76 archaeoastronomy© 2007–2008 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819

the margarita structure Panels [at copán] and the maya cosmogonic couplet of ances-tral emergence: redux and reemergence

John B. carlson, a radio and extragalactic astronomer by training, is the Director of the Center for Archaeoastronomy, a nonprofit institute for research and education related to interdisciplinary studies of the astronomical practices, celestial lore, religions, and worldviews of ancient civilizations and the contemporary indigenous cultures of the world. In this capacity Dr. Carlson is an expert on Native American astronomy, specializing in studies of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and is the editor in chief of Archaeoastronomy: The Journal of Astronomy in Culture. The art, iconography, calendar systems, and hieroglyphic writing of the Maya and Highland Mexican civilizations are particu-lar interests, and the “archaeology of pilgrimage” is a current special research interest. In 2005 and 2006 Carlson was Kislak Fellow in American Studies at the John W. Kluge Center for Scholarly Research at the Library of Congress, where he completed a long-term compre-hensive study entitled “Maya Flasks and Miniature Vessels.” Dr. Carlson is Senior Lecturer in the University Honors College, University of Maryland–College Park, where he teaches courses in astronomy, anthropology, and the history of science.

john b. carlson

abstractAcross the Maya zone, at least from Early Classic times (ca. 250 C.E.), there have been recorded examples of a pair of Maya toponyms, often in zoomorphic form, prefixed with the numbers 7 and 9. Art Historian George Kubler (1977) was one of the first scholars to discuss this enigmatic glyphic couplet with access to a significant database, but the author (Carlson 1997) substantially increased this database and offered the first decipherment and “reading” of the pair. It is proposed that the “7- and 9- Place” toponyms refer to two ancient, legendary Mesoamerican earth emergence places of elite ancestral origin, one Highland Mexican (e.g., probably in ancient Teotihuacan), which later became the Nahua Chicomoztoc, the “Seven Caves”; the other Lowland (Maya), Bolon Ch’en, the “Nine Wells.” It is demonstrated how this early and pervasive cosmogonic couplet was established in the Mesoameri-can Lowlands using examples taken from Early Classic Copán, Honduras, to Uuc Yabnal, likely an early name for Chichén Itzá, Yucatán, before the arrival of the Itzá and other peoples during the Epiclassic period. It is proposed that this couplet of sacred, numinous ancestral ori-

gin places served to establish a Highland/Low-land legitimacy for at least some major ruling Maya lineages, hypothetically based on real kinship ties. This hypothesis may be tested by future archaeological and epigraphic research. Long-distance pilgrimage as well as trading relationships are proposed in this model as be-ing key to understanding the establishment of basic sacred charters that reinforced the claims of legitimacy and authority of participating elites in the great exchange networks first created across Formative period Mesoamerica (ca. 1200–150 B.C.E.) and beyond. They con-tinued through the Classic (ca. 150 B.C.E.–650 C.E. in the Mexican Highlands), Epiclassic (ca. 650–900 C.E.), and Postclassic (ca. 900–1520 C.E.) periods, surviving right up to and past the Spanish conquest.

resumenA través de la zona maya, cuando menos desde los tiempos del Clásico temprano, han sido inscritos ejemplares de topónimos mayas, a menudo en forma zoómorfa, con el prefijo de los números 7 y 9. El historiador del arte George Kubler (1977) fue uno de los primeros en discutir sobre esta enigmática

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forma glífica dual teniendo acceso a una base de datos significativa, pero el autor (1997) la ha incrementado substancialmente y brindado el primer desciframiento y “lectura” de este par. Propone que los topónimos “Lugar-7 y Lugar-9” se refieren a dos antiguos, lugares legendarios mesoamericanos de emergencia terrestre que dan cuenta de los origenes ancestrales de las elites, uno en el Altiplano mexicano (e.g., probablemente en el antiguo Teotihuacán) que se convierte más tarde en el Chicomoztoc, el “Siete Cuevas”; el otro en las Tierras Bajas (maya), Bolon Ch’en, el “Nueve Pozos.” Demuestra cuán temprana y difundida fue esta forma dual cosmogónica en las Tierras Bajas en base con ejemplos tomados de inscripciones desde el Clásico Temprano en Copán, Honduras, hasta Uuc Yabnal, probablemente un nombre temprano para Chichén Itzá, Yucatán, previo al arrivo de los Iztá y otros grupos durante el periodo Epiclásico. Propone que esta forma dual que acopla lugares sagrados y numinosos de origen ancestral en el Altiplano y en las Tierras Bajas, servía a establecer la legitimidad de ciertos lineajes principales gobernantes, hipoteticamente fundada en lazos reales de parentesco, los cuales pueden ser comprobados en el futuro por la investigación arqueológica. La peregrinación a larga distancia tanto como las relaciones mercantiles se conciben en este modelo como claves para el entendimiento de los sagrados lineamientos constitutivos básicos que reforzaban las reivindicaciones de legitimidad y de autoridad por parte de las elites quienes participaban en las grandes redes de intercambio creadas a través de Mesoamérica y más allá de sus fronteras, primero en el periodo Formativo; continuando durante los periodos del Clásico, Epiclásico y Posclásico; y permaneciendo hasta la conquista española.

PrologueThe study presented here, the core of which was first published in 1997 for restricted distribution to an audience of Mayanists, Maya epigraphers, and related specialists, was begun in March 1995 after I saw a preliminary drawing of the Margarita Struc-ture south stucco bas relief panel (Figure 2a), then

recently excavated at the ancient Maya site of Copán in Honduras (for an overview see Bell et al. 2004). The Margarita Structure, one of a series of early temple buildings buried deep within the great Structure 16 pyramid in Copán’s South Acropolis (see, e.g., Stuart 1997), features two large painted stuccowork panels on its west-facing façade depicting the name of the Copán second dynasty founder, K’inich Yax K’uk’ Mo’—“Sun-Eyed Precious Blue-Green Quetzal Macaw” (reigned 426–ca. 437 C.E.)—written in full-figure avian forms perched on top of two previ-ously undeciphered glyphic emblems. I had long been interested in this enigmatic pair of emblematic Maya “glyphic insignia,” which Pre-Columbian art historian George Kubler (1977:5–11) had called the “7- and 9-numerical insignia” (Figure 1) because of their likely cosmological implications. One member of this pair of glyphs is usually prefixed with the number 7, the other with a 9, with the numbers virtu-ally always rendered in dots-and-bar notation. This unpublished drawing of the south Margarita Struc-ture panel showed an early, unique example of the “9-numerical insignia,” which triggered one of those wonderful “eureka” moments, resulting in a series of hypotheses as to the decipherment of the meanings of both glyphic expressions, their “readings” in Maya (and other Mesoamerican) languages, and several ideas suggesting their broader implications. These new hypotheses were scientific in the sense that they would likely have testable implications.

Kubler’s “7- and 9-numerical insignia” were clearly place-names—toponyms—according to their glyphic structure, and my inspiration at that moment was that they were the names of well-known, legend-ary, perhaps mythical places of ancestral emergence from the earth. As a generalization about Native American origin mythology, probably the great majority of accounts describe the ancestors emerg-ing from caves, mountains, water holes, or other portals into the sacred earth. This is certainly true for most Mesoamerican cultures, although there are exceptions. Based on my knowledge of Maya and Highland Mexican writing systems and iconography, I hypothesized that the 9-Place toponym referred to a legendary Maya place of emergence of royal lineages at Bolon Ch’en, the “Nine Wells.” Bolon Ch’en is

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among the well-known Maya place-names for large cenotes, the ubiquitous limestone sinkholes on the karstic Yucatán Peninsula, which were both sources of water and seen as portals into the cavernous Maya Underworld. In ancient Maya cosmology there were nine layers below the earth’s surface, and the number 9 in the 9-Place expression almost certainly refers to these realms, ruled over by the powerful Lords of the Underworld.

