A1 1 Eb 1 Eb 1 Eb
B1 G1 G1 Lord of the Night G1
A2 6C 6C Moon Semester 6C
B2 10 Yax 10 Yax 10 Yax
C1 MISSING
D1 MISSING
"[On the day] 1 Eb 10 Yax, when Lord of the Night was G1 and Moon Semester was 6C (8.18.10.8.12) [MISSING]."
This sets the date for the statue's dedication as November 2, 406. No rationale is given for the date and the statue, unless it was written in the missing two glyphs.
The text continues:
C2 u-BAH-ja u b'ah-ja the image
D2 u-KIN-ni u k'in the sun
C3 [TAJ?]YAL tayal Tayal
D3 CHAN-K’INICH chan k’inich Chan K’inich
C4 YAX AHIIN Yax Ahiin Yax Ahiin
D4 Huxlahun-MISSING Huxlahun Tzuk? Thirteen Provinces?
C5 K’UH-MUTAL AJAW k'uh[ul] Mutal ajaw holy King of Tikal
"[This is] the image of the Sun, Tayal Chan K'inich Yax Ahiin, [He of the?] Thirteen [Provinces?], the holy King of Tikal."
The statue is said to represent king Nun Yax Ahiin of Tikal. At D4 only the left side of the glyph survives, but having "province" on the right side is possible in the light of a similar "of Thirteen Provinces" or "of the Thirteenth Province" title used for a later Tikal lord Nuun Ujol Chaak.
The next paragraph goes as follows, giving our first actual event recorded in the statue:
D5 7 7 7
C6 5 5 5
D6 3 3 3
C7 yu-k'a-yi CHAN k’a’[a]y u-chan extinguished is his
heaven
D7 10 CHIKCHAN 10 Chikchan 10 Chikchan
C8 k'al-ja TUN k'al-ja tun stone is bound
D8 u-TZ'AK-b'u?-ji utz’akbuji[l] the counted (one)
E3 ya-ta-ji? yataj accompanied (by)
F3 MISSING title?
E4 K'UK' K'uk' K'uk'
F4 MO Mo Mo
"3.5.7 [days earlier] extinguished is his heaven, [on the day] 10 Chikchan (8.18.7.3.5) the stone binding is completed in the company of [title?] K'uk' Mo."
Dated August 3, 403, the first event appears to be the stone-binding ceremony for the death of king Nun Yax Ahiin, conducted by a person named as K'uk' Mo. Whether he was the same person as Yax K'uk' Mo in the Mayan city of Copán some 20 years later, that we need to analyze more a little later.
Notable is that this very important stone binding is not recorded in Tikal Stela 31, which only utmost briefly and inexplicably bluntly states that the then king's father Nun Yax Ahiin "died".
In ceremonial sense, the stone binding event was probably the same which was held for the previous king Chak Tok Ich'aak on January 13, 378. Both took place during the last G2 Lord of the Night before the New Moon, hardly a coincident.
We can assume that king's physical death and his funerary stone binding took place within a short distance of time. Based on that, we can compare the text of Man of Tikal to that of Stela 31.
Stela 31 says that Nun Yax Ahiin died 1.5.2.5 days since something referred to as the "ku-yu-TE". If we count this amount of days backwards from the date of his stone binding event 8.18.7.3.5, we get to the date 8.17.2.1.0 (October 28, 378). The distance of 1.5.2.5 days would then be counted from a date before that.
We earlier noted that the ku-yu-TE/yu-ku-TE term appears to relate to an ascension. Nun Yax Ahiin has two ascension events in Stela 31. The first is his ascension to the Root Tree House (E5-E8) which took place on "8 Men", an incomplete date which is either 8.17.2.0.15 (October 23, 378) or 8.17.2.13.15 (July 10, 379). The second ascension is to the actual rulership (F8-E15), taking place on 8.17.2.16.17 (September 10, 379). Both ascensions were supervised by Siyaj K'ak'.
In most publications, "ku-yu-TE" is counted from 8.17.2.16.17. But that would make Nun Yax Ahiin's death date as 8.18.8.1.2 (June 15, 404) which is almost a year later than his own funeral.
