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| K'an Joy Chitam has also been referred to as K'an Hok' Chitam, Kan-Xul, and Hok. All of these names arise from the reading of what has been dubbed the "toothache glyph", number T684'c' in Thompson's catalog (1962). This was originally read as hok', but when Linda Schele began to have doubts about this reading she decided to disregard the bundle-knot altogether in naming this ruler. Instead she referenced the k'an-cross in the eye and the rodent from the month sign Xul, to arrive at Kan-Xul. But then confidence was regained in the reading hok'. And Nikolai Grube read the three balls at the bottom of the glyph as the phonetic complement ma, which meant that the name of the animal must end in m. The peccary, chitam, has just the sort of blunt nose depicted. These developments led to K'an Hok' Chitam, which was changed to K'an Hoy Chitam when the reading of the "toothache" glyph was further refined. And finally, as previously noted, Hoy was changed to Joy (with the Spanish j-sound) to convey a better sense of the actual Mayan pronunciation. |