I traveled to The Field Museum of Chicago on 7/6/16 to document the Hatzcap Ceel Axe, an early Mayan inscription from Belize.  It is unusual in that it reads in single columns even though it is a two-column text.  It appears to bear an example of a priestly title, the aj k’uhun title, possibly the earliest example of it so far, but it appears possessed, suggesting that the inscription refers to a person who held that title and also to their superior.  In the paper that I am currently writing about it, I also propose that the last two glyphs refer to the ‘chopping’ or ‘cutting’ of a portrait, possibly referring to a religious image (e.g. a wooden religious figure or statuette, possibly a mask), akin to the references present in the Postclassic codices.

 

HatzcapCeelAxeLineDrawingNoCracks HatzcapCeelAxeLineDrawingComposite