by Janice Van Cleve

 

PREFACE

 

Any investigation into the history of the Maya city of Copan in Honduras must root itself in the life and legacy of one man, Yax Kuk Mo.  His celebrated arrival into the city on February 8, 427 CE was the pivotal turning point in the fortunes of the Copan Valley and for the entire southeast frontier of the Maya world.  Fifteen kings went on to rule the city for the next 400 years, all claiming their legitimacy from him.  He was proclaimed on their monuments and his final resting place became a holy shrine for veneration and worship.

 

Yet most of what we know today about this dynamic individual is from retrospective texts.  He did not dedicate any monuments of his own nor did he cause any inscriptions to be made that would allow us to follow the course of his life from his personal perspective.  He ruled Copan less than eleven years.  He was of very advanced age even by the time he arrived at the place and there is evidence that his son helped him or was even put in charge during his later years.  One carving captured his portrait while he was still alive – the famous Motmot Marker – and even it was commissioned by his son who is shown in the commanding position.

 

There are hints, however, that tease and suggest his enigmatic presence elsewhere:  an inscription at Quirigua, a reference to Caracol, a mural in Uaxactun, and a statue from Tikal.  He is said to have received his authority at a location called the “Root Tree House”, a mysterious place to which other Maya rulers also went for the same purpose.  There is a queen involved and a foreign general.  There are links that trace all the way back to the giant capital of Teotihuacan in the central valley of Mexico.  Such are the bits and pieces that have come down to us about the forceful leader called Yax Kuk Mo.

 

His original name was simply Kuk Mo, which translates “Quetzal Macaw”.  The quetzal is a beautiful bird of Central America whose green feathers were highly prized by the Maya elite.  The macaw is a native parrot, resplendent in bright reds, blues, and yellows.  The combination of these two avian species in one name is unique in the Maya world and when the combination is found in glyphs that date during the reasonable timeline for Yax Kuk Mo’s long life, the suspicion that the reference is to him is obviously strong.  He acquired the forename “Yax”, which means “first” when he received his authority to rule. 

 

The purpose of this paper is to examine all the pieces of evidence so far identified that relate to Yax Kuk Mo.  The examination of course brings to the surface many more questions than it answers but at least it hopefully places on the table the pieces we currently possess and it begins to ask some of those questions.  On the basis of this, I will later attempt a biography of the man, filling in the blanks with as plausible a series of events as I can construct. 

 

Biographies of Maya rulers have been rarely attempted because the written record is fragmented, limited, and often damaged or eroded by the elements.  Translation has only really begun in the last forty years and scholars still debate over the meanings of important terms.  Yet as I demonstrated in my book on the 13^th ruler of Copan, Eighteen Rabbit, it is already possible to gather enough data on some individuals and their times to fabricate a plausible biography – even if it is more of an historical novel than a definitive scientific study.  As is true of every scholarly endeavor, better minds and new evidence will prove parts of this present research incorrect.  That is as it should be.  My hope is that I may advance avenues of enquiry that will eventually bring to the general public a better understanding and appreciation for the rich and lively history of the Maya people.

 

Such an effort owes unlimited thanks to the decades of scholarship and research that have gone before it.  The bibliography at the end of this paper only scratches the surface of the vast body of literature on the Maya it has been my pleasure to pursue.  Chief among the resources upon which I depended are the chapters contained in Understanding Early Classic Copan, The Maya and Teotihuacan, and the series of Copan Notes created by Linda Schele and others.  In addition I am grateful for John Montgomery’s Dictionary of Maya Hieroglyphs and the wealth of resources offered through the website of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. (www.famsi.org).

 

Finally I must acknowledge the skills of the scribes and artists of the ancient Maya themselves who left us clues – and questions!

 

Janice Van Cleve

Seattle, 2009

 

Other books by the author:

 

Who Was Eighteen Rabbit? (2003)

 

Eighteen Rabbit:  The Intimate Life and Tragic Death of a Maya God-King (2006)

 

A New Translation for Ox Witik (2007)

 

Facts on File:  Pre-Columbian Honduras (2009)

 

 

HABEMUS CORPUS

 

He was a tall man for a Maya – about five feet six inches.  He was long lived, too, well over 50 years and perhaps even into his early 80’s[1].  His head had been slightly deformed by the binding of boards to the front and back as an infant, which was considered a sign of beauty among the Maya nobility.  Another beauty treatment was the drilling of his teeth to accept jade inlays and the filing of his two upper incisors to imitate the appearance of Itzamna, the sun and creator god.  He suffered advanced arthritis in parts of his spine.  All this and more was determined by forensic scientists examining the remains in the Hunal tomb.[2]

 

Hunal is the name given by archeologists to the very early structure they found deep inside the base of the central pyramid temple at Copan.  It consisted of three rooms – north, central, and south – which were built over earlier structures.  It was constructed before 437 because the tomb was cut into the floor of the north room.[3]  Most likely it was built after 427 because it displays the talud-tablero base wall molding around the outside.  This is a decidedly Teotihuacano style foreign to Copan and not evident before or since this particular Hunal construction.  It is not certain if this building was used as a residence first and then became a focus for worship after the burial, or if it always had a solely ritual purpose.  The earlier structures beneath it appear to have had some ceremonial function.  The tomb itself was of the vaulted type, oriented north-south, and the north capstone was removable, permitting reentry after the body decomposed to apply cinnabar pigment to the bones.  

 

The bones tell the story of many injuries over the course of this man’s long life.  His right posterior parietal skull bone shows evidence of a healed depressed fracture 4 by 2.5 cm in diameter.  His right forearm ulna and radius were broken in adult life from a blunt force trauma.  The radius partially healed but was still bent and shortened.  The ulna never healed.  It  remained broken for the rest of his life, creating a false joint.  There is no evidence of atrophy in this arm so he must have continued using it, although it would have been painful.  This coincides with the portrait of the first ruler on the side of Altar Q showing him wearing a Mexican style cotton shield on his right arm and literally passing the torch to the 16^th king of Copan with his left. 

 

There were more injuries.  His right fifth metacarpal was fractured and healed but remained deformed.  His sternum suffered a blunt force trauma as well.  Perhaps during a ball game he took a direct hit to the chest from the eight pound rubber ball.  His left scapula shows evidence of bone on bone rubbing which never healed and which was significantly arthritic.  As there is no evidence of atrophy, he must have continued to use his left arm as well as his injured right, although with limited capacity.  One to three of his ribs were broken and well healed.  Finally, there is a vertical fracture through the distal phalanx of the right great toe.  The scientists concluded that all these injuries happened after the individual was over 25 years of age.

 

The teeth also have a tale to tell.  Strontium and oxygen isotopes vary from region to region and show up in the soils and ground water.  From there they get into the food chain and eventually lodge in the teeth.  Scientists can correlate the stable isotope ratios in teeth to regions where these factors have been tested.  The findings in the case of the Copan tombs are fascinating.  They point to the conclusion that the man in the Hunal tomb was not born in the Copan Valley.  Rather, he spent at least the first eleven years of his life somewhere near the Peten, the vast lowland plain centered on Tikal. 

 

Are these really the remains of Yax Kuk Mo?  According the King County Medical Examiner’s Office in Seattle[4], human remains may be identified by fingerprints, tattoos or other body markings, dental records, or sinus cavity x-rays.  All of these methods rely on a comparison between the remains and previous known records for the same individuals.  Obviously the remains in the Hunal tomb possess none of these previous records.  The only other scientific proof of identity is through DNA analysis between the human remains and a known descendant.  This, too, is not possible.  Lacking these tests, the medical examiner’s office depends on “preponderance of circumstantial evidence.”  In the case of the remains in the Hunal tomb, the circumstantial evidence is the following:

 

·        The Xukpi stone, which was associated with the burial of Yax Kuk Mo and names him, was itself buried in the Margarita level above the Hunal tomb, indicating that the founder died before the Margarita was constructed. 

·        Materials in the tomb and the tomb’s location in the lowest strata of the central Copan pyramid temple (also known as 10L-16) are consistent with the early Acbi ceramic phase of  400 – 450 CE.

·        Continuous veneration of Yax Kuk Mo focused on the series of structures at the 10L-16 location.  The tomb within this temple is the Ox Witik or “3 stone place”, considered the wellspring or source of the Copan dynasty.[5]

·        Altar Q which stands before 10L-16 was dedicated to Yax Kuk Mo and the temple itself was called “Macaw Mountain.”[6]

·        A collar shaped shell pendant with Maya style jade and mother of pearl inlay was found next to the body.  The shell is from Patella mexicana, a Pacific coast mollusk.  Such collars are associated with both Teotihuacan and Kaminaljuyu in the Early Classic period and are widely distributed in later time periods.  This collar is very similar to a collar found in another Copan royal tomb called Sub-Jaguar.  The collar is inscribed with two highly significant hieroglyphs – (u)y-uh wite – which translates “his necklace, tree root”.  The term “tree root” means “source” or “founder”.  Yax Kuk Mo is recorded by all subsequent Copan rulers as the founder of the dynasty and if this item is buried with this body, it is a strong indication that this is Yax Kuk Mo[7].

·        The first king in the series of kings carved around the sides of Altar Q has clearly been identified as Yax Kuk Mo.  Each king sits on a glyph of his name or a significant symbol identifying him.  Yax Kuk Mo sits on an ahau-wa-te symbol which translates as “tree lord.”  No other king in any inscription at Copan is identified as the “tree” or source.  This ties directly to the collar found inside the tomb.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

·        The jade pectoral found on the remains is very similar to the pectoral shown on the carving of Yax Kuk Mo on the west side of Altar Q.