From studies of Teotihuacan iconography and glyphs, I had already surmised that the Maya 7-Place toponym was likely to be the legendary place of northern and central Mexican emergence, namely, Chicomoztoc, the “Seven Caves Place.” Teotihuacan is the name that the later Aztecs gave, in their Nahuatl language, to the immense ruins of the city in the Highland Valley of Mexico that had flourished from just before the Common Era to its decline and fall in the eighth century. Teotihuacan’s influence came to an end roughly 600 years before the wandering Mexica tribes arrived there, subsequently founding their great capital city of Tenochtitlan nearby on marshy islands in Lake Texcoco and proceeding to establish what is commonly referred to as the Aztec Empire. (The ruins of Mexico-Tenochtitlan now lie beneath the center of modern Mexico City.) But more than a millennium earlier, influence of the powerful Teotihuacan culture had spread, often through con-quest, over most of Mesoamerica, including contact with lands controlled by the Early Classic Maya (be-ginning ca. 250 C.E.), carrying its religion and ideol-ogy of warfare and sacrifice as well as establishing trading networks and other alliances. We now know, from decades of archaeological investigations, that Teotihuacan was a highly diverse cosmopolitan city and pilgrimage center, the largest in the Americas in its day. It was the hub of an incipient empire based on a specific ideology of ritual warfare, human sac-rifice, mountain worship, and fertility. Teotihuacan likely had a system of established divine rulership with a noble ancestral lineage that claimed control of the personified forces of nature, many of whom dwelt in the great volcanic mountains of their realm (see, e.g., Carlson 1991, 1993).

For two decades I had remained convinced that my friend and mentor, archaeologist and ethnohistorian

Doris Heyden (1975, 1976, 1981), was right in argu-ing that the cave under the center of the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan was the original Chicomoztoc, the Seven Caves Place of Ancestral Emergence for the Teotihuacan altepetl, meaning “water mountain” of fertility and sustenance. This is a fundamental Nahuatl couplet expression encompassing the me-tropolis, its territory, ancestors, peoples, and gods. This cave, under the artificial mountain of the Pyramid of the Sun, and Teotihuacan itself had become destinations of pilgrimage from distant lands as well as the place of elite burial and veneration for royal lineages (see Carlson 1990:93 for a photograph taken inside this cave). As the influence of Teotihuacan and its great cult spread into the Maya Lowlands and throughout Mesoamerica, roughly beginning with the advent of the Common Era, the Maya noble elites began inter-acting with their Teotihuacano counterparts, forming alliances and trading exchanges as well as establishing marriage and lineage bonds. Copán was among those Maya polities whose fifth-century dynastic founder, K’inich Yax K’uk’ Mo’, personally displayed strong Teotihuacano affiliations in the iconographic forms associated with Teotihuacan military elites (including armed merchant guilds), rulers, and deities. For these reasons, I predicted in 1995 that the north Margarita panel, which had not yet been excavated, should also display the same full-figure avian representation of K’inich Yax K’uk’ Mo’, but in this case he would be standing on the 7-Place emblem, therefore claiming his ancestry from lineages that emerged from the Teotihuacan Chicomoztoc, a place far from Copán that is located in the southeastern corner of the Maya zone.

The Maya glyphic name for the Teotihuacan Chicomoztoc toponym should be found on the north panel of Margarita making a powerful visual statement, completing the founder’s dual claim of legitimacy with the Maya Bolon Ch’en place of origin represented on the south panel. After a series of com-munications with Robert Sharer and David Sedat of the Early Copan Acropolis Program before the end of 1995, I learned that the 7-Place emblem had indeed been found on the north panel and that it was in mirror image form (Figure 2b). Anyone ascending the great stairway between the two panels, up toward the east

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and sunrise, would symbolically rise out of the earth below, with the two glyphic origin place insignia be-ing read away from the ascending viewer’s gaze to the north and to the south.

My prediction had been made and verified, but I was told that this information could not be released for open report to the general public. In addition, if I want-ed to present my prediction and its verification about the Copán Margarita Structure, the original working title of which was “Seven Caves—Nine Wells: The Maya Cosmogonic Couplet of Ancestral Emergence,” then I would have to publish it in the restricted form of an Early Copan Acropolis Program (ECAP) Paper. The distribution of these interim reports would be limited to circulation among Copán Program mem-bers and associates and some additional researchers “to elicit discussion and guide future inquiry.” My contribution was subsequently published as one of a collection of 13 ECAP Papers, entitled “The Margarita Structure Panels and the Maya Cosmogonic Couplet of Ancestral Emergence,” by the Early Copan Acropo-lis Program in 1997. Although I should have done so much sooner, once the proper reports, informés, had been made to the Centro de Investigaciones at Copán, I requested and received permission in 2008 from ECAP director Robert Sharer to publish a version of the original paper for open distribution. I am now of-fering the original paper here, with only typographical and grammatical errors corrected, along with addi-tional supplementary material to Archaeoastronomy: The Journal of Astronomy in Culture.

The topics covered have broader implications for our understanding of Mesoamerican and hence Native American calendars, cosmogony, and cos-mology. Although this rather technical paper was written for an audience of Mayanist archaeologists and epigraphers, I believe that, with the additional material, this study will be of interest to students of other ancient cosmologies and astronomies in culture. This includes the addition of a citation in the refer-ences section for my study (Carlson 2005) entitled “Transformations of the Mesoamerican Venus Turtle Carapace War Shield,” which is directly relevant to the broader interpretation of the K’an Cross element in the 7-Place toponym. I chose to keep the original title, with [at Copán] added for clarity and “Redux

and Reemergence” appended to indicate that this is not simply the 1997 paper but includes it within.

The original study, “Seven Caves—Nine Wells: The Maya Cosmogonic Couplet of Ancestral Emer-gence,” was presented at one public extemporaneous slide lecture (including 160 images in dual projection) at the Sixth Annual Maya Symposium, organized by the Institute for Latin American Studies and the Foun-dation for Latin American Anthropological Research (FLAAR) at Brevard Community College, Cocoa, Florida, February 6–8, 1998. No publication was circulated, but the talk was well received, I believe, by a goodly audience of Mayanists, professional and amateur. In 1997 I had also written a related study and prepared a slide presentation that did not refer to the unpublished materials from Copán. This had a focus on the 7- and 9-Places in regard to Chichén Itzá, Yuca-tán. I was invited to submit it for a session at the 49th International Congress of Americanists to be held in Quito, Ecuador, July 7–11, 1997 (see Appendix 1). The abstract was sent in, accepted, and published in advance, but the paper was never presented because I was, ultimately, unable to attend the 49th Congreso. This was unfortunate for several reasons, including that I was unable to put the details of my work out to the scholarly community for input and critique. None-theless, my hypotheses were circulated to those who read the abstract as well as to the nexus of Mayanists who received the ECAP Papers and those attending the Brevard College Maya symposium.

Although my extensive catalog of new examples of 7- and 9-Place insignia, with analyses and ideas, had been circulated and were known in the field, imagine my surprise when, in November 2008, I received a copy of the German Americanist journal Indiana 24 (2007) and found a paper that repeated most but not all of my data and ideas. It was presented by a young Mayanist named Alejandro Sheseña under the title “¿Glyfo maya para ‘Siete Cuevas’?” (A Maya Glyph for “Seven Caves”?) and did not cite any of my work on the subject. The author, who received his doctor-ate in history in Russia at the State University of Voronezh, gave an excellent exposition that also covered readings of the 9-Place toponym but with a different phonetic “reading,” namely, Bolon Hul Nal, “Nine Holes Place,” rather than the tentative reading

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Bolon Ch’en Nal, “Nine Wells Place,” which I had offered in 1997. Both decipherments have the same essential meaning but not the same phonetic “read-ing” of the glyphs. After reading over everything care-fully and talking with several colleagues, including a friend on the editorial board of Indiana, I concluded that this was a case of independent discovery and analysis. I believe that Dr. Sheseña has made an inde-pendent discovery, although he did so ten years after my work was given public presentation and restricted Copán Project publication, and I therefore consider his paper a corroboration of my work. For the broader implications of the analyses of these two toponyms, I had gone further than Sheseña in arguing for a pair of places of ancestral emergence, one likely from the Maya cultural region and the other from the Central Mexican Highlands (probably Teotihuacan), and offering consequent predictions. As to the actual “reading” of the 9-Place expression, I think both alternatives are possible but that neither is as yet established beyond a doubt.

One further comment regarding another recent publication, by David Stuart (2009), might be relevant to research into the meaning and implications of the 7- and 9-Place glyphs. In chapter 13 of an edited volume on the Late Postclassic Maya cultures of the northern Lowland lake district of the Petén region of Guate-mala, Stuart presents an epigraphic and iconographic analysis of the symbolism of Zacpetén Altar 1. Found in 1996, this remarkable cylindrical altar stone is laid out in quadripartite form, with four squares of glyph blocks alternating with large mat symbols carved in relief around the outer rim, a ring of glyphs inside, and an image of the zoomorphic form of the 7-Place toponym at the center in its usual left-facing profile representation. Following a thorough analysis of the text and its layout, Stuart has surprisingly little to say about the “7 and 9 Heads,” as he calls them:

Although my own ideas are not well formu-lated at this stage, I believe the 7 and 9 Heads represent some type of dualistic aspect of cosmic regeneration and rebirth. They are specific places in the sense that they are place names and are often replicated by means of altars such as the Zacpetén stone, but they are simultaneously very general or even universal in their scope of reference. The two glyphs are routinely associated with the symbolism of growth and resurrection, often in direct as-sociation with deceased persons. The connec-tion to ancestors seems to rely on a conceptual linkage in Maya philosophy among rebirth after death, agricultural growth of new maize, and the rising of the eastern sun. Although I have no evidence to prove it, I have wondered if the dualism underlying the 7 and 9 Heads may be based in part on the natural partition between the winter and summer solstices [2009:323–324].

