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Ahkal Mo' Nahb' is the first ruler for whom we have inscriptions other than the Temple of the Cross Tablet. This is the badly eroded beginning of the first panel of the Temple of the Inscriptions. It records that on the period ending of 9.4.0.0.0 13 Ajaw 18 Yax, Ahkal Mo' Nahb' made an offering of the period ending itself. In other words, "he gave it, the bundle of his gods, GI, GII and GIII..." is a rhetorical way of saying that he celebrated the ending of a cycle of time sacred to the deities known as the Palenque Triad. ("G1", "GII" and "GIII" are designations given by Heinrich Berlin to Palenque's patron deities, whose names we still do not know for certain. Juun Nal Ye, "One Maize Kernal", has been suggested for GI, but David Stuart has not accepted this. Unen K'awiil, "Baby K'awiil" seems likely for GII, while GIII's name begins with K'inich, "The Sun-god", and appears to have Ajaw, "Lord", over what might be read as Pakal, "Shield".) The distance number at A10-B10 counts forward from this celebration to the accession of Ahkal Mo' Nahb' I. At A11 is a verb similar to that which we saw for the "seating" of a month. Here it refers to the seating on the throne. At B11 is ta-HUUN-na, where huun (the long vowel indicated by the disharmonic suffix -na) is the headband of rulership. Here the eroded portrait head may be that of the Jester God, also known as Huun or Huunal. The Distance Number of 13 years, 10 months and 3 days must be either added to or subtracted from the long count date 9.4.0.0.0. Subtracting it leads back to 9.3.6.7.17. And if we look up the Calendar Round for this date, we find it to be 5 Kab'an 0 Sotz', which we saw in connection with Ahkal Mo' Nahb's accession on the Temple of the Cross Tablet. Thus we can be sure of the Long Count date for that reference as well. |
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