larger story, but the band of glyphs on this southern edge – what Josserand rightly called the ”peak” of the overall written narrative — operates on its own in conjunction with the scene. The king is born and the king dies, and the iconography emphasizes the conceptual unity of these two life events.
What isn’t so clear on the sarcophagus is an obvious connection to the winter solstice. Pakal entered his own path in late August of 683, in the height of summer, as the time of the sun’s daily presence was visibly waning. Other inscribed dates surrounding Pakal’s death and the dedication of the tomb and temple offer no obvious connection, either. However, it is perhaps important to point out Alonso Mendez’s interesting analyses of solar alignments associated with the Temple of the Inscriptions, elaborating on a connection Linda Schele first posited many years ago. As Alonso recently notes, the sun sets directly behind the Temple of the Inscriptions on the winter solstice when viewed from the doorway of House E of the Palace, Pakal’s very own throne room, built in the early years of his reign. While subtle, I suspect that solstitial symbolism is inherent in the design of both the funerary building and in the iconography of the tomb.
Figure 6. Detail of Caracol, Stela 6, naming chan u bih k’in, “four are the paths of the sun.” Drawing by D. Stuart.
Of course the winter solstice is widely viewed across the globe as the rebirth of the sun, the point at which is begins its annual journey to gain heat and strength. The Maya are no different in this view (Gossen 1974:39). Among the Kiche’ Maya, the solstices are in addition considered as “changes of path,” or xolkat be, a term that emphasizes the sun’s new movement rather than its stationary position (Tedlock 1982: 180). The sarcophagus lid presents an image of the sun’s eastern rise and perhaps also of its new solsticial movement in the winter months. It is perhaps no coincidence then that the event repeated throughout the lid’s inscription is och bih, “road- or path-entering,” a common Classic Maya expression for death. The connection to between roads and the solstices is also indicated by the fascinating mention of chan u bih k’in, “four are the roads of the sun,” in the iconography of Caracol’s Stela 6 (Figure 6). This may be a reference to the four solsticial points on the horizon (see Stuart 2011:82).
Getting back to the main point of my discussion, the Zacpeten altar has a very suggestive inscription with a date that falls on or near the solstice, with a text commemorating birth and a solar protagonist. And like most Maya texts that might pique the interest of archaeo-astronomers, the real point wasn’t about detached observations of solar or astral phenomena — rather it was about how these cosmological structures and movements pertained to the kings who physically and conceptually embodied them.
References Cited
Carrasco, Michael D. 2012. Epilogue:Portal, Turtles and Mythic Places. In Maya Imagery, Architecture, and Activity: Space and Spatial Analysis in Art History, ed. by K. R. Spencer and M. D. Werness-Rude, pp. 374-412. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Gossen, Gary. 1974. Chamulas in the World of the Sun. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
Grube, Nikolai, Alfonso Lacadena and Simon Martin, 2003. Chichen Itzá and Ek Balam. Terminal Classic Inscriptions from Yucatan. Notebook for the XXVII Hieroglyphic Forum at Texas, March, 2003.
Hopkins, Nicholas A., and J. Kathryn Josserand. 2012. The Narrative Structure of Chol Folktales: One Thousand Years of Literary Tradition. In Parallel Worlds: Genre, Discourse and Poetics in Contemporary, Colonial and Classic Maya Literature, ed. By K. M. Hull and M. D. Carrasco, pp. 21-44. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.
Hull, Kerry M., and Michael D. Carrasco. 2004. Mak-“Portal” Rituals Uncovered: An Approach to Interpreting Symbolic Architecture and the Creation of Sacred Space Among the Maya. In Continuity and Change: Maya Religious Practices in Temporal Perspective, ed. by D. Graña Behrens, Nikolai Grube, Christian M. Prager, Krauke Sachse, Stefanie Teufel, and Elisabeth Wagner, pp. 134–140. Acta Mesoamericana Vol. 14. Saurwein Verlag Markt Schwaben.