This is a speculation for further exploration, but it is interesting that Stuart, as a long-term Copán Proj-ect epigrapher, cites neither my 1997 ECAP Paper nor Sheseña’s 2007 study in Indiana. Perhaps this suggests that it would be time for a reassessment of the meaning of Zacpetén Altar 1 in light of the larger corpus of data now cataloged and available as well as the analyses presented in these two earlier studies.

What follows is the original ECAP Paper No. 13, with only minor corrections of typographical errors and grammar, and an epilogue with one important new example that I hope will yield further tests of my hypotheses and those of Sheseña. I hope that these somewhat esoteric researches in Maya epigraphy and iconography may also be of use to students of world archaeoastronomy and for the study of origin mythology and the establishment of elite lineages in other cultural traditions.

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This paper presents a brief summary, limited to the essential conclusions and outlines of the arguments, of a monograph-length study of a pair of emblem-atic Maya “glyphic insignia” which George Kubler (1977:5–11) called the “7- and 9-numerical insig-nia” or the “7- and 9-heads,” in the cases where they appear in personified Head-Variant form (e.g., see Figure 1). The present study was begun in earnest at the end of March 1995 after seeing a copy of a preliminary drawing of the Copán Margarita Struc-ture south stucco[work] panel (see Figure 2a). This spectacular “K’inich Yax K’uk’ Mo’o” panel, de-picting the name of the early 5th-century founder of Copán’s final dynasty in composite full-figure avian form, has recently been published by George Stuart (1997:84–87) in color followed by a reconstruction drawing by Christopher Klein showing Margarita in architectural context with the other buildings beneath Structure 16. The south panel contained a unique Early Classic version of the “9-numerical insignia” which gave me the instant inspiration as to both the readings and implications of this enig-matic couplet, which I had examined previously. A series of related hypotheses were the result of this inspirational moment and these were tested during the rest of 1995 leading to an exchange of phone conversations and letters with Robert Sharer and David Sedat beginning in late November. Sedat (personal communication, 11 Dec. 1995) sent me sketch drawings of the “7-numerical insignia” which

appears in “mirror image” form in the same position on the north Margarita talud panel, thus confirming my expectation, and Sedat’s, that it would be there (Figure 2b). [This correction should ultimately be made on Klein’s remarkable cutaway plan as it pic-tures the same 9-insignia on both the north and south panels.] Versions of the 7- and 9-insignia couplet appear in at least six other contexts at Copán as well as on about three dozen other artifacts at such sites as Tikal, Yaxha, Calakmul, Caracol, Machaquila, Piedras Negras, Palenque, and Toniná. The present study includes a catalog, with examples illustrated in Figure 1 from Table 1, of 43 occurrences, with five additional forms of a hypothetically related 7-insignia variant, which adds substantially to the 17 cases recognized by Kubler (1977). Based on an analysis of this expanded corpus, my main conclu-sions and their implications are as follows:2

The 7- and 9-Place Emblems: Basic DescriptionThe “7- and 9-numerical insignia” are emblematic glyphic compositions that usually appear in icono-graphic rather than textual contexts. They identify places—likely both mythical as well as real physical locations—and I will refer to them as the “7-Place” and “9-Place” for convenience. Together, they usu-ally form a couplet, with the two number-and-glyph compositions sometimes represented in mirror-image form, but either may appear alone.

University of Pennsylvania MuseumPhiladelphia, PA 19104-6324

December 1997

Early Copan Acropolis ProgramPaper Number 13

ThE MArgAriTA STruCTurE PANElS AND ThE MAyA CoSMogoNiCCouPlET of ANCESTrAl EMErgENCE1

byJohn B. Carlson

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Table 1. Catalog of 7- and 9-Place Emblems.• These catalog listings are represented with a [C. #] in the text of this paper.• Listings C.1–C.17 follow Kubler’s (1977:13) Table II and Figure 8 (a)–(q) designations. He placed them in rough chronological order.• For the glyphic transcriptions, E = Ek’, K = K’an, N = Nal, (HV) = Head Variant, Q = Quatrefoil, Lunar T683 = L, T628 or 629 “Ch’en” = C, T223 Footprints = F, T501 Imix = I.

C. # Source of 7- and 9-Place Emblems Transcription 1(a) Tikal Stela 31 (E17), Date H 7 E K N 2(b) Yaxhá Stela 4 9 L/C?(HV) F3(c) Tikal Stela 2 7 E? K?(HV) N 9 C?(HV) F? N4(d) Yaxhá Stela 2 #? E K(HV) N 5(e) Tikal Burial 132, Bowl 7 E K(HV) N 6(f) Calakmul Stela 88 7? E K(HV) N 9 C?(HV) N7(g) Tikal Cache 161, Incised obsidians 7 E K(HV) N 9 L(HV) F N8(h) Palenque Tablet of the Sun 7 E K(HV) N 9 C(HV) F N9(i) Palenque Tablet of the Cross 9 Q(HV) F10(j) Piedras Negras Stela 40 ?? C 9 C F11(k) Copán Stela D 7 E? K(HV) N 9 C(HV) N12(l) Copán Structure 11, Sculpture A” 7? K? 9 L? F?13(m) Cancuén Stela 1 7 E K(HV) N 14(n) Aguas Calientes Stela 1 7 E K(HV) N 15(o) Dumbarton Oaks Onyx Bowl 7 K(HV) N 9 C(HV) F N16(p) Copán Altar T 7 K(HV) N 17(q) Copán Altar T’ 9 C(HV) F N18 Copán Margarita Panels (2) 7 K N 9 LI F19 Copán Mot Mot Marker 7 K N 9 L N??20 Copán Ball Court A-IIb Markers (3) 7 ? N? 9 ? N?21 Tikal Altar 12 7 E? K? 22 Tikal Stela 28 7 E? K? ? ?(HV)23 Tikal? Jaguar Paw Ceramic Portrait 7 E K N 24 Tikal MT 20 Lip-to-Lip Cache Vessel 7 E? K N 25 Tikal? Lip-to-Lip Cache Vessel Lid 9 C(HV) N26 Tikal? Lip-to-Lip Cache Vessel Lid 9 C(HV) F N27 Petén Rectangular Cache Vessel 7 E K N 28 Machaquila Stela 2 7 E K N 29 Caracol Stela 6, Back 7 E K N 30 Tzum Stela 3 7? E K N 31 Costa Rica Incised Jade Celt 7 E K N 32 Petén Stucco Relief Panel 7 E K N 9? ? ?33 Rio Azul? Incised Jade Celt 7? Ahaw?(HV) N 9 Ahaw(HV) N34 Palenque Temple of Sun Stucco Roof #? E? K(HV) N # C?(HV) F? N35 Palenque T. Inscriptions, Piers C & D #? E K(HV) N? #? C(HV) N?36 Toniná Mon. 114 9 C(HV) F N?37 Toniná Mon. 115 7 E K N 38 Toniná 20-Glyph “Ballgame” Panel 7 E K N 39 Tres Islas Stela 2 Fragment 7 E? K N 40 Pomona Area? Wall Panel 1? E K 41 Yucatan Painter Capstone (University Museum) 1? E K 42 Maya Codex-Style Vase: Kerr 1349 #? E(ca) K(HV) N 43 Tikal Stela 40 #? K(HV) N 9? L? 7 Naab Nal Emblem Listing: Transcription A Copán Structure 18 Facade (2) 7 I N? B Maya Codex-Style Vase: Kerr 792 7 I N C Maya Codex-Style Vase: Kerr 1202 7 I N D Robicsek and Hales (1981:Table 8F): Codex-Style Vase 7 I N E Hellmuth (1987:Figure 323) 7 I(#13HV) N??

