El Mundo Maya

Oxkintok

            Today we visited Oxkintok, located in Western Yucatan.  In Maya, the name breaks down to three (ox), sun (kin), flint (tok).  Something unique about Oxkintok is that it is the site with the earliest records of Southern Classic Maya found on a lentil dating to 475AD.  I found it interesting to hear this as I realize that one day an earlier date may be uncovered at a later point upon further excavations in the Maya area.  Many of the sites have groups and structures which have not been uncovered yet.  It is neat to think that one day these structures, currently resting beneath mounds of dirt and vegetation, may be excavated and provide new insight into Ancient Maya civilization.  I think this would be great because there is a lot of speculation about the culture.  From the bit and pieces that are excavated already, archeologists are attempting to understand the traditions, rituals, and way of life of the Maya.  More material could help put together the missing pieces.  Southern Classic Maya is the language in which hieroglyphs were inscribed and it is thought also to be the language used by the elite Maya for communication.  Therefore it was very important to Mayan culture.  Oxkintok has many caves and even some buildings constructed over top of these caves.  I enjoyed visiting Oxkintok more than Dzibilchaltun because our Maya professor, Rebecca Hill, was able to enlighten us on what we were seeing and help us distinguish architectural styles from just piles of rocks.  For instance, on one of the buildings Rebecca pointed out a corbel arch.  I learned that a corbel arch distributes weight outward and not have a keystone, which is essentially a rock/block needed to keep the arch up.  Instead, capstones were seen.  Oxkintok differed from Dzibilchaltun because Dzibilchaltun was a Late Classic Puuc site while Oxkintok was an Early Classic Peten Style site.  Differences between Puuc and Peten are that Puuc, according to Coe, has characteristic boot-shaped vaulting, round doorway columns, criss-crossed elements, etc., while Peten is characterized by apron molding.

Chichen Itza

            Before this trip I was already familiar with the name Chichen Itza.  I had recently heard that it was named one of the new Seven Wonders of the World.  Based on all the hype, I was pretty excited to visit it.  Compared to the other sites we had seen so far, this was found to look enormous.  When we arrived at the site I was truly amazed at the amount of people that were there.  Rows of buses were already pulling in and we had even arrived really early.  The massive number of people should have been my first clue that I would not be able to appreciate the site as much as some of the other quainter sites.  I’m not a big fan of crowds and felt that looking at and examining the many architectural groups surrounded by so many people took away from the experience.  It also made it a lot more difficult to focus on the architecture.  On top of that, there were so many vendors trying to sell cheap wooden masks, blankets, and other crafts.  It would not have been that bad except for the fact that the sellers were really pushy trying to get us to come to their stands by screaming “one dollar” and attempting to draw us closer by speaking in English.  I felt like this extremely touristy aspect of Chichen Itza took away from the cultural experience and was quite frankly annoying.  Another reason why Chichen was not one of my favorite sites was because it was not as hands-on as the other sites.  Many of the buildings were inaccessible to climbing and in many cases they were even roped off so you could not get close at all to try to look at the interior structure.    I understand why we were not allowed to climb (especially with the magnitude of people who visit the site each day), yet I still enjoy it more when we are allowed to, as it gives us more opportunity to investigate the architecture.  At Chichen, there is a large ball court.  One thing which I could not understand was how the Maya could possibly have played the great ball game on this court.  It seems entirely too large for them as Maya are usually of small stature and the court and rings already appeared way too big for us.  While we were standing at the court, I thought back to the Museum in Merida.  There we had seen a stone representation of a yoke, a piece of equipment the ball players are thought to have worn.  There was a sacred cenote onsite at Chichen which was especially neat to see as it was an especially important one to the Maya.  It is believed that sacrifices were thrown into the cenote and human and animal bones as well as jade jewelry and other sacrificial items were removed using the dredge, a large crude crane type machine which was displayed at the entrance to the site.  Chichen Itza is a Terminal Classic site and interestingly there are two parts to the site, known as Old Chichen and New Chichen.  Both areas date to approximately the same time but show different styles.  Originally people thought the two styles corresponded to Pre-Toltec and Post-Toltec Invasion.  909AD is the last date seen as evidence of occupation.  It was neat to be able to compare and contrast the groups.

