The reader is assumed to be familiar with the Mayan texts in question and have access to their reproductions. Reproductions are commonly available in the Internet.
Of the four inscriptions, Tikal Stela 31 was established to commemorate a half-Katun ending during the reign of king Siyaj Chan K'awiil in 445. The stela is a bit damaged with the base part missing.
Tikal Stela 39 is a Katun ending monument of either 376 or 416. It is cut in half with only the lower part remaining.
Tikal Marcador monument was established at Katun ending of 416, also during the reign of king Siyaj Chan K'awiil. The monument is well preserved. Its actual purpose is unknown.
Man of Tikal monument was established in 406, apparently to commemorate the recently passed king Nun Yax Ahiin. The statue is partly damaged.
We start our examination by jumping into the text of Tikal Stela 31 at glyph D17 to see what the inscription says about the year 378 that changed Tikal's history.
After giving the distance from the previous event as 1.4.12 (D17-C18), the glyph at D18 firmly establishes the event as a stone-binding ceremony, k'al[w]a tun, taking place alay Eb 11, "on this (day) Eb 11" (C19-D19). This matches 8.17.1.4.12 or January 13th 378. Not written, but an important fact later, we can also calculate that the day was the last G2 Lord of the Night before a New Moon.
At C20, the left side of the glyph indicates the stone-binding was completed (tzutzuy), the right side adding that it was done "with" (yichnal) something, expected to be clarified by the glyph which follows.
Glyphs D20 and C21 share the same anonymous head which has a piercing (jul/hul, T653) infixed on its side. At D20, the head is also infixed with a glyph that appears to be ki (T100), while at C21 no further infixes appear. In order to present a possible reading, we could assume that at D20 the pierced head is only used to personify ki, while at C21 it is used for its own sound value. Using the same head in both glyphs might indicate they are somehow thematically linked. Since the subfix at D20 is clearly tzi (T124), we could read the whole glyph as ki-tzi or ikatz, meaning "burden" or "load". The stone-binding was thus "completed with burden".
Figure 1.1 The pair of perforated (jul/hul) heads with other glyphs fixed to them. a) Tikal Stela 31 at D20, infixed with ki and subfixed with tzi. a) Tikal Stela 31 at C21, superfixed with ju/hu and postfixed with ja.
If the decipherment was correct, the next question is then, why was there a "burden", expected to be clarified in the sentence that follows.
Glyph at C21 is superfixed with ju/hu (T45) and postfixed with ja (T181), which quite clearly makes the reading ju-JUL-ja or julja/hulja, "is speared". It could also be translated as "is arrived", but the clear perforation mark in the glyph makes the other translation far more likely, fitting also the gloomy tone of the preceding sentence. The text appears to state that someone died by spearing.
The person who was speared would then be in the following glyphs. At first glance, there seems to be a three-glyph-long nominal sequence Och'kin K'awiil Siyaj K'ak' Kalomte (D21-D22), "Western K'awiil Siyaj K'ak' the Kalomte". Would this mean that Siyaj K'ak' was speared and they were binding a stone for him - meaning that it was his funeral? This looks dubious and outright impossible. Based on numerous sources and Stela 31 itself too, Siyaj Ka'k' continued to be in good form for decades to come. Glancing a bit further, we also have a lone verb at C23 and another one right after it at D23.
Solution to the proper translation is hinted by Uaxactun Stela 22. It records the same date, however with only two glyphs surviving about the events on that day: hulja Och'kin K'awiil (B9-B10), "speared/arrived is Western K'awiil". This is immediately followed by date Eb 11, with no Siyaj K'ak's name attached directly to the sequence.
In Tikal Mural 7, a badly eroded text looking back to the same event, it is similarly recorded as huliy Mutal K'awiil, translated as "speared K'awiil of Tikal" or "K'awiil arrived to Tikal" (D6-E1), followed there by two date glyphs, then an eroded glyph that can't be read any more and finally Siyaj K'ak's name at the end (E6), clearly separated from K'awiil.
