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c h a p t e r 5 The Carved Monuments and Inscriptions of Xunantunich Implications for Terminal Classic Sociopolitical Relationships in the Belize Valley Christophe Helmke, Jaime Awe, and Nikolai Grube unliKe many sites in the beliZe valley, Xunantunich has continuously attracted the attention of explorers and archaeologists over the course of the past century. Indeed, the first recorded visit to the site is attributed to Alfred Maloney, governor of what was then British Honduras, in 1891 (Morley 1937–1938:204), and controlled excavations took place as early as 1938 (Thompson 1942). In virtually every decade since then, the site has witnessed numerous and varied investigations, culminating most recently in the Xunantunich Archaeological Project (XAP) (1991–1997) and the Tourism Development Project (TDP) (2000–2004). The site’s carved stone monuments have been a special focus of investigation since some of the first pioneers and archaeologists visited the site (Gann 1894–1895, 1925; Maler 1908; Morley 1937–1938). This chapter presents a review of Xunantunich’s small corpus of hieroglyphic inscriptions (Graham 1978), which has been significantly augmented by three carved monument fragments found during the XAP and TDP excavations. These discoveries—and the recent advances made in the field of hieroglyphic decipherment in the last decade—make it appropriate to present a new synthesis of the glyphic record from Xunantunich, with special focus on the sociopolitical role that this site played in antiquity as well as the interactions maintained with neighboring dynasties. 98 helmKe, awe, and grube The Corpus Of the twelve monuments discovered at Xunantunich, six were carved. Nine monuments are represented by stelae, of which only three are carved (Stelae 1, 8, and 9). The remainder are represented by the carved Altar 1 as well as the glyphic Panels 1 and 2. All the carved monuments were examined by the authors in the field with the aid of artificial lighting in January and July 2004. The results of these analyses were weighted against previously published drawings, and amendments or complete redrawings were executed as necessary. The corpus is presented here in its presumed chronological order (see table 5.1), from earliest to latest, beginning with Panel 1 and ending with Altar 1. table 5.1 Summary of the dating and chronology of Xunantunich’s carved stone monuments, ordered from earliest to latest Date Maya Long count Gregorian Date type Panel 1 # # – ca. ad 670–780 Paleographic style Panel 2 # # – ca. ad 780–820 Paleographic style Stela 8 8 Ajaw 8 [Xul] (9.19.10.0.0) – ad 820 Calendar round Stela 9 7 [Ajaw] [18 Sip] 10.0.0.0.0 – ad 830 Initial series +/– 3?.13.2 Distance number [13?] # [4?] # (9/10.?.?.?.?) – ca. ad 827–833 Calendar round Stela 1 5 Ajaw [3 K’ayab’] (10.1.0.0.0) – ad 849 Calendar round Altar 1 2 [K’an/B’en] # # – monpan > mopan (Marc Zender, personal communication, 2003), in which vowel length and the weak n phoneme were lost in phonological shifts over the course of the centuries that separate these various attestations. This phonological process is otherwise well documented in a variety of hieroglyphic spellings (Lacadena and Wichmann 2004:118, 132). Thus, while we do not know what event was recorded in the penultimate clause, it appears to have taken place at (or involved) a locality that may well have been in the relative vicinity of Xunantunich. 104 helmKe, awe, and grube The first well-preserved portion of the final clause is a common couplet known as the “flint and shield” expression (pY1-pZ1), most frequently written as utook’ upakal (Houston 1983; Lacadena and Wichmann 2004:156; Martin 2001a:178–179; Schele and Miller 1986:210, 221). The standard syntactic context of this glyphic pair is as the object of clauses, such that the couplet would have been preceded by a verb and followed by the clause’s subject, the “owner” of the “flint and shield.” Based on our reconstructions of the overall text, the verb of the final clause would have occupied glyph block pX3, of which little now remains. This is regrettable, since “flint and shield” expressions can be preceded by one of at least seven different verbs and linked to the subject of the clause by a variety of prefixes. The possible permutations yield significantly different sentences, but each, in one measure or another, makes reference to martial actions or the symbolic referents thereof (Genet [1934] 2001:285–290; Martin 2001a:178, 179). Despite said variability, the clause on Panel...

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