·        Of the 16 kings on Altar Q, all hold a whisk or torch in their right hand.  Only Yax Kuk Mo wears a maniple or shield on his right hand which may relate to the fact that his right arm was broken.

• The jade inlays in the teeth indicate elite status.

 

This preponderance of circumstantial evidence has convinced archeologists that the remains within the Hunal tomb are indeed those of Yax Kuk Mo.[8]

 

The analysis of the remains in the Hunal tomb tell us that Yax Kuk Mo led a very rough and tumble life.  He was a warrior who appears to have led from the front in the thick of the battle.  Breathing must have been difficult because of the sternum and rib damage and moving his arms would have been very taxing.  Yet he not only survived and lived to an advanced old age, but was still leading armies and conquering cities well into his 60’s.  He must therefore have been a vigorous, tough soldier inured to pain, but in old age he must have been seriously weakened and required assistance.

 

The discovery of the tomb of the founder of Copan’s dynasty and the subsequent examination of his remains ranks as one of the most significant archeological bonanzas of the 20^th Century.  Since the burial, the remains lay undisturbed for at least 1100 years or more until 1995 when archeologists finally penetrated through the series of temples built over the spot.[9]

 

Other items found in the Hunal tomb include:

 

• Residue of textile or a finely woven mat that may have wrapped the body at burial and was later opened up to coat the bones with cinnabar.
• A cluster of stingray spines and cut bone awls near the  left leg.
• An anklet of jaguar canines and small jade disks near right leg.
• Several poorly preserved shells.
• A jade bead carved with a mat motif.
• A jade ear flare associated with a perforated jade disk.  The second pair was found on the floor.
• Remains of an elaborate headdress composed of cut Spondylus sp. shell spangles similar to the headdresses worn by Curl Snout of Tikal on the sides of Tikal stela 31.  This style helmet has been identified as a war serpent representation from Teotihuacan and the Peten.  Several spangles were found on the floor. 
• Twenty-one pottery vessels (4 with lids) were arranged under the burial slab.  All date to early Acbi ceramic phase (400-450 CE) and were manufactured in Copan, Tikal, highland Guatemala, and central Mexico.
• Concentrations of bird bones.  Could they be from macaws and quetzals?
• A carved bone tube.
• Remains of stuccoed, painted, organic objects (most likely gourds).
• Three vessels in the northwest corner
• Four vessels and a remarkable ceramic deer effigy along eastern wall.
• Shell and jade beads perhaps from a large necklace, mosaic ear flares, and remains of an armadillo hide bag or container just north of deer effigy.
• Five eccentric chert points in southeast corner associated with a painted organic object that may have been a wooden shield.
• Three cut shell animal figures found inside the collar.  One is a jaguar with a waterlily tail and the other two are peccaries.
• Oliva shell tinklers on the floor associated with the right arm bones.

 

Such a rich collection of grave goods also points to the conclusion that Yax Kuk Mo is the person buried in the Hunal tomb.

 

PECCARY SKULL

 

The famous inscribed peccary skull from Copan is the most challenging and yet at the same time could be one of the most important pieces in the puzzle of Yax Kuk Mo’s life.  The skull was found with two other carved peccary skull fragments in Tomb 1, which is located just south of the Copan acropolis beneath an open courtyard in a section called “El Cementario.”[10]  The tomb, constructed sometime between 600 and 650, contained two chambers and the remains of two adults.[11] 

 

One of the skull fragments is incised with two glyphs which translate “it is the bone of Aj-?-Naah”.  It is unknown who Aj-?-Naah is or if one of the skeletons is the remains of this person.  The other fragment contains parts of what may represent the Principle Bird Deity or the god Itzamna.  Intriguing as these fragments are, it is the intact peccary skull which has excited the most attention.  It shows a view from the otherworld through a portal onto a scene of two Maya lords sitting on either side of an altar and stela which is surmounted by four glyphs.

 

The inscription reads hun ahau waxak chen kaltuun foliated ahau, which translates  “On 1 Ahau 8 Chen it was bound, Foliated Ahau.”  The date has long been attached to long count 8.17.0.0.0[12] which converts to October 19, 376.  There are eight dates within the 8^th baktun which could fit 1 Ahau 8 Chen – in CE 65, 116, 168, 220, 272, 324, 376, and 428.  Most of these are very early for an historical event at Copan but the last two are possible.  Only October 19, 376 falls on a katun ending, however, so epigraphers favor this date because of the third glyph in the inscription.  The third glyph is a verb meaning to bind or wrap, a word frequently used to set up a stela, which was usually done on a calendar ending date.  In fact the picture itself shows a very deliberately wrapped stela. 

 

The fourth glyph is the famous “Foliated Ahau.”  This glyph appears on Copan stela I, Copan stela 4, and Pusilha stela K, all referencing the same katun ending 8.6.0.0.0 – 10 Ahau 13 Chen or December 16, 159.  From Uaxactun there is a bowl with the portraits of four lords, one of whom has what appears to be a Foliated Ahau in his headdress.[13]  I found a Maya vase up for auction[14] which claims to have a Foliated Ahau glyph on the upraised tail of a jaguar and there is another Foliated Ahau glyph on a jade pendant from Costa Rica.  The latter two are undated and I have not examined them myself.  Finally, there is a Foliated Ahau Balam Kaloomte on the back of Tikal stela 31 (glyph block C4) who appears in the list of kings for that city around the time of 159 CE.[15]  If Foliated Ahau is the name of a person, he certainly covered a lot of ground all in the same year!

 

Schele and Newsome put forth the opinion that “foliated ahau” is not the name of a person at all but is instead a rank or title.[16]  They translate the glyph as ya-nik-hun which is a flowered or white headband.  The taking of the flowered headband is equivalent to the taking of a crown as in the coronation of a king.  So alluding to someone as the “Flowered Headband Lord” is equivalent to calling him “His Majesty”.  In the scene on the peccary skull, the lord sitting on the right hand side, which is the superior position, is also facing front, which denotes the highest ranking person.  Schele and Newsome conclude, therefore, that he is the owner of the flowered or white headband and by extension, he is the king who wrapped the stela and marked the katun in 376.  The translation of the brief inscription should thus read:  “On 1 Ahau 8 Chen he wrapped up the katun, he of the flowered headband.”

 

Who is this Flowered Headband Lord?  The Maya frequently alluded to the identity of their portraits in the headdresses.  The lord on the left of the peccary skull is certainly Yax Kuk Mo as he bears a quetzal macaw for a headdress[17].  If this is the case, then the lord on the right should likewise be identified by his headdress.  David Stuart calls it a jaguar[18] but the only kings around in 376 with “jaguar” in their names are at Yaxchitlan and there are no obvious ties between that city and Copan[19].  The headdress looks more like a crocodile or curl nosed monster to me, and there is a king in Tikal named Yax Nuun Ayiin I who fits the time period.  His name translates First or Green Crocodile (nicknamed by archeologists “Curl Snout”).  He was installed as king of Tikal by Mexican general Siyaj Kak in 378 and he died in 404.

 

If indeed Curl Snout is the Flowered Headband Lord on the peccary skull, then this inscription is showing evidence of a very important moment in the life of Yax Kuk Mo.  By sitting in the subordinate position and pointing to the text that designates Curl Snout as a king, Yax Kuk Mo is acknowledging the authority of Curl Snout from before he was installed at Tikal.  However, Yax Kuk Mo died in 437.  If the scene on the peccary skull is intended to show an actual historical event, with both of these men present as adults (assuming about 20 years of age), then Yax Kuk Mo would have had to live at least 81 years.  This is impressive, but not impossible[20].  According to Altar Q, he journeyed from Tikal or perhaps even from Teotihuacan in 426/427.  This took him 153 days and, if he was 20 years old in 376, he would have accomplished this impressive feat when he was 70!  He could have been carried in a palanquin, to be sure, but again this is stretching the limits of human endurance.  Moreover, he had suffered many injuries during his lifetime, some of which had not healed.

 

 There is another difficulty with the proposition that the scene on the peccary skull depicts an actual historical event with both lords present.  If the Flowered Headband Lord is Curl Snout and if the date is 376, then where is the place?  Curl Snout was installed as king of Tikal by force in 378, so he could not have been the headband lord inaugurating the important turn of the katun in that city in 376.  Since he most likely accompanied the Mexican invasion force that installed him, it is reasonable to infer that he was still in Mexico before the invasion.  If Yax Kuk Mo was present to see Curl Snout wrap the katun in real time, he would have had to be in Mexico as well.  Could Yax Kuk Mo have been a young lieutenant in the Mexican army?

 

This proposition is a possibility, but it is equally possible that the scene on the peccary skull is not representing an actual historical event but a supernatural one.  After all, the entire skull depicts scenes from the Otherworld with only a portal open to view the two lords.  It could be that Yax Kuk Mo was not at the actual wrap of the katun, but is alluding to it after the fact, and thereby claiming legitimacy from some sort of relationship with Curl Snout.  By extension, the direct heir of Yax Kuk Mo who commissioned this carving between 600 and 650 would be calling attention to his own legitimacy. [21] 

There is yet another possibility and one that carries in my opinion the most weight.  The Flowered Headband Lord may not be Curl Snout.  It may be someone else to whom both kings owe their authority.  It may be the patriarch of the new Mexican dynasty which swept into the Peten with the Entrada. 