Ek Balam

            Ek Balam is the Terminal Classic site which we visited today.    It was just 54KM NE of Chichen yet was not nearly as crowded, making it a more enjoyable site to visit in my opinion.  It has defensive walls and a large acropolis.  The name means black jaguar, which is kind of cool as we are going to see a black jaguar when we visit the Tuxtla Zoo at the end of the semester.  Ek Balam also has the largest hieroglyphic corpus of the Northern Mayan Lowland with hieroglyphs on various structures.  The home and tomb of Ukit Kanletok, one of Ek Balam’s famous kings, was the acropolis which was fashioned in Peten style.  After visiting Chichen, this smaller and more modest site was very welcome.  Ek Balam was an exciting site to see as it provided a glimpse of multiple architectural styles.  Puuc, Peten, an even Eastern Chenez style were observed in various structures throughout the site.  Eastern Chenez style is observed in the Chenez masks with teeth.  I enjoyed being able to climb up the acropolis as we were not able to climb some of the buildings when we visited Chichen.  I was surprised to see how tiny the steps were.  They are rather small for my feet, making it a little difficult climb up and even more so down.  I also could not get over how steep the acropolis steps were.  I was breathing ridiculously heavy by the end of my trip up.  Because of this, however, it felt great to lie down and the top and simply look around.  We also had a great view of the observatory where we were.  At first I was thinking how hard the climb was and how much it would suck to have to climb up and down those stairs everyday.  Then I thought about the fact that some of the structures were not residential and instead used for other purposes such as ceremonial events.  Also, probably only the elite could enter.

Acanceh, Tecoh, and Mayapan

            Acanceh was the first site we visited today.  It is an Early Classic site.  I found it really cool that the ruins were incorporated into the present town.  I will admit it was weird at first when they said we were at the site and it appeared like any of the small present day Maya towns that we’ve passed through.  That was until I saw the pyramid.  Then the idea seemed less strange.  I do wonder though if the town’s people think about the pyramid a lot or if they just kind of ignore it as you would any other building.  It was also interesting the town retained its original name.  Acanceh was a very small site in comparison to those we’ve seen as it is only 3 Km².  We observed apron molding on the temple pyramid which is characteristic of the Early Classic Peten style.  This differs from the style observed in the Puuc region.  On top of the first pyramid we saw, there were eight large masks which were all very similar with only slight differences between them. As Acanceh is an Early Classic site, it is important to note the lack of individuality.  As time goes on and the periods progress, there becomes more stress on the individual.   Interestingly, all of the masks that had been uncovered had been defaced with destruction of the nose.  On another part of the site, there was evidence of possible Teotihuacan influence in El Palacio de los Estucos.  Talud tablero style was observed as well as warrior-like things, goggle eyes, and animals such as vultures, monkeys, etc.  I really enjoyed that the Maya city was integrated into the present-day town.  To go between the various groups allowed us to look at Mexican culture.  I enjoyed walking past the marketplace and seeing how people in this town live today.  I found it interesting that the locals could walk by the ruins without even glancing at them.  This initially surprised me until I realized that they see this everyday.  To the people of Acanceh it is perhaps just another building.  There was a church right next to the temple.  I once again thought about the irony if this.

            Tecoh was the second place we visited today.  The name means “place of the cougars”.  In this town we visited la Iglesia de la Asunción.  It was fascinating because the church was built on a Mayan site with Mayan stones.  The same stones used to compose the Mayan architecture were used by the Spanish in building churches.  To me this seemed representative of Spain’s attempt to completely take over the Mayan land and convert their culture, yet the enduring aspect of Mayan culture throughout time.  Although the Maya have in many ways integrated into Spanish/ present day Mexican ways of life, there is still a lot of tradition and culture which exists. 

            Mayapan was much larger that Acanceh.  Mayapan is a Post-classic site.  It had 9Km wall around it (possibly for defensive purposes or for distinguishing elite from other classes of society) and also had a Castillo and observatory like Chichen.  Murals painted in International style are found there.    It is possible that a twenty-four year period was used for the katun instead of the usual twenty year period.  The Temple of K’uk’ulkan  which seems to resemble in some ways the Castillo of Chichen Itza appears in the center portion of the city.  This Castillo of Mayapan shows some Serpent imagery which suggests Toltec influence.  Here at Mayapan during the Winter Solstice, snake imagery down the stairs can be seen.  This is similar to Chichen Itza, except that at Chichen, this stair serpent imagery appears during the Equinox.  At Mayapan cenotes are observed, probably important in water availability and perhaps in some religious ceremonies.

