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Note 17

June 12, 2021 / David Mora Marín

Notes on the Inscription on the “Diker Bowl” (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

David F. Mora-Marín
davidmm@unc.edu
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill

6/12/2021

In his The Maya Scribe and His World, Michael Coe introduced Mayanists to a myriad inscriptions on portable and monumental media alike. One of them, seen in Figure 1, was a carved stone bowl formerly in the collection of Mr. Charles Diker and Mrs. Valerie Diker, and now in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Accession Number 1999.484.3 (Doyle 2016). The bowl is carved out of “indurated limestone with red veins,” and constitutes an example of a spouted vessel that may have been “used to froth cacao liquid at the moment of serving” (Fields and Reents-Budet 2005:202).[1] It was estimated to date to the “Proto-Classic” period by Coe (1973:26), between “A.D. 0-300,” and to the late Late Preclassic period by Fields and Reents-Budet (2005:202), between ca. “50 BC-AD 200.”

Figure 1. The image is in the Public Domain. See Doyle (2016).

In 2003 I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in order to prepare a drawing of the text. I spent several hours, from opening until closing, examining the piece in person in order to prepare a drawing of the text. Prior to my visit, I scanned the photo of the text in Coe (1973:28) in high-resolution using Photoshop, inverted it to its negative image, and printed it out in enlarged format. Using tracing paper and pencil, and a portable light table, I then began to trace the major outlines of the glyph blocks and individual signs prior to my visit in order to capture the most obvious details and reserve the more challenging ones for my first-hand examination. Then, during my visit, I carefully traced the details of the inscription as I checked them against the carved text with adjustable raking light and magnifying lenses. Unfortunately I did not have at the time a camera capable of high-resolution close-up photographs. By closing time I had completed my pencil tracing and checked every detail, systematically, glyph block per glyph block, sign per sign. That said, I did not feel then that I had successfully captured every detail, as the text has experienced damage during its long history. For some aspects of glyph blocks A1 (signs A1d-e) and A3 (sign 3g), details are simply missing, obliterated; for other signs (sign A3d), details were unclear. I believe that I successfully gleaned a majority (maybe 60-70%) of the details of the text. A few days later I traced the pencil drawing with ink pens. My final rendering, available in Mora-Marín (2004:47, Fig. 3), is seen in Figure 2A, and may be compared to that published in Coe (1973:27) in Figure 2B.

Figure 2. Drawings in Mora-Marín (2004) and Coe (1973).

In Mora-Marín (2004:18-21) I made the drawing and also a description of the text available online through the FAMSI website. Table 1 reproduces the analytical sketch of the text I provided in that report. I will review the content of the text below, and in the process revise and update it.

Table 1

In my breakdown of the text I followed Coe’s (1973) formatting, A1-A5. I still stand by some of the identifications of individual signs (A1a, A2a, A2d, A3b, A3d, A4a, A4c, A4d, A5a, A5b, A5c) and one of the collocations (A5).

More recently, Houston (2011) has discussed this text in connection with the practice of “archaizing.” Interestingly, Houston has suggested that the vessel is Preclassic in form, and that the iconographic imagery is stylistically Preclassic as well, but argues that such style was the result of intentional archaization. Furthermore, he suggests that the associated text was stylistically later: “This is where interest mounts: against expectation, the glyphs appear to be fully Early Classic, not Preclassic, in date (n.b.: it is almost certain that the text and image are contemporary, in that the handle has the same relief as the images and could not have been added later).” He does not explain why the imagery would have been successfully archaicized while the text was not, but it is possible to imagine that two individuals were responsible for the work, one carving the imagery and the other the text. While light in justification, as no paleographic arguments are made explicit for the relative dating of the text and its alleged disjunction relative to the pictorial imagery, Houston’s blog introduces a high-resolution photograph of the inscription by Justin Kerr and a pencil sketch of the text prepared by Houston himself, both of which are linked here (https://decipherment.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/figure-4ab.jpg). His blog also offers remarks on the glyphic collocations that make up the text, reproduced here in its entirety:

Position A1 may contain a version of the TI’ logograph identified by David Stuart, and in a schematic form that is securely Early Classic. A sign for “mouth” accords with what was surely a drinking vessel, although it is unlikely to read “drink,” uk’, in this context because of the prefixed u pronoun. Just beneath it lies what may be a reference to the vessel itself, with body and neck somewhat visible. The probable t’abayi sign that composes part of A2 conforms to this dates [sic], as does what appears to be an admittedly aberrant spelling of a transitive verb at A4: u-K’AL-wa TUUN, doubtless in reference to the stone-bowl and its dedication. (The name of the god is, as mentioned before, at A2.) An unusual form of tu, a preposition with ergative pronoun, may figure in A5. To my knowledge, spellings of transitives come exclusively from the Classic period.

A careful examination of Justin Kerr’s high-resolution photo (Houston 2011:Fig. 4a) has led me to revise my thinking on some signs and elements. A3e is not adequately rendered in my drawing (or Houston’s): from Justin Kerr’s photograph, it is now clear to me that the sign is supposed to show an opened hand facing up and holding an object, and that what I had previously believed to be the last element or sign out of six on this glyph block, A3g, may actually be an extended finger connected to the hand sign in question, and so there are now only five signs in this glyph block. When considered in this light, this sign (A3d/g) is similar to one of the painted stucco medallion glyphs that formerly covered a gourd container (Vessel 17) recovered in Tomb 19 at Rio Azul (Adams and Robichaux 1992:Fig. 3–42), as seen in Figure 3, the difference being their orientation, with the sign at A3e on the spouted jar facing up, the one on the stucco medallion facing down. A future drawing will be needed to render these details more accurately.

Figure 3. Sign with open-hand holding object.

Houston’s (2011:Fig. 4b) drawing may be missing some minor details as well, some of which may not be significant for the purposes of reading signs, but others probably are so. I will review these from the top to the bottom. Figure 4 shows locations where I believe signs or sign elements are missing from Houston’s (2011) drawing that are either important for reading the whole text (contained within blue rectangles) or for stylistic or paleographic description of individual signs (contained within pink rectangles).

Figure 4

At A1a, Houston’s drawing is missing four dots that securely identify this sign as T1/HE6 7u.[2] Some of these dots are somewhat visible in Justin Kerr’s high-resolution photo (Houston 2011:Fig. 4a). Also missing, this time from A1d, is the “floral” ornamentation seen in Coe’s drawing and my own, and unambiguously visible in the photograph published in Fields and Reents-Budet (2005:188), as well as that in Doyle (2016), as seen in Figure 5A. These floral elements may have been added at a later time, perhaps even long after the initial carving of the text.

Figure 5

At A2a, Houston’s drawing is missing only minor elements, but elements that nonetheless point to the sign being the syllabogram T520/XS3 cha. At A2d, Houston’s drawing is missing an important sign which undoubtedly affects the reading of the glyphic collocation it is contained in, and perhaps the entire text: a hand-shaped sign that appears to correspond to the syllabogram T220ab/MZR ye. This sign also bears a characteristic U-shaped element seen with this particular sign in Late Preclassic and Early Classic texts. Both the photo by Justin Kerr employed by Houston (2011), as well as the available in Doyle (2016), a detail of which is seen in Figure 5B, support this identification. The sign was likely used in lieu of T17/ZUH yi, to partially spell the expected -V₁y suffix of the STEP verb that precedes it.