 

 

 

 

ENTRADA

 

January 16, 378 CE is a pivotal date in Maya history.  The repercussions of the events of that day reverberated throughout the Maya world, touching even far way Copan in a most profound way.  The Maya scribes tell the story in their characteristic cryptic brevity on stela 31 at Tikal, starting at column D, row 19:  “On 11 Eb (January 16, 378) he destroyed[22] [?] [?][23] from the west, Siyaj Kak, commander in chief.  He died in pain Chak Tok Ichaak I.” [24]

 

Stela 31 was dedicated on September 18, 445 by Siyaj Chan Kawill II more commonly known as Stormy Sky.  The stela shows this king in profile on the front in a riot of Maya royal splendor replete with all the feathers, ornaments and dress that signify his commanding status.  On either side of the stela are representations of his father, Curl Snout.  In dramatic contrast, this man is decked out in full regalia as a warrior of Teotihuacan, the giant metropolis of Mexico’s central valley.  This figure bears the rectangular cotton shield of a Mexican warrior emblazoned with the image of the rain god Tlaloc wearing a tasseled headdress.  He carries the atlatl spear thrower and is crowned with a feathered helmet decorated with a shell mosaic.[25]  The back of the stela contains a long hieroglyphic text of Tikal’s early history, including the famous passage quoted above.  When Stormy Sky died, this stela was buried with him in tomb 48, deep under temple 5D-33 where it was discovered in 1960.[26]

 

Stela 31 is loaded with historical information both in the art as well as in the text.  The main thrust of the stela, like so many others commissioned by Maya kings, is to demonstrate the lineage and therefore the legitimacy of the current king’s rule.  Stormy Sky declares he is the son of Curl Snout and Lady Mi-jo Ahau.[27]  Then he goes on to list earlier rulers of Tikal, not claiming blood relationship, but rather a chain of succession of which he is the latest bearer.  He lists Flower Headband Jaguar (aka Foliated Jaguar or Foliated Ahau), Moon Zero Bird[28], and a queen, Lady Une Balam, before he gets to Chak Tok Ichaak.  Significantly, he does not mention Chak Tok Ichaak’s parentage.

 

According to Martin & Grube[29], Chak Tok Ichaak named Muwaan Jol as his father on Tikal stela 39 and appears alongside him on stela 28. Stela 1 at Corozal describes Muwaan Jol’s death about 359, the year before Chak Tok Ichaak assumed the throne.  Schele translates the relevant text of stela 39:  “Waterlily Lord Chak Tok Ichaak [descended from] Moch Xoc[30] child of woman Lady Jaguar mother.  He let blood from his tongue, Muwaan Jol [title unknown].  It was completed, the 17^th katun (8.17.0.0.0 – 1 Ahau 8 Chen or October 19, 376, the same date recorded on the peccary skull at Copan).  It happened at Tikal sky place.”[31].  This is a very confusing text.  If Muwaan Jol died in 359 and if the katun ending listed is 376, then he could not have participated in this sacrifice.  Also stela 39 very clearly identifies Lady Jaguar as Chak Tok Ichaak’s mother but does not actually state a relationship to Muwaan Jol.  Finally, it is tempting to see Lady Une Balam who conducted the katun rites of 317 and Lady Jaguar, the mother of Chak Tok Ichaak, as the same person but the findings in Tikal Group 6D-V argue against that.

 

Group 6D-V is a noble compound south of the main acropolis of Tikal[32].  The tombs and debris indicate that the noble families here were connected to Teotihuacan, including Lady Une Balam.  The compound was sacked in 320 and a vessel bearing Une Balam’s name was smashed, indicating antagonism against her.  Group 6D-V was abandoned when Muwaan Jol took over rulership of Tikal.  He and his son, Chak Tok Ichaak were apparently from a different faction of nobles.  Lady Une Balam either died in the assault or escaped.  Where would she go?  If she had connections in Teotihuacan, it is not unreasonable that she would have fled there.  Did she pressure the court there to send an army to overthrow Muwaan Jol and his son?  Richard Hansen offers similar scenario[33].  He said a Maya princess from Tetitla, a Maya compound in Teotihuacan, married Spearthrower Owl and had a son, Curl Snout.  Then Spearthrower Owl sent his brother, Siyaj Kak, to put Curl Snout on the throne of Tikal.  While no proof has yet been found to substantiate this chair of events, Group 6D-V was restored and reinhabited after Curl Snout took the throne.

 

It is clear that Chak Tok Ichaak died immediately following the arrival of Siyaj Kak.  This leads David Stuart, one of the principle archeologists for the Maya region, to only one conclusion – that Siyaj Kak arrived from the west and killed Chak Tok Ichaak.[34]  An inscription at Waxa (formerly known as El Peru – 49 miles west of Tikal) indicates that Siyaj Kak was there eight days earlier.[35]  Both sides of Tikal stela 31 proclaim that the new king, Curl Snout, is the son of Spearthrower Owl, who is named on Tikal’s Marcador ball court marker as the brother of Siyaj Kak.  So Tikal was invaded from the west, its king was killed, and a new foreign dynasty was installed perhaps with the help or at the instigation of a disgruntled Tikal faction.

 

The new dynasty was radically different from the one that preceded it.  The royal imagery suddenly became Mexican.  Siyaj Kak is portrayed on Uaxactun stela 4 in Mexican warrior garb with a large balloon headdress on which is perched a macaw, tail feathers, an obsidian studded war club, and an atlatl spear thrower.  These are all war symbols from central Mexico.  The new king of Tikal, Curl Snout, displayed himself fully as a Teotihuacano warrior on Tikal stelae 4 and 18.  Significantly on both stelae he admits that he holds his rule “in the land of” Siyaj Kak.[36]  His son makes the same deference on stela 31 where he states that his father held authority “in the land of” Siyaj Kak.[37]  Curl Snout maintained deference to his uncle for the rest of his life.[38]  It is clear that a new order had arrived in the Maya world. 

 

Archeologists have long noted that ceramic and architectural styles in the Peten region, in which Tikal is centrally located, took on a marked Mexican flavor in the 4^th Century CE.  This did not happen suddenly in 378, of course.  Cultural and mercantile contacts with the great capital of Teotihuacan had been ongoing throughout the time when it was at its height of power and influence (150 – 550 CE).  The famed talud-tablero facing on buildings, long considered a hallmark of Teotihuacan appeared at Tikal before the 4^th Century.[39]    Central Mexican artifacts also made their way through trade or as gifts before 378.  Certainly budding Maya kings would have wanted to emulate and adopt the trappings of the superior Mexican civilization to the west to enhance their own status in Central America.

 

Teotihuacan is located in the Valley of Mexico approximately 650 miles west of Tikal.  Trade routes from central Mexico went through Oaxaca to the Pacific coast, or across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and through Chiapas, or along the Tabasco coast and up the Usumacinta River through Waxa to Tikal.  The first two connected to the highland Maya.  Trade colonies appeared in coastal Guatemala and the influential Maya commercial center of Kaminaljuyu.[40]  While Braswell hints at some stress between the Teotihuanacos and the Mayas at that site, no open warfare is indicated.  A military invasion and conquest as happened in 378 is therefore an abrupt change in the relationship between the great city of Teotihuacan and the Maya world[41].

 

The pivotal protagonist of this change is Siyaj Kak.  Besides being mentioned at Waxa and on stela 31, Siyaj Kak is also named on Tikal stelae 4 and 18 where he is acknowledged as overlord of Curl Snout.  On the Marcador ball court marker in Tikal he is identified as the brother of Spearthrower Owl.  At Uaxactun, a rival of Tikal’s 20 miles north of the city, his celebration of the katun ending on July 8, 396 is noted on stela 4.  His victory over the latter city is named on two more of its stelae, numbers 5 and 22.  A new king was installed at Bejucal in 381 (probably by the hand of Siyaj Kak), and he is mentioned at Rio Azul in 393.  A 7^th Century panel in the palace at Palenque also mentions Siyaj Kak, which leads Martin to suspect that the general had a hand in that city’s dynastic beginnings.[42]  He is never identified as a kuhul ahau or “blood lord” which is a sovereign king.  His titles are ahau, which is “lord”; bacab, which is “noble”; and kaloomte, which translates as “imperator” as the Romans called their commanders in chief. 

 

Siyaj Kak unleashed a new style of warfare on the Maya which archeologists have termed “star wars” or Venus-Tlaloc war.  This was warfare of armies, not individual combat.  The objective was to defeat an enemy force, not to take single captives alive for torture and sacrifice.  It was conquest, not raiding.  Schele gives a moving description of what such a star war battle might have looked like as Siyaj Kak marshaled his army against the warriors of Uaxactun.[43]  The latter – nobles turning out to support their king and capture enemies – would have been utterly surprised by the impersonal volleys of spear thrower darts showering down upon them with no means to retaliate.  Instead of being bound and dragged off for sacrifice, they would have simply been slaughtered ignominiously right on the battlefield as the Mexicans walked over their bodies to take control of their city.

 

To make sure that Uaxactun’s line of kings was forever ended, Siyaj Kak killed the king’s wives and children and threw them into a new tomb over which he built a mausoleum temple with his stela 5 standing before it proclaiming his victory.  Smith noted that this temple, B-8, is the only mass grave in the city.[44]  Smith said the tomb held five skeletons including a pregnant woman, a second woman, a child, and an infant.  Schele observed that these must have been the wives and children of the defeated king and that by ritually killing them and throwing their bodies into this tomb and sealing it with his own victory monument, Siyaj Kak had buried the Uaxactun dynasty for good.[45]  He remained to rule the city until at least 396.  The date of his death is unknown and his tomb has not been positively identified [46].    