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There are a group of variant forms with character-istics ranging from: (a) the number 7 or 9 (always in dots-and-bar form) followed by a single Main Sign glyphic element, (b) more commonly, the number 7 or 9 followed by a glyph [block] including affixes, with variable elements that seem to form a substitution set, or (c) the number followed by a profile Head Variant of the Main Sign in the form of a scroll-eyed, long-lipped supernatural, often with a skeletal lower jaw. To date, I have not identified a Full-Figure form of this creature in a case where the number is also pres-ent. All of the above variants usually have a vegetal foliation attached. In several cases, this is explicitly shown to be maize foliation, and the reading of Nal for this is highly likely.

The 7- and 9-Place emblems may: (a) be held in the outstretched hand of a personage in a “presenta-tion” gesture, as if it were a tangible object or bundle, (b) appear as insignia that float within the space of a pictorial composition, usually in a lower register, (c) emerge from the mouth of the Maya Bearded Dragon or related ophidian composite creature or be associated with the two heads of the Bicephalic Dragon scepter, (d) appear in the (i) lower register, (ii) basal (earth) band, or (iii) be associated with cave-, or mountain-, or earth-related Cauac, Witz, or Skel-etal Earth Monsters, respectively, (e) be incised on obsidians, likely to have been used for bloodletting, (f) appear directly beneath the feet of rulers or their animal manifestations, or serve as thrones or “pillow glyphs” on which they sit, (g) be carved on an altar top, (h) be represented on the top lids of lip-to-lip cache vessels, (i) appear in scenes on ballcourt markers, and (j) occasionally appear as glyphs in texts. In all cases where an individual is involved, [he or she] is usually an identified elite personage, often a known ruler, although there are several cases of supernaturals such as God K, being represented. These supernatu-rals are likely, however, to be represented by human impersonators.

Both the 7- and 9-Place emblems are associated with portals or openings into the Earth. There are many arguments that are relevant to this point, but these emblems often are associated with, or label, the quatrefoil portals to the Maya Underworld that appear on altars, ballcourt markers, etc. The quatrefoil motif,

in frontal or profile form, is a pan-Mesoamerican sym-bol for a cave or water hole entrance into the earth’s surface or a mountain. This motif may be represented on various personified forms [that] include the Cauac and Witz Monsters (e.g., see Table 1, [C. 9(i)] and Figure 1).

The 9-Place Emblem: Description and readingThe 9-Place emblem may appear with three quite different main signs which freely substitute one for another. Following the number 7, (A) the simplest expression is in the form of the Lunar glyph, T683, sometimes in Head Variant form, with no affixes [e.g., C. 19]. When an affix is present, one typical superfix appears (i) as a string of dots emerging from the opening of the crescent to the left and right [C. 7(g)] or (ii) what hypothetically seemed to be a pair of diverging footprints placed heel to heel, T223, [C. 2(b)]. In the case of the Margarita South Panel [C. 18] (Figure 2a), the four dots and bar appear in red to the left of the Main Sign, followed by the Lunar crescent with one internal dot (T683a) held within a slate-blue Imix glyph, probably representing a water lily pad. Then, to the right of this Main Sign are two slate-blue right footprints, one above the other. These two footprints provided half of the initial inspiration that suggested to me that (a) glyphically, the other dotted and heel-to-heel forms (i.e., T223) really did represent two footprints (see T301), and not some unidentified phonetic affix, and (b) iconographically, this Early Classic example was showing the pan- Mesoamerican symbol for travel or, in this case, specifying emergence (see Figure 2a). The two foot-prints on the South Margarita panel are therefore an Early Classic ideogram of T223, “emergence.” Fur-thermore, in the case of the Copán Mot Mot Marker [C. 19], the feet of Yax K’uk’ Mo’ himself, placed on the Lunar glyph (T683), complete the composition. (The missing Nal may be found emerging [from] the cleft in the supernatural head at the top of the lord’s headdress.) (B) The second Main Sign, T628a, b (or T629), which some have called a shell, has a skeletal, mask-like appearance. It may appear alone [C. 11(k)] or with the two heel-to-heel feet above, “emerging” from the center [C. 8(h), 10(j), 15(o), 17(q), 26, 35 (with the feet of the standing personage), 36]. The

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T628 glyph may be plain [e.g., C. 8(h), 26], half-darkened [C. 15(o), 17(q)] or fully darkened (cross-hatched) in the T629 form [C. 10(j)]. (C) The third Main Sign is a Quatrefoil Portal glyph/iconographic element, (not cataloged by Thompson (1962) or Zimmermann), which is shown on the Palenque Tablet of the Cross [C. 9(i)] half-darkened and with the two heel-to-heel footprint[s] sign (T223) as a superfix. This Wits-related glyph, which is usually an iconographic element rather than a glyph, may be shown with the quatrefoil opening in profile, as in this case, or frontally as on Caracol St. 6, Front (see [C. 29]).

I am proposing a new reading for the 9-Place emblem, in all of its variants, as “Bolon Ch’en” or “Bolon Ch’en Nal,” (Nine Wells Place). This Nine Ch’en place is a mythical water hole, ruled by the Moon Goddess or female water deity, a supernatural, primal source of Maize and of elite Maya ancestral emergence (see Figures 3–7). The proposed reading is based on arguments dependent on (a) both glyphic and iconographic substitution patterns, (b) ethno- historic and ethnographic sources, and (c) a hypothesis that the three main signs [T683, T628–629, and T(not catalogued)] that form the substitu-tion set are ideographic and logographic, i.e., not CV- [Consonant Vowel] syllabic signs, and are each read “Ch’en” in the present context. Furthermore, (d) the substitution set of (i) diverging dots, (ii) two heel-to-heel footprints (T223), and (iii) two actual footprints, are essentially ideographic and iconographic elements and carry no phonetic value. (e) The T86, “Nal” affix is read as “Nal” and func-tions both as a locative, “place of” as well as indicat-ing that these supernatural Ch’en (cave, water hole, etc.) locations represent the mythical earthly source of Maize controlled by the Moon Goddess. In other contexts, the T683 Lunar glyph may be phonetic “Ha” (water) or “Uh” (Moon), but not in these emblematic compositions. I also have evidence that the 9-Place emblem is essentially logographic and could be “read” in languages other than Maya in other regions of Mesoamerica (e.g., Figure 7).

The 7-Place Emblem: Description and readingThe 7-Place Emblem has been read phonetically by virtually all contemporary Maya epigraphers as “Uuc

Ek’ K’an” (7 Black K’an). This involves the recogni-tion that the ovoid affix usually placed as a prefix to the T281 “K’an Cross” is T95 “Ek’” (Black) rather than T580, T581 “Mol,” as suggested by Kubler (1977:8). I prefer the reading “Uuc Ek’ K’an Nal” where the Nal functions as the locative with its Maize associations. The essence of a decipherment of the 7-Place Emblem [lies in] an understanding of the complex meanings represented by the K’an Cross. Many contemporary epigraphers (e.g., Stuart 1990) seem to recognize only its associations with K’an as the color Yellow in their readings. Dictionary refer-ences, such as the Cordemex Yucatec sources, give a broad complex of meanings emphasizing the ideas of preciousness, precious stone, turquoise, jade, and associations with water and the color Yax (blue-green) [that] is assigned to the center place. Eric Thompson (1951:31–36; 1971:251–252, 275–276, 294) really covered most aspects of the richness of K’an in Maya thought and recognized some of its deep connections with the Oaxacan and Mexican Highlands. And, I believe that Thompson made the case that the yellow color association comes from precious Maize [that usually] transforms itself from Yax to yellow-white as it matures. I have completed a lengthy analysis of the K’an Cross in most all of its Mesoamerican K’antexts—I couldn’t resist—and have relied heav-ily on Central Mexican ethnohistorical sources and Teotihuacan iconography, as well as Maya.