On the other hand, 8.17.2.1.0 is only five days after the first "8 Men" candidate 8.17.2.0.15. This would indicate that "ku-yu-TE" was not counted from the actual ascension event which took place in 379, but from Nun Yax Ahiin's ascension to the Root Tree House, regarded here as the basis for his royal reign. This interpretation is further supported by the appearance of "TE" in both expressions, meaning "tree".
It is also worth noting that Stela 31 refers to the Root Tree House ascension literally as an ascension (t‘ab‘aay, E5), while the later ascension to the rulership is expressed in a complicated manner: "he receives 28 jewels (?), it is his burden" (E12-E13). An earlier Stela 4 makes it clear that 8.17.2.16.17 was his actual ascension event, but in Stela 31 the text is more muddled.
Complicating things, the author of Stela 31 had also mis-copied the date of the actual ascension event ("10 Kaban" instead of "5 Kaban", at F8). If he tried to calculate a distance from that date, it would be outright impossible, making it further likely that he used the Root Tree House ascension as the base date.
Assuming the above is correct, king Nun Yax Ahiin's date of death was 8.18.7.3.0 (July 29, 403) and his stone binding ceremony took place five days later, probably delayed to match the last G2 Lord of the Night before the New Moon, just as Chak Tok Ich'aak's, his predecessor's, stone binding 24 years earlier.
Interestingly, the date of Nun Yax Ahiin's ascension to Root Tree House was little over nine months after the funeral of Chak Tok Ich'aak. Perhaps Nun Yax Ahiin's unknown mother was impregnated only after king's death, in a hurry to produce the next king upon old one's unexpected demise, and the boy was rushed to the king making procedures as soon as he was born.
Let us take a look at the remaining text of Man of Tikal monument.
The next two events starting at E3 prove far more difficult to understand. The first one of them, starting from the date is as follows:
E3 7.11 7.11 7.11
F3 6 Imix 6 Imix 6 Imix
E4 MISSING
F4 MUTAL Mutal Tikal
E5 KALOMTE Kalomte Kalomte
F5 SYI-ja JUL Siyaj jul Siyaj spears/perforates
E6 tu CH'EN tu ch'en in the cave/city
F6 AJAW MUTAL ajaw Mutal Tikal King
[HIX BIRD] [HIX BIRD] (White) Jaguar Bird
E7 u?-chu?-ka?-wa uchukuw? he captures/seizes?
F7 KALOMTE MUTAL Kalomte Mutal Kalomte Tikal
Tikal is mentioned in the text 3 times. Before attempting to sort out the text in more detail, the identity of "Tikal Kalomte Siyaj" needs some closer scrutiny.
Was he the same person as Kalomte Siyaj K'ak'? There is no "K'ak'" after "Siyaj" here, otherwise always attached to his name in surviving sources. The title also directly connects to Tikal, something that any title of Siyaj K'ak' never did, except in the much later and only partly readable Uaxactun Stela 5 (Siyaj K'ak' Mutal ajaw(?), "the Tikal lord Siyaj K'ak'"). Noteworthy is also that a similar title "Kalomte and king of Tikal" was given to king Nun Yax Ahiin in Stela 31 (O3-P3), making it sound like "Tikal Kalomte" was a title reserved for the king.
Counted 7.11 backwards from the statue's establishment, the event date is 8.18.10.1.1 (June 4, 406), just three weeks after the half-Katun ending 8.18.10.0.0 (May 14, 406). According to Stela 31, the person to oversee this ending was some Siyaj Chan K'inich, written there without a title or any other information about his identity as if the name was self-explanatory (F23). We are probably correct if we assume that Siyaj Chan K'inich was a pre-regnal name for king Siyaj Chan K'awiil himself, whose ascension event is listed in Stela 31 right after the period ending ceremony. Apparently the name "Siyaj" was taken from his paternal grandfather and "Chan K'inich" from his father.
Based on this, it looks then that in spring 406 the future king Siyaj Chan K'awiil was becoming old enough to take part in royal duties (although far from today's adult and probably not even a teenager yet), and he was the person named in the text as "Tikal Kalomte Siyaj".
The clear spear glyph right after Siyaj's name is probably also related to him becoming an adult. Here it looks to mean that he was perforating in order to offer his own blood as a sacrifice. Perforation took place in some special "cave", possibly the same location which was in Stela 39 referred to as the "cave of the First Tikal city" (A8-B8), the location of the Katun ending ceremony ten years later.