 

There is a final player in the Entrada story to uncover and that is Spearthrower Owl.  Spearthrower Owl never appears on any inscription as an actor in his own right.  Rather, he is mentioned by other actors in their inscriptions.  In the text on each side of Tikal stela 31, he is named twice as the father of Curl Snout.  He is mentioned twice in the text on the back as well, once at G21 and the final time at G28-H28 in reference to his death[47] which occurred on June 10, 439.[48]  On the front of stela 31, his symbol appears in the headdress that Stormy Sky raises up and possibly on the wristband.  His symbol appears again in the center of the Marcador ball court marker which was raised in Tikal in 416.  This marker is identical to a larger one in Teotihuacan except for its long text, in which Spearthrower Owl’s accession to the throne at an unidentified location is dated at May 4, 374 – just four years before the invasion.  In the text of the ballcourt marker, Spearthrower Owl is named as the sibling of Siyaj Kak.  A jade ear ornament from the city of Naachtun, 40 miles north of Tikal, names the local ruler there as a vassal of Spearthrower Owl.[49]   His death is also recorded on stela 5 at El Zapote, one of Tikal’s client states.[50]  

 

Schele & Freidel put forth the hypothesis that “Spearthrower Owl” is a title, first used by Chak Tok Ichaak[51], which would make Siyaj Kak the brother of the fallen king whose young son, Curl Snout, inherited the throne of Tikal in unbroken succession from his father.  This theory has been conclusively dismissed by all the subsequent writers on the subject.  For his part, Stuart proposes that Spearthrower Owl was a king of Teotihuacan.[52]  Stuart dismisses Schele’s idea of a war between Tikal and Uaxactun because he finds no war glyph in the inscriptions.  However, the fact that the Uaxactun dynasty ended and Siyaj Kak took over on the same day was not likely done peacefully.  This manner of sudden war for conquest was new to the Maya region and they may not have developed words yet to describe it.  Later it was called “star war” for its timing with the rise and set of the planet Venus.

 

Braswell disagrees with both of them.  He argues that Spearthrower Owl is indeed the name of a real person but not of Teotihuacan.  He argues that the owl and weapons motif at Teotihuacan is merely a common symbol there and that no other Teotihuacano person has ever been identified by name.  Rather he claims that Spearthrower Owl was a petty king of a place called Ho No Witz, that he married a princess from Tikal, and had a son by her.  When Chak Tok Ichaak died a natural death without heirs, Spearthrower Owl advanced the claim of his son, Curl Snout, and enlisted the help of a Tikal noble, Siyaj Kak, to win the throne and stand as regent to protect young Curl Snout.  Braswell categorically declares that there is no epigraphic evidence that Spearthrower Owl ruled Teotihuacan or that Siyaj Kak came from anywhere but Tikal. [53] 

 

This theory, while it challenges Stuart on several important points, lacks its own foundations.  Ho No Witz is only one reading of the glyphs on the ballcourt marker and no such place has been identified.  Siyaj Kak’s arrival just before Chak Tok Ichaak’s death, the fact that he is named the brother of Spearthrower Owl, that the latter is honored in Tikal monuments well after his death, and that a new dynasty was installed, pretty clearly indicates that the Entrada of 378 was a violent affair and the former king was killed and replaced.  Also, if the scope of Siyaj Kak’s mission was only to secure the throne for Curl Snout, why would he go on a rampage of conquest to all the neighboring cities?  Furthermore, Spearthrower Owl is named as the overlord of the king of Naachtun and of another noble named on a Teotihuacan style tripod vessel.[54] A Mexican connection is dramatically supported by the radical change in Tikal’s iconography to Teotihuacan style immediately after 378[55], and also by the fact that the fundamentals of warfare were forever altered after 378 with the use of the atlatl spear thrower, which is definitively a Mexican weapon.    

 

So while the identity and kingdom of Spearthrower Owl has not been finally established, it is certain that he was not from Tikal.  He came to the throne of someplace on May 4, 374[56] and he died in 439.  He was in power at the time of the katun ending October 19, 374 and he could very well be the Flowered Headband Lord referred to on the Copan peccary skull.  His son, Curl Snout would have been too young to wrap the katun.[57]  Both Curl Snout and perhaps even Yax Kuk Mo directly owed their kingship to Spearthower Owl.  They may both at different times have gone up to the wi-ti-na, or Root Tree House to receive their Kawil scepters from Spearthrower Owl personally!

 

So any influence Lady Une Balam wielded at the court of Teotihuacan, if indeed she even went there, would have been with an earlier king.  The Lady Jaguar that Chak Tok Ichaak claims as his mother on stela 39 is not likely to be Lady Une Balam even though the time lines make it possible because the findings at Group 6D-V indicate that Chak Tok Ichaak’s father, Muwaan Jol, overthrew Lady Une Balam.  None of these relationships can be cleared up until more evidence is found, but it is likely that Lady Une Balam and Lady Jaguar are two different women.[59] 

 

One further piece of evidence adds visual texture to the events of 378.  In Problematical Deposit 50 at Tikal is a burial of seven individuals with grave goods, including many Teotihuacano style vessels.  One of these vessels bears a remarkable scene.  It shows two men with tasseled headdresses exactly like the headdress on Tikal stela 32, which was buried along with an elderly man who may be Siyaj Kak himself.  They are walking from a temple that has Teotihuacan architecture.  Four warriors march before them with tail feathers, darts, and atlatl spear throwers, looking very much like the outfit worn by Siyaj Kak on Uaxactun stela 5.  They stop in front of a Maya ruler who sits on the steps of a temple that mixes Maya and Teotihuacan architecture.  Behind this temple, another Maya approaches a strictly Maya styled temple.  No text positively identifies the places or people in the illustration.

 

Could this be an artistic “snapshot” of the Entrada?  Given the epigraphic evidence from stela 31, the Marcador ball court marker, the other stelae at Tikal and elsewhere, and the dramatic overhaul of Tikal’s iconography to a distinctly Mexican motif, this “snapshot” appears to be a valid representation of the events of January 16, 378.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is yet another trace of the Entrada far away from Tikal.  Deep in the Margarita Tomb in Copan, Honduras, is a remarkable step called the Xukpi Stone.  It was commissioned as the tombstone for Yax Kuk Mo.  The last glyph in the inscription appears very much to be the name of Siyaj Kak and a relationship is indicated between the Mexican general and the founder of the Copan dynasty.

 

THE LORD OF THE WEST

 

How is the invasion of Mexican soldiers into the Peten in 378 CE connected to Copan far to the south in Honduras?

 

The Xukpi Stone offers the most direct epigraphical evidence.  It is only a hint, but it could be an incredible link.  The stone is a single block step that was discovered in the south wall of the upper chamber of the Margarita tomb at Copan.  It is inscribed with a horizontal band of 32 glyphs.  Its pristine condition indicates that it was a step within an inner chamber, possibly of a shine, before being removed and placed in this tomb.[59]  In fact, since the text appears to have been originally associated with the burial of Yax Kuk Mo, the Xukpi Stone may be the founder’s tombstone.[60] 

 

The text begins with an initial series indicator with no dates following.  It gives the name of the tomb and its builder, Popol Hol, the son of Yax Kuk Mo and second king in the dynasty the latter created.  Only one date glyph is given, 13 Ahau, which Stuart associates with 9.0.2.0.0 – 13 Ahau 3 Kem or November 28, 437[61].  This is taken to be the death date or the burial date for Yax Kuk Mo.[62]  The dead founder is clearly named toward the end of the inscription, followed by a title and another name which many observers have suggested is that of Mexican general Siyaj Kak, the conqueror of Tikal.  The title is unknown but it clearly indicates that Yax Kuk Mo was in some sort of military or family relationship to Siyaj Kak.

 

The next clue comes from Altar Q in the west courtyard of the Copan acropolis.  This monument is unique in all the Maya world.  It portrays each of the sixteen kings of the dynasty around its sides, sitting on their name or title glyphs, four to a side.  They all face and lend their support to the transfer of power from the founder of the dynasty, Yax Kuk Mo, to his sixteenth successor, Yax Pasaj Chan Yoaat.  The top of the altar contains the story of how the founder came to Copan. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The translation reads:  “On the 4^th day of September 426 CE, lord Kuk Mo received the Kawill scepter at the Root Tree House[63].  On the 7^th day of September 426, Kinich Yax Kuk Mo set out from the Root Tree House.  One hundred fifty-three days later, it happened on February 8th, 427, my sacred[64] Kawil, commander from the west, his journey came to an end.[65]  He established the cornerstone and the boundaries.[66]  On January 27, 776, this altar was dedicated to Kinich Yax Kuk Mo in the land of [titles at F3 and E4] Yax Pasaj Chan Yoaat.  Sixty-four days later, on March 1, 776, he cached the wooden box under the altar.”[67]

 

So Yax Kuk Mo received his scepter of authority at a place called wi-ti-na or Root Tree House and three days later set out on a journey that took him 153 days to arrive finally at Copan.  This story raises a whole host of intriguing questions.

 

The first question is where did Yax Kuk Mo come from?  One indication is that he is called “commander from the west” on Altar Q.  The Mexican general Siyaj Kak is also called “commander from the west” on Tikal stela 31 (glyphs D21-D22).  While this title indicates a direction, the fact that it was important enough to include in a title may signify something more.  “The West” may refer to a particular location just as Americans today call the western part of the United States “the West”.  The only “West” that would fit this criterion from the Maya perspective is the great Mexican capital of Teotihuacan.  