At A3a my drawing, seen in Figure 6A, may be showing more striations within the probable K’IN component of the “k’in-in-hand” sign than are supposed to be there, so that Houston’s drawing is likely more accurate. At A3b, Houston’s drawing does not render what appears to be a trefoil-shaped example of T178/AMB la, one that may contain a U-shaped element; his version is somewhat circular instead, with traces of a diagonal line inside. Such diagonal line is, in my opinion, a scratch —an example of damage to the text. The “k’in-in-hand” sign is also present in the pictorial imagery as an iconographically embedded glyph, Figure 6B. Commonly, the “k’in-in-hand” sign is accompanied by a la subfix, as in Figure 6C, which shows a glyph block from the trimmed jade belt plaque at Dumbarton Oaks (PC.B.586, http://museum.doaks.org/objects-1/info/22541), although in at least one instance, it bears a ma subfix in a glyph block from the San Diego Cliff Carving, seen in Figure 6D. At A3c, Houston’s drawing seems to leave out an important internal detail that renders this sign as a bracket that likely corresponds to a design of 7u without dots or central triangular element, which can be appreciated in Figure 5C. This sign likely spells u- ‘third person singular ergative/possessive’, and is therefore crucial to understanding the structure of the text. Lastly, as I have already noted, my 2003 drawing inaccurately renders the bottom components of this glyph block: it should show, at A3e, a sign shaped like an opened hand with a rounded object in it. Houston’s drawing is also missing this sign.

Figure 6

At A4b, there is a discrepancy between my drawing and Houston’s. My drawing renders A4b as an abbreviated version of T126/32M ya, showing only two elements instead of the usual three; similar abbreviations are common in the Classic period. Houston’s drawing renders it as a simplified version of T130/2S2 wa. Despite its unusual location, noted as such by Houston, wa would make more sense as far as reading the entire glyph block. At A4d, Houston’s drawing is missing another example of a U-shaped element contained within the logogram T713/MR2 K’AL (or CH’AL) for ‘to bind/wrap/adorn’, visible in my 2003 drawing, but also detectable in the photograph by Justin Kerr’s in Houston (2011:Fig. 4a). Such element does not affect the reading, but further supports an early dating of the inscription.

At A5a, my drawing differs from Houston’s mainly in the style of the top elements: mine renders them in an angular fashion, his in a curvilinear fashion. However, crucially, A5b in my drawing (and Coe’s) is rendered in a way that resembles T521/XS1 WINIK/WINAK, for winak/winik ‘man, person’, but Houston’s drawing merely shows three dots. The missing details are visible in the photos in Field sand Reents-Budet (2005), Doyle (2016), as seen in part in Figure 5D, and in the photograph by Justin Kerr in Houston (2011:Fig. 4a). Another important missing detail from Houston’s drawing is the last sign of the entire text: sign A5c. This sign resembles a Late Classic syllabogram T24/1M4 li, as suggested in Mora-Marín (2004:17, Table 1), but it may simply be a T617/1M3 MIRROR sign, argued in Mora-Marín (2012) to have a value WIN ‘eye/face’ (or syllabographic win) in some contexts. The sign appears below the glyph block itself, incised on the surface of the handle in a different plane as the raised relief of the glyph blocks. It was added after the carving of the glyph blocks themselves. It was rendered in Coe’s drawing, although lacking internal elements, and also in mine, showing two diagonal bands within a cartouche. If the sign in question is in fact the syllabogram li, it is possible that it may have been added at a time that postdates the initial carving of the text, a time when the hook-shaped version of the Late Preclassic and early Early Classic li had given way to a more oval-shaped version.

Now, a few remarks can be attempted with regard to the inscription. Glyph block A1 includes a total of five signs. It begins with a design of 7u at A1a. Sign A1b is incomplete and unclear as to what it depicts, much less what its value might be. Sign A1c depicts a vessel; as such it could be a reference to the spouted jar itself. It resembles a jar-shaped sign texts, YG2, employed in several instances as the day sign MULUK, but also as a syllabogram 7u in other contexts (e.g. 7u-tz’i-b’a for u-tz’ihb’-a-Ø ‘s/he wrote it’). Since the term for ‘drinking cup’ was 7uk’ib’(-aal), and since the day name corresponding to MULUK is typically associated with water in other Mesoamerican ritual calendars, it is possible that the syllabographic value 7u for YG2 was derived acrophonically from 7uk’ib’(-aal), and that such sign was used in the spelling of the day sign MULUK due to such association. If the jar-shaped sign at A1c on the spouted jar is an early version of YG2, perhaps it functioned logographically as 7UK’(IB’) in this context. Although Houston (2011) remarked, regarding this glyph block, that “A sign for “mouth” accords with what was surely a drinking vessel, although it is unlikely to read “drink,” uk’, in this context because of the prefixed u pronoun,” it must be recalled that Piedras Negras Panel 3 bears a spelling 7u-7UK’-ni for 7uk’-(V)n-i-Ø ‘he drank’, where we find a sign 7u precisely before the logographic spelling for ‘drink’. That said, since only one sign, A1a 7u, can be identified and read in this glyph block at this point, it is premature to speculate any further, except to suggest that it is possible that it spells the u-‘third person singular ergative/possessive’ marker, either preceding a noun or verb.

Table 2. Breakdown of the text with some suggested readings.

	Transcription	Transliteration	Grammatical Options	Paraphrase
A1	7u-?-?-?	u-…	Possessed noun (or active transitive verb)	(it is) his/her X (or s/he Xed it)
A2	?cha-STEP[ye]	?-V₁y(-e…)	Inchoative verb	s/he/it became Xed
A3	?-?la-?7u-?-?	“k’in-in-hand” seems to represent a relationship term in other texts	Perhaps a noun or noun phrase (possibly including a relationship term)	Proper name?
A4	7u-?wa-K’AL-TUN	u-k’al-aw-Ø tuun	Active transitive verb	s/he bound/wrapped/adorned the stone (vessel)
A5	tu-WINAK/WINIK-?win/?li	t-u-winak(-iil)	Preposition ta/tä ‘to/for’ followed by u- ‘his/her/it’ followed by winak/winik ‘man/person’ or winak/winik-iil‘owner’	For his/her person/body/owner

A2 appears to open with a version cha and to close with a version of ye. In between are two signs, one resembling a small platform with a vertical element on the step, the other resembling T843/ZY1, the STEP glyph, read by some epigraphers as T’AB’ (Stuart 1995, 1998, 2005; Wagner in Schele and Grube 1997:195), although the precise lexical and semantic identification is not always specified (there are at least two options, ‘to rise’ and ‘to annoint’). As I noted above, it is possible that the ye sign is in part providing the expected spelling of the -V₁y suffix commonly seen with this expression, which I have argued serves to derive “ingressives” (Mora-Marín 2007), whether inchoatives (‘to become X’) or versives (‘to begin to become X’).

As already discussed, A3a bears an example of the so-called “k’in-in-hand” sign, which is typically preceded by ya, followed by la, and in one instance, on the San Diego Cliff carving, preceded by ya and followed by T74/32A ma. A3b may constitute an example of la. The following sign is, in my opinion, a design of T1 7u, followed by a sign that represents the head of an animal, showing a prominent eye, human or otherwise. At the bottom would be a sign shaped like an opened hand holding an object. I suspect this glyph block bears a proper name, as suggestion supported by the iconographically embedded example on the spouted jar (cf. Figure 6B), occurring atop the head of one of the depicted personages, as observed by Coe (1973:26), or a genealogical statement, but nothing more can be said with confidence at this time.

