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As we have seen, the inscriptions of K'inich Ahkal Mo' Nahb' III record that when he was sixteen he performed a ceremony which he considered worthy of memorializing on the Temple XVIII Jambs. That same monument records his performance of a ceremony at age fourteen that is associated in another context with a future ruler. It is known that K'inich Kan B'alam II had no male heir, because the succession passed to his brother. If K'inich K'an Joy Chitam II also had no male heir, ceremonies might well have been conducted to designate as his successor the son of a deceased male sibling.




NOTE:

Although it is fashionable in some quarters to suggest that the Maya inscriptions are so propagandistic as to be wholy untrustworthy, all that has ever been demonstrated in this regard is the omission of certain facts. As far as is known, the history recorded is accurate. Given the parlous state of the Palenque kingdom at the time recorded on the stucco panel, it is tempting to wonder whether the ceremony depicted thereon ever took place. But what is striking is the degree of detail inscribed. "His Shield of the Sun God" is said to have officiated at three different ceremonies, evenly spaced calendrically from that which involved his father twenty years previously. And these calendrics are repeated throughout the inscriptions of Temple XIX.



The "deer hoof" event from the Temple XVIII Jambs, performed by K'inich Ahkal Mo' Nahb' at age fourteen. K'inich K'an Joy Chitam II enacts the same event as a seven-year-old on the Palace Tablet (E8). (Photo: Mark Van Stone.)