Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico Travel

The Great Maya Tombstone

by Georges Fery

by The iconography of the Maya tombstone in the Temple of the Inscriptions has raised more questions than well-founded answers. A close look at the tombstone, its setting and history, may help understand the Maya timeless message about life and death. The Temple is the final resting place of K’inich Janahb’ Pakal Ahaw, Lord of the B’aakal kingdom at Lakamha’, near today’s Palenque in Chiapas, Mexico, where he was born on March 13, 603. From the end of the fifth to the late ninth century, Lakamha’ was an important metropolis and a major regional player in politics, trade, and architecture. Pakal ruled the kingdom from 615 to 682, making him one of the longest-reigning Maya monarch in history.

As holy lord of the B’aakal kingdom, Pakal was supreme in secular and religious matters, superseding the high priest and priestess, for the prefix K’inich means Lord, while Ahaw connotes Holy. The Maya called their kings ch’ul ahaw or “lords of the life force,” for the universal power vested in them by the gods. He, and he alone, was anointed by the gods of the unifying forces of light of the Otherworld and those of darkness of the Underworld. In the Maya cosmology, these “worlds” were understood as “complementary opposites” for, paradoxically, both were in turn friendly and hostile over humans and nature. For these reasons, they needed to be pacified through rituals at dedicated times such as, among others, planting and harvesting and important communal milestones.

In the last decade of his life, Pakal and his architects worked on his funerary monument, the Temple of the Inscriptions facing the ancient city’s central plaza.

The temple is the most remarkable sanctuary ever built in Mesoamerica. The eight-level funerary pyramid, and the temple at its summit making up its ninth level, was designed by Pakal and his architects who started its construction around 675, when Pakal was seventy-two years old. The structure was completed about five years before his death on August 8, 683. The temple at its top was dedicated on December 23, 688, by his son and heir, K’inich K’an B’ahlam (635-702), in time for his father’s funeral. The stepped pyramid’s foundations reach over ten feet below the central plaza’s grounds. The structure was originally covered with plaster that may have been painted red, for remains of pigment were found; of note is the absence of carvings on its stones. The name Temple of the Inscriptions comes from three large limestone panels found on the walls of the temple’s front corridor. In the past, the stepped pyramid was known as “Temple of the Laws” because on those panels are 617-glyphs that narrate Pakal’s achievements and proclaim his place in eternity.

The six piers atop the pyramid are adorned with stucco scenes. As noted by scholars, “we may never know what Pakal intended to display on the piers, for K’an B’ahlam, who completed the temple after his father’s death, took this public location to show the rituals in which he became heir to the throne and proved his divine nature.” In ancient Maya cosmology “the pyramid replicates the “First-True-Mountain of the World Rising out of the Primordial Waters of Creation” (Schele, Matthews, 1993, 1998). The crypt, located in the deepest recess of the pyramid, is associated with caves perceived as portals to the water world for water is integral to the belief in the beginning of life in Maya cosmology where the “Otherworld” points to a mythic world “above” the human plane, abode of the sun, beneficent gods, and life. Its opposite, the “Underworld” or world “below” is associated with sunset, the moon, malevolent gods, and death. The world of the living, between these two man-made worlds, is the “Middle World.” As Bassie-Sweet point out, “One of the most important structuring principles in Maya worldview was complementary or contrasting opposites, such as male/female, right/left, east/west, day/night, up/down or north/south” (2008).

To build the pyramid, not only did architects, master stonemasons and carvers answered Pakal’s architectural requirements, they also followed a sacred allegorical pattern that was beyond their professional expertise, helped in their tasks by calendar priests, knowledge keepers and wizards. For the burial ceremony, Pakal and his chu’lel – his “divine life force” or “blessed substance of the living universe” – were first brought from the palace up the pyramid’s front stairs. The stairs of the pyramid follow, as does the pyramid’s architecture, the four sacred directions of the Maya equilateral cross, the wacah chan or “world tree.” Each arm of the cross is associated with colors, deities, and functions. The pyramid faces northward onto Palenque’s main plaza. Climbing the stairway up to the temple, Pakal and his retinue faced South>yellow-K’an Xib’Chac, germ of life, origin of the winds). After prayers, rituals, and invocations in the temple, Pakal’s body and his chu’lel’ were carried down the three sets of the intramural stairways leading down to the crypt. The first flight of stairs followed the path of the Sun, so Pakal and his retinue walked down heading East>redChac Xib’Chac, sunrise, dawn. At mid-level, the second set of stairs sharply turns West>black-Ek Xib’Chac, sunset, dusk. Pakal’s last short five steps stairway into the crypt led him North>white–Zac Xib’Chac, resting place of the winds.