 

Another indication is the travel time.  It took 153 days for Yax Kuk Mo to journey from the Root Tree House to Copan.  If it took Siyaj Kak eight days to travel the 49 miles from Waxa to Tikal in 378, he was moving at a rather slow pace of six miles per day – and that along a known and established trade route.  If the Root Tree House is in Tikal, the straight line distance to Copan is about 160 miles.  At six miles per day, it would only take 27 days to cover that distance.  Even if Yax Kuk Mo traveled the regular trade route from Tikal to Belize City, then down the coast by canoe to Quirigua and over the mountains to Copan, he would only travel about 300 miles which at 6 miles per day is only 50 days.  If on the other hand, the Root Tree House is in Teotihuacan, or is a euphemism for that metropolis, the distance is about 750 straight line miles, which would take 125 days to cover at 6 miles per day.  That is getting closer to 153 days and helps to place the great capital of Mexico within range of Copan.  By comparison, the highly disciplined Roman infantry during the same time period was expected to march 20 miles per day.[68]

 

Perhaps Yax Kuk Mo was not at liberty to saunter unopposed on his way to Copan.  If he took the river route east of Tikal, he would have had to pass many major Maya cities such as Nakum, Yaxha, Naranjo, Xunantunich, Baking Pot, and Blackman Eddy.  If he took the route over the Maya Mountains, he would have to pass by Topoxte, Ixcun, Caracol, Naj Tunich, and Pusilha.  Many of these places were military powers in their own right and would not have necessarily welcomed a war band from Tikal passing through their territories.  Conflicts along the way could explain the lapsed time.  Yet no inscriptions have been found at any of these places recording battles or wars in the autumn of 426 or with an individual named Yax Kuk Mo.  If indeed he was coming from Teotihuacan, he could have traveled the well worn route across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and along the Pacific coast to Kaminaljuyu and then up to Quirigua and Copan.  That route could have taken 153 days and encountered few hostilities.

 

Another indication is found on Zoomorph P at Quirigua.  This large exquisitely carved boulder was dedicated in 795 and it offers a tantalizing retrospective to the founding of that city under the authority of Yax Kuk Mo.  Three cartouches on the boulder contain the glyphs which read:  “On the 4^th day of September in 426, Tok Casper came to the Root Tree House.  On the 7^th day of September 426, he planted a stone and fastened the headband.  This was done under the authority of Kinich Kuk Mo, lord of Copan.”[69]

 

These three short sentences tell an amazing story.  First, these are the exact same dates recorded on Copan’s altar Q describing the accession to power of Yax Kuk Mo.  Second, the action occurred at the exact same place as the action recorded on altar Q.  Third, the actor, Tok Casper, is named and his relationship subordinate to Yax Kuk Mo is affirmed.  Fourth, Tok Casper must have traveled with Yax Kuk Mo from the Root Tree House to Quirigua.  Fifth, this stone they planted has never been found.  It cannot be at Quirigua because it was planted at the location of the Root Tree House before they left.  There is a passage on Copan’s hieroglyphic stairway that may also refer to the establishment of Tok Casper at Quirigua.[70]  The shrine/tomb on the east side of the Quirigua acropolis plaza contains the remains of a noble Maya lord who, given the honored status and location of the burial, may be Tok Casper himself.[71] 

 

Another clue at Quirigua is stela C, dedicated in 755, which recalls that Tok Casper planted a stone at an undetermined location that may have a connection to Tikal or even Teotihuacan.  The text reads in part “On August 26, 455, he planted a stone Tok Casper, holy blood lord of Quirigua.  It happened at (unknown location) hummingbird.”[72]  The hummingbird was considered a military symbol in Mexico and even at Tikal the glyph for war palanquin includes a hummingbird superfix.[73]  So Tok Casper may have traveled back to Tikal or even to Teotihuacan for this ceremony.  

 

Tikal stela 31 offers more clues.  The text from F5 to E15 reads:  “He went up to the wi-ti-na [next glyph unknown] Curl Snout [8 Eb[74]] in the land of the commander in chief. 10 Caban the 4^th lord ruled 10 Yaxkin lord [unknown titles] Curl Snout displayed the scepter named [?] in the land of Siyaj Kak.  Since it happened at the wi-ti-na.”  At H20-G21 the commander in chief is named Spearthrower Owl.  If the text of stela 31 is consistent, then the Root Tree House must be in the land of Spearthrower Owl.  The display of the scepter in the land of Siyaj Kak is separated from the events at the wi-ti-na by the time distance marker.  The land of Siyaj Kak is the Peten, which includes Tikal.  This leads to the conclusion that Curl Snout performed his actions in two different places and that the Root Tree House is not in Tikal.  The Root Tree House glyph also appears at Yaxchitlan, Machaquila, and Rio Amarillo.[75]  At Copan, the term “Root Tree” became synonymous with Yax Kuk Mo as on the collar found in his tomb which identifies the article as “belonging to Root Tree.”

 

Another clue to the identity or location of the Root Tree House has been put forward by Schele on the basis of a mural in temple B-XIII at Uaxactun.  This mural shows two men facing each other with text between them.  The man on the left has normal reddish skin and is decked out in full Mexican warrior attire.  In his left hand he raises a wand with a tassel on the end.  The man on the right is painted all in black, wears a turban, and brings his right fist to his left shoulder.  Martin & Grube interpret this juxtaposition as the man in black offering greeting or submission to the Mexican garbed man.[76]  Between these two men is text, 3 glyphs wide and 9 glyphs tall.  Schele found in this text a reference to a person called “Makina Mo” or Lord Macaw.  She also thought there might be a reference to Stormy Sky there as well.[77]  It is possible in her view that either glyphs B8 or C4 or both may refer to Yax Kuk Mo.

 

To the right of the two men in the mural, a building is depicted in which two women speak to a third woman.  To the right of them are two registers of people performing some ceremony.  Here is a composite of the mural in Uaxactun temple B-XIII:

 

It is not unusual for personages from Uaxactun to be painted black.  A group of ball players from that city are portrayed in black in a mural on one of the buildings there.[78]  If the character in black is Yax Kuk Mo, the other could be Stormy Sky who ruled at Tikal from 411 to 456, which spans the date when Yax Kuk Mo received the Kawil scepter and set out for Copan.  If, on the other hand, the character in the Mexican regalia is Yax Kuk Mo, the person in black could be Tok Casper.  Until this text is fully translated, the Uaxactun mural is not definitive evidence of Yax Kuk Mo at that city.

 

There is yet another inscription at Tikal that may link to Yax Kuk Mo.  A small broken statue, dubbed “Hombre de Tikal” was discovered in structure 3D-43 in Group H at the north end of the Mahler Causeway.  About 20 inches square, its head and right shoulder are broken off and it has a hole drilled into the back.  The inference is that this statue was desecrated by Curl Snout, the new king who took over Tikal as a result of the Mexican invasion led by Siyaj Kak.[79]  

 

Due to the damage, the inscription which covered the back and shoulders is incomplete.  Fahsen believes that the text deals with the death of Curl Snout, the events immediately following, the commemoration of the his accession to the throne, and the ensuing rites of succession.[80]  Chak Tok Ichaak is clearly named on the left shoulder, indicating the statue was of him.  Curl Snout is named in the inscription and Fahsen sees the glyph at F6 to be the name of Siyaj Kak.  At F2 is the glyph of a macaw.  Fahsen believes it is a name but does not say that it is Yax Kuk Mo.[81]  Those who would seek confirmation that Yax Kuk Mo was indeed a player in the events at Tikal in 378 will probably need a better basis than the Hombre de Tikal statue.

 

Just recently, David Stuart made stunning discovery on stela 63[82].  This is a very early monument at Copan commissioned by Popol Hol, the son of Yax Kuk Mo.  It was erected in a shrine called the Papagayo Temple which was in use all the way down to 695 CE when Eighteen Rabbit had the entire series of structures encased in a new pyramid with the beginnings of the famous Hieroglyphic Stairway.  The very last glyphs on the stela are damaged but appear to be the personal name of Yax Kuk Mo and the title ox-witz-a chajoom which translates “Three Hills Water Lord.”  On the back of stela J at Copan, Eighteen Rabbit called the founder “Three Hills Lord.”

 

Three Hills Water is a known place name identifiable with one and only one Maya city – Caracol.  Caracol is a major Maya center just 50 miles southeast of Tikal in the foothills of the Maya Mountains.  It matches the strontium and oxygen ratio signature that was found in Yax Kuk Mo’s teeth.  Stuart concludes that the founder of the Copan dynasty was at one time a Caracol lord.

 

It would be in this noble context that Yax Kuk Mo may have visited Copan in 416 – eleven years before he returned to conquer it.  There is a curious hint on stela 15.  The stela was raised by the seventh king of Copan, Waterlily Jaguar, on August 24, 524.  It retrospectively recalls an earlier katun ending on 8.19.0.0.0 or March 23, 416 and it names Kinich Kuk Mo.[83]  The text is incomplete but Stuart suggests that several period endings are mentioned leading up to 524, so it is a “like and kind” chain of events remembered from the past.  This suggests that Yax Kuk Mo was in Copan to participate or witness the katun ending rites of 416 and that he ranked high enough importance to have warranted memory from that early date.  This supports the claim that he already held elite status, perhaps a lord of Caracol, as nobles often visited other cities to witness key calendar events.

 

In summary, then, Yax Kuk Mo appears to have been born about 356 and raised in the Peten area, perhaps at Caracol.  The Entrada of 378 must have affected him as it affected all the Maya in the region.  At some point he appears to have met Curl Snout of Tikal and pledged his loyalty to him.  Then he was named to a noble status in Caracol in which role he visited Copan in 416 to witness the katun ending.  Next he appears to have traveled to Teotihuacan to receive certain symbols of authority at the Root Tree House.  From there he and Tok Casper marched with an armed force to Quirigua where he installed the latter as his vassal.  Then he climbed over the mountain range to Copan and seized the city.