There are murals that are painted in International style and depict sun discs and other things.  The murals can be seen in La Sala de las Frescos, and evidence of bright coloration (Red, Orange, Blue, etc.) can still be seen today.  One thing I really liked about Mayapan was that the majority of structures are somewhat condensed within an area.  I liked this as I felt it was easier to picture the city as being actually inhabited by the Ancient Maya.  The connections between Mayapan and Chichen Itza are observed in the architecture and can probably be attributed to some Itza leaving Chichen and founding the city of Mayapan.

Kiuic

            Kiuic is a Late Terminal Classic Puuc site.  The first time I had seen a picture of Kiuic was when we visited the Stephens and Catherwood museum in Merida.  On the topic of the Catherwood museum, I want to mention that the museum was really neat.  We were able to see many sites depicted pretty accurately, but with special artistic elements.  The pictures were really neat as we were able to see some of the sites surrounded by lush vegetation which was very pretty.  I can only imagine how neat it would have been to come upon the Mayan sites as early on as they did when they were much better preserved than they are today.  Something interesting that I learned from James Callahan, the man who gave us the tour of the site, was that the residential houses were built up on hills, leaving the flatter land for farming and crops.  This seems to make sense as the moisture and nutrients would sink down the hills and be more concentrated in the flatter land’s soil.  As we walked around the various groups in Kiuic, I couldn’t help but think about how it must have been to be an Ancient Maya.  Not as much at this site, but at many of the other sites we visited there are immense structures which were probably only accessible to the elite.  There were so many people who never were allowed to climb the Temples, yet here we are, all able to access the ruins independent of our class or family.  Something else interesting that James explained to us was how mortar was made from water and lime.  I had not been aware of this before.  On our hike of the site, we also saw a matate, a tool used in the grinding up of corn.  This made me think about just how important corn was/is to the Maya (maize gods, tortillas, elote ice cream, etc.).  The domestication of corn was one of the most important factors in permitting the Maya to settle in a specific area opposed to being completely nomadic.  Other crops such as beans, squash, chili peppers, etc. were also important.  With the combination of corn and beans, the Maya were able to be healthy and thrive.  That combination permits Niacin, an essential amino acid to be present in the body.

Campeche Museums

            We left the state of Yucatan and ventured south to the state of Campeche.  In the city of Campeche we visited two archeological museums.  Both museums displayed Mayan artifacts.  The first one we visited was called Museo Arqueologico de Campeche.  The first museum had a lot more variety of artifacts, ranging from pottery vessels, to masks, to even a skeleton.  The skeleton was that of…. It was really neat to see the skeleton surrounded by burial goods.  One thing which intrigued me was a simple cross-eyed mask that I saw.  I would have thought nothing of this until Hugo informed me that Mayan tradition sometimes entailed parents making their babies this way.  By putting something between the baby’s eyes, the curious babies would focus in on it and after much time the eyes would be stuck in the cross-eyed position.  This made me think back to something I had seen in the museum in Merida.  There, various skulls could be observed.  These skulls were of strange shapes, such as a flattened out forehead.  Again, these were deliberately formed, perhaps to distinguish social class.  I cannot help but be glad that this tradition is not present in American society today, as it appears very painful.  Also, I cannot help but think how discriminatory and closed off the social levels were.  By simply looking at someone, it may have been possible to determine their social status.  The deliberately imposed physical conditions could not be denied and remained with a person all his or her life.  I assume there was no moving between classes, although this is purely speculative.  I enjoyed this museum more than the one we saw in Merida.  I believe it had to do with the setting.  I really enjoyed going up and being able to see the Gulf of Mexico from the rooftop.  The second museum was neat because it allowed us to see many stelae.  In fact, virtually the entire museum was stelae.  It was a lot smaller than the first museum visited that day.  I enjoyed that there was a room which had educational movie clips.  It was nice because they helped clarify some things about Maya culture and also provided some information about biological aspects such as habitat and ecosystems.