When Pakal was placed in his coffin his head pointing north, he transitioned from a divine king to a celestial ancestor. As the last rituals and invocations were completed, the crypt’s massive triangular stone door was closed. In his coffin, however, Pakal was never far from the living and, for this purpose, had a narrow conduit called the Tz’at Nakan, or “Serpent of the Wise Ones,” built to fit the stairwells. It was called a psychoduct by the renowned Mexican archaeologist Alberto Ruz Lhuillier (1906-1979), who discovered the stairwells in 1950 and the crypt in 1952. The serpent’s head is made of a mix of limestone plaster and was attached to the bottom of the sarcophagus which connected with the “psychoduct,” a rectangular limestone molding outside the door, matching each stair with a hollow round tube-like center that ended below the floor of the temple. It was the Tzat Nakan, through which Pakal and the priests established soul-to-soul contact, not soul-to-mind, at dedicated times. This feature is found in other structures at Palenque such as in Temples XIII and XVIII, albeit not so elaborate.

They each have a tube-like conduit that runs vertically from the crypt to below the temple floor, and a small hole on the sarcophagus lid was drilled at the level of the face to let the ch’ulel’ pass. These funnels bolstered the belief that the individual in the grave was still socially alive after death, with prerogatives attached to his spiritual powers, for ch’ulel’ never dies. It was then accepted, as it is today in most beliefs and religions, that a person has a body, and a soul. It was, however, the deified chu’lel’ that was the object of veneration. Upon death, while the body’s soft tissues decayed, its chu’lel remained within the skeletal bones for the duration of the person’s past life and was then reunited with the ancestors to be assigned to another life.

Upon discovering the stairwell and after removing the stones and debris from the intramural stairways, Alberto Ruz’s team reached the level of the sanctuary.

A massive triangular limestone door – seven and a half feet high, five feet wide at the base and eight inches thick – sealed the entrance to the crypt. There is no similar triangular door in Palenque or elsewhere in Mesoamerica. Facing the triangular limestone door, on the right side of the landing of the second flight of stairs, Ruz found the remains of five persons who had been sacrificed. They were dismembered to fit in a narrow stone box and were covered with cinnabar, a red mercury sulfide powder. Pakal’s so-called “companions” were sacrificed to serve their lord’s chu’lel’ in the afterlife with their own. Three of them were identified as “two males and one female in their late teens or early twenties; the other two could not be sexed due to the deterioration of the remains” (Tiesler, Cucina, 2006).

Opening the door became a laborious task to avoid damaging it. Ruz and his team eventually entered the twenty-by-thirteen-foot sanctuary and were stunned by the magnificence of the shrine. The massive monolithic twelve-to-fifteen-ton sarcophagus is ten feet long, seven feet wide and three-and-a-half-feet high. It was carved from a nearby limestone hill and took most of the crypt’s space. Because of its size and that of the monolithic tombstone, they were set in place together before the pyramid was built over the sanctuary. The sarcophagus rest on six carved square limestone blocks that raises it over a foot above the crypt’s floor made of large, quadrangular, finely leveled stones.

The rectangular finely carved tombstone was smeared with cinnabar, a red mercury sulfide powder, associated with blood, the ultimate stream of life, also used to ward off malevolent forces. What struck all present was the exquisitely carved tombstone, unique in the Americas for its breathtaking iconography. The tombstone is twelve-and-a half-feet long, seven-and-a half-feet wide and ten inches thick and overlaps the sarcophagus by fifteen-and-half inches on the north and south sides; the overlap is only two inches on both its long sides” (Alberto Ruz, 1973).

The archaeologists’ challenging task was to carefully slide the tombstone on an abutment originally built on the north side of the sarcophagus. The tombstone two northern corners were damaged probably during the transfer from the quarry to the sanctuary, before the pyramid was built; one of the corners was recovered below the sarcophagus. The coffin was carved into the sarcophagus in the shape of a fish, a reminder of the primordial sea from where all life forms came and was finely polished inside. It is six-and-a-half-feet long, one-and-three quarter-feet wide, and fourteen-and-a-half inches deep. A limestone cover, four inches thick, in the same shape as the opening fitted with stone plugs in its four corners, sealed the coffin. Upon lifting the cover, Ruz and his team came face-to-face with K’inich Janahb’ Pakal. The Lord of Lakamha’ was found lying on his back with arms extended on his sides and was fully dressed at the time of burial. The remains and the inside walls of the coffin were covered with cinnabar.

In Classic Maya imagery, the Maize God wore a net skirt and a profusion of jade ornaments like those found in the coffin. Pakal adornments were of fine green jade which were carefully recorded by the archaeologists. They included bracelets with semi-round beads akin to corn kernels, necklaces, rings on each of Pakal fingers, belts, ear flares, cylinder hair ornaments, a diadem made of forty-one jade disks, headbands and belts worn by Palenque’s ruling elite” (Stuart and Stuart, 2008).

