[Aztlan] Tortuguero Mon 6 fragments

[Sven Gronemeyer]

Hi Ed and all listeros,

Bad news to hear that the CICOM museum is still closed. I'm wondering how
the objects in the ground and first floor and down in the bodega (including
all the Tortuguero monuments!) have survived. Also the amazing Edwin Shook
collection in the library next by with its thousands of precious books (some
subscribers will remember our joint stroll through including the many
aha-effects). Sad... By the way: does anybody know?

Michael is absolutely right in his observations, and there's nothing to add
from my side. I don't know where the panel was found. When Blom and La Forge
where visiting the ruins in 1922 and 1925, it was still unknown, when next
bigger survey took place in 1978 it was already removed. Berlin visited the
site in 1953, but I am not aware of any note he was able to see in the panel
in situ, but I doubt based on the scant reports on the discovery and the
fact that it was first published 1962 in the Thompson catalogue. Also, CIW
photos don't mention anything...

The back is not carved, and surely the monument was a wall panel, as
supported by epigraphic evidence: block K15 states /K'AN TUN-ni/, the emic
denomination for a wall panel. Interestingly, the following glyph read
/u-ti/ his, its mouth, opening, follwed by a block /u-yo-no/, whatever that
means. I believe this directly refers to Mon. 6 and its placement within a
structure or sanctuary. It may also refer to the sealing of a part of the
structure or architecture attributed to Ahkal K'u'k, since he (as a very
early big man in Tortuguero's history) and his pibnaah are named in the
clause directly after. This was named the nah k'anajal place (blocks M3-N3),
and maybe Tortuguero ruler Bahlam Ajaw sealed this previous Early Classic
structure with a new building, placing his Mon. 6 in the new sanctuary above
the old sub-structure - and as some "portal" to what is sealed below.

Regarding the left part of the Mon. 6 "triptych", I have a couple of hopes
and fears. Maybe it is still out there and awaits finding. Maybe it was
sacked, brought into some private collection and nobody never noticed its
existence. Or it was and never will be found and it already got crushed in
Grupo Apasco's concrete machines built on the site.

Cheers,

Sven


-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Barnhart [mailto:edbarnhart at mayaexploration.org]
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 3:46 PM
To: Sven.Gronemeyer at t-online.de
Subject: RE: [Aztlan] Tortuguero Mon 6 fragments


Hi Sven and all Listeros,

Thanks Sven, and everyone who replied.  Sven has indeed answered most of my
questions neatly.  I hadn’t looked at the date link between frags D and F.
The photos from the CICOM museum from Mesoweb were very helpful in
understanding the monument's odd shape.  Sadly, I've heard from Chris
Powell, who lives in Villahermosa, that the CICOM museum has been closed
ever since the floods of November 2007.  The museum was right along the
river...

As the photos show, and Michael Grofe's last post notes, the long count was
probably on another missing fragment, from the left side of the T shape Sven
described.  To me, it seems that this might have been the front façade of a
temple at Tortuguero.  It makes sense that they would have ended up broken
up and over a tomb.  Likely the person in the tomb was associated with the
temple.  If it was a temple façade, there was likely a second, or even third
carved façade pillar and lintel set.  I wish we knew more about where it
came from!

In the excavations of Temple XIX at Palenque, a panel was broken up and
spread out into various parts of the terminated temple.  Perhaps this
monument set was also a bit spread out when buried.  At minimum, a left
flange text for Mon 6 is still out there somewhere.

Sven, any ideas about where in the site the burial was, or about my
suggestion that it’s a façade element?  No backside text, right?  That would
point to frontal viewing only.  An interesting mystery.  And Frags E and F,
I wonder if the person in possession even knows what they have!

Thanks for the interesting discussion.