Uxmal

            We visited Uxmal today, which was a Terminal Classic flourishing site.   The last date found here was AD 909.  It’s surrounded by a wall and there is a sacbe to Kabah.  I found the sacbe important because it is representative of all the connections between sites.  Sacbes make other sites more easily accessible and may have been important as far as if there was an overkingship at any point.  Lord Chaak (Chan Chak K’ak’nal ajaw) was responsible for the commissioning of the Nunnery Quadrangle, palace, and ball court.  I found the Nunnery Quadrangle to be an especially interesting building.  The South side and East side of the Nunnery are representative of creation.  The South side displayed flowers of the façade, columnettes, a zoomorphic monster mask, a large center door with four smaller doors on each side, symbolism of the nine levels of the Underworld.   The East side had more flowers, owls, and serpent imagery, etc.  The South side is the lowest side structurally while the North side is the highest platform.  For many of the sites which we have seen, there is some speculation regarding whether the walls were purely defensive or if, perhaps, they were a means of isolating the various social levels.  For example, perhaps commoners had to live outside of the walls, separating themselves from the elite and the temples and pyramids which in some ways were means for legitimizing a divine king’s rule.  Uxmal is the largest Puuc site, showing round columns, boot-shaped vaulting, mosaics, criss-cross patterning which are all characteristic of Puuc.

Kabah, Sayil, Labna

            Kabah is Terminal Classic Puuc site, which was connected to Uxmal by a sacbe.  The name means Lord of Strong and Powerful Hand.  It is a Puuc site with hundreds of flower mountain masks.  In fact the Western side of Cotz Poop (Mask Palace) contains 250 masks.  The site is divided into two by a highway.  This seems kind of sad to me.  I wonder why they had to put the road directly through the site instead of going around it.  Lots of Puuc characteristic columnettes were observed on the buildings.

Sayil was much like the other Puuc sites we have visited except for the giant phallic symbol.  Also, there is no long count or glyphs.  The name Sayil means Place of the Ants.  An 8^th to 10^th century fluorescence was seen at this site.  We learned a little bit about Puuc stages at this site by looking at the architecture.  We learned the Early Puuc architecture was plain, while Middle Puuc showed lots of small columns called columnettes, and Late Puuc shows tons of mosaic structures.  Some phallic symbolism is represented at the site.  In fact, there was a carving of a nohoch keep (large penis).  I wonder what exactly the significance of this structure was.  One other thing which was interesting at Sayil is that the palace has two masks with diving gods.  I suppose this symbolism may represent the important of the gods to the Maya.  Perhaps this god is descending to the Middle World of earthly existence. 

            Labna also is a Terminal Classic site.  Something which makes it unique is its elaborate free-standing arch.  It is true that Kabah also has an arch, marking the way to Uxmal, however it is not nearly as complex and decorative as this one.  This one was of Puuc Mosaic style.  Labna was an extremely aesthetic city.  I believe this can be attributed to the site displaying all three types of Puuc.  I took a lot of pictures here as I enjoyed the architecture more than at Kabah and Sayil, although there were some similarities between the sites being that they were all Puuc sites.         

Mani

            As much as I am enjoying modern-day Mexico which has resulted from Spanish influence, I cannot help but wonder what things would be like had the Maya been able to keep their land and continue their way of life.  This question especially came to mind when we visited Mani.  In the city of Mani we visited the church/monastery.  Here, the auto de fe events transpired.  In 1544 in the Yucatan Franciscans began their attempt to convert Maya to Christianity.  Everything seemed to be going well until in 1547 rumors of Maya revolt began.  The friars held out.  They saw themselves as protectors of the Maya and believe what they were doing was right.  Bishop Landa joined the monastery at age 16 and at 25 he came to the Yucatan and petitioned to Venavente to travel to the interior.  In 1561 Landa had a provincial in Mani.  It appeared all was going well until 1562 two Mayan men reported that they found skulls and sacrifices when they were hunting.  Men were jailed and admitted to the sacrifices.  The angry friars interrogated everyone and hanging, stoning, and flogging occurred.  In May of 1562 the 1^st Auto de Fe occurred.  Auto de fe is a judicial sentencing of offenders against the faith.  Offenders were jailed, humiliated, and forced to work up to 10 years.  For 3 months, Landa led an inquisition consisting of unselective torture (anyone) of 4500 Maya, death of 158, suicide of many as well.  The second, more famous auto de fe occurred then on July 12, 1562 when Landa piled up books, ideas, pots, wood, masks, etc. and burned them.  This continued until Landa was ordered by the church to stop.  By next year people were released and Landa went back to Spain only to be exonerated and return as bishop.  This story made me really sad to hear.  I don’t agree with human sacrifice by any means but I definitely sympathize with the Maya.  I cannot imagine having someone come in and take my land and then attack my religion and punish me for it.  This story seems to connect to another solemn story: invasion and persecution of Jewish people in the Holocaust.  Although it is not to the same degree and was not done for the same purpose, I feel that it connects in some aspects.