 

 

THE LAY OF THE LAND

 

What did the Copan valley look like before Yax Kuk Mo arrived in 427 CE?

 

The Copan valley is a small drainage that flows east to west from western Honduras to the Motagua River in Guatemala.  It spreads out in a number of pockets of fertile bottomland which still today yield abundant harvests of corn, tomatoes, tobacco, squash and other vegetables while the tree shaded hillsides produce coffee and cocoa.  The Copan River, however, is not always kindly to the farmers.  It carries a significant volume of swiftly moving water which overflows its banks during the rainy season and floods the valley.  There is abundant stratigraphic evidence that the river has radically changed its course over the centuries several times, destroying all in its path. 

 

One of its most recent victims are the ruins of the ancient Maya city of Copan.  This city rose up from the bottomland next to the river, layer by layer over the centuries to a height of over 100 feet.  The ruling dynasty collapsed in the early 9^th Century along with the rest of the Classic Maya kingships.  Evidence of squatters in the crumbling buildings indicates habitation for perhaps a few hundred years afterwards, and then the site was surrendered to the jungle.

 

There it stayed until 1893 when John L. Stephens and Frederick Catherwood came upon it.  By that time the river had already begun cutting into the east side of the acropolis.  Stephens wrote:  “. . . soon we came to the bank of a river, and saw directly opposite a stone wall, perhaps a hundred feet high, with furze growing out of the top, running north and south along the river, in some places fallen, but in others entire.”[84]  He was seeing not a wall, but the layers of terrace and structure built one atop the another over the centuries and now exposed like a road cut, revealing the span of history of the city. 

 

Photographs taken in the 1920’s show temples 10L-20 and 10L-21 still crowning this “stone wall”[85].  These, too, the river took in the 50 years since, until archeologists consolidated the cut and protected it from further damage.  Both up and downstream are evidences of actual walls built by the ancient Maya to prevent the waters of the Copan River from flooding their homes.

 

Before any stone structures or magnificent monuments came to be, however, the Copan valley was occupied by farm villages for thousands of years.  By the Late Preclassic (200 BCE – 250 CE) there are signs throughout western Honduras and El Salvador that an elite class was rising.[86]  It was able for command corvee labor to build large earthen platforms around long, rectangular plazas.  These presumably had post and thatch structures on top, remarkably similar to what the native “mound builders” in the Mississippi valley would create later, between 700 and 1300 CE.[87]    

 

Los Achiotes presents a good example of a Preclassic native mound building village in the Copan valley.[88]  Los Achiotes was a small village built on high ground above a tributary of the Copan River.  Radiocarbon dates indicate it was inhabited from 250 BCE to 150 CE.  The buildings were post and thatch upon low earthen platforms around the outer edge of a hill with a large common open space in the center.  The homes are roughly equal in size and the pattern of cultivation suggests that the land was held in common and the harvest shared out among the families.  Los Achiotes possessed a ballcourt which signified its relative autonomy within the valley.  The only altar found there was in the public plaza accessible to all. 

 

In stark contrast, the village of El Raizal demonstrates a typical Classic village in the Copan valley after the arrival of Yax Kuk Mo.  Inhabited from 500 CE to 800 CE, El Raizal is located down on the floodplain instead of up on a hill.  Stone houses of elite families are grouped in private compounds.  The ritual platforms are incorporated into the elite houses instead of being available out in a public square.  Land was privately held by the nobles whose families were deliberately distinguished from the peasants by luxury items.  There was no ballcourt; that privilege now reserved for the central ruler in the Copan palace.  This is an example of the change in rural control brought about by Yax Kuk Mo and his dynasty.

 

Before El Raizal, however, and the concentration of elite homesteads in the floodplain, the floor of the Copan Valley was a low lying, uneven plain dissected by numerous water channels.  Excavations by Jay Hall and Rene Viel [89] indicate that the area of the present Copan acropolis may even have been a marsh or intermittent lake bed in earlier times.  Test pits dug around the north and west rim of the urban complex indicate that an overflow channel ran around the north edge of the core area, creating a kind of island where the later city would be built.  This overflow channel appears not so much to have carried water from the river itself in flood stage, but rather to have captured and channeled the copious runoff from the northern bank of hills.  Several ditches were discovered crossing the “island” to drain the overflow channel into the Copan river.  These ditches appear to have been deliberately constructed and maintained to keep the flood waters from inundating the plain.  Hall and Viel even found what appears to be stepping stones to allow pedestrian crossing of these ditches, somewhat akin to the stepping stones Romans used to cross their streets in Pompeii.

 

These ditches were incorporated into an early pre-427 platform which the archeologists have dubbed “Yune.”.  This structure was a large, low, flat plaza approximately 70 meters square centered directly under what is today temple 10L-16.  David Sedat and Fernando Lopez[90] have dated the building of Yune in the early Acbi phase or about 400 CE.  This predates the documented arrival of Yax Kuk Mo by 27 years and therefore it was part of the landscape in place before he had any influence on construction in the city.

 

The Yune Platform was built of river cobbles and tamped earth without stucco.  Two earth and cobble buildings, each about 20 meters long,  flanked the platform on its east and west sides.  Their roofs were organic, probably thatch.  A low wall bounded the north edge of Yune and ran back to abut the two buildings.  The southern half of Yune consisted of a slightly raised floor with a building called Otot in the center.  Another building, Uranio, was attached to the north wall close to the northwest corner.  Thus the center of Yune was a large plaza that could be flooded to form a kind of shallow reflecting pool and indeed, Sedat and Lopez describe a drain on the eastern side of Yune with a round stopper stone.  Other drainage ditches carried water around Yune and under it. 

 

This arrangement implies that very early in Copan’s history, the local population designed and created a sophisticated water management system.  Barbara Fash argues that water management in the valley was parceled out to the responsibility of various clans and that these clans were the basis of the later noble elites whose coats of arms appear on the final version of the royal council house or Popol Nah.[91]

 

In the center of the Yune plaza are traces of a structure that archeologists have named Cab.  It, too, had a cobble and earth substructure, wooden posts, and a thatch roof.  It measured 11 x 8.5 meters with a porch on its west side which is probably the direction it faced.  On the east side a later earth and fill construction was added to the Cab.  Sedat and Lopez postulate that Cab was at least in part associated with ritual activity, as a shrine or temple.

 

There were other constructions north of the Yune platform.  Charles Cheek conducted extensive excavations into the Great Plaza in the early 1980’s.  He found the base of a structure catalogued as 10L-sub-1 just north of today’s ball court.  There were one or two cobble and earth structures about 200 meters west of the Great Plaza.  Loa Traxler indicates that future excavation in the northwest corner of the great plaza under structural complex 10L-1 may reveal more pre-dynastic constructions.[92]  Bill Fash flatly states that the ritual center of Copan before the arrival of Yax Kuk Mo was indeed under 10L-1.  He says that Yax Kuk Mo deliberately abandoned 10L-1 in favor of the Yune platform to demonstrate that a new order had arrived.[93]  Pre-dynastic remains are reported to have been found in the northwest corner of the Great Plaza but most archeologists still have not enough proof to make such a bold assertion.  Considering that Yax Kuk Mo invaded the Copan Valley, apparently killed the ruler and perhaps married his wife to graft his line onto the native stem, and built his court directly upon the Cab structure, I am more inclined to believe that he would co-opt the power center of the previous regime, not set himself up in contrast to it.  Whatever is under 10L-1, it has not been fully explored yet.

 

So the central core of Copan was already a ritual center before the arrival of Yax Kuk Mo and references to historical dates before 427 exist on several monuments erected by later kings.  Stela I, erected by Smoke Jaguar in the 7^th Century CE, is generally accounted as referring to a ritual/rulership activity on December 18, 159 CE and goes on to mention July 13, 160.[94]  A block from the doorjamb of building 10L-7 contains the date April 6, 249.  As mentioned before, stela 15 recalls the marking of the katun on March 23, 416 at which Yax Kuk Mo may even have been present. 

 

Thus what Yax Kuk Mo found when he arrived at the site of Copan was a ritual center that employed sophisticated water management surrounded by clusters of small villages or clan homesteads.  These homesteads were scattered throughout the river valley and up in the surrounding hills.  Their people worked the fertile bottom land in common.  In order to assert and promote his authority, Yax Kuk Mo had to seize control of the best land, encourage or force the population to concentrate around his new city, and create a stratified hierarchical society that was ultimately dependent upon his dynasty economically, militarily, and spiritually.

 

 

CONQUEST

 

As Altar Q tells us, Yax Kuk Mo received the emblems of power at the Root Tree House and marched to Copan, arriving on February 8, 427.  Stela E, raised by the seventh king to succeed him, Waterlily Jaguar, on May 1, 546, tells us what happened next:  “He was brought down by Kinich Yax Kuk Mo and then he succeeded him, Kak Hun Kawil.”[95]   So a king named Kak Hun Kawil was the chief of Copan in 427 when Yax Kuk Mo invaded the city and replaced him by force.  If Yax Kuk Mo visited the city earlier in 416 as stela 15 suggests, it is interesting to speculate what dealings he must have had with Kak Hun Kawil before he left and then returned.  The name of the deposed chief and the celebration of the katun in 416 clearly indicate that Copan was a Maya city before Yax Kuk Mo arrived[96].