Mora-Marín (2004) I suggested that A4 presented an unusual spelling 7u-ya-K’AL-TUN , with uy- preceding k’al , even though uy- is the prevocalic allomorph that would normally precede roots beginning with /7/. Following Houston’s (2011) suggestion, a more straightforward reding would be 7u-wa-K’AL-TUN, where wa would still be present in an unusual position, as the more common, expected spelling would have been 7u-K’AL-wa-TUN. His reading supports a more straightforward active transitive inflection u-k’al-aw-Ø followed by tuun ‘stone’: ‘s/he bound/wrapped/adorned the stone’. As Houston suggests, ‘stone’ may refer the spouted jar itself.

The last glyph block, A5, may read t-u-winak/winik-iil. In both Ch’orti’ and Tzeltal the possessed and suffixed form of winik ‘man, person’ can refer to ‘owner’: Ch’orti’ u-win(i)k-ir ‘its owner’ (Hull 2016:324, 400, 487) and Tzeltal s-winik-il-el ‘its owner’ (Polian 2015:798). Perhaps the text refers to the ‘binding’ or ‘wrapping’ of the stone vessel ‘for its (intended) owner’, that is, prior to the actual gifting or presentation of the vessel to the intended owner.

To conclude, there remain too many uncertainties to attempt a reading of the whole text. Hopefully future findings of similar texts on similar artifacts will provide more parallels. It is very likely too that future attempts at documenting the inscription will improve on the currently available drawings.

Acknowledgments. My detailed examination and documentation of the Diker bowl in 2003 was only possible due to the generosity of Julie Jones and Amy Chen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and support of FAMSI grant #02047 (Mora-Marín 2004). I am also grateful to James Doyle for sharing information on the spouted jar, including a 3D model prepared the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

[1] From this point forward I use grapheme codes by Thompson (1962), designed by an initial “T” followed by a numeral, as well as the grapheme codes by Macri and Looper (2003). Also, I will use <7> for [ʔ] out of typographical convenience.

[2] See Houston (2017) for a recent discussion of cacao-serving vessels, including the Diker bowl.

References

Adams, Richard E. W., and Hubert R. Robichaux. 1992. Tombs of Río Azul, Guatemala. Research and Exploration: A Scholarly Publication of the National Geographic Society 8:412-427.

Coe, Michael. 1973. The Maya Scribe and His World. New York: The Grolier Group.

Doyle, James. 2016. Spouted Jar. URL: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/318346?searchFie…sortBy=Relevance&ft=maya&offset=0&rpp=20&pos=16.

Fields, Virginia, and Dorie Reents-Budet. 2005. Lords of Creation: The Origins of Sacred Maya Kingship. London: Scala Publishers Limited.

Houston, Stephen. 2017. Forgetting Chocolate: Spouted Vessels, Coclé, and the Maya. Maya Decipherment Blog. URL: https://mayadecipherment.com/2017/09/24/forgetting-chocolate-spouted-vessels-cocle-and-the-maya/.

—–. 2011. Bending Time Among the Maya. Maya Decipherment Blog. URL: https://mayadecipherment.com/2011/06/24/bending-time-among-the-maya/.

Hull, Kerry. 2016. A Dictionary of Ch’orti’ Mayan-Spanish-English. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press.

Macri, Martha J., and Matthew G. Looper. 2003. The New Catalog of Maya Hieroglyphs, Volume One, The Classic Period Inscriptions. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Mora-Marín, David F. 2004. The Primary Standard Sequence: Database Compilation, Grammatical Analysis, and Primary Documentation. FAMSI Report. URL: http://www.famsi.org/reports/02047/FinalReport02047.pdf.

—–. 2007. The Identification of an Ingressive Suffix in Classic Lowland Mayan Texts. In Proceedings of the CILLA III Conference, October 2007, Austin, Texas, edited by Nora England, pp 1-14. Austin: Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America, Linguistics Department, University of Texas.

—–. 2012. The Mesoamerican Jade Celt As ‘Eye, Face’, and the Logographic Value of Mayan 1M2/T121 as WIN ‘Eye, Face, Surface’. Wayeb Notes 40.

Polian, Gilles. 2015. Diccionario Multidialectal del tseltal. https://tseltaltokal.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Polian_Diccionario-multidialectal-del-tseltal-enero2015-2.pdf.

Schele, Linda, and Nikolai Grube. 1995. Notebook for the XIXth Maya Hieroglyphic Forum at Texas. Austin: The University of Texas.

Stuart, David S. 1995. A Study of Maya Inscriptions. Ph.D. Dissertation, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee.

—–. 1998. “The Fire Enters His House”: Architecture and Ritual in Classic Maya Texts. In Function and Meaning in Classic Maya Architecture, edited by Stephen D. Houston, pp. 373–425. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.

—–. 2005 Sourcebook for the 29th Maya Hieroglyphic Forum. Austin: Art Department, University of Texas at Austin.

Thompson, Eric J. 1962. A Catalogue of Maya Hieroglyphics. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Note 16

June 7, 2021 / David Mora Marín

Two Additional Etyma That Experienced the Greater Tzeltalan *k > ch Shift: ‘Expensive’ and ‘Person; Who, Who?’

David F. Mora-Marín
davidmm@unc.edu
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill

6/7/2021 (with revisions through 6/12/2021)

This note introduces two possible novel cases of the Greater Tzeltalan *k(‘) > ch(‘) shift described by Kaufman & Norman (1984:83–85). They characterized it as unconditioned, but defined a set of inhibiting environments that prevented the shift in 30 of the 89 etyma in their dataset. Their characterization of the inhibiting environments is cited verbatim and in full next (Kaufman & Norman 1984:84):

in initial position before a vowel that is in turn followed by an apical consonant or /p/, unless the vowel is /i/;
in final position following a vowel, if the consonant preceding the vowel is an apical or /p/ (even if the vowel is /i/);
in final position following /h/ (but not following /j/);
in intervocalic position within a single root unless the vowel that precedes the velar stop is /i/.

Campbell (2000) and Kaufman and Justeson (2007) have presented arguments that favor a timing of this shift prior to the Classic period (CE 200-900), and certainly prior to the initial attestations of proto-Ch’olan *käkäw ‘cacao’, by the fifth century CE as ka-ka-w(a). This etymon is a Mixe-Zoquean loan, and does not display inhibiting conditions: if the shift had occurred subsequently to its attestation, it would have experienced the shift, resulting in a form chächäw* that is not attested in any Ch’olan or Tzeltalan language.

A few years ago, Law et al. (2014) put forth a proposal for a late spread of the shift in question, arguing that it is first attested in Epigraphic Mayan by the late Early Classic (CE 200-600) and especially the Late Classic (CE 600-900) periods. More recently, I (Mora-Marín n.d.) have presented arguments, based on new and old linguistic and epigraphic evidence, against this late spread, recalling the evidence previously adduced by Campbell (2000) and Kaufman and Justeson (2007).

The goal of this note is simply to bring to light two etyma that appear to have experienced this shift but have not been previously remarked upon. A few additional cases had already been introduced in Kaufman with Justeson (2003) and a few other sources, including Mora-Marín (n.d.). In total, prior to this note, there were 118 etyma with *k and *k’, of which 70 experienced a shift.