We can also count that the date of the first event 8.18.10.1.1 was 4 Tzolkin years and one day after the reconstructed date of Nun Yax Ahiin's death (8.18.7.3.0).
Noting that the title Kalomte Tikal appears twice here, we can assume that the section has two different sentences. The second event in the Man of Tikal monument would then probably read as follows:
"7.11 [days earlier, on day] 6 Imix, [MISSING] Tikal Kalomte Siyaj perforates in the cave; Tikal King White Jaguar Bird captures(?) Tikal Kalomte."
White Jaguar Bird was a purely legendary Tikal king, existing well before the official list of kings. His role in the perforation ritual is unclear, but apparently supernatural. The verb at E7 is difficult to read, but is probably uchukuw, "captures" (T87.515a:1.130). We can only guess that the royal perforation somehow made White Jaguar Bird manifest himself, and maybe enter and empower the perforating person.
The third and final event is fragmented, and appears to go as follows:
E8 2 Oc 2 Oc 2 Oc
F8 ye'?te B'AK ye'?te b'ak with captives?
G1 MISSING
H1 MISSING
G2 K'uk' K'uk' K'uk'
H2 MISSING (Mo?)
G3 ya-AJAW TE’ yajaw te’ Lord of the Tree
H3 MISSING
The event is dated simply as 2 Oc. There is only one suitable date between the previous event and the establishment of the statue, and that is 8.18.10.1.10 (June 13, 406), nine days after the preceding event. It apparently was conducted by K'uk' Mo, who appears to be mentioned at the end of the text, equipped with a royal title Lord of the Tree.
Interesting here is how the text includes a reference to captives, presumably in a sentence that praises its protagonist K'uk' Mo for bringing them to Tikal for sacrifice or some other purpose. We appear to have the same ye'te b'ak, "with captives", in Tikal Stela 39 (A6), which we'll examine in closer detail a bit later.
If the earlier event was a memorial for the previous king's death, then what was the purpose of the last event?
The statue's hip is decorated by a large glyph of king Chak Tok Ich'aak, however with no mention of the king himself in the remaining text. On the other hip, there has been another similar sized glyph which is largely damaged; only its lower left corner remains without offering clear clues to the glyph's reading.
We earlier noted how the stone binding ceremonies for both Nun Yax Ahiin and Chak Tok Ich'aak took place when Lord of the Night was G2 and the moon one or two nights short of being new. There clearly was desire to link the two kings to each other. Since we noted that the 8.18.10.1.1 event conducted by king's son seems to commemorate his death, would the 8.18.10.1.10 event then be a similar commemoration to Chak Tok Ich'aak's death?
Counting backwards, we can see that the last event took place 22 days before the 40th Tzolkin anniversary of Chak Tok Ich'aak's stone binding ceremony. Relying on the logic of the previous event, we could now speculate that 8.18.10.1.10 was one day after the 40th Tzolkin anniversary of his death. Chak Tok Ich'aak would then have perished on 8.17.1.3.9 (December 21, 377) and his stone binding ceremony held 23 days later, delayed to have it exactly 24.5 Tzolkin years after his ascension, on the last G2 before the New Moon. Thus, when Siyaj K'ak' participated in an unknown ceremony in another Mayan town of el Peru (or at least his name is mentioned in an eroded local stela in some capacity) on 8.17.1.4.4 (January 5, 378), the king was probably dead already and Siyaj K'ak' regarded as the highest authority.
Overall, Man of Tikal appears to record the 4th and 40th Tzolkin death anniversaries of the last two kings of Tikal.
We still lack explanation for the date of the statue itself. The rationale may have existed at C1-D1, but the glyphs have been lost when the statue was broken. It is possible that there was a third person commemorated by the statue, and the damaged glyph on the statue's hip identified him.
It is interesting that the statue was erected exactly 121 Tzolkin years after the date set in the so-called Leyden Plate, regarded as one of the oldest known Mayan artifacts with a date on it. Leyden Plate records an unknown event on 8.14.3.1.12 (September 14, 320). Whether Leyden Plate was made in Tikal or not, is debatable, but often suspected as likely. In its short text, there seems to be a location at A1-10, very similar to the location name in Tikal Stela 31 at D6, followed by three glyphs which appear to be related to the death of an individual. One possible reading of the last glyphs is "sleeps the young heaven, extinguished is the great one".
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