In this [research], I believe I can go much further than Thompson and establish a likely Highland origin for this pervasive symbol, and perhaps from even earlier Formative cultures. (The example of the Humboldt Celt is persuasive (Figure 8: Joralemon 1971:Figure 32).) In my analysis, the K’an Cross, from across Mesoamerica, carries the primary mean-ing of the central place of emergence, the heart of the mountain, a precious place associated with the color of jade, water and quetzal plumes, the place where Maize as well as the “Men of Maize” emerged from the Earth. The K’an Cross is likely to be the Maya glyph for jade. It is both an ideogram for the central “pivot of the four quarters” and functions as a logo-gram or word sign, not a phonetic particle or syllable. Although read K’an in Maya languages, it could be recognized and read in virtually any Mesoamerican

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language. Some of the conclusions of the full study include the following examples: (a) The K’an Cross appears on the backs of the Cosmogonic Turtle cara-pace (e.g., T626) from which the young Maize god emerges (Figure 9), [The turtle effigies from Mayapan described by Proskouriakoff (1962:321–442), with crosses or holes on their backs, and the great turtle altar, west of Stela C at Copán, further illus-trate this point.] (b) The “Emiliano Zapata” relief panel (Mayer 1995: Pl. 135; Pl. 236), with a carved “K’an tun” Cauac Monster representation and tex-tual reference described by David Stuart (1990:13) as “yellow stone” is actually a representation of the Yax-colored central portal of emergence out of the cave of the Earth, (c) The Palenque Foliated Cross tablet depicts a central world-axis tree in the form of a supernatural Maize plant with a K’an Mon-ster at its base, which is also referred to in the text. (d) This symbolism is repeated at Copán in the form of the cruciform caches beneath many of the stelae of the North Plaza as described by Stromsvik (1942). Dedicatory offerings were made in these cruciform chambers [that] rest beneath the feet of the rulers who embody the central world axis tree (Newsome 1991). (e) An Early Classic carved bone handle depicts the pyramid form (T685) placed over the K’an Cross and illustrates a theme of emergence within the complex iconography of the image as discussed by Schele and Miller (1986:285), (f) Copán Structure 16 itself (see Stuart 1997:86–87, 72–73) is a world mountain with a cruciform temple chamber at the top with the likely tomb of the founder of the dynasty, [K’inich Yax K’uk’ Mo’o] below. (g) The K’an Cross and Mat Symbol form a compound at Teotihuacan (e.g., on the Atetelco miniature temple (Miller 1973:164–165) related to the charter of rulership, and the cult of impersonation of the Plumed Serpent and goggle-eyed, fanged deities of rain and fertility. In my view, this compound form [was] imported into the Maya culture in the form of the “Pop” [Mat of Rulership] month sign.

The Maya God of the Number Seven is a scroll-eyed [supernatural] sometimes portrayed with the loop or “cruller” over the nose. Thompson (1971:134) recognized the jaguar characteristics and associates him with the “Jaguar God of the Underworld” and

hence with the Night Sun, the [Maya] equivalent of Tepeyollotl, [the Highland Mexican—“Aztec”] “Heart of the Mountain”, [an aspect of Tezcatlipoca, the “Smoking Mirror”]. In any case, it is clear that the God of Seven does have night, jaguar, and underworld associations that fit a pan-Mesoamerican tradition of [a legendary] “Seven Caves” [place of origin].

In summary, I propose that the Uuc Ek’ K’an Nal, “Seven Black Precious Central Place” refers original-ly to a Highland Mesoamerican tradition of the Seven Caves of Ancestral Emergence, “Chicomoztoc” [in the Nahuatl language] if you will. It would specifi-cally refer to the caves of ancestral emergence in one of the great volcanoes of Central Mexico, which was constructed, in microcosm, at Teotihuacan in the form of the “Pyramid of the Sun” (and likely [also] the “Pyramid of the Moon”). Here, the cruciform cave beneath the center of the pyramid recreates the “Chicomoztoc” of ancestral emergence for the ruling Teotihuacan elite, as originally proposed by Doris Heyden (1975, 1976, 1981). It has been hypothesized (Saburo Sugiyama, personal communication, 1990?) that this vault originally contained the mummy bundles of the rulers. The reason, [in my view], that the burials of the Teotihuacan rulers have never been found is that they were in the form of these bundles which were looted both in ancient as well as more re-cent times. I share [Heyden’s and Sugiyama’s views] as a working hypothesis and [furthermore] propose that the glyphic text on Tikal St. 31 at E17, F17 [C. 1(a)] which mentions the Seven Black K’an Place followed by a Witz [mountain] glyph with a smoke or fire foliation emerging from the top actually refers both to a specific Highland Mexican Volcano as well as its “Temple of the Sun” microcosm. All of these moun-tains were seen as great reservoirs of water, and, in the case of the volcanoes, fire. Male and female rain and fertility deities such as the goggle-eyed Teotihuacan “Storm God” and “Great Goddess” lived inside and personified these forces which they controlled. They were propitiated by offerings and sacrifices of indi-viduals who were captured in a specific type of sacred warfare regulated by the motions of Venus and the Sun (Carlson 1991). In Late Postclassic Aztec times, these beings in the hearts of the mountains were Tlaloc and Chalchiuhtlicue, for example, and the very

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metaphor encompassing the concept of city, polity, and home of the ancestors was the “Altepetl,” or “Wa-ter Mountain.” This, then, is the nexus of Highland origin mythology and world-view that was carried into the Maya Lowlands in the Early Classic as part of a growing pattern of elite exchange that was creating the cultural traditions we call Mesoamerican. Maya dynasts such as Great Jaguar Paw or Stormy Sky of Tikal and K’inich Yax K’uk’ Mo’o of Copán were eager to claim ancestry from the sacred Highland mountain caves of origin which they called the Uuc Ek’ K’an Nal as well as from their own Lowland Bolon Ch’en. This gave them a truly cosmopolitan charter of rulership and, we might well expect, that these Lowland Maya Ahaws [Lords] carried some royal Highland blood in their veins.

A related 7-Place Emblem: Description and readingThere is a related Maya 7-Place Emblem, that ap-pears in both glyphic and iconographic contexts, that is listed in the Table 1 Catalog as entries A–E (see Figure 1). It is composed of the number 7 in dots-and-bar form, followed by the Main Sign of the day Imix (T501, “Ha” (water) or “Naab” (water lily, lake)). This T501, Imix, may be in Head Variant form as found on the Copán Str. 11 facade [C. A]. In its glyphic form, the composition has the T86, “Nal” locative superfix, sometimes with a “la” suffix corroborating the “Nal” reading. All of the Head Variants are of the Water Lily Monster of the Maya “Underwaterworld.” In an example painted on a Late Classic polychrome vase [C. E], this ophidian water lily dragon is shown to be the Head Variant of the God of Number 13. I propose that this 7-Place Emblem variant has the reading “Uuc Ha Nal” or, more likely, “Uuc Naab Nal”, “7 Lakes Place.” In my hypothesis, this is a Maya reading of the primal Highland Mesoamerican “7 Caves Place” (“Chicomoztoc”), transformed—a chthonian metamorphosis—from the high mountain cave forms of the Mexican altiplano into the Low-land cenote, lake or “ch’en.” For the Quiché and Cakchiquel [Maya peoples], this mythical place was called “Vucub Zivan” (Seven Ravines). Roys (1966) and the Popol Vuh refer to “Tulan Zuyua” and the “Seven Caves and Seven Canyons” as primal places

of ancestral emergence (Tedlock 1985:172, 360). As before, this is an ancestral place of Maize emergence, and is a variant of one ancient name of Chichén Itzá attested to in the Books of Chilam Balam (Roys 1966:158–159, 1967:133), namely “Uuc Yabnal.” I am proposing a new reading of this old name based on Chollan roots for “ojo de agua,” (water hole) such as “aban” for “poza,” (pool), or “ciénaga,” (marsh) (Josserand and Hopkins 1988:II) or “laguna” (Aulie 1878:27). In other words, the “Seven Water Holes Place” reading for “Uuc Yabnal” implies that the old name had essentially the same meaning as ChiCh’en Itzá, “the Mouth of the Well (Ch’en) of the Itzá [people].” (The Y prefix in Yabnal likely functions as the possessive pronoun.) Chichén Itzá was always a watery “Chicomoztoc,” a destination of long-distance pilgrimage to a primary place of emergence where sacrifices and offerings were made to the personified forces controlling Maize, Water, Rain and Fertility.

The 7- and 9-Place Emblems: Main ConclusionsI hypothesize, and believe that I have demonstrated, that the 7- and 9-Place emblems are nothing less than a cosmogonic couplet representing a pair of primary locations of ancestral emergence for the Maya royal lineages, as well as for other Mesoamerican peoples. The 9-Place, read “Bolon Ch’en” or “Bolon Ch’en Nal” (Nine Wells Place) was primarily a Lowland Maya place of ancestral emergence associated with the Moon Goddess and the location where Maize was first acquired. There was a mythical Bolonch’en as well as many local Bolonch’en caves or cenotes.

