Posted July 3, 2002.

Seeing for yourself

A new piece of the carved wooden box previously reported at Mesoweb is now on display in the museum of Alvaro Obregon, Tenosique, Tabasco, Mexico. The large fragment, wrapped in paper in a carton of miscellaneous ceramics, was previously overlooked by community members proudly showing their treasure to visiting Mayanists.

The glyphs from the new piece are a vindication of the study and decipherment of hieroglyphic writing. Stanley Guenter, in a report on the original find together with Armando Anaya H. and Peter Mathews, first identified a name with connections to the royal court of Piedras Negras and also to the great Central Mexican metropolis of Teotihuacan.

The new glyphs confirm this identification by explicitly naming Piedras Negras ruler 'Turtle Tooth' (ya-? *a-*ku; far right glyph-block in the photograph above) in connection with the enigmatic Wi? Te' Naah location that is so intimately tied to Teotihuacan. Furthermore, there is a most suggestive distance number of 155 days, corresponding quite closely to the number of days of travel associated with 'Teotihuacan arrival events' at both Tikal and Copan.

A discussion of the new glyphs and a preliminary drawing by Marc Zender will soon be available in this space.

The new piece of the wooden box also includes a portion of one end, as seen in the photograph below.





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