Maya Royal Dynasty at Tikal

Date 90 c.e.

Locale Tikal (now in Guatemala)

The establishment of a new and vigorous Maya dynastic tradition c. 90 c.e. heralded the beginning of eight centuries of divine rulership that culminated with the collapse of the ancient metropolis and kingdom of Yax Mutal, or Tikal, in 562.

Key Figures

• Yax Ehb “Xook” (First Step Shark; c. 50-150 c.e.), founding ahau or “divine lord” of Tikal Dynasty, r. c. 90-150 c.e.
• Ix Une Balam (Baby Jaguar; d. 317 c.e.), first female ahau or “divine lady” of Tikal, r. ?-317 c.e.
• Chak Tok Ich’aak I (Great Jaguar Paw; d. 378 c.e.), ahau of Tikal, r. 360-378 c.e.
• Nuun Yax Ayiin I (Curl Snout; d. 404? c.e.), Mexicanized ahau of Tikal, r. 378-404? c.e.
• Siyaj Chan K’awiil II (Stormy Sky; d. 456 c.e.), Mexicanized ahau of Tikal, r. 411-456 c.e.

Summary of Event

The royal house of ancient Yax Mutal (first Mutal, topknot), or Tikal, was founded under the leadership of the legendary Yax Ehb “Xook” c. 90 c.e. The royal lineage founded by Yax Ehb “Xook” would ultimately encompass the royal histories of some thirty-three ahaus (divine lords and ladies) of the house of Yax Mutal. Although little is known of the longevity and exploits of the founder of the Tikal dynastic tradition, it is known that he was the founder of a royal line that would persist in various forms for nearly eight centuries, despite foreign invasion, intermarriage, the Maya hiatus, and, ultimately, the collapse and rebirth of the ancient metropolis of Tikal.

The reign of Yax Ehb “Xook” signaled the origin and proliferation of the classic Maya dynastic tradition as it is understood today. Much of the traditional pomp and circumstance and iconographic, architectural, and symbolic conventions inherent in the warrior aristocracies and divine kingship of the later Classic era (c. 250-900 c.e.) may be traced to its earliest manifestation at the site of Yax Mutal during the first century c.e. reign of Yax Ehb “Xook.” Advances in archaeology and epigraphy, or Maya glyph interpretation and translation, have enabled the detailed assessment and identification of the movers and shakers of the ancient Maya world. However, it should be noted that although precise dates are available from the interpretation of Maya glyphs derived from monuments, carved mahogany panels, and ceramic vessels, what remains as yet undetermined is the overall antiquity of the dynasty based on a specific founding date for the Tikal dynasty. Therefore, Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube, in their book Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens (2000), caution that Maya dynastic succession is necessarily limited to interpretations derived from Tikal’s numbered count of kings and queens, titles of succession, and projected years in power.

Although only fragmentary glyphic histories and monuments make reference to Yax Ehb “Xook,” his successors make repeated references to this founder of the dynasty that would give birth to many heirs. Among his successors may be counted two little-known kings by the names of Foliated Jaguar, or Scroll Ahau Jaguar, and Animal Headdress, whose respective periods of rule have yet to be precisely identified. The subsequent ruler, Siyaj Chan K’awiil I, or Sky-Born K’awiil Great Claw, has been identified with the period of c. 307 c.e. Siyaj Chan K’awiil I was the son of Animal Headdress and Lady Skull. As the eleventh heir of the dynasty founded by Yax Ehb “Xook,” Siyaj Chan K’awiil I is thought to represent the last of a line of male heirs who ruled before the seating of Ix Une Balam, or Baby Jaguar, who died in 317 c.e. At that juncture, Ix Une Balam is believed responsible for the celebration of the K’atun ending, or twenty-year calendrical cycle, held sacred to Maya dynasts of the time. Her placement in that context indicates that she was in fact the queen, the twelfth successor of the founding ruler of Tikal. By 330 c.e., K’inich Muwaan Jol, or Bird Skull, was seated as the thirteenth ruler of ancient Tikal. K’inich Muwaan Jol, who died on or near May 23, 359 c.e., is cited on various monuments as having fathered his successor, the legendary fourteenth ruler of Tikal, Chak Tok Ich’aak I, or Great Burning Claw—also known as Great Jaguar Paw—who acceded to the throne on or near August 7, 360 c.e.

Perhaps the most celebrated of the early dynasts of the Petén was in fact Chak Tok Ich’aak I. His death on January 15, 378—or 8.17.1.4.12 11 Eb 15 Mak of the Maya Long Count calendar—represents a critical departure from the nearly three-hundred-year-old royal lineage cultivated by the ancestors of Chak Tok Ich’aak I and the descendants of Yax Ehb “Xook,” the founder of Tikal’s royal house in 90 c.e. According to Linda Schele, it was at this time that the Maya of Yax Mutal acquired the art of conquest and the use of the atlatl spear, the dart thrower identified with the ancient metropolis and state of Teotihuacán and more generally with highland Mexican civilization. Concomitantly, there was a proliferation of painted and sculpted media and writings at Tikal and nearby Uaxactún (Guatemala) that serve to document the arrival of Teotihuacán warriors or other Mexican emissaries from the central highlands.

Significantly, the death of Chak Tok Ich’aak I corresponds with the arrival at Tikal of the foreigner identified as Siyaj K’ak, or Fire Born, on January 31, 378 c.e., and the death of the royal house identified specifically with the lineage of Chak Tok Ich’aak I. According to Martin and Grube, the death of Chak Tok Ich’aak I in turn corresponds to the wholesale replacement of his lineage with that of a new male line apparently drawn directly from the ruling house of Teotihuacán itself. This displacement was in turn accompanied by the violent destruction and internment, or relocation, of virtually all monuments and artifacts pertaining to the reign of Chak Tok Ich’aak I and his predecessors. The subsequent installation of the divine lord Nuun Yax Ayiin I, or Curl Snout, on September 12, 378 c.e., ultimately set the stage for the Mexicanization of the Tikal royal house. Nowhere is this made more apparent than with the installation of the son and successor of Yax Nuun Ayiin I, the divine lord Siyaj Chan K’awiil II, or Stormy Sky, on November 26, 411 c.e.