Tulum

            Even before arriving at Tulum the Dawleys warned us that it was another popular tourist site.  They were very right.  There were a lot of people; not nearly as many as at Chichen but still very crowded.  In virtually every picture that I took large tour groups appeared in the foreground with the architecture hiding in the background.  Overall, besides the large number of people, I really enjoyed the site.  The picturesque background of the Caribbean coast added to the ambience (despite the crowd) and provided a nice breeze, making the heat a lot more tolerable.  It was also great to visit Tulum because it was my first time experiencing the Caribbean Sea.  I was really impressed that Tulum was built right next to the cliff.  This acted as a wall on its own, and the rest of the site was enclosed with a three-sided manmade wall.  The building which was most interesting to me was called the Temple of the Frescos.  It was really neat as it had tons of opposite imagery: color versus no color, male versus female, headdress versus no headdress, open eyes versus closed eyes, etc.  I found this really interesting.  I don’t think this opposite theme has appeared at any of the other sites we’ve visited.  As it was quite unique, it kind of made me wonder about the creative mind who designed the building.  One thing which I did not like about Tulum was that the landscape was similar to that of a golf course.  As a result, the site seemed almost too beautiful to be true.  I’m not saying that they should leave weeds grow or anything, but it almost seemed as though they had planned out all the landscaping.  Overall, however, I enjoyed the site.  We weren’t able to get much architectural insight, however, as Rebecca was not there with us.

Becán

            Arriving at Becan we came upon a ditch 15 m wide and 5 m deep.  This ditch/moat (probably for drainage and maybe protection and probably not filled with water always), surrounds the city of Becan, located in the Rio Bec region.  The ditch dates around 150-250 AD (Early Classic).  The site flourished, however, in the Late and Terminal Classic.  This differs from a site like Acanceh (flourished in Early Classic) or Mayapan (flourished in Post-Classic).  The site showed a lot of Rio Bec style.  False stairways and twin towers are characteristic of Rio Bec.  Something that I feel is important about this site is that there were many Pre and Early Classic substructures.  I found this interesting as I often forget that the Mayan cities were not static.  Buildings were added on to and changed as time passed and power changed hands.  Chenez monster masks were seen at this site.

Chicanna

Following Becan we visited another Late Classic site called Chicanna.  I really enjoyed this site because of Structure 2 which was styled with a huge Chenez Monster Mask, similar to the ones at Becan but much larger.  The mouth of the mask was the door to the building which was very cool.  Other structures found on the site were not just Chenez, but displayed Rio Bec style which is kind of a mix between Chenez and Peten.  There were round corners, twin towers, false stairways, etc.  Chicanna, like Becan has many substructures from earlier time periods.  I am curious about how excavation of such structures takes place.  To find out what is underneath without completely destroying the upper layer seems very difficult and quite time-consuming.

Calakmul

            We visited Calakmul over a series of two days.  It was nice to split it up into two days as one day would not be enough to see all the architecture and biology.  Something which I really liked about Calakmul was the fact that there were not a lot of people.  Also, it was quite interesting that the various groups and sometimes various structures within the same group could not be seen clearly due to the vegetation.  This sort of overgrown encompassing vegetation made the site unlike any of the other sites we have visited thus far.  I also found it interesting that there were so many stelae at the site.  In fact, 117 stelae have been uncovered at the site.  This number is incredible in comparison to other sites we have seen.  Regarding the stelae, although they were plentiful in number, the majority were not well preserved.  It appears that the limestone of which the stelae were composed was not very good quality.  Based on this fact, it is no wonder that the dynastic history and chronology which has been pieced together regarding the Kaan Kingdom comes mostly from stelae at other sites.  In fact, stelae from 80 sites make mention to Calakmul.  I find this influence incredulous.