Josserand, Kathryn. 1995. Participant Tracking in Hieroglyphic Texts: Who was that masked Man? Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 5(1):65-89
Lounsbury, Floyd G. 1974.The Inscription of the Sarcophagus Lid at Palenque, in Primera Mesa Redonda de Palenque, Part II, ed. by M. G. Robertson, pp. 5-20. Robert Louis Stevenson School, Pebble Beach.
Martin, Simon and Joel Skidmore. 2012. Exploring the 584286 Correlation between he Maya and European Calendars. The PARI Journal 13(2):3-16.
Pugh, Timothy W., Rómulo Sánchez Polo, Leslie G. Cecil, Don S. Rice y Prudence M. Rice. 1998. Investigaciones Postclásicas e Históricas en Petén, Guatemala: Las excavaciones del proyecto Maya Colonial en Zacpeten. En XI Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 1997, ed. by J.P. Laporte y H. Escobedo, pp.903-914. Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología, Guatemala.
Stuart, David. 1988.Blood Symbolism in Maya Iconography. In Maya Iconography, edited by E. P. Benson and G. G. Griffin, pp. 175-221. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
__________. 2009. The Symbolism of Zacpeten, Altar 1. In The Kowoj: Identity, Migration, and Geopolitics in Late Postclassic Petén, Guatemala, ed. by Prudence M. Rice and Don S. Rice, pp. 317-326. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.
__________. 2011. The Order of Days: Unlocking the Secrets of the Ancient Maya.Random House, New York.
__________. 2014. Earth-caves and Sky-caves: Intersections of Landscape, Territory and Cosmology among the Classic Maya. Lecture presented at the Mesoamerica Center Colloquium, Department of Art and Art History, The University of Texas at Austin, September 25, 2014.
Stuart, David, and George E. Stuart. 2008. Palenque: Eternal City of the Ancient Maya. Thames and Hudson, London.
Taube, Karl. 1998. The Jade Hearth: Centrality, Rulership, and the Classic Maya Temple. In Function and Meaning in Classic Maya Architecture, ed. by S. D. Houston, pp. 427-78, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.
_________. 2003. Maws of Heaven and Hell: The Symbolism of the Centipede and Serpent in Classic Maya Religion. In Antropologia de la eternidad: La muerte en la cultura maya, ed. by A. Ciudad Ruiz, M. Humberto Ruz Sosa, M. Josefe Iglesias Ponce de Leon, pp. 405- 442. Publicaciones de la SEEM, no. 7. SEEM, UNAM, México, D.F.
Tedlock, Barbara. 1982. Time and the Highland Maya. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
by David Stuart, The University of Texas at Austin
Back in the early 1980s — I can’t recall exactly what year — I found myself intrigued by the badly preserved stucco inscription from House A of Palenque’s Palace. A few date elements were clearly visible, showing what had once been an Initial Series (I.S.) date, a partial Distance Number (2.9 or 3.9), and the remnants of a record of a station in the 819-day cycle. There was also a nice example of the Palenque emblem glyph in the very last glyph block, indicating the presence at one point of a king’s name, most likely that of K’inich Janab Pakal. The preserved “11 k’atuns” in the first column gave a good working time-frame for the text, falling firmly in Pakal’s reign.
Figure 1. Maudslay’s 1891 photograph of Pier A from House A of the Palace, Palenque.
I looked up Eric Thompson’s reconstruction of the dates in this inscription, which he published as part of a “Carnegie Note” back in 1954 (Thompson 1954). He was unsure of many elements, and proposed two possible reconstructions of the dates:
9.11.6.12.15 9 Men 8 Tzec
-3.9
9.11.6.9.6 5 Cimi 19 Pop
or
9.11.14.14.15 4 Men 8 Tzec
-3.9
9.11.14.11.6 13 Cimi 19 Pop
Thompson hinged his reconstructions on the mandible visible on the head variant number on the k’in of the Initial Series (at B3; see the drawing below in Figure 2), which pointed him to a day number from 13-19.