The first is the adjectival root ‘expensive’, with comparative data seen in Table 1. In the set it is clear that Yucatecan /k/ corresponds to Yokot’an (Chontal) /ch/, and that there is a basic shared shape /Co(7)X/, with /C/ corresponding to Yucatecan /k/ and Yokot’an /ch/, /7/ representing [ʔ] (glottal stop; saltillo), and /X/ representing /h/ from either *h or *j (see discussion below). The Yokot’an form choj ‘expensive, costly’, pointed out to me by Nick Hopkins (personal communication, 2021), is an adjective. Whether /j/ in contemporary Yokot’an descends from proto-Ch’olan *h or *j cannot be determined. The Yucatecan form can be reconstructed as proto-Yucatecan *ko7h or *ko7j: there is no way to know, with cognates only in Yucatecan and Ch’olan, both of which have merged pM *h and *j, whether the final consonant can be traced to *h or *j specifically. Although the Motul dictionary represents it as <coh> ~ <cooh>, it is clear that word-finally <h> was not classified as ‘simple’ or ‘loud/strong’, like the initial cases of <h> were. Nick Hopkins also explained that the Yokot’an cases of cho7an and cho7esan exhibit a cluster reduction rule, whereby /Vh-7V/ > [V7V], and notes that this rule occurs in Ch’ol as well. The first of these Yokot’an forms may be analyzed as follows: cho7an as choj-7an, with choj ‘expensive’ and -7an ‘inchoative’, resulting in ‘to become expensive’. The second verbal derivation, cho7esan, may require invoking analogy: if analyzed as choj-es-an, with -es as ‘causativizer’ and -an as ‘incompletive status of derived transitives’, resulting in ‘to cause to be expensive’ (Kaufman and Norman 1984; Knowles 1984), one is left without being able to account for the glottal stop. It seems that speakers have reanalyzed the sequence [cho7] in cho7an (i.e. /choj-7an/) as the basic form to be used in verbal derivations. Nevertheless, the adjectival form choj is on its own comparable to the proposed Yucatecan form *ko7h (or *ko7j), given that Greater Tzeltalan experienced a *V7C, *VVC > VVC merger, and that the resulting *VVC changed to *VC by proto-Ch’olan times. Thus, it is possible to propose a (Greater) Lowland Mayan form *kyo7h or *kyo7j ‘expensive’ that experienced the *k > ky > ch shift, and was retained in Yucatecan and Yokot’an (Ch’olan).

Table 1. Comparative data for ‘Expensive’.

Language	Lexemes and examples	Sources
Yucatec	kó7oh (adjective) ‘expensive’, le p’óoka7 hach kó7oh‘this hat is very expensive’	Bricker et al. 1998:131
Col. Yucatec	<coh> ~ <cooh> ‘cosa preciosa, y de estima rica’ and ‘cosa cara, o lo ques caro’	Arzápalo 1995:1555
Lacandon	ko7h (adjective) ‘expensive’, ko7oh 7u-nook’ ‘her/his clothes are expensive’	Hofling 2014:187
Itzaj	ko7oh (adjective) ‘expensive’, ma’ ko7oh (u-tool) ‘it’s not expensive (its price)’	Hofling with Tesucún 1997:361
Mopan	ko7oh (adjective) ‘expensive’, ko7oh a ixi7im-i ‘The corn is expensive’	Hofling 2011:245
Yokot’an	a. choj (adjective) ‘expensive, costly’ b. cho7an (intransitive) ‘to rise in price, to become expensive, to increase in price’, … uk’a más mu7 u cho7an ‘because of that it is increasing in price’ c. cho7esan (transitive) ‘to make more expensive, to raise the price’, u cho7esijob we7e ni ajchonwe7e‘the butchers (meat-sellers) raised the price of the meat’	Keller and Luciano 1997:94, 95

The second etymon of interest is documented in Kaufman with Justeson (2003:1517), who reconstruct it to Lowland Mayan plus Western Mayan as *ma-k, seemingly showing a suffix *-k, although this could be in error (typo), as Kaufman (2015:974, 993) reconstructs this form as *mak ‘who?’. Table 2 provides the data that I have collected for the Greater Lowland Mayan languages (Yucatecan, Ch’olan, Tzeltalan). Based on such evidence I propose a revised reconstruction: *majk (not *mahk) as ‘person; who, who?’, the first part of the proto-gloss, ‘person’, is based on Yucatecan ‘person’ and Ch’ol ‘relative; extended family’ (see Hopkins 2019), while the second is attested in all the cognates. First, the final /k/ is not a suffix, but part of a lexical root, one attested in Yucatecan as /k/ and in Ch’olan as /ch/, supporting the possibility that this form experienced the *k > ch shift. Recall that one of the environments inhibiting the shift was “in final position following /h/ (but not following /j/)” (Kaufman & Norman 1984:84). Consequently, I propose a form *majk to at least Lowland Mayan plus Western Mayan.[1] Another loose end is only briefly noted: the apparent /ch’/ of the Tzeltalan forms, which I suspect is the result of the following structure /mäch/ + /7äy(-uk)/, the second component consisting of the existential particle, 7äy, whose initial glottal stop likely induced glottalization of the /ch/ of mach ‘who, who?’.[2]Alternatively, Kaufman (2015:994) suggests that the Tzeltalan form *mäch’ä “is probably from *mak ‘who’ + *7a ‘at such a place/time’.” Finally, the dialectal correspondences in Tzotzil between the initial /m/ and /b’/ remain to be discussed. Thus, there remain several loose ends explore in a future note.

Table 2. Comparative data for ‘who’ and ‘person’ among Greater Lowland Mayan languages.

Language	Lexemes and examples	Sources
Yucatec	máak (noun) ‘person, man, human being’ máax (particle) ‘who?, who’	Bricker et al. 1998:178, 181
Lacandon	máak (interrogative) ‘who?’ máak (noun) ‘person; someone; who’	Hofling 2014:223
Itzaj	mak ~ maak (noun) ‘person’ max ~ maax (interrogative) ‘who?’ max ~ maax (relative) ‘who, whom, whose’	Hofling with Tesucún 1997:428, 432, 437, 438
Mopan	mak (interrogative) ‘who?’	Hofling 2011:296
Ch’ol	majch-il ‘relative; clan, extended family’ (Tila only) majchki (pronoun) ‘who?’ (Tila) majki (pronoun) ‘who, who?’ (Tumbalá)	Aulie and Aulie 2009:55
Yokot’an	machka (pronoun) ‘whoever’	Keller and Luciano 1997:95
Yokot’an	machka (indefinite pronoun) ‘someone’	Montgomery-Anderson 2013:81
Ch’olti’	<machi> ‘who’	Robertson et al. 2010:343
Ch’orti’	chi’ ~ chi (pronoun) ‘who, whom’	Hull 2016:102
Proto-Ch’olan	*mahch ‘who’	Kaufman and Norman 1984:139
Tzeltal	mach’a (interrogative proform) ‘someone, who’	Polian 2018:415
Tzeltal	mach’a (interrogative, relative pronoun) ‘who, someone; who?’ mach’ayuk ‘whoever, anybody’ mach’a yu7un ‘for whom?; whose?’	Slocum et al. 1999:72
Tzotzil	much’u (relative pronoun; interrogative) ‘who, someone; who?’ (Zinacantán) buch’u (San Andrés) boch’o (Ch’enalo’/Chenalhó)	Hurley and Sánchez (1978:23, 350)
Proto-Tzeltalan	*mäch’ä(y) (pronoun) ‘who, who?’	Kaufman 1972:109