We can also visit the Marcador monument for help. The Marcador monument was established in Tikal some 25 years before Stela 31. Like Tikal Stela 31 and poorly preserved Uaxactun Stelas 5 and 22, it also records the same famous date with a narrative of the events. At the end of the front text of the monument, there is a long nominal sequence Och'kin Waxaklaju'n Ub'aah Chan K'inich K'awiil, "Western Eighteen-Image-Serpent K'inich K'awiil" (C8-D9) indicating the person who was the subject of several death related events. Now, we could easily assume that "Western K'awiil" was a later abbreviation of this long nominal sequence.
And so we have a likely solution to the problematic name in Stela 31. "Western K'awiil" and "Siyaj Ka'k'" are two different nominal sequences and two different individuals. Stela's unfortunate narrative has just placed their names next to each other. The original writer probably could not imagine anyone having trouble separating such well-established entities. Proper translation of C21-D21 would then be "speared is Western K'awiil", while Siyaj Ka'k' Kalomte would be the subject of the next sentence.
Who the "Western K'awiil" was, we will see more of that soon. Let's continue with the paragraph at hand first.
At C23 we have a verb, which seems to read ya-CHUM-tun-ni or chum u tun, "sit (on) his/the stone". Like we earlier concluded, the likely subject of this verb is Siyaj K'ak', making the whole sentence as "Kalomte Siyaj K'ak' sits on the stone" or "Kalomte Siyaj K'ak' is seated on the stone". This probably indicates that he had taken the seat of power during the stone binding and was overseeing the event. He certainly was in charge of all subsequent key events since. Overseeing the stone-binding could have been the moment when he emerged as the main authority in Tikal.
At D23 we have a death related expression och ha, "enter the water", followed by the glyph of king Chak Tok Ich'aak. What "enters the water, Chak Tok Ich'aak" exactly means, is unclear, but if we compare this to Marcador which says "enters the water, enters the cave ... enters the road" (D5-C6, C8), water-entering likely is the start of a journey to the afterlife, initiated by the completion of the funeral's stone-binding ceremony. Certain anyway is that the deceased individual is the king himself. Thus, he would appear to be the same individual as Western K'awiil, who was earlier said to have been speared and whose stone-biding ceremony was being completed.
At this point it looks rather evident that the event of that day was the funeral of Chak Tok Ich'aak who had perished violently, or the final and most important stage of the funerary procedures.
The water-entering event of Stela 31 is followed by an expression 17.12.10 yu-ku-TE' (D25-D26) which has not been successfully deciphered, but is generally regarded as the distance of time from his ascension until the event at hand. Counting 17.12.10 days backwards from the date takes us to 8.16.3.10.2 or August 5th, 360. The Lord of the Night on that day was G4, so it probably was his ascension. So, it looks like Chak Tok Ich'aak had reigned close to 18 years. It is noteworthy that the stone binding took place exactly 24.5 Tzolkin years after his ascension, making it likely that some time had passed between his death and the funeral.
Narrative then continues by i ochja witz (C26), "then entered is the mountain", which matches the "enters the cave" expression in Marcador, being the next phase during the journey through the underworld.
Last three glyphs D26-D27 before the stone has been broken and the remaining text lost, are a bit difficult to translate. The u[h]tiy at D26 might be translated as "it happened at (location)" or "then it happened", both meanings being used in the stela's text elsewhere. Comparing the narrative in whole to Marcador, we still lack the "entered the road" expression to complete the king's trip, making "then it happened" look like a better choice here. Last two glyphs seem to read Chahkel patja --, "Chahkel is made --", which lacking the remaining text is hard to put in a sensible context.
All in all, the entire section could now be read as follows:
"[After] 1.4.12 days, on this [day] 11 Eb, the stone-binding is completed with burden: speared is the Western K'awiil (= the king). Kalomte Siyaj K'ak' is seated on the stone. [After] 17.12.10 days since ascension, (king) Chak Tok Ich'ak enters the water; and then enters the mountain; then it happens: --"
The meaning of the text looks now clear. The king had died violently, possibly in a battle, and was taken to Tikal for funeral. By overseeing the procedures, Siyaj K'ak', of unidentified origin but most likely a powerful local man with an established military position, secured himself as the de facto regent without having to take any additional titles. As we can see later in the text, he arranged the actual titles to his small son.
No comments:
Post a Comment