Monuments depicting the lengthy rule of Siyaj Chan K’awiil II (411-456 c.e.) invariably depict his father Nuun Yax Ayiin I as a Teotihuacán emissary or warrior in full highland Mexican battle regalia—replete with atlatl spear throwers, rectangular shields bearing the image of the goggle-eyed war deity Tlaloc, spherical or balloon headdresses containing the Mexican crossed-trapeze year symbol, and related icons, insignia, and armaments pertaining to the war cult commanders of highland central Mexico. Stela 31, which constitutes one of the finest sculpted monuments recovered from the site of Tikal, bears a highly ornate Classic Maya portrait of Siyaj Chan K’awiil II on its frontal face flanked by two Mexicanized depictions of his father, the divine lord Nuun Yax Ayiin I, on its sides. Dated to 445 c.e., stela 31 sought to document the dynastic relationship of Stormy Sky to Yax Ehb “Xook”—the founding divine lord of the Tikal royal lineage of c. 90 c.e. Despite his derivative Mexican origins, Siyaj Chan K’awiil II is identified in other contexts as the sixteenth divine lord, or ahau, of Yax Mutal. Ultimately, Martin and Grube believe that stela 31 served to affirm the rebirth of “orthodox kingship” at Tikal via the proclamation that Siyaj Chan K’awiil II was a direct heir of the founding dynast Yax Ehb “Xook,” despite the introduction of a foreign blood line implanted at Tikal via emissaries and warriors with ties to the distant ancient metropolis of Teotihuacán (Mexico).

Despite the fact that the metropolis of Teotihuacán lay some 630 miles (1,010 kilometers) west of Tikal, scholars have long debated the sources and affinities of Mexicanized influence on Tikal and the Petén Guatemalan lowlands. Despite glyph translations of key monuments pertaining to Uaxactún and Tikal and related lowland Maya sites; discoveries in Tikal’s Teotihuacán barrio, or enclave, identified with the Mundo Perdido, or Lost World Complex; and newly recovered monuments depicting the “arrival” of emissaries from the Mexican highlands, some scholars continue to debate the significance of an overwhelming body of evidence that serves to document the presence of foreign intruders and the likely usurpers of the Tikal royal house. Despite some controversy over the nature and extent of Mexican or Teotihuacán influence in the architecture, iconography, ceramics, monuments, and burials recovered at Tikal, it should be noted that virtually all subsequent ahau, or divine lords, of Tikal would from that point onward brandish Mexicanized symbols of power and authority borne of Teotihuacán until the collapse of Yax Mutal some five centuries later.

Significance

When the ill-fated final ruler of ancient Yax Mutal, Jasaw Chan K’awiil II, commissioned the installation of the final tetun—“stone tree” or portrait stela—for the “forest of kings” that dominated Tikal’s Great Plaza of 869 c.e., one of the oldest dynastic traditions in the Americas came to an inglorious end. By that time the city’s fortunes waned with the near total collapse of its political economy, the precipitous decline of its urban population, and the onslaught of a multitude of new and bellicose claimants to the throne harbored within the royal houses of those competing city-states that then occupied the former hinterlands of the late great metropolis of Yax Mutal. Despite this anticlimactic end for the ancient city and dynasty of Yax Mutal, the legendary Yax Ehb “Xook” founded what has come to be acknowledged as perhaps one of the best documented, and most emulated, early indigenous models of dynastic succession and lineage reckoning in ancient Mesoamerica.

Bibliography

Coe, Michael D. Breaking the Maya Code. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1999. A chronicle of the process of discovery that led to the interpretation and subsequent translation of the ancient Maya glyph system.

Coe, Michael D. The Maya. 6th ed. London: Thames and Hudson, 1999. A classic overview of the rise and fall of Maya civilization revised to account for modern findings regarding Maya kingship and glyphic interpretations.

Coe, William R. Tikal: A Handbook of the Ancient Maya Ruins. Philadelphia: The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, 1969. A review of Maya archaeology and the ruins of Tikal as seen by the lead archaeologist of the Tikal Acropolis Project.

Harrison, Peter D, Colin Renfrew, and Jeremy A. Sabloff. The Lords of Tikal: Rulers of an Ancient Maya City. London: Thames and Hudson, 2000. This text provides an insight-filled chronicle and useful time line documenting the evolution of the royal house of Tikal.

Martin, Simon, and Nikolai Grube. Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens: Deciphering the Dynasties of the Ancient Maya. London: Thames and Hudson, 2000. Perhaps the most authoritative, exhaustive, and up-to-date account currently available for the interpretation of the dynastic histories of the ancient city of Tikal.

Miller, Mary Ellen. Maya Art and Architecture. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1999. A concise overview of the origins and affinities of ancient Maya art based on both art history and archaeology.

Schele, Linda. “The Owl, Shield, and Flint Blade: In a.d. 378, the Maya Learned the Art of Conquest.” Natural History 11, no. 4 (1991): 6. An early, albeit somewhat dated, interpretation of that Teotihuacán-inspired imagery found at Tikal and Uaxactún, Guatemala.

Schele, Linda, and David Freidel. A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya. New York: Quill, William Morrow, 1990. A landmark work regarding Maya kingship based on scholarship in Maya glyph decipherment.