| Kan B'ahlam is accorded two references on the Sarcophagus Lid of Pakal the Great. The Calendar Round of the first of these - 7 Ajaw 3 K'ank'in - is familiar to us from the Temple of the Inscriptions, where it was associated with the 9.7.0.0.0 k'atun ending. And here we see that the left half of the next glyph has infixed in its bottom element a symbol which occurs in the day-sign Kawak, distinguished by a y-shape which often looks like a bunch of grapes, and a semi-circle of dots around another semi-circular element. This can be the sign for tuun ("year"). Here it has another infixed circle and dot, which we've seen before in the accession verb chum, "seating". Glyph and infixes together refer to a tuun seating, which is to say the beginning of the new k'atun. (Incidentally, this provides an anchor date for the text on Pakal's sarcophagus.) On the right half of the third glyph block, of course, is the name of Kan B'ahlam. The vertical lines represent the belly scales of a snake, and the eye is that of a snake as well. The balls underneath are the phonetic complement ma, signaling the m at the end of b'ahlam, the jaguar aspect of the ruler's name. On top of the Kawak sign, it should be noted, is syllabic 'u, the possessive "his". In other words, this is the tuun seating of Kan B'ahlam. |