Regards, Ed

Dr. Edwin Barnhart
Director, Maya Exploration Center
7301 Ranch Road 620 N
Suite 155 #284
Austin, Texas 78726
(512) 350-3321

-----Original Message-----
From: aztlan-bounces at lists.famsi.org [mailto:aztlan-bounces at lists.famsi.org]
On Behalf Of Sven Gronemeyer
Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2009 1:37 PM
To: aztlan at lists.famsi.org
Subject: Re: [Aztlan] Tortuguero Mon 6 fragments

Dear Ed and all listeros,

I would also be keen to learn about the whereabouts of fragments E and F, as
I also only ever was able to study them via some old photos. Well, I'd even
be keener on knowing the whereabouts of the so-called Tortuguero ear plug,
but that's another story...

So regarding your concerns, I believe we can be pretty if not absolutely
sure that all the fragments fit together. If I got the history correct, it
was Peter Mathews who first recognised that Fragment G is part of Mon. 6 by
comparing it with the "Boston fragments". If this was ever done physically,
i.e. with all pieces together, is uncertain, but I doubt it. By that time
(around 1974) the pieces were already scattered through several collections.
Mathews' findings where then first, to my knowledge, published by Berthold
Riese in his 1978 study of Mon. 6 in the Estudios de Cultura Maya. Ian made
his drawing of the main panel back in around 1970, so likely before the
fragments E through G where known or at least attributed to Mon. 6 - hence
his original drawing of Mon. 6 (as e.g. seen in Victoria Bricker's 1986
Grammar) wasn't showing the right-hand panel and that's also likely why it
was first designated as Mon. 7.

So far, so good. But how to be sure that the pieces fit and belong together?
Admittedly, we don't know if they were found together. If so, things would
be much easier. We may de facto speak of unprovenanced pieces, but as they
are surely part of Mon. 6, we can securely attribute them to the site. As
reports or archaeology can't help us, we need to find other arguments. And
we can almost solely take epigraphy as our advocate.

1. Calendarical nexus: if we take the last date recorded on the main panel
and substract the distance number the inscription on the main panel ends
with, we surprisingly end up exactly with the first date recorded on the
fragments. That's more than a coincedence.
2. Grammar: the first glyph bock on the fragments perfectly fits into the
syntax: the main panel ends with the distance number as an adverbial phrase
and continues with the verb uhti as the predicate and a zero morpheme as the
subject. The new clause begins with the next date the distance number has
calculated to.
3. Paleography: the date on the fragments is introduced with a special form
of the verb uhti - "it happened". It uses a the "Chuwen Skull" sign, which
in Tortuguero is used elsewhere to indicate not only previous but very early
dates (in relationship to the date mentioned before in the text) We e.g find
the same case on the main panel of Mon. 6 itself (block I2). This and other
palaeographical indicators show a relationship not only to the site, but the
same monument.

If you recognise a gap between the fragments and the main panel or think
that they don't really fit together (judging from the drawing), there's also
a plain explanation for that. As fragments E and F are not available for
study purposes, I had to rely on third party information on the
measurements. To get these figures together with what I had for fragment G
and the main panel was a bit difficult. And even all the measurements I had
for a single fragment deviated several centimeters from each other,
depending on who has taken them - simply measurement errors. My collage of
Ian's drawing and mine of the right-hand wing was the best approximation
possible with all the values available and although vague, I relied more on
the measurements (within a very narrow tolerance) than on best fitting
together. If I had scaled the wing a bit greater (just some 5 cm), the
pieces would have fitted together much better with the glyph blocks lining
up, but then the wing got bigger than the reported measurements.

Don't get me wrong: fragments E to G surely belong together, the cracks,
glyphs and everything fit beyond doubt. There were only difficulties in
getting certain sources of information together, as it is so often the case
when not able to verify by yourself.

The lower border or frame that doesn't find a prolongation is also easy to
explain. Likely, Mon. 6 once was a T-shaped panel. The right-hand wing is
much smaller, its lower edge adjoins the main panel at about 1/4 of its
total height. The main panel is surrounded by a solid border frame as well.
Interestingly, this border is missing in the upper quarter on the left and
right side, so the glyphs of the main panel and wing are fitting together
seamless. It is almost like the right wing is "flanged" to the main panel,
so the border of both parts meet in a 90? angle then and finds its
continuation there.

Best regards,

Sven


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