Small jade figurines of deities such as Sak’Hunal the “jester god” oldest symbol of kingship, and other objects made of semi-precious stones and nacre from spondylus shells (Spondylus americanus) were placed on Pakal’s sides. A small jade figurine was found over Pakal’s groin, which may represent the maize god Hun’Nal Ye from the myth of creation. Among Pakal’s outstanding ornaments is his death mask, made of a mosaic of thin jade plaques. Its unique characteristic, according to Ruz’s report, is that “the mask was modeled directly over Pakal’s face, for a layer of stucco was found adhering to the bones of the skull.” Does that suggest a secondary and not a primary burial? The mask was believed to overcome the body’s natural degradation and as noted by Ruz, “may have been to personify…and ensure the departed an eternal face in its grave” (1972). The eyes of the mask are made of nacre, the iris is of obsidian, while black paint was applied for the pupils. Around Pakal’s neck was a huge collar made of hundreds of jade cylinders and beads. The beads were cut to resemble squash, a plant grown together with maize and, according to legend, brought into the world by Hun’Nal Ye, the maize god.

Of note is a jade ornament consisting of the Maya logogram Ik, in the shape of the capital letter I, which signifies “spirit,” “life,” or “breath.” The ornament was placed in the slightly open mouth of the jade mask. The Ik symbol, in the shape of either a capital T or I, is found on walls, stelas, and painted on ceramics. The architectural design of ballcourts, where games of life and death took place, also answer to the shape of this logogram. Before the Ik symbol and the death mask were placed over Pakal’s face, it is probable that koyem, a cooked maize paste traditionally used and found in common graves, was put into his mouth to feed his ch’ulel’s long voyage to Xibalba, the “place of awe” the Underworld. Xibalba answers to the complementary fields and is associated to the beginning and end of life and the power of nature.

For in darkness seeds bid their time underground to sprout and meet the light of the sun. Human life is not foreign to this cycle, for life that begins in the darkness of the womb, past its time, returns to the grave. The tombstone above all, is “an essential statement of dynastic vitality and continuity that was necessary following the death of an exceptionally long-lived king” (Scherer, 2012).

 

The above is part one of a two-part series. Read part two here.

 

All photos by Georges Fery:

1. Temple of the Inscriptions, Palenque
2. The first flight of stairs
3. The triangular door
4. The crypt
5. Pakal’s jade death mask

 

References – Further Reading:
Alberto Ruz Lhuillier, 2013 – El Templo de las Inscripciones: Palenque
Vera Tiesler, Andrea Cucina, 2006 – Janaab’ Pakal of Palenque
Freidel, L. Schele, J. Parker, 1993 – Maya Cosmo, Three Thousand Years on the Shaman’s Path
Barbara Tedlock, 1982 – Time and the Highland Maya
Méndez Martinez, E. Valey Sis – Asociación Maya Uk’Ux B’e, 2008 – Cosmocimientos y Practicas Mayas Antiguas
Teilhard de Chardin, 1964 – La Grande Illusion
Patricia A. McAnany, 1995 – Living with the Ancestors
Jacques Cauvin, 1994 – Naissance des Divinités, Naissance de l’Agriculture
de la Garza, G. Bernal Romero, M. Cuevas Garcia, 2012 – Palenque-Lakamha’: Una Presencia Inmortal del Pasado Indígena
Fernando Nuñez, 2012 – Las Sepulturas de Palenque
Denis Fustel de Coulanges, 1864 – La Cité Antique
Linda Schele, Peter Mathews, 1998 – The Code of Kings

About the author:
Creative non-fiction writer, researcher and photographer, Georges Fery (georgefery.com) addresses topics, from history, culture, and beliefs to daily living of ancient and today’s communities of Mesoamerica and South America. His articles are published online at travelthruhistory.com, ancient-origins.net and popular-archaeology.com, in the quarterly magazine Ancient American (ancientamerican.com), as well as in the U.K. at mexicolore.co.uk. The author is a fellow of the Institute of Maya Studies instituteofmayastudies.org Miami, FL and The Royal Geographical Society, London, U.K. rgs.org. As well as member in good standing of the Maya Exploration Center, Austin, TX mayaexploration.org, the Archaeological Institute of America, Boston, MA archaeological.org, the National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC. americanindian.si.edu, and the NFAA – Non-Fiction Authors Association nonfictionauthrosassociation.com.

Contact: Georges Fery – 5200 Keller Springs Road, Apt. 1511, Dallas, Texas 75248
(786) 501 9692 –gfery.43@gmail.com and www.georgefery.com