A few words regarding the final consonant of this form, and also the addition of a suffix -ki, are in order. Vázquez Álvarez (2011:288) explains that the /ki/ of majchki is probably a suffix, historically, but it is only optionally used with some question words, like jalaj(ki) ‘when’ and bajche7(ki) ‘how’ or ‘how much’. Note that if one removes the -ki from majchki, one obtains majch, wherein the final /ch/ would correspond to the final /k/ in the Yucatecan form *máak. Also note that the /j/ of majch was reconstructed to proto-Ch’olan as *h, as in proto-Ch’olan *mahch ‘who’ (Kaufman and Norman 1984:139). Nevertheless, since pM *CVjC and *CVhC merged into Ch’olan *CVhC, it is possible that pre-Ch’olan may have exhibited *majch. As reviewed earlier, this would have removed an inhibiting factor for the analysis proposed here of a *k > ch shift. And this analysis allows for a relative chronology such as LL+WM *majk > pre-Ch’olan *majch > proto-Ch’olan *mahch, supporting the proposition that the *CVjC, *CVhC > CVhC merger postdates the *k > ch shift. In addition, the Yucatecan form *máak can be accounted for as a *majk > (*mahk >) *máak, given the regular sound change of *VhC and *VjC > *V́VC in Yucatecan (Justeson et al. 1985:15). In other words, the /ch/ of Ch’olan *mahch is cognate with the /k/ of Yucatecan *máak, and they are not related to the apparent interrogative suffix -ki, which should have shifted to -chi* if it descends from earlier pre-Greater Tzeltalan *k. Its presence as -ki in Ch’ol, despite the absence of inhibiting factors, could suggest either an earlier form *-qi, or a late innovation after the *k > ch shift had already taken place. The Ch’orti’ form chi’ ~ chi, when compared to Ch’olti’ <machi>, can be proposed to be a reduced reflex of a proto-Eastern Ch’olan *ma(h)chi(7) from an earlier proto-Ch’olan *mahch.[3]

To sum up, it would appear that two additional etyma can be proposed as having experienced the *k > ch shift of Greater Tzeltalan: (Greater) Lowland Mayan *kyo7h (or *kyo7j) ‘expensive’, and LL+WM *majk ‘person; who, who?’. This brings up the current tally to 72 etyma that experienced the shift, out of 120. Several loose ends remain, and will be pursued at a future time.

Acknowledgment

I would like to thank Nick Hopkins for his insights on Ch’ol morphophonology and his pointing me to the adjectival entry choj ‘expensive’ in Yokot’an.

Endnotes

[1] I will not explore at this time the possible cognates in (or loans into) Greater Q’anjob’alan included in Kaufman with Justeson’s (2003) or Kaufman’s (2015:993) datasets.

[2] Note that Hopkins (2019:1) points out that Ch’olan speakers ask ¿Majchki añ jiñi? ‘Who is he?’ to inquire about someone’s identity, or more explicitly, as he has explained to me, ‘What clan is he from?’ (Hopkins, personal communication 2021). This routine question shows majch-ki ‘who’ immediately followed by 7añ ‘existential particle’. If Tzeltalan speakers used a similar phrase in the past, without the -ki suffix, it would explain the glottalization of the final /ch/ in Proto-Tzeltalan *mäch’ä(y). Note that the Tzeltal form mach’ayuk would also agree with 7ayuk, a common inflection of 7ay with -uk‘subjunctive’. The Ch’ol question could also explain the polysemy extension of this term as follows: ‘clan’ > ‘clan; person’ > ‘clan; person; who, who?’ that may have taken place historically. Support for the juxtaposition and amalgamation of the existential particle with this root for ‘who’ is found in Popti’, with the form aymi make ‘someone’ (Kaufman with Justeson 2003:1517).

[3] Finally, yet another loose end is worth exploring at a future date: the innovation of the Yucatecan -x ‘interrogative’ suffix, attested only in the Yucatec and Itzaj forms for ‘person; who, who?’, and remains variable in contemporary Yucatec (cf. Bricker 2018:31).

References

Arzápalo Marín, Ramón. 1995. Calepino de Motul. Diccionario Maya-Español. Tomo III. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Aulie, Wilbur H., and Evelyn W. de Aulie. 1999[1978]. Diccionario Ch’ol-Español, Español-Ch’ol. Mexico City: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.

Bricker, Victoria R. A Historical Grammar of the Maya Language of Yucatan 1557-2000. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press.

Bricker, Victoria, Eleuterio Po’ot Yah, and Ofelia Dzul de Po’ot. 1998. A Dictionary of The Maya Language As Spoken in Hocabá, Yucatán. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

Campbell, Lyle. 2000. Time Perspective in Linguistics. Time depth in historical linguistics, ed. by Colin Renfrew, April McMahon, and Larry Trask, 3-32. Cambridge: The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.

Hofling, Charles Andrew. 2011. Mopan Maya-Spanish-English Dictionary. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press.

—–. 2014. Lacandon Maya-Spanish-English Dictionary. The University of Utah Press.

Hofling, Charles Andrew, with F. F. Tesucún. 1997. Itzaj Maya-Spanish-English Dictionary. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

Hopkins, Nicholas A. 2019. The Recent Evolution of Ch’ol Kinship Terminology. https://www.academia.edu/40236348/The_recent_evolution_of_Chol_kinship_terminology.

Hull, Kerry. 2016. A Dictionary of Ch’orti’ Mayan-Spanish-English. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press.

Hurley Vda. de Delgaty, Alfa, and Agustín Ruíz Sánchez. 1978. Diccionario Tzotzil de San Andrés con Variaciones Dialectales. Tzotzil-Español, Español-Tzotzil. México, D.F.: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.

Justeson, John S., William M. Norman, Lyle Campbell, and Terrence Kaufman. 1985. The Foreign Impact on Lowland Mayan Language and Script. Middle American Research Institute, Publication 53. New Orleans: Tulane University.

Kaufman, Terrence. 1972. El proto-tzeltal-tzotzil: fonología comparada y diccionario reconstruido. Centro de Estudios Mayas, Cuaderno 5. Mexico: UNAM.

Kaufman, Terrence. 2015. Mayan Comparative Studies. https://www.albany.edu/ims/pdlma/2015%20Publications/Kaufman-Mayan%20Comparative%20Studies.pdf. Accessed January of 2017.

Kaufman, Terrence, and William Norman. 1984. An outline of proto-Cholan phonology, morphology, and vocabulary. In Phoneticism in Maya Hieroglyphic Writing, edited by John S. Justeson and Lyle Campbell, pp. 77–166. Institute for Mesoamerican Studies Publication No. 9. Albany: State University of New York.

Kaufman, Terrence, and John Justeson. 2007. The History of the Word for Cacao in Ancient Mesoamerica. Ancient Mesoamerica 18:193–237.

Kaufman, Terrence, with John Justeson. 2003. Preliminary Mayan Etymological Dictionary. http://www.famsi.org/reports/01051/index.html.

Keller, Kathryn C., and Plácido Luciano G. 1997. Diccionario Chontal de Tabasco. Tucson, Arizona: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.

Knowles, Susan M. 1984. A Descriptive Grammar of Chontal Maya (San Carlos Dialect). Ph.D. Thesis, Department of Anthropology, Tulane University.

Law, Danny, John Robertson, Stephen Houston, Marc Zender, and David Stuart. 2014. Areal Shifts in Classic Mayan Phonology. Ancient Mesoamerica 25. 357–366.

Montgomery-Anderson, Bradley. 2013. Diccionario de la lengua Yokot’an (Maya Chontal) de Tabasco Yokot’an-Castellano. Edited by Terrence Kaufman and John Justeson. Proyeto para la Documentación de las Lenguas de Mesoamérica.

Mora-Marín, David F. n.d. Evidence, New and Old, Against the Late *k(’) > *ch(’) Areal Shift Hypothesis. Unpublished manuscript written Spring of 2017.

Polian, Gilles. 2018. Diccionario multidialectal del tseltal. Tseltal-español. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas, Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social.

Robertson, John S., Danny Law, and Robbie A. Haertel. 2010. Colonial Ch’olti’: The Seventeenth-Century Morán Manuscript. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Slocum, Marianna C., Florencia L. Gerdel, and Manuel C. Aguilar. 1999. Diccionario Tzeltal de Bachajón, Chiapas. México, D.F.: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.