The 7-Place, likely read as “Uuc Ek’ K’an” or “Uuc Ek’ K’an Nal” (the Seven Black Precious-Jade- Central Place), was primarily a Highland “Mexi-can” place of ancestral emergence also associated with the place where Maize was born. It derives from the Highland Mesoamerican tradition of “Chicomoztoc” (Place of Seven Caves) and was imported into the Maya zone, at least by the Early Classic, from Highland Mexican contact, hypotheti-cally from Teotihuacan. When a Maya lord used this emblematic couplet in royal pictorial or textual compositions, he or she was claiming ancestry from elite lineages that emerged from these two separate places and consequently from two different cultural

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and religious traditions of royal mandate. It was vital for both the “pedigree” of royal lineage and char-ter of rulership that ancestral claim be made to the seven caves in the great mountains of the “Toltec” Highlands as well as the nine wells or cenotes of the Maya Lowlands. This [ancestral] tradition is claimed from the Early Classic founding of royal dynasties at Emblem Glyph polities such as Tikal, Palenque, and Copán. At Copán, this ancestral statement is made with respect to the dynastic founder, Yax K’uk’ Mo’o, on the Ballcourt A-IIb markers [C. 20], the “Mot Mot” Marker [C. 19], and on the north and south Margarita panels [C. 18].

The 9-Place Emblem: outline of the ArgumentProbably the first scholar to call attention to the 9-Place Emblem was [Eduard] Seler (1961[1923]: 531–533, Figure 253) who incorrectly associated the example from Copán St. D [C. 11(k)] with God K whom he identified as “Ah Bolon Tz’acab.” Herbert Spinden (1924:163–168) and Eric Thompson (1971:89, 214) also added to the discussion with new examples and different hypotheses, but George Kubler (1977) published the first real study describing them as “insignia which are actually glyphs” (p.8). Based on the 17 examples in his list, Kubler concluded that, “in general, the 7- and 9-heads, whether singly or paired, may be interpreted as enhancing the depiction of ruler-ship” (p. 13) and did suggest that “one function . . . was to specify the meaning of various places—platforms, stands, and thrones—where authority was publicly exercised” (p. 11). However, he proposed no “read-ings” or significant interpretations other than noting the association of the K’an Cross with Maize.

My arguments for a reading of Ch’en for the three main signs that substitute for one another in the 9-Place emblem rest (a) on the fact that the Maya Moon Goddess with her emblematic Lunar crescent is the Patron of the [Maya] month Ch’en, and (b) there are a great variety of Mesoamerican sources which place the Moon and female deities within caves and water holes and associate her with oracles, prophecy, and with Maize. For example, the Patron of [the month] Ch’en in the Initial Series Introducing Glyph of Copán St. 17, Front, shows the lunar crescent with the interior in the form of the Quatrefoil Portal

(Figure 3a). Figure 3b shows the Moon Goddess directly associated with the Lunar Crescent as the Patron of Ch’en on Copán St. D (Figure 3b). Figure 5 shows a Maya elite female located within such a Lunar Crescent, impersonating the Moon Goddess, and Quirigua Altar Q depicts a Ruler and Lunar Crescent within the Quatrefoil Portal, and vegetation (Maize) growing from its four corners (Figure 6). Figure 7 shows a Highland example from Codex Laud (1966:22 rev) with an old Goddess, Ilamatecuhtli, making a personal blood offering into a lunar cave opening with a path and two feet emerging. These feet, which are seen to emerge from the opening in all three variants of the Main Sign of this [9 Place] complex, reinforce the emergence hypothesis. In one most un-usual example from Maya iconography, the feet are seen to emerge from the scroll-eyed personification of the earth with the T540 Half-darkened Ahaw sub-stituting for the Main sign, be it the Lunar Crescent, T628/629 “Ch’en” glyph, or Quatrefoil Portal vari-ant (Figure 10). This “Half-darkened Ahaw” is now known to be read “way,” which contains a complex of meanings including one’s “co-essence,” dreams, visions and prophesies. This substitution links the function of such “ch’ens” as the famous “Cenote of Sacrifice” at Chichén Itzá with the prophecies and visions obtained from the water and fertility deities who dwelled in the depths of the waters. Often these Ahaws are shown with a cleft at the top [hypotheti-cally] indicating a place of emergence.

“Bolonch’en” itself has a great deal of directly rel-evant mythology associated with female water deities (e.g., Zapata Peraza, et al. 1991) and Maize. Sources such as Hermitte (1964; 1970), Heyden (1975; 1976; 1981), Köhler (1995), La Farge (1947), Monaghan (1995), Motolinía (1950), Nash (1970), Sahagún (1950–81), Serna (1953), Stone (1985), and Thompson (1939; 1951; 1970; 1971; 1975) provide a wealth of sup-porting material that relate such caves and water holes to the Moon, Maize, water, prophecy and the place of the ancestors. The glyphic and iconographic arguments require a great deal of visual material [that] is provided in the long study on which this paper is based.

The number Nine is personified by the youthful god with jaguar and underworld characteristics and is associated with the Jaguar “Headband Twin” of

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Classic Maya Mythology. He is one of the sons of the Classic Maya Maize God. Thompson (1971:135) provided the basic discussion of the characteristics of the God of number Nine. More recent scholarship continues to associate this youth with the Jaguar who is associated with the night sky, darkness and, in the form of “Tepeyollotl,” Heart of the Mountain, with caves and the interior of the Earth.

The 7-Place Emblem: outline of the ArgumentThe argument for my interpretation of the 7-Place Em-blem as a Maya “Chicomoztoc” rests heavily on (a) all of the varied associations of K’an in the dictionary and ethnohistoric sources from across Mesoamerica, (b) a detailed visual argument based on Highland as well as Lowland iconography (largely from Teotihuacan for the Highlands), and (c) the fact that I believe I have demonstrated that the K’an Cross—as it appears in the [Maya] Month Sign Pop, the “Water Group,” in its iconographic contexts, etc.—is actually a bor-rowing from outside the Maya zone. My case argues strongly for a specific connection with the powerful and pervasive cult of warfare, sacrifice, and charter for elite power developed at Teotihuacan in the Late Formative period. It was fully established at the time of the construction of the Feathered Serpent Pyramid in the Miccaotli Phase (ca. A.D. 150–200), and the cult [was] carried into the Maya Lowlands in the Early Classic by trade, warfare, and elite exchange. Because of this, Early Classic Maya elite at Tikal and Copán, were eager to display the insignia of the Feathered Ser-pent, the Goggle-eyed Storm God, and various other emblems of the Highland royal cult. In the hypothesis I am proposing here, the Seven Black K’an Place was one of the mythical places of ancestral emergence to which they claimed direct lineage. If correct, this could mean one of two things: (a) they themselves claimed blood lineage from these Highland Mexican elites, or were married to wives from these royal lineages, or (b) they were ethnic Maya who travelled to the High-lands (i.e., Teotihuacan) and underwent an investiture of some sort at this ancient “Tollan.”

Conclusions and Predictions for future Copan Acropolis ArchaeologyFrom the set of decipherments and arguments offered in the present study, I suggest that the Maya dynasts who employ both the 9- and 7-Place Emblems are claiming that their noble ancestors are from both a Lowland Maya and Highland Mexican place of origin. I favor the alternative (a) above suggesting that such Maya lords actually carried a Highland blood lineage and that this would manifest itself in an analysis of their remains. Specifically, for K’inich Yax K’uk’ Mo’o, the founder of the last dynasty of Copán, as well as Great Jaguar Paw of Tikal, I propose that they indeed carry Highland genetic material as well as culture, due to the full array of Highland iconographic traits they display as well as the Seven Black K’an place of origin they claim. If, in the future, this hypothesis can be tested by DNA or related analyses, I predict that the results will demonstrate a physical as well as philosophical and cultural connection [with the Mexican Highlands] for these individuals and their descendents.

Notes1. The ECAP Papers are an informal series of short reports

detailing recent discoveries and discussing current interpreta-tions related to the ongoing investigations of the University of Pennsylvania Museum’s Early Copan Acropolis Program (ECAP), directed by Robert J. Sharer. ECAP Papers will be released only after the research upon which they are based has been reported to Instituto Hondureño de Antropoligía y Historia via the customary annual field season Informe. The ECAP Papers are for circulation among researchers to elicit discussion and guide future inquiry; they are not intended for publication. Copies of all ECAP Papers are placed in the Re-search Library in the Centro de Investigaciones at Copan. No one should copy, distribute, or cite any ECAP Paper without the permission of the ECAP Director and the author(s).

2. I wish to thank Bruce Frumker of the Cleveland Mu-seum of Natural History for providing me with several new examples of the 7- and 9-Place Emblems along with their cita-tions based on his work with a Long Workshop study group at the March 1995 Austin Maya Meetings. I am also most grateful for the fine drawings prepared for this study by John Montgomery, draftsman and Mayanist extraordinaire.

