[Aztlan] Maya Panel

[Jorge Pérez de Lara Elías]

John,

The drawing you have directed us to depicts the lower part of a panel  
or, perhaps, a stela. The uppermost part of your drawing shows across  
the whole breadth the very recognizable lower portions of four glyphs.  
Therefore, I would speculate that the text had at least four columns.  
Maya texts were usually read in two columns, by progressing left to  
right and then down to the second row and so forth. The third glyph  
(left to right) shows the still recognizable remains of a numerical  
coefficient (perhaps an 8?). This may have been part of a date but,  
given the fact that it would be in a passage that is not the beginning  
of the text (the bottom of the third column), it is more likely part  
of a so-called Distance Number (an expression of how much time elapsed  
between one event and another in a text).

The lower left-hand corner of the drawing shows a head that may belong  
to one of a pair of deities (perhaps one of the so-called Rowers,  
although I cannot find any traits that would allow me to assert it is)  
at the left-hand side end of a very clear Earth Band (the rectangular  
section to the right of the deity head that contains the cross-hatched  
semi-circles with a fringe that in the first case forms a sort of  
appendix pointing towards the lower part of the register). The Earth  
Band would have been carved to point out that whatever the scene  
carved on top of it was (the Earth band is an iconographic element and  
therefore I am speculating the monument contained a scene and not just  
text), the event happened "on Earth" (as opposed to events happening  
"in Heaven" or "on/in the Water", which would call for a Sky Band or a  
Water Band with their own iconographic conventions).

Aside from that, I believe it is very difficult to say more. It would  
be interesting to find out where the carving came from, to see if it  
could be fitted on a fragment (or fragments) known from some site (or  
collection).

Hope the above helps a bit.

Jorge


On Mar 28, 2009, at 4:10 PM, John O'Donnell wrote:

> Dear Members,
>
>
>    Many years ago I was really into the American Civil War and at  
> one of the shows someone had a collection of many different items,  
> Civil War, Indian etc including a carved stone panel who someone  
> said was Mayan and I made a drawing of it. Now that I am interested  
> in the Maya I have began searching many places for an answer to this  
> but found no result. I sense it is a part of a Maya story. I put  
> this out to you, maybe you have some input as to what it says or its  
> meaning. You can look at my drawing at: http://www.fairpoint.net/~hwfwe/MayaPanel.jpg 
>  I used Internet Explorer to set this up, if anyone can not see it  
> let me know and I will see what I can do.
>
> You may respond to me personally if you like. Thank you for your help.
>
> Sincerely,
> John O'Donnell
>
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