Vázquez Álvarez, Juan Jesús. 2011. A Grammar of Chol, A Mayan Language. PhD dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin.

Nota 15 (Traducción)

February 27, 2021 / David Mora Marín

El origen iconográfico del logograma T533/AM1 ʔAJAW ‘señor, gobernante’

David F. Mora-Marín
davidmm@unc.edu
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill

27/2/21

Esta nota trata sobre el origen y desarrollo histórico del signo T533/AM1 (Figura 1). Se basa en un manuscrito más extenso escrito en 2005 (Mora-Marín 2005a) y distribuido por correo electrónico entre algunos académicos, algunos de los cuales ofrecieron valiosos comentarios en aquel entonces (por ejemplo, Julia Guernsey, David Freidel, Mary Pohl), pero nunca se sometió para publicación. Por medio de esta nota intento rescatar algunas de las ideas importantes de ese manuscrito.

Figura 1

La escritura maya utiliza varios signos distintos como alogramas (grafemas distintos con el mismo valor) para representar la raíz ʔaajaaw ‘señor, gobernante’ y algunas de sus derivaciones [1]: T533/AM1, T1000d/PT7 y T168(:518)/2M1. Aunque en principio éstos se podrían considerar equivalentes, estos logogramas se encuentran típicamente en una distribución complementaria relativamente relajada: T533 está mayoritariamente relegado a contextos calendáricos, como un signo que deletrea el nombre del día ritual ‘señor’, pero en algunas ocasiones se empleó como título de individuos; T1000d es común como signo de día y título; y T168(:518) está más estrictamente restringido en el contexto títulos.

Curiosamente, los textos del Preclásico Tardío de San Bartolo (Saturno et al.2006a, 2006b; Taube et al.2010) en las tierras bajas mayas contienen ejemplos de dos de estos signos, T1000d como signo de día (Figura 2a) y T168:518 como un título (Figura 2b), pero hasta ahora no hay ejemplos de T533 como signo de día, solamente en contextos iconográficos. El ejemplo glífico de T533 más antiguo en las tierras bajas está atestiguado en la Estela 19 de Uaxactun, fechada en 8.16.0.0.0 (357 d.C.), seguida poco después por el ejemplo del Mural 7 de La Sufricaya, fechado para 8.16.2.4.16 (379 d. C.).

Figura 2

Sin embargo, previo a tales ejemplos, al menos un uso no calendárico de T533, que funciona como parte de un título, aparece en la Estela/Monumento 10 de Kaminaljuyú (Figura 3), fechada para el 400-200 a.C. (Shook y Popenoe de Hatch 1999) ó 100 a.C. (Inomata y Henderson 2016). Este ejemplo, descrito por Mora-Marín (2001, 2005, 2008, 2016), muestra una yuxtaposición de una forma temprana (rotada) de T518/2M1b, que es en origen una forma del signo de día CARRIZO, y T533 ʔAJAW. He sugerido anteriormente que el signo CARRIZO en cuestión pudo haber funcionado como un complemento fonético para el logograma T533, basado en proto-mayense *ʔaaj ‘carrizo’ (Mora-Marín 2005:76, 2016:43; cf. Kaufman con Justeson 2003:1157), lo que resulta en una grafía ʔaj-ʔAJAW para *ʔaajaaw ‘señor, gobernante’. (Esta grafía parcialmente fonética respaldaría una afiliación maya para el idioma representado en la escritura Kaminaljuyú; junto a la posible expresión 10-chi-SERPIENTE en la misma inscripción, para expresar la cuenta ritual 10-Chijchan (tzeltalano mayor *chihj=chaan), confirmaría un idioma maya para el texto en cuestión.) Por lo tanto, el uso de T533 como logograma ʔAJAW ya puede establecerse durante el período Preclásico Tardío en la región más amplia de uso de la escritura.

Figura 3

La pregunta que deseo abordar ahora concierne a la motivación iconográfica de T533 ʔAJAW. Propongo que representa el rostro de un ejecutante ritual en el acto de aullar. Stross y Kerr (1990) presentaron un argumento iconográfico apoyando la existencia de un tema pan-mesoamericano que consistía de personajes aulladores y silbantes asociados con el uso ritual de alucinógenos. El tema de la cara aullante (Figura 4) que describen también podría ser indicativo de las prácticas rituales de soplar aire para imbuir un objeto con ‘aliento’, y el aullido común como resultado del uso de alucinógenos, consumidos para alcanzar un estado de trance y comunicarse con, o viajar al mundo sobrenatural (Stross y Kerr 1990). A los ejemplos modernos de Stross y Kerr (Figuras 4a-b), provenientes de Guerrero y Michoacán, respectivamente, he agregado un par de ejemplos precolombinos (Figuras 4c-d): uno de ellos es la máscara de cerámica de O’Boyle (Preclásico Tardío o Clásico Temprano), mientras que el otro consiste de la parte superior del torso de una figura de cerámica hueca del Clásico Temprano Petén. La expresión de aullido en estos artefactos es, por supuesto, muy similar a la expresión que se ve en T533.

Figura 4

Este tema de la cara aullante se remonta a la tradición escultórica de barrigones del Preclásico Tardío que abarca gran parte del Istmo de Tehuantepec y la costa Pacífica de Chiapas, Guatemala, El Salvador, además de las tierras altas de Guatemala. Esta tradición ha sido descrita por varios autores, entre ellos Navarrete y Hernández (2000) y Guernsey (2010). La Figura 5 proporciona dos ejemplos similares de Tiltepec, Chiapas, y San Juan Sacatepequez, Guatemala, respectivamente.

Figura 5

De interés especial son los casos de Tiltepec, Chiapas, datadas para ca. 500-200 a.C. por Navarrete y Hernández (2000), mostrados en la Figura 6, y que sostengo aquí, contienen evidencia de un posible sistema de escritura: un signo estilo glifo “adherido” a los rostros de individuos barrigones. En varios ejemplos, el signo en cuestión coincide en sus detalles con el rostro del individuo barrigón, mientras que en otros es mucho más estilizado, mostrando solo los puntos para los dos ojos y la boca.

Figura 6

La similitud entre estos ejemplos tempranos de T533 y los posteriores se puede apreciar en la Figura 7. Propongo que estos signos similares a glifos son de hecho ejemplos tempranos de T533 que no solo etiquetan a las figuras como ‘señores’, sino que también asocian el cargo de gobernación con la especialización ritual practicada por estos individuos barrigones. Más interesante aún, esta asociación aparece primero en territorio mixe-zoqueano o más específicamente mixeano, en lugar del territorio maya: mientras que en las tierras altas de Guatemala también se encuentran esculturas de barriga con la expresión aullante, no hay ejemplos de esculturas de esa región asociadas al signo T533. Entonces, es posible que este signo pueda haber sido un caso de difusión de una tradición no maya a una tradición maya.

