The Carnegie Maya III: Carnegie Institution of Washington Notes on Middle American Archaeology and Ethnology, 1940-1957

56. The Inscription on the Altar of Zoomorph O, Quirigua (1945)

207 N o t e s o f M i d d l e A m e r i c a n A r c h a e o l o g y a n d E t h n o l o g y Carnegie Institution of Washington Division of Historical Research No. 56 August 1, 1945 The Inscription on the Altar of Zoomorph o, quirigua J. Eric S. Thompson which Morley took to be a numerical bar is a reversed count bracket. There is no coefficient. The moon age of this date is, therefore, 50 OD. Zoomorph G gives the moon age of 9.17.15.0.0 as 5C 23D. As the latter date is 22 days later than the former, the agreement is close. In fact, the combination of glyphs on Altar O may possibly mean 1D (just as C without coefficient is to be read as 1C). In that case the interval between the two lunar dates would be precisely 22 days. In R1a there is a moon sign with a coefficient of 2. There is ample precedent at Yaxchilan, Piedras Negras, Balakbal, and Palenque for reading this as a distance number of 22 days. At R1b-Q2 there is recorded “5 Ahau 3 Muan, count of 5 tuns lacking ,” the only questionable matter being the glyph for Muan. Morley reads the first glyph as 5 Chuen and what I take to be 3 Muan, as 13 baktuns. This disagreement well illustrates the difficulties of this text. The arrangement is: I.S. 9.17.14.16.16 9 Etz’nab 1 Kankin R1a 1.2 Moon sign with coefficient of 2. Add R1-Q2 9.17.15.0.0 5 Ahau 3 Muan. Count of 5 tuns lacking There is a Secondary Series at S1a which appears to read 11–13 uinals, 7–9 kins. It may be followed at S1b by the posterior date indicator. At T1a there is a date 4 Chicchan or 4 Oc, 8 Uo or 8 Zip. Morley reads this as 4 Ahau 8 Cumku. For reasons which The inscription on the altar of Zoomorph O, Quirigua , is very hard to decipher because of erosion, but also because of other difficulties. Carelessness on the part of the composers of the original text as well as unwonted urge for brevity, manifested in the suppression of month signs, make the translation far from easy. Morley (1938:5:185–196) has offered an interpretation , in which for the most part he expresses little confidence. Messrs.MorrisandStrömsvikmadeofthismonument a cast which was subsequently presented by Carnegie Institution of Washington to the United States National Museum. Recently, through the kindness of Dr. Frank Setzler, photographs of the text were specially made from this cast, and presented to Carnegie Institution of Washington. These photographs , made in artificial light, a few blocks of glyphs to each plate, bring out many details (Figs. 56.1– 5). It is now abundantly clear that L4 is the month glyph. The coefficient is not a bar, as Morley had supposed, but a finger, as used occasionally by the Maya to express the number one. The nail of the finger is very clear. The month sign is the head variant of Kankin with the well-known te element above it. It is therefore clear that the Initial Series is 9.17.14.16.18 9 Etz’nab 1 Kankin. Morley had suspected that this was the date actually recorded, but because of his failure to identify the month sign, sad for other reasons , he placed three query marks after the reading. Morley reads J1 as recording a moon age of 5 days. The photograph shows clearly that the element 56.1. Altar of Zoomorph O, Quirigua, text blocks A to L. (Courtesy of the U.S. National Museum.) The Inscription on the Altar of Zoomorph O, Quirigua 209 will appear, I interpret this Calendar Round date as 4 Chicchan 8 Zip. At U1a there is a glyph which Morley translates as “End of Katun 6,” but which is surely the form of the kin sign consisting of a count bracket over one or two inverted Ahaus, and with the earth symbol at the bottom (cf. Glyph I1 on Stela C, Quirigua). This identification is confirmed by the presence in the adjacent block of the posterior date indicator. This misidentification leads Morley to place the subsequent dates some 200 years in...