 

No monument has yet been found at Copan that was verifiably dedicated by the founder of the new dynasty, yet the stamp on the future of the city set by Yax Kuk Mo was dramatic and permanent.  Altar Q tells us “He established the cornerstone and the boundaries.[97]  The evidence suggests that with the help of his son, Yax Kuk Mo laid out the broad vision for the grand plaza, the ballcourt and the acropolis upon which successive rulers expanded[98].  Between the possible royal center in the northeast at 10L-1 and the Yune platform in the south, the new king designed a grand plaza, bounded by stair step platforms upon which spectators could sit to observe the performances in the board space before them.  In the center of this plaza he may have laid the foundations for the Kanebu, a small, step pyramid with stairs up each of the four sides as a focal point or stage upon which to present public displays.[99] 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the south end of the plaza and just north of the Yune platform, Yax Kuk Mo laid out the foundations for the first ballcourt and a platform called Yax.  Subsequent constructions atop of Yax eventually became the famous temple of the Hieroglyphic Stairway that we see today.  In the northeast corner of Yune, he established the new royal residential compound.  He took over the Cab structure in the center of Yune and created a residential or ritual building dubbed “Hunal” by archeologists.

 

Hunal was built during Yax Kuk Mo’s[100] reign and he was buried inside it.  Although later constructions atop it destroyed the south and west parts of the structure, Hunal appears to have been a three room building facing east with stairs to the east and north.  There may have been stairs on the other two sides as well.  The roof was most likely timber and the walls were masonry.  A passage connected the north and central rooms.  Most distinctive was the talud-tablero facing around the platform of Hunal.  This is a feature of Teotihuacano buildings and points directly to Yax Kuk Mo’s deliberate statement of connection to the Mexican capital.

 

Then he returned to Yax and built the Motmot temple over it.  With the ballcourt on the north and the grand plaza beyond, Yune on the south, Motmot on the east and the beginnings of 10L-7 on the west, Yax Kuk Mo and his son had laid out the central building complex for the new Copan[101].  This grand design fortuitously coincided with the auspicious turning of a baktun, 9.0.0.0.0, which would not happen again for another 20 katuns or 400 years.  The Maya often coordinated, or assigned, historical events to significant calendar events to place them in context with the universal order of all things.  The new order of Copan was consecrated by the rituals performed on that baktun, 9^th of December 435.

 

Here in this center of all things is the place they chose for the burial of an obviously important priestess.  She was a young woman who stood about 4’10” and who died sometime between ages 22 and 29[102].  The wear on her bones and the sumptuous burial indicate she was no peasant nor used to hard labor.  Residual strontium and oxygen isotopes in her teeth indicate she came from the same area of the Peten as Yax Kuk Mo.

 

The tomb is in the form of a cyst and she was buried sitting upright in the style of Teotihuacano burials.  She was surrounded by grave offerings appropriate to a shaman, healer, and day keeper.  A male was sacrificed with her along with a puma, which may have been her way or totem animal.  She was interred before December 435 because as part of the 9.0.0.0.0 series of rituals, the tomb was reentered, her bones were burned in a purification rite, and a deer head and two more human heads were added to the offerings.  Then the tomb was resealed with a new capstone, the Motmot Marker, and the rest of the deer was burned on top of it.

The Motmot Marker records the ritual.  The text reads “Initial series: 3[?] 3[?] [several unknown glyphs] Yax Kuk Mo, the temple burner[103], sacrificed a deer, at the four skyband place (the Motmot temple), stepped place [unknown glyph].  On 8 Ahau 14 Keh (December 9, 435, he entered with fire Popol Hol [unknown glyph] 7 days 10 years [several unknown glyphs] 4 macaw place (the ballcourt)”.  Thus the priestess was honored and the architectural vision for the future of Copan was laid down and ordained.

 

 

While the conquest of Copan occurred in 427, the actual founding of the 400 year dynasty can be said to begin with the setting of this Motmot Marker at the end of 435.  Yax Kuk Mo was nearing the final years of his life and had apparently shared the burdens of governance with his son, Popol Hol, for some time as both of them are shown on the marker but his son is on the right, or superior, side.  His name in the text also precedes that of his father.  The marker is the first of many monuments at Copan to show the previous ruler and his successor facing each other in an unmistakable symbol of the passage of legitimacy from one to the other.[104]  When Yax Kuk Mo died two years later, his son embarked on a cult of personality around his father that turned a one time conquest into a lasting legacy.

 

Popol Hol buried his father beneath the floor of the north room in Hunal and built a temple called Yehnal over it.  Less than ten years later, he constructed a new temple, dubbed Margarita, over Yehnal.  Into the floor of this building, and in fact very close to the same level as Yax Kuk Mo’s tomb, he interred the body of another woman.    She stood about 4’ 9” and was well over 50 when she died.  Her pelvis indicates she bore at least one child[105].  Dental isotopes show she was a native of Copan.  Several archeologists have postulated that she was the former queen and wife of Kak Hun Kawil and that Yax Kuk Mo married her as part of the spoils of war and to claim legitimate succession by grafting his dynasty onto the previous one[106].

 

The Margarita Tomb is one of the most elaborate tombs in Copan and it contains the  richest array of grave goods found anywhere in the city.  The tomb consists of two chambers – a lower burial chamber and an upper one filled with offerings. The lower chamber was apparently excavated at the same time as the Hunal tomb and held open in anticipation of the later burial.  Among the many gifts deposited there were a painted pot called “The Dazzler” and a pair of iron  pyrite mirrors.  These are both stunning pieces and both reflect manufacture from Teotihuacan and carry imagery from that city.[107]

 

Sometime before his death about 465[108], Popol Hol covered over the Motmot marker with a shrine which archeologists have dubbed Papagayo.  Inside the shrine he erected stela 63 which recalls the baktun ending of 9.0.0.0.0, honors Yax Kuk Mo, and declares that he is the son of the famous founder.  This temple and its stela remained open to the public for 250 years until the death of Smoke Jaguar in 695.  Then his son, Eighteen Rabbit, ritually killed building, erected a new pyramid over it, and began the famous Hieroglyphic Stairway.[109]

 

Two more burials have been found associated with the Margarita structure.  Burial 94-1 is a the north end of a series of vaulted chambers that permitted access to the Margarita Tomb.  It is of a robust male in cramped position with feet probably bound with no grave offerings, indicating he was a final sacrifice when the Margarita Tomb was finally sealed.  Burial 95-1 is much more intriguing.  It is of an adult male over 40 years old, about 5’ 6” tall, with dental isotopes indicating he was from roughly the same region as Yax Kuk Mo.[110]  His tomb was lined with a mat and contained several ornate ceramic offerings.  Most significant, this individual was buried with mother of pearl rings over his eyes like goggles and he had several spearthrower darts buried with him.  These are strongly Teotihuacano symbols and Yax Kuk Mo himself is identified by such goggle eyes in other inscriptions and representations.

 

The individual in 95-1 must be intimately associated with Yax Kuk Mo.  He is buried in the same structure very close to the founder, he has the goggle eyes and darts associated with Teotihuacan, and his dentistry points to a childhood in the same area where Yax Kuk Mo grew up.  The tomb of Popol Hol has not yet been concretely identified but 95-1 is a strong candidate.  The burial occurred prior to the construction of the upper chamber of the Margarita Tomb but was dug into the Margarita platform.  This implies that the upper chamber was constructed and the grave goods put into it long after both the woman in the lower chamber and the man in 95-1 were buried.

 

In conclusion we are left with questions about the relationships between Yax Kuk Mo, the queen in the Margarita Tomb, the priestess in the Motmot Tomb, and the goggle-eyed warrior in 95-1.  The only epigraphic evidence we have is on stela 63 where Popol Hol claims to be the son of Yax Kuk Mo.  However, the special location and honor given to the priestess, and the burial of the queen and the warrior so close to the founder would seem to indicate strongly that they are all related. 

 

Since Popol Hol died about 465 and since he must have been about 20 to be co-ruling with his father at the 9.0.0.0.0 rituals, he was probably born about 415[111].  The man in 95-1 was over 40 and could have been 50.  Since the priestess was buried just before the 9.0.0.0.0 rituals and was only about 25, she must have been born around 410.  They could have been brother and sister.  They both bear dental isotope signatures compatible with growing up in the Peten where Yax Kuk Mo came from.  The queen died about 447 since the Margarita temple was built to honor her grave and counting back an average age of 60 years places her birth about 387.  Yax Kuk Mo died in 437 and if he was 20 on the katun ending depicted on the peccary skull in 376, his birth would be about 356. 

 

It is therefore possible that this 51 year old lord of Caracol came to Copan for the katun ending in 416, and then returned to conquer the place in 427.  If the peccary skull records an historic event, Yax Kuk Mo would have had to visit Teotihuacan twice – once to accept vassalage under Curl Snout and maybe even march with the army of Siyaj Kak to conquer Tikal, and a second time between 416 and 426 to receive his emblems of office and collect Tok Casper.  If the peccary skull records a retrospection or supernatural episode, then Yax Kuk Mo may have visited Tikal before 404 and then later journeyed to Teotihuacan.  Whichever is the case, all of them – Yax Kuk Mo, his queen, his son & daughter, and Tok Casper – appear to have journeyed together 153 days to Copan and began the new dynasty.  This is all conjectural, put possible.  

 

      

CONCLUSION

 

The impact of Yax Kuk Mo on the city of Copan, its valley, and the whole southeast periphery of the Maya world cannot be overstated.  He changed the layout of the city and the distribution of land and villages in the countryside.  He firmly aligned Copan with Tikal and ushered in a wave of development and growth. 