Figura 7

Si bien algunos podrían usar este tipo de evidencia para apoyar la idea de que el término ʔaajaaw ‘señor, gobernante’ se deriva etimológicamente de un sustantivo compuesto que significaba ‘el del grito’ o ‘el que grita’ (es decir, ‘gritador’), como lo propone Stuart (1995:190-191), los datos lingüísticos impiden tal solución, como explicó recientemente Terrence Kaufman (comunicación personal, 2020). Primero, el término es reconstruible como *ʔaajaaw al proto-mayense (Kaufman con Justeson 2003:84-85). En segundo lugar, aunque *ʔaj= ‘proclítico masculino’ es reconstruible para el proto-mayense (Kaufman con Justeson 2003:83), el término *ʔaaw ‘grito(/ando)’ no lo es: es reconstruible para proto-mayense occidental (Kaufman con Justeson 2003: 716), una etapa mucho más tardía, aunque sus atestaciones en el grupo yucatecano, si no son el resultado de difusión del tzeltalano mayor o del ch’olano específicamente, podrían apuntar a una etapa del proto-mayense tardío. En tercer lugar, y más significativamente, un compuesto que consta de estas dos raíces produciría *ʔaj=ʔaaw, no *ʔaajaaw: téngase en cuenta que la vocal de *ʔaj= ‘proclítico masculino’ es corta, no larga como la primera vocal de *ʔaajaaw, y también que *ʔaaw ‘grito (ing)’ lleva una consonante oclusiva glotal inicial, que no desaparecería al forma parte de un compuesto. De hecho, ni un solo idioma mayense conserva evidencia de una oclusiva glotal en el medio de esta raíz, y ni un solo idioma maya conserva evidencia para un análisis sincrónico de esta raíz basado en ‘proclítico masculino’ más ‘grito(/ando)’.

Para concluir, propongo que la motivación iconográfica de T533 ʔAJAW se puede explicar a partir de las imágenes de caras gritando o aullando evidentes en la tradición de barrigones, pero especialmente los ejemplos asociados con el signo T533 descritos por Navarrete y Hernández (2000) y Guernsey (2010). Esto no significa necesariamente que los posibles casos de signos tipo T533 en los barrigones de Tiltepec deban de ser leídos con un valor maya. Por un lado, tales esculturas habrían yacido dentro de la región mixeana en la época de relevancia; por otro, se pueden encontrar signos similares a T533 en la iconografía olmeca del período Preclásico Medio, como en el caso de la escultura estilo olmeca del “Señor Joven” (Reilly 1991) y varios otros ejemplos (Fields 1989). Simplemente propongo que la asociación entre los ejecutantes rituales involucrados en el acto de aullar y los signos similares a T533 presentes en los barrigones discutidos en esta nota explican la asociación entre el signo T533 y los gobernantes: éstos habrían cooptado, o apropiado tales imágenes rituales para sus propios fines.

[1] I use both Thompson (1962) and Macri and Looper (2003) as reference catalogs.

Referencias

Cordry, Donald. 1980. Mexican Masks. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Fields, Virginia. 1989. The Origins of Divine Kingship among the Lowland Classic Maya. PhD dissertation, University of Texas at Austin.

Guernsey, Julia. 2010. Rulers, Gods, and Potbellies: A Consideration of Preclassic Sculptural Themes and Forms from the Pacific Piedmont and Coast of Mesoamerica. In The Place of Stone Monuments: Context, Use, and Meaning in Mesoamerica’s Preclassic Tradition, edited by Julia Guernsey, John E. Clark, and Bábara Arroyo, pp. 207- 230. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.

Inomata, Takeshi, and Lucia Henderson. 2016. Time tested: re-thinking chronology and sculptural traditions in Preclassic southern Mesoamerica. Antiquity 90. 456–471.

Jones, Carl, and Lyndon Satterthwaite. 1982. The Monuments and Inscriptions of Tikal: The Carved Monuments. University Museum Monograph 44. Tikal Report 33, part A. Philadelphia: University Museum.

Macri, Martha J., and Matthew G. Looper. 2003. The New Catalog of Maya Hieroglyphs, Volume One, The Classic Period Inscriptions. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Méluzin, Sylvia. 1995. Further Investigations of the Tuxtla Script: An Inscribed Mask and La Mojarra Stela 1. New World Archaeological Foundation, Provo, Utah.

Mora-Marín, David. 2001. The Grammar, Orthography, Content, and Social Context of Late Preclassic Mayan Portable Texts. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University at Albany, New York.

—–. 2005a. The Iconographic Origin and Historical Development of the T533/AM1 7AJAW ‘Lord, Ruler’ Title. Unpublished Ms.

—–. 2005b. Kaminaljuyu Stela 10: Script Classification and Linguistic Affiliation. Ancient Mesoamerica 16:63-87.

—–. 2008. Análisis epigráfico y lingüístico de la escritura Maya del período Preclásico Tardío: Implicaciones para la historia sociolingüística de la region. XXI Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 2007, editado por Juan Pedro Laporte, Bárbara Arroyo y Héctor E. Mejía, pp. 853-876. Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes, Instituto de Antropología e Historia, Asociación Tikal, Fundación Arqueológica del Nuevo Mundo.

—–. 2010. La epigrafía y paleografía de la escritura preclásica maya: nuevas metodologías y resultados. In XXIII Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 2009, edited by Bárbara Arroyo, Adriana Linares Palma, and Lorena Paiz Aragón, pp. 1045-1957. Guatemala City, Guatemala: Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología.

—–. 2016. A Study in Mayan Paleography: The History of T168/2M1a ʔAJAW ‘Lord, Ruler’ and the Origin of the Syllabogram T130/2S2 wa. Written Language and Literacy 19:1-58.

Navarrete, Carlos, and Rocío Hernández. 2000. Esculturas preclásicas de obesos en el territorio mexicano. In XIII Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala 1999, edited by Juan Pedro Laporte, Héctor Escobedo, Ana Claudia de Suasnavar, and Bárbara Arroyo, pp. 589-624. Guatemala City: Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes, Instituto de Antropología e Historia, Asociación Tikal. http://www.asociaciontikal.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/38.99-Navarrete.pdf.

Nicholson, H. B. and Cordy-Collins, A. 1979. Pre-Columbian Art from the Land Collection. Los Angeles: California Academy of Sciences.

Parsons, Lee Allen. 1986. The Origins of Maya Art: Monumental Stone Sculpture of Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala, and the Southern Pacific Coast. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.

Reilley, Kent. 1991. Olmec Iconographic Influences on the Symbols of Maya Rulership: An Examination of Possible Sources. In Sixth Palenque Round Table, 1986, edited by Virginia M. Fields. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Saturno, William A. 2002 Archaeological Investigation and Conservation at San Bartolo, Guatemala. Reporte Final, FAMSI. http://www.famsi.org/reports/01038/index.html.

Saturno, William A., David Stuart y Boris Beltrán. 2006a. Early Maya Writing at San Bartolo, Guatemala. www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content.full/1121745/DC1.

—–. 2006b. Early Maya Writing at San Bartolo, Guatemala. Science 311:1281-1283.

Saturno, William A., Karl A. Taube, and David Stuart. 2005. The Murals of San Bartolo, El Petén, Guatemala, Part I: The North Wall. Ancient America, 7. Barnardsville, North Carolina: Center for Ancient American Studies.

Shook, Edwin M., and Marion Popenoe de Hatch. 1999. Las tierras altas centrales: períodos Preclásico y Clásico. In Marion Popeneo de Hatch (ed.), Historia general de Guatemala, Tomo 1: época precolombina, 289–318. Guatemala: Fondo para la Cultura y el Desarrollo.

Smith, A. Ledyard. 1950. Uaxactún, Guatemala: Excavations of 1931–1937. (Publication 588.) Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Stross, Brian, and Justin Kerr. 1990. Notes on the Maya Vision Quest Through Enema. In The Maya Vase Book, Volume 2, edited by Justin Kerr, pp. 348-361. New York: Kerr Associates.