I quickly saw problems with Thompson’s reconstructions, and my excitement mounted as I came up with a better solution. The presence of an 819 day count record — something Thompson couldn’t recognize at the time — meant we could easily anchor the placement of the 19 Pop preserved at position D3. Only one possible station would fit the time-frame: 9.11.15.11.11 1 Chuen 19 Pop. The Distance Number at B8 must then reckon back to the missing Initial Series and its month is 8 Tzec at B4. Working backwards in this way I was thrilled to find that only one possibility would work:
One detail Thompson didn’t consider was that the mandible on the k’in number could equally point to “0” as a possible reading. Everything seemed to fall into place, and at that point I did a pencil drawing of the glyphs based on Maudslay’s 1891 photograph (Figure 2) and thought the “new” solution to Pier A’s dates would make for a nice little article.
Some month passed, maybe more, before I saw that Heinrich Berlin had long before published the same solution, using precisely the same logic (Berlin 1965:340). His discussion of the Pier A text was buried in an article he had written on the inscription of the Tablet of the Cross — the same paper, in fact, wherein he had worked out much of the Early Classic dynastic history of Palenque (referring to the kings as “Topics”). After seeing Berlin publication I immediately put aside my old drawing of Pier A and went on to other things. But looking back I find that Pier A’s text offers a good illustration of how one can utilize a small number of clues to solve what at first might seem a hopeless case.
Figure 2. Sketch of Pier A’s inscription, with reconstructed components at right. (Drawing by D. Stuart)
When I published my study of Maya architectural dedication rites in 1998, I briefly revisited Pier A in a table listing building dedication dates at Palenque (Stuart 1998:Table 1). There, strangely, I listed the date as 9.11.15.14.19 4 Cauac 7 Tzec — a mistake of one day. I think in my haste to finish the article I must have glanced at Maudslay’s photograph and took the apparent “7 Tzec” at face value, not remembering it was actually 8 Tzec in Berlin’s correct solution.
It’s hard to know what exact event was being commemorated on Pier A. Based on parallels elsewhere (the Temple of the Sun, for example) I strongly suspect it was a dedication record for the House A gallery itself, but no verb or revealing phrase is preserved from the area that would tell us (blocks D4-D6). The date would correspond to May of 668 A.D. As noted, the protagonist was without doubt K’inich Janab Pakal.
To put this event in some context, we have a number of other dedication dates for the various structures within the Palenque’s Palace. House A was built some years after the central buildings of the complex (Houses E and C), at a time when Pakal was rapidly adding on to his impressive complex. And to set the record straight, correcting the mistakes in my old 1998 table, I list the actual dates from the Palace here, in chronological order:
Figure 3. “He of the Five Platform? Buildings,” a title of K’inich Janab Pakal probably referring to the Palace’s main structures. From the Tablet of the 96 Glyphs. (Photograph by Jorge Perez de Lara.)
9.11.1.12.8 9 Lamat 6 Xul (654) – Subterraneos
9.11.2.1.11 9 Chuen 9 Mac (654) – House E
9.11.9.5.19 4 Cauac 2 Pax (661) – House C
9.11.15.15.0 5 Ahau 8 Tzec (668) – House A
9.14.8.15.18 6 Etznab 6 Zac (720) – House A-D (built by Pakal’s son, K’inich K’an Joy Kitam)
Two major buildings in the Palace complex do not have firm dates: one is House D, but its style and decoration suggests it was constructed around the time of House A, perhaps a little afterwards. The other is House B, on the south side of the courtyard of the captives. It too was almost surely Pakal’s edifice. I suspect that the five “houses” of the Palace (in order: E, C, A, D, and B?) were the five buildings referenced in one of Pakal’s important titles, “He of the Five Platform? Buildings” (Figure 3).