 

The kings who followed him on the throne of Copan considered him to be the founder of their dynasty, the source of their royal authority, the creator of their city, and a being worthy of worship.  They counted their succession from him. Eighteen Rabbit recalled the founder’s participation in the baktun ending on stela J and recounted his own reentry into the Hunal Tomb on stela B[112].  His father, Smoke Jaguar, recalled him on stela 12 as the wi-ti-na lord.  Moon Jaguar, the tenth successor, constructed the magnificent Rosalila temple over the founder’s tomb and decorated it with symbols proclaiming the name of Yax Kuk Mo. 

 

Probably no king invoked the noble founder of Copan more often or lavishly than Yax Pasaj, the sixteenth successor.  His massive temple 10L-11 built over earlier constructions contains several references to the founder, including an inscribed bench to mark his accession.  He constructed a war temple over the series of structures that buried the Hunal Tomb and dedicated it and Altar Q to Yax Kuk Mo.  Finally on his death marker, stela 11,  he pointedly recognized the end of the dynasty that had spanned almost 400 years.

 

Yet for all this we know relatively little for certain about Yax Kuk Mo.  He was born and raised somewhere in the Peten by parents unknown.  At one time he was a lord of Caracol and he received the emblems of office at a place known only as the “Root Tree House” on the seventh day of September in 426.  He left that place three days later and journeyed 153 days, pausing to install Tok Casper at Quirigua, then arriving at Copan.  He overthrew the reigning chief, laid out a new vision for the plan of the city, and participated in the baktun ending rites of 435. 

 

We do not know precisely when he was born or when he died   We do not know his relatives for sure nor do we have clear evidence of his relationship to any other ruler or city, save Quirigua.  The tantalizing bits that have been suggested or interpreted from clues in inscriptions are indicative rather than concrete.  Yet there are enough facts and tentative possibilities surrounding the life of this catalytic warrior that his biography can, and shoud be, attempted.

 

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR YAX KUK MO

 

Sources cited from the website for the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. are noted simply as FAMSI and the date.  The full reports can be found on the website at www.famsi.org. 

 

 

Abrams, Elliot:  How The Maya Built Their World: Energetics and Ancient Architecture.  Austin, University of Texas Press, 1994.

 

Adams, Richard:  Prehistoric Mesoamerica.  Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1977.

 

Andrews V, E. Wyllys, and William Fash, eds.:  The History Of An Ancient Maya Kingdom.  Santa Fe, School of American Research Press, 2005.

 

Bell, Ellen; Canuto, Marcello; Sharer, Robert, eds.:  Understanding Early Classic Copan.  Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology, 2004.

 

Bell, Ellen; Traxler, Loa; Sedat, David; Sharer, Robert:  “Uncovering Copan’s Earliest Royal Tombs.”  In Expedition Magazine 41/2.  http://130.9..80.97:591/PDFs/41-2/uncovering.pdf.  

 

Boot, Erik:  Portraits of Four Kings of the Early Classic?  An Inscribed Bowl Excavated at Uaxactun and Seven Vessels of Unknown Provenance.  Mesoweb Publications, www.mesoweb.com/articles/boot/UaxactunBowl.pdf.  

 

Braswell, Geoffrey, ed.:  The Maya and Teotihuacan.  Austin, University of Texas Press, 2003.

 

Brown, Kathryn & Stanton, Travis, eds.:  Ancient Mesoamerican Warfare.  Walnut Creek, California.  Altmira Press, 2003.

 

Buikstra, Jane & Rathbun, Ted, eds.:  Human Identification : Case Studies In Forensic Anthropology .  Springfield, Thomas, 1984.

 

Collins Atlas of Archeology.  Borders Press, Ann Arbor, 2003.

 

Fahsen, Federico:  A New Early Text From Tikal.  Research Reports on Ancient Maya Writing No. 17.  Center for Maya Research, Washington DC, 1988.  www.mesoweb.com/bearc/cmr/17.html.

 

Fash, Barbara:  “Late Classic Architectural Sculpture Themes in Copan.”  Ancient Mesoamerica 2, 1992.

 

Fasquelle, Ricardo and Fash, William:  “A Royal Maya Tomb Discovered.”  National Geographic 176, No. 4.  1989.

 

Freidel, David; Schele, Linda & Parker, Joy:  Maya Cosmos.  Harper Collins, New York, 1993.

 

Fridberg, Diana:  Peccaries In Ancient Maya Economy, Ideology, And Iconography.   Thesis presented to Harvard Department of Anthropology, Cambridge 2005.  http://gradstuds.com/Diana%20Fridberg/Fridberg-Peccaries.pdf.

 

Harris, John:  “Dynasty Founder Yax Kuk Mo According To The Inscriptions.” In Expedition Magazine 41-2.  http://130.91.80.97:591/PDFs/41-2/Dynasty.pdf.

 

Kowalski, Karl, ed.:  Mesoamerican Architecture As A Cultural Symbol.  New York, Oxford University Press, 1999.

 

Looper, Matthew:  Lightning Warrior.  Austin, University of Texas Press, 2003.

 

Martin, Simon & Grube, Nikolai:  Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens.  London, Thames & Hudson, 2000.

 

Milbrath, Susan:  Star Gods of the Maya.  Austin, University of Texas Press, 1999.

 

Montgomery, John:  Dictionary of Maya Hieroglyphics.  New York, Hippocrene Books.  2002.

 

Mora-Martin, David:  The Jade to Gold Shift in Ancient Costa Rica.  University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2005.  www.arqueocostarica.net. 

 

Nakamura, Seiichi:   Recent Find At Copan.   Mesoweb Reports & News, 2001.  www.mesoweb.com.

 

Nielsen, Jesper:  The Queen’s Mirrors.  The Pari Journal, Volume 6, No. 4, Spring 2006.  www.mesoweb.com/pari/publications/journal/604/QueensMirrors.html.

 

NOVA production for Providence Pictures:  Lost King Of The Maya.  WGBH Boston 2001.

 

PAPAC (Proyecto Arqueologico para la Planificacion de la Antigua Copan.  www.papacweb.org.

 

Sales, Humberto:  La Influencia Teotihuacana, Una Nueva Lectura de la Estela 31 de Tikal.  El Salvador 2007.

 

Schele, Linda:  The Founders Of Lineages At Copan And Other Maya Sites.  Copan Note Nr. 8.

 

Schele, Linda:  Some Ideas of the Protagonist and Dating of Stela E.  Copan Note Nr. 25, 1987.

 

Schele, Linda:  Stela I And The Founding Of The City Of Copan.  Copan Note Nr. 30, 1987.

 

Schele, Linda:  A Brief Commentary On The Top Of Altar Q.  Copan Note Nr. 66, 1989.

 

Schele, Linda & Freidel, David:  A Forest of Kings.  Morrow, New York, 1990.

 

Schele, Linda & Newsome, Elizabeth:  Taking The Headband At Copan.  Copan Note Nr. 96, 1991.  www.utmesoamerica.org/copan_notes.  

 

Schele, Linda & Grube, Nicolai:  Speculations on Who Built the Temple under 11.  Copan Note Nr. 102, 1991.

 

Sedat, David & Lopez, Fernando:  “Tunneling Into The Heart Of The Copan Acropolis” in Expedition Magazine 41-2.   http://130.91.80.97:591/PDFs/41-2/Sedat.pdf.

 

Sharer, Robert; Morley, Sylvanus; Brainerd, George:  The Ancient Maya, 4^th Edition.  Stanford, Stanford University.  1983.

 

Sharer, Robert:  Early Copán Acropolis Program 1995-1997 Field Seasons

Latest Findings at Copán, Honduras.  FAMSI, 1997.

 

Sharer, Robert & Traxler, Loa:  The Ancient Maya.  Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2006.

 

Skidmore, Joel:  Recent Findings In Maya History.  Mesoweb Articles at www.mesoweb.com.

 

Skidmore, Joel:  The Fate of Jaguar Paw.  Mesoweb Articles at www.mesoweb.com.

 

Smith, Ledyard:  Two Recent Ceramic Finds At Uaxactun.  Preprint from Publication Nr. 436 of Carnegie Institute, pp 1-25.  1932.   www.mesoweb.com/publications. 

 

Stephens, John:  Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan.  New York, Harper & Brothers 1841.

 

Stuart, David and Schele, Linda:  Yax Kuk Mo, The Founder Of the Lineage Of Copan.  Copan Note Nr. 6, 1986.

 

Stuart, David:  The First Ruler on Stela 24.  Copan Note Nr. 7, 1989.

 

Stuart, David:  The Arrival of Strangers.  Extract of a paper presented at Princeton University.  October 1996 - Revised February 1998.  www.mesoweb.com/pari/publications.

 

Stuart, David:  The Origin of Copan’s Founder.  David Stuart blog, June 2007.  http://decipherment.wordpress.com/2007.

 

Stuart, David:  Hieroglyphs and History At Copan.  Harvard Peabody Museum, 1996.

 

Stuart, George:  “The Royal Crypts of Copan.”  National Geographic 192, Nr. 6.  1997.

 

Stuart, George:  “City of Kings and Commoners.”  National Geographic 176, Nr. 4.  1989.

 

Taube, Karl:  The Writing System of Ancient Teotihuacan.  In Ancient America, Center for Ancient American Studies, 2000.  www.mesoweb.com/bearc/caa/01.html . 

 

Van Cleve, Janice: A New Translation For Ox Witik.  Unpublished article 2007.

 

Van Cleve, Janice:  Eighteen Rabbit – The Intimate Life and Trajic Death of a Maya God-King.  Philadelphia, Xlibris, 2006.

 

Vegetius, Flavius:  Military Institutions of the Romans.  Stackpole, Harrisburg, 1960.     

 

Webster, David et al.:  Copan; The Rise And Fall Of An Ancient Maya Kingdom.  Belmont, California, Wadsworth, 2000.