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FIGURE 1. PART 1. Examples of the 7- and 9-Places [C. 1(a) through C. 10(j); see Table 1 for sources].

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FIGURE 1. PART 2. Examples of the 7- and 9-Places [C. 11(k) through C. 17(q) and Motmot Marker (C. 19); see Table 1 for sources].

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FIGURE 1. PART 3. Examples of the 7- and 9-Places [Copán Ball Court A-IIb Markers (C. 20)].

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FIGURE 1. PART 4. Examples of the 7- and 9-Places [Tikal? Jaguar Paw Portrait (C. 23) and Tikal? Cache Vessel Lid (C. 25)].

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FIGURE 1. PART 5. Examples of the 7- and 9-Places [Caracol Stela 6 (C. 29), Copán Str. 18 (C. A), and R&H Codex-Style Vessel (C. D)].

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FIGURE 2a. South Margarita Panel drawing and 9-Place emblem at base (drawing by David Sedat).

FIGURE 2b. North Margarita Panel 7-Place emblem (drawing by David Sedat).

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FIGURE 3b. Copán Stela D with the Patron Moon Goddess of the Month Ch’en. She is shown within the Lunar Crescent (drawing after Thompson 1971:Figures 22, 60).

FIGURE 3a. Copán Stela 17 (Front) ISIG (drawing by John Montgomery).

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FIGURE 4. Moon Goddess composite with the Tonsured Maize God within the Lunar Crescent with the diagnostic Rabbit. The Nal, Maize, foliation on top designates this as a place and reinforces a lunar association with Maize (drawing from a Maya cylindrical vessel after Schele and Miller 1986:Plate 120).

FIGURE 5. Elite Maya female depicted within a Lunar Crescent (drawing by John Montgomery from an unprovenienced monument in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; see Mayer 1995:Plate 106).

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FIGURE 6. Quirigua Altar Q depicting a ruler and Lunar Crescent within a quatrefoil portal (drawing after Matthew Looper).

FIGURE 7. Codex Laud (1966: 22 rev) depicting the Old Goddess, Ilamatecuhtli, making a blood offering into a Lunar cave mouth opening on a tied bundle of sticks and a ball of rubber. A path with footprints emerges from the mouth.

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FIGURE 9. An unprovenienced polychrome plate from the Tikal area shows the Classic Maya Tonsured Maize God emerg-ing from a cleft K’an Cross on the back of the Cosmic Turtle carapace (drawing by John Montgomery; see Robicsek and Hales 1981:Figure 57).

FIGURE 8. The Humboldt Celt, of unknown provenience, showing the K’an Cross in the center of a four-quartered diagram—likely a cosmogram (drawing after Joralemon 1971:Figure 32).

FIGURE 10. An Earth Monster at the base of an unprovenienced Maya monument with the Half-darkened Ahaw (“way”) glyph, T540, on the forehead with the two emerging footprints (T223). Maize, personified in the form of the Young Maize God, grows from the sides of the Monster (drawn from a photograph in the archive of Flora Clancy by John Montgomery).

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Sources Cited[Note: This bibliography includes references for the sources of the examples cataloged in Table 1.]

Aulie, H. Wilbur & Evelyn W. de Aulie1978 Diccionario Ch’ol—Español, Español—Ch’ol.

Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, SEP, Mexico, D.F.Baudez, Claude-François1994 Maya Sculpture of Copán: The Iconography. Uni-

versity of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Becquelin, Pierre & Claude F. Baudez1982 Tonina: Une Cité Maya du Chiapas (Mexique),

Tome III. Mission Archéologique et Ethnologique Française au Mexique, Paris.

Beetz, Carl P. & Linton Satterthwaite1981 The Monuments and Inscriptions of Caracol, Belize.

University Museum Monograph 45, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Berjonneau, Gerald, Emile Deletaille & Jean-Louis Sonnery

1985 Rediscovered Masterpieces of Mesoamerica: Mexico-Guatemala-Honduras. Editions Arts 135, Boulogne, France.

Cardos de Mendez, Amalia1985 The Mayas: Maya Hall, The National Museum of

Anthropology. Garcia Valades Editores, Mexico.Carlson, John B.1981 A Geomantic Model for the Interpretation of Meso-

american Sites: An Essay in Cross-Cultural Com-parison. In Mesoamerican Sites and World-Views: A Conference at Dumbarton Oaks, October 16th and 17th, 1976, Elizabeth P. Benson, ed., Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collections, Washing-ton, DC, pp. 143–215.

1991 Venus-regulated Warfare and Ritual Sacrifice in Mesoamerica: Teotihuacan and the Cacaxtla “Star Wars” Connection. Center for Archaeoastronomy Technical Publication no. 7, College Park, MD.

Chase, Diane Zaino & Arlen Frank Chase1988 A Postclassic Perspective: Excavations at the Maya

Site of Santa Rita Corozal, Belize. Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute Monograph 4, San Francisco, CA.

Chumayel, Book of Chilam Balam of1913 The Book of Cjhilam Balam of Chumayel, with

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epilogueOne exciting new discovery directly relevant to this research came to my attention in December 2005 (CBC News 2005; Lovgren 2005) with the presenta-tion in the international press of the discovery of an Early Classic Maya stela from Naachtun. This is a Maya site in the northern Petén district of Guatemala located near the Mexican border between the ancient Tikal and Calakmul polities. The stone monument was named Naachtun Stela 26 (see Figure 11 for a drawing of the front side) and was first unearthed in 2004 during the excavations of the Naachtun Archaeological Project directed by Kathryn Reese-Taylor of the University of Calgary (Reese-Taylor et al. 2005; Reese-Taylor et al. n.d.). Most likely dating from the fourth to the early fifth centuries C.E., Stela 26 shows the bust of a sumptuously adorned royal personage, almost certainly a woman, presenting the 7-Place emblem bundle to our left, in front of her face, and the 9-Place emblem to the right, behind her elaborate beaded ear-spool assemblage. Her nominal glyph is prominently displayed on, or within, the stylized sacrificial bowl of what is called the zoo-morphic “Quadripartite Badge Monster” that forms her elaborate headdress. She was first dubbed “Lady Partition Lord” or “Lady Partition Flower”—perhaps read “Ix Tzutz Nik”—by her discoverers in late 2005 (CBC News 2005). At that time there was some doubt as to whether she, or perhaps he, was a historical or mythical figure, but today it is virtually certain that she was a prominent royal lady at Naachtun, at least for some portion of her life.

In my view this composition is a royal presenta-tion scene of the two lineage bundles containing the emblems and sacred paraphernalia of the 7- and 9-Places of ancestral emergence from the personi-fied Earth. Her specific personal origin place may be labeled below with a latch-beaked, akbal (darkness), zoomorphic head with skeletal lower jaw, naming a specific toponym. Around this time in the fourth to fifth centuries the kingdom of Masuul or Maasal—likely the true emblem glyph name of Naachtun (Martin and Grube 2008:19, 30; Reese-Taylor et al. n.d.)—as well as other notable polities such as Tikal, Uaxactun, and Copán were in direct contact with Teotihuacan in the Mexican altiplano, and depictions

of their ruling elites actively display both Maya and Teotihuacano insignia and iconographic style. These must have been “interesting times,” to paraphrase the old and probably apocryphal Chinese curse, be-cause at that time Teotihuacano practices of Venus- regulated warfare and human sacrifice, as well as other more peaceful reciprocal aspects of long-distance cultural contact and exchange, were being introduced across the Maya Lowlands (e.g., Carlson 1991, 1993; Martin and Grube 2008; Stuart 1998, 2000). These would have included such reciprocal exchanges and alliances as trade, gift giving, feasting,

FIGURE 11. Drawing of the front side of Naachtun Stela 26. Most likely dating from the fifth century C.E., Stela 26 shows a bust of a sumptuously adorned royal personage, quite possibly a woman, presenting the 7-Place emblem bundle to the left, in front of his or her face, and the 9-Place emblem to the right, behind an elaborate beaded ear-spool assemblage (drawing by Peter Mathews, courtesy of and copyright by the Naachtun Archaeological Project, directed by Kathryn Reese-Taylor, University of Calgary).

104 archaeoastronomy

pilgrimage, and marriage. It will be vital to learn if future archaeological and epigraphic researches at Naachtun and other Lowland Maya sites—not to mention those at Teotihuacan—will conclusively link, via Maya historical inscriptions or perhaps even DNA, the female personage portrayed on Stela 26 to Highland Mexican ancestry or residence.

