MAYAVASE.COM - MAYA - PRECOLUMBIAN ART

This interesting vessel has all the earmarks of a Tepeu 1 (c. 550-700) Saxche' Orange Polychrome, a chronological and stylistic horizon more or less confirmed by glyphic palaeography. These considerations -- coupled with the clear na-MAN-AJAW emblem glyph (at 16) -- strongly suggest an origin in the Northwestern Peten region of Guatemala. Naman is a polity mentioned in warfare accounts from both Yaxchilan and Piedras Negras, and a lord from this polity is once mentioned (on another unprovenanced vessel) as a vassal of the king of Motul de San Jose. For a long time, epigraphers have taken this as suggestive evidence of a location somewhere between these three polities, perhaps in the vicinity of El Peru. Recently, Stanley Guenter (1998), Alexandre Safronow (personal communication 2000) and David Stuart (personal communication, 2002) have substantially confirmed this hunch, demonstrating a local mention of the Naman emblem at La Florida (Stela 7: C4; Ian Graham 1970: 449, fig. 6b), a small site on the Río San Pedro, approximately midway between El Peru and Piedras Negras

(Editors note in reference to the finding of the vessel. From Sam Edgerton; Finally, I quote from a letter dated Jan. 30, 1949, the only document in our files referring to the provenience of the pot. It was written to the director of the college museum reminding that it had been donated by the writer's brother, one Herbert Jones, class of '14. It was "collected by our father and myself in southern Campeche, at a point about twenty-five to forty miles north of the Guatemala line. It was dug out of a mound which we revealed when we cut away some of the forest to grow corn." Could that have been the location of mysterious Na Maan?)

Aside from the historical interest of Glyphs O & P, however (please see below), Glyphs B-E are perhaps most interesting, since they provide us with both a new description for Classic Maya beverages and a unique and interesting spelling of the word kakaw "chocolate," which employs two "fish" ka signs, instead of merely one, appearing with or without a doubling diacritic (as is most common). Taken together, glyphs B-E can be read as:

yu-k'i-bi / ti-a-ch'a / ka / ka-wa

yuk'ib ti ach' kakaw

y-uk'-ib ti ach' kakaw

3sE-DRINK-instr. prep. NEW/FRESH COCOA

"his drinking-cup for new/fresh cocoa"

The syllabic values a (the T743 "parrot-head") and ch'a (T93) are well known and require little comment. While it's true that the latter occasionally doubles as logographic CH'AAJ, as Hutch Kinsman has elsewhere noted, the context would seem to rule this out, and I'm certain that a simple syllabic spelling is called for here. For what it's worth, Davíd Mora Marín (personal communication, 2002) advocates a 'synharmonic reversal' of the a and ch'a signs, yielding a spelling of *ch'a' "bitter". This seems unnecessarily complicated to my mind and, barring evidence to the contrary, a-ch'a should simply yield ach' here (as, indeed, both David Stuart and Robert Wald have independantly suggested; personal communications, 2002).

Now, ach' doesn't survive in the Ch'olan languages as a term for "new, fresh," but cognates are so widespread in other Western Mayan languages (including Greater Q'anjob'alan, Tzeltalan and Yukatekan languages) that **ak' "new, fresh" can be confidently reconstructed to Proto Western Mayan -- a term which Proto-Ch'olan would have inherited as *ach' "new, fresh" (or perhaps even *ahch', to judge from evidence for preconsonantal-h in Yukatek and Tojolab'al forms). Either way, I think there's little doubt that "new, fresh" is the significance of the term from the Williams College Vessel. Most noteworthy, in this regard, are the compounds that ach' and its cognates makes with foodstuffs in Mayan languages, as in Tzotzil ach' vah "fresh tortillas", Yucatec áak kay "fresh fish", and, most importantly, Yuc. áak sa' "fresh atole". Classic Mayan ach' kakaw, then, probably referred to a particularly fresh brew of chocolate (perhaps, as Barb MacLeod usefully suggests, one made of the fresh, pulpy fruit of the cacao pod itself).

The historical portion of the text follows in Glyphs F-P, and name the owner or commissioner of the vessel. Unfortunately, as is often the case, these nominal glyphs are somewhat problematic. Being unique names, as yet unknown from any monumental contexts, it's difficult to provide much of a conclusive nature regarding them, and what follows must therefore be taken as preliminary in nature.

Here's what can be confidently made out at present, along with some parenthetical discussion:

Glyph F - (undeciphered logograph, probably nominal in nature)

Glyph G - u?/chi?-ti? (unclear compound, probably nominal. Unfortunately, the prefix is somewhat eroded, though it has characteristics of both u and chi.

Glyph H - ?-k'a/HOOM? (this could cue ch'ahoom, a typical title, as at L below, but the prefix lacks the characteristic crosshatching -- cf. w/ suffix in glyph C, and prefix in glyph L. The suffix also has some non-JOOMish qualities, and the context argues for a nominal, not a title)

Glyph I - KOHKAN?-K'AB (this is a unique compound of the well-known T212 "stingray spine" -- for which both Albert Davletshin and myself have proposed the tentative value KOHKAN -- and the K'AB "human hand" sign. It almost certainly forms part of a personal name, rather than a title)

Glyph J - JUUN (the 'female-head' variant of the number one)

Glyph K - WINIK-HAAB (aka 'k'atun')

Glyph L - ch'a-HOOM

Glyph M - WINIK-HAAB (aka 'k'atun')

Glyph N - yu-UNEN? (the drawing shows a tu- prefix where the photo demonstrates an unambiguous yu-. Unfortunately, the reading of this compound is uncertain -- owing to the final logograph of the spelling, which is not yet securely deciphered -- though the compound certainly functions to connect the names of distinct individuals in other contexts).

Glyph O - CHA'-WINIK-HAAB (2-'k'atun')

Glyph P - na-MAN-AJAW

Given the foregoing, the nominal portion of the PSS most likely refers to two separate individuals. The first (named in Glyphs F-L) seems to have been the owner and/or commissioner of the vessel. While the first part of his name is difficult to make out, the second half is unambiguous as Kohkan-K'ab' or "Spine Hand". He carries the title "one-k'atun ch'ahoom" (J-L), and perhaps another, somewhat truncated '(one)-k'atun' title (at M). While problemetic, the yu-UNEN? glyph (at N) seems to relate this individual, certainly a noble, to what may be either an overlord or perhaps even his father, identified by title alone as the "two-k'atun Lord of La Florida" (O-P). Note especially the different k'atun notations and titles, the first referring to a ch'ahoom between 1-20 years of age, the second to an ajaw of between 20-40 years of age.

Many thanks again to Sam Edgerton for bringing this vessel to everyone's attention, and to Justin Kerr and Mayavase.com for making it available for wider dissemination.