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Thompson, J. Eric S. 1962. A Catalog of Maya Hieroglyphs. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Note 15

February 21, 2021 / David Mora Marín

The Iconographic Origin of the T533/AM1 ʔAJAW ‘Lord, Ruler’ Logogram

David F. Mora-Marín
davidmm@unc.edu
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill

2/20/2021

This note focuses on the origin and historical development of T533/AM1, seen in Figure 1. It is based on a more extensive manuscript written in 2005 (Mora-Marín 2005a) and circulated by email among a few scholars, some of whom offered valuable feedback at the time (e.g. Julia Guernsey, David Freidel, Mary Pohl), but it was never submitted for publication. Here I am rescuing some of the key ideas from that manuscript.

Figure 1

Mayan writing uses several distinct signs as allograms (variant signs with the same value) to represent the root ʔaajaaw ‘lord, ruler’ and some of its derivations[1]: T533/AM1, T1000d/PT7, and T168(:518)/2M1. Though in principle equivalent, these logograms are typically found in a rather loose complementary distribution: T533 is mostly relegated to calendrical contexts, as a sign spelling the ritual day name ‘lord’, but was on relatively rare occasions employed as a title; T1000d is common both as a day sign and a title; and T168(:518) is more strictly confined for use in titles phrases of individuals.

Interestingly, the Late Preclassic texts from San Bartolo (Saturno et al. 2006a, 2006b; Taube et al. 2010) in the Maya lowlands bear examples of two of these signs, T1000d as a day sign (Figure 2a) and T168:518 as a title (Figure 2b), but so far no examples of T533 as a day sign, though T533 does appear there in iconographic contexts. The earliest, reliably dated, glyphic use of T533 in the Maya lowlands is attested on Uaxactun Stela 19, dated to 8.16.0.0.0 (357 CE), followed shortly thereafter by the example from Sufricaya Mural 7, dated to 8.16.2.4.16 (379 CE).

Figure 2

Prior to such examples, though, at least one non-calendrical use of T533, functioning as part of a title, appears on Kaminaljuyu Stela/Monument 10 (Figure 3), dated to ca. 400-200 BCE (Shook and Popenoe de Hatch 1999) or 100 BCE (Inomata and Henderson 2016), as described by Mora-Marín (2001, 2005, 2008, 2016). This example shows a juxtaposition of an early (rotated) form of T518/2M1b, which is in origin a form of the day sign REED, and T533 ʔAJAW. I have suggested previously that the REED sign in question may have functioned as a phonetic complement to the T533 logogram, based on Proto-Mayan *ʔaaj ‘reed’ (Mora-Marín 2005:76, 2016:43; cf. Kaufman with Justeson 2003:1157), resulting in a spelling ʔaj-ʔAJAW for *ʔaajaaw ‘lord, ruler’. (This partly phonetic spelling would support a Mayan affiliation for the language represented in the Kaminaljuyu script, as does also the possible 10-chi-SNAKE expression on the same inscription as a spelling of the day count 10-Chijchan (Greater Tzeltalan *chihj=chaan).) Thus, the use of T533 as a logogram ʔAJAW can be established already during the Late Preclassic period in the broader region of use of the script.

Figure 3

The question that I address now is the iconographic motivation of T533 ʔAJAW. I propose that it depicts the face of a ritual specialist in the act of howling. Stross and Kerr (1990) presented an iconographic argument for howling and whistling personages associated with the use of ritual hallucinogens as a pan-Mesoamerican theme. The howling face theme (Figure 4) they describe may be indicative of the ritual practices of blowing air to imbue an object with ‘breath’, and howling common as a result of the use of hallucinogens, consumed to achieve a trance state and communicate with, or travel to the supernatural realm (Stross and Kerr 1990). To the modern examples by Stross and Kerr (Figures 4a-b), from Guerrero and Michoacan, respectively, I have added a couple of Pre-Columbian examples (Figures 4c-d), one of them being the O’Boyle ceramic mask (Late Preclassic or Early Classic) and the upper torso of a hollow ceramic figurine from the Early Classic Peten. The howling expression in these artifacts is of course very similar to the expression seen on T533.

Figure 4

This howling face theme can be traced back to the Late Preclassic potbelly sculpture tradition spanning much of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the Pacific Piedmont and highlands of Guatemala. The potbelly tradition has been described by a number of scholars, among them Navarrete and Hernández (2000) and Guernsey (2010). Figure 5 provides two similar examples from Tiltepec, Chiapas, and San Juan Sacatepequez, Guatemala, respectively.

Figure 5

Of special interest are the cases from Tiltepec, Chiapas, which have been dated to ca. 500-200 BCE by Navarrete and Hernández (2000), seen Figure 6, and which I argue here bear evidence of possible writing: a glyph-like sign “affixed” to the faces of pot-bellied individuals. In several examples, the glyph-like sign matches the face of the pot-bellied individual very closely, while in others it is much more stylized, showing only the dots for the two eyes and mouth.

Figure 6

The similarity between these early examples of T533 and later ones can be appreciated in Figure 7. I propose that these glyph-like signs are in fact early examples of T533 not only labeling the figures as ‘lords’, but also associating the office of rulership with the ritual specialization practiced by these potbellied individuals. More interestingly, this association appears first in Mixe-Zoquean or more specifically Mixean territory, rather than Mayan territory: while potbelly sculptures with the howling expression are also found in highland Guatemala, there are no cases of such sculptures bearing a T533-like sign. So it is possible that this sign could be a case of diffusion from a non-Mayan tradition into a Mayan tradition.

Figure 7

While some might use this type of evidence to support the idea that the term ʔaajaaw ‘lord, ruler’ derives etymologically from a compound meaning ‘he of shouting’ or ‘he who shouts’ (i.e. ‘shouter’), as proposed by Stuart (1995:190-191), the linguistic data preclude such a solution, as recently explained by Terrence Kaufman (personal communication, 2020). First, the term is reconstructible as *ʔaajaaw to Proto-Mayan (Kaufman with Justeson 2003:84-85). Second, although *ʔaj= ‘male proclitic’ is reconstructible to Proto-Mayan (Kaufman with Justeson 2003:83), the term *ʔaaw ‘shout(ing)’ is not: it is reconstructible to Proto-Western Mayan (Kaufman with Justeson 2003:716), a much later stage, although its attestations in Yucatecan, if not the result of diffusion from Greater Tzeltalan or Ch’olan specifically, could point to a Southern Mayan (Late Proto-Mayan) stage. Third, and more significantly, a compound consisting of these two roots would yield *ʔaj=ʔaaw, not *ʔaajaaw: note that the vowel of *ʔaj= ‘male proclitic’ is short, not long like the first vowel of *ʔaajaaw, and note that *ʔaaw ‘shout(ing)’ bears an initial glottal stop, which would not disappear upon compounding. In fact, not a single Mayan language preserves evidence for a medial glottal stop in this root, and not a single Mayan language preserves evidence for a synchronic analysis of this root based on ‘male proclitic’ plus ‘shout(ing)’.

To conclude, I propose that the iconographic motivation of T533 ʔAJAW can be explained on the basis of the shouting or howling imagery evident in the potbelly tradition, but especially the examples with associated T533 signs described by Navarrete and Hernández (2000) for Tiltepec and by Guernsey (2010) for highland Guatemala. This does not necessarily mean that the possible cases of T533-like signs on the potbelly sculptures from Tiltepec are meant to be read with a Mayan value. For one, such sculptures are well within the region of likely Mixean speech; also, signs similar to T533 can be found in non-Mayan iconography, as with the case of the Young Lord sculpture (Reilly 1991), and other, even earlier examples of Olmec iconography (Fields 1989). I merely propose that the association between ritual specialists engaged in the act of howling and the T533-like signs present in the potbelly sculptures reviewed here explain the association between T533 and rulership: rulers may have co-opted such ritual imagery for their own purposes.