One intriguing clue to her identity comes from Early Classic Maya inscriptions incised on a pair of splendid jade ear spools (Coe and Kerr 1997:116, Figure 44; Mayer 1987) that give the name of a noblewoman of the polity of Río Azul (see Adams 1999)—or perhaps of Maasal (Naachtun)—on one spool (Mayer 1987:140, Figure 5). She has the identi-cal name glyph as the personage on Naachtun Stela 26 and, as supported by additional sources, must surely be the same elite woman.

The inscription on the other spool (Mayer 1987:141, Figure 7) suggests that she may well have been related to the intriguing “Spearthrower Owl” character mentioned at Tikal, one of the “Strangers” who seem to have arrived in the central Maya Low-lands from the west during the so-called Entrada event at Tikal of 378 C.E. (Stuart 1998, 2000; Martin and Grube 2008:29–31). With his arrival with another lord named Sihyaj K’ahk’ (Fire Born), bent on conquest and usurpation, Spearthrower Owl would seem to have been a powerful war chief who apparently fa-thered the next Tikal king but who never ruled there himself. Sihyaj K’ahk’ also never ruled himself but acted as a kingmaker. The epigraphic record also shows that Spearthrower Owl accessed to rulership somewhere else in 374 C.E, not at Tikal, but the site remains unknown (Martin and Grube 2008:31). How-ever, with regard to my hypothesis about a Highland Mexican origin of the 7-Place ancestral caves, it is highly significant that, in all aspects from his name glyph to his monuments and regalia, he is a person intimately involved with the Teotihuacan polity and its religion, whether by lineage, birth, marriage, or long-term residence. Inscribed on this second of the alleged Río Azul ear-spool pair, Spearthrower Owl’s name and titles appear. In this text he is given the emblem glyph title of Holy Overlord of the Ruler of Maasal/Naachtun (Martin and Grube 2008:30). If the pair of four-glyph-block inscriptions is to be read as

one continuous text, beginning with the lady’s name (and I believe that they are), then a clear relationship between Lady Ix Tzutz Nik and Spearthrower Owl is indicated. Due to the uncertainty of the reading of the glyphic expression at position 5, the critical question is, What was their relationship? I believe that some form of marital alliance is quite possible.

I have long questioned the idea that this outsider lord and others like him were necessarily ethnically Highland “Teotihuacanos”—whatever that might mean—rather than being long-term Lowland Maya people by ancestry and language residing for much of their lives in their own enclave at Teotihuacan. Inter-marriage with other Teotihuacan populations as well as possible lives as traveling pochteca—members of elite guilds of armed long-distance caravan mer-chants and perhaps also ambassadors—might make it difficult to sort out genetic origins and residence histories through even the most sophisticated of mod-ern or future techniques of archaeological analysis. However, I prefer to be optimistic in suggesting that the epigraphic evidence, whether found eventually in Lowland Maya sites or at Highland Teotihuacan itself, will at least be consistent with archaeological DNA and other analyses of physical remains.

In this regard, in conclusion, I would suggest that this elite woman portrayed on Naachtun Stela 26 is carrying the emblematic bundles of elite lineal descent from both Highland Mexican and Maya “caves of origin” and is presenting them to her heirs in this highly formal stylized portrait. If her remains should ever be found, I offer the prediction that they will verify, or be consistent with, the hypothesis of dual lineage ancestry. To close with one speculative hypothesis, more than three hundred years after the Tikal Entrada, powerful Tikal “Ruler A”—“Jasaw Chan K’awiil I” (682–734 C.E.)—is portrayed on his Stela 16 involved with the dedication of Twin-Pyramid Complex N (Martin and Grube 2008:44–47). Such complexes were constructed at Tikal and dedicated every Katun (about 20 years, 20 x 360 days), and part of an associated ritual is depicted on the top of the usual accompanying cylindrical disk called Altar 5. It is significant that Ruler A was celebrating a very special anniversary—14 September 695—which was exactly the thirteenth Katun anniversary (about

Volume XXI 2007–2008 105

256 years) from the death of Spearthrower Owl and apparently also one day short of 308 years from his coronation as overlord at some unknown location (Martin and Grube 2008:45). The scene carved in relief on the top of the accompanying Altar 5 (711 C.E.) shows two rulers face to face—Ruler A on the left and a Lord of Maasal/Naachtun on the right—apparently conducting an exhumation and reconsecration ritual with someone’s bones displayed between them (Martin and Grube 2008:46). From the associated text, the bones are of a high-ranking royal lady, and I will speculate here that these might have been the remains of the lady “Ix Tzutz Nik” of Maasul, the lady of Naachtun Stela 26. If this were proven to be correct, would that we should find these remains intact someday for the full battery of analytical texts, which might offer some insight into why she would be shown as the presenter of both the 7- and 9-Place lineage bundles to her descendents.

Other new examples of the 7- and 9-Places in Maya epigraphy and iconography are being added to the corpus given in Table 1 for a follow-up publication. The author’s intention is to maintain this database and work with others to continue to see if the hypotheses created by this research may be further supported (or refuted, as the case may be) by the archaeological evidence and in turn whether the evidence will help to clarify the wider cultural history of Mesoamerica beyond the Maya realm.

acknowledgmentsMy grateful thanks go to Kathryn Reese-Taylor, director of the Naachtun Archaeological Project, for helpful personal communications and permission to use Peter Mathews’s drawing of Stela 26, previously published only on the Web. I look forward to reading her forthcoming book (Reese-Taylor et al. n.d.) and following future excavations and research at Naach-tun, including the epigraphic work devoted to reading the inscriptions on the sides of the stela. I also whole-heartedly thank my old friend Donald Hales for many conversations delving deep into his encyclopedic resources and insights regarding Maya epigraphy and iconography. Donald knows the objects and where they are located and published, and it is a pleasure to discuss everything Maya with someone with his depth of expertise. To Robert Sharer and David Sedat

go my special gratitude for their generosity in making the Margarita Structure data available to me for the original study. I believe I can say that I never would have started the project without the first drawings of the Margarita south stuccowork panel with its unique and revelatory rendition of the 9-Place insignia and, later, David’s field drawing of the 7-Place toponym on the north panel. Now, as I write this acknowledg-ment recalling all the gifts that this exploration has brought me, I am thinking of my dear friend and mentor, the late Doris Heyden, my personal guide on so many journeys into the ancient Mesoamerican cosmovision. I will always think of her friendship and wise counsel every time I walk among the ruins of Teotihuacan or the streets of Mexico City for the rest of my days on this Earth—Tlalticpac—until I “take the road” to join her in Tlalocan, the mountain paradise of the Rain God.

appendix 1

Chicomoztoc (Uuc Yabnal) and Bolon Ch’en: Chichén Itzá in the Maya Sphere of Highland/Lowland Origin Mythology, Pilgrimage, and TradeAbstract for a presentation in the symposium “Yucatán a través de los siglos: Estudios recientes multidisciplinarios sobre su pasado, presente y futuro,” Ruth Gubler and Edward B. Kurjack, or-ganizers, for the 49th International Congress of Americanists, July 7–11, 1997, Quito, Ecuador. [This abstract was submitted, accepted, and published in advance, but the paper was never presented because the author was unable to attend the 49th ICA. None-theless, the idea was distributed and available to the scholars who read it.]

Across the Maya zone, at least from Early Classic times, there have been recorded examples of a pair of personified toponyms containing the numbers 7 and 9. Kubler (1977) was one of the first scholars to discuss this couplet with a significant database, but the author (1995 and n.d. [1997]) has offered the first reading of the pair suggesting that they specifically reinforce claims of elite ancestry from two ancient places of Mesoamerican origin, one Highland (e.g., Teotihuacan), which became the Nahua Chicomoztoc,

106 archaeoastronomy

“Seven Caves”; the other Lowland (Maya), Bolon Ch’en, “Nine Wells.” It will be demonstrated how early and pervasive this Cosmogonic Couplet was in the Mesoamerican Lowlands with examples taken from Early Classic Copán to “Uuc Yabnal,” likely an early name for Chichén Itzá before the Itzá and other invasions in the Epiclassic period. The origin couplet served to establish a Highland/Lowland legitimacy for rulership hypothetically based on real kinship ties, which may be tested in future research, and the pilgrimage relationships that are proposed here as the key to understanding the basic sacred charter that established participating elites in the great trading networks across Formative Mesoamerica, and beyond, through the Classic, Epiclassic, and Post Classic periods, right up to the Spanish conquest.

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