Figure 4. South end of House A of the Palace, showing Pier A in its present condition. (Photograph by D. Stuart).
References Cited:
Berlin, Heinrich. 1965. The Inscription of the Temple of the Cross at Palenque. American Antiquity 30(3):330-342.
Stuart, David. 1998. “The Fire Enters His House”: Architecture and Ritual in Classic Maya Texts. In Function and Meaning in Classic Maya Architecture, edited by Stephen D. Houston, pp. 373-425. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C.
Thompson, J. Eric S. 1954. Memoranda on Some Dates at Palenque, Chiapas. Notes on Middle American Archaeology and Ethnology, No. 120. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Division of Historical Research, Cambridge, MA
Three similarly sized carved stones at Palenque are all that remain of an early mosaic relief dating to the long reign of K’inich Janab Pakal (see attached image). The original panel was demolished in ancient times, and all three stones were re-used by the Maya for construction blocks. Two of the carved stones can still be seen in the walls of Temple IV in the North Group (one upside down), and a third was found by archaeologist Alberto Ruz in the masonry of the aqueduct, just to the east of the Palace. The two Temple IV blocks (left and center in the accompanying drawing) have long been seen as probable fits, but I think the third can now be added, giving a hint of a larger figural scene. The image provided, using drawings by Linda Schele, shows the likely arrangement of all three blocks. I’m sure others have noticed this as well.
An inscription ran along the top of the figural scene, broken only by the large feathered headdress of a warrior between the sixth and seventh extant glyphs of the horizontal band. Smaller glyphs look to be name captions for one or two other figures, and two or three small vertical elements may be all that remain of their upright spears (Piedras Negras Panel 2 might offer a vague parallel).
The inscription records a military victory by K’inich Janab Pakal. Unfortunately all that remains of the date — the month position “17 Pop” — is not enough to provide a full reconstruction. The verb is ch’ahkaj, “was conquered,” but the placename for the defeated site, in the third glyph (tz’i?-sa-ti), is difficult to analyze. Interestingly, the text also includes references to two of Pakal’s important “lieutenants,” Aj Sul and Chak Chan.
It’s hard to make out much more from such paltry remains, but I find it extremely interesting that such an early sculpture appears on mosaic blocks — something we never find in Late Classic Palenque art. By the end of Pakal’s reign this mode of presentation for relief carving seems to have given way to the use of large thin slabs of limestone, first used perhaps inside the Temple of the Inscriptions.
In his 1831 visit to Palenque, explorer Juan Galindo removed four stucco glyphs from the Temple of the Inscriptions, most likely from one of its inscribed outer piers (Piers A or F). Drawings of the glyphs – truly excellent for the time — were published in Galindo’s report of 1834, and Heinrich Berlin reproduced these in his 1970 article “Miscelánea Palencana” (Journal de la Société des Américanistes, vol. LIX, pp. 107-108). Even so, the glyphs remain obscure today and seldom studied. Last year I did these drawings, based solely on the old images Galindo published. I’ve never seen photographs of the glyphs, if they exist.
Three of the glyphs seem to be part of the opening I.S. from Pier A. Considering these in connection with other date elements from Pier A (a “Kawak” day sign and an I.S.I.G. with a Pax patron), Berlin rightly proposed this as the best solution for reconstructing the opening date:
9.12.18.13.19 9 Kawak 17 Pax G9
The fourth and last of Galindo’s glyphs is ye-TE’-na-hi, probably a variant spelling of the proper name (9-(Y)EHT(?)-NAAH) given to the tomb and temple on the west panel of the Inscriptions text. If they were removed together, it suggests that the peir I.S. corresponds to the dedication of the Temple of the Inscriptions. Dedication dates on stucco piers may be a pattern at Palenque, also seen on House A of the Palace and on the Temple of the Sun.
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