Palenque

            I would have to say that Palenque was the most aesthetically pleasing site.  The architecture was beautiful and seemed to have its own distinct style.  I believe that the fact it was surrounded by luscious green rainforest added to the beauty.  In order to dodge some of the large tour groups, we began our investigation of Palenque in the rainforest.  As we hiked we came upon Structure 14, a 100m long building which has not been excavated and was highly untouched.  We also found Structure 12, a temple where a tomb of a decapitated man was found.  There was Middle Preclassic occupation, yet major architecture was not observed until later, starting with the Forgotten Temple in the West part of the site.  Pakal was one of the major divine ajaws of Palenque, and he is responsible for much of the architecture at the site.  We visited the Temple of the Red Queen, a building probably built for Pakal’s wife.  Her body was discovered covered in Cinnabar.  From this site we were able to see a grave where the man who discovered Pakal’s tomb was buried.  I found this interesting.  I would not of thought that such a burial on the site would be permitted.  Next we visited the Temple of Inscriptions, which is a 9-layer temple built around Pakal’s tomb.  Its construction was started by Pakal but finished by his son Kan Balam.  The inscriptions observed at the temple are especially interesting because they were an alternative means for recording history.  Most other sites utilized stelae for recording, yet only one stela has been found on the site which was erected by Kan Balam.  This is very different than the 117 stelae found at Calakmul.  Also, the Temple of Inscriptions has 620 hieroglyphs, many of which are dated, making it the place with the most glyphs in one spot.  We then visited El Palacio, a building with open doorways, vaults, and stucco captives.  The East Court of the Palace was constructed under the reign of Pakal.  Interestingly, yet another way of recording history and legitimizing ajaw rulers was observed in the form of stucco and a hieroglyphic stairway.  The stuccos show Calakmul attacks dating to 654 AD and Pakal shows captive-taking (659 AD), thus reassuring or legitimizing his rule.  The hieroglyphic stairway shows the birth and accession of Pakal.  Houses A and C also show some scenes legitimizing Pakal’s power.  Another interesting structure we saw was the Groups of the Cross, which were constructed under Kan Balam and has symbolism representative of a cross-celestial realm (connection between Earth, gods, etc).

Bonompak

Bonampak was a site that was important in the Early Classic but had its peak in the Late Classic.  The oldest mention of the site is found on lentil 49 at Yaxchilan.  Chan Muaan II who ruled 776-792 AD was the most famous ruler at Bonampak.  He commissioned the famous murals as well as stelae 1, 2, and 3.  Stela II depicts Chan Muaan II with his mother and his wife, Lady Yax-Rabbit, sister of Yaxchilan’s ruler Shield-Jaguar II.  Such connections between cities were important because they may have assisted in keeping peace and preventing the warfare.  Had it not been for the beautiful murals, whose color has been preserved remarkably well, I don’t think I would have liked the site very much.  Besides the murals, there was nothing that really struck me as making the site unique.  The murals were, however, quite impressive and located in three rooms side by side.  The first and third rooms are ceremonial, ritualistic, and to some degree celebratory.  The second room, however, is much more intense.  It depicts captives and shows the torturing of these captives: finger nails being pulled out, ax through head, etc.  It’s rather morbid but probably was a means for legitimizing Chan Muaan’s rule. 

Yaxchilan

Today we went to Yaxchilan.  What made Yaxchilan especially interesting for me was the fact that we had to access it via boats.  It was really neat to see el Rio Usumacinta and to think about the position of power Yaxchilan had by being on the river.  I imagine they were able to control a lot of trade.  By thinking about something as arbitrary as locale it is important to recognize its importance.  I especially think about this in connection to the other sites.  The location of some of the cities in the drier, hotter North may have aided to a faster downfall than in the South.  It was neat to visit Yaxchilan because of the many lentils found there.  Cindy and I interpreted lentil 2.  This lentil was found on Temple 33, a structure found on top of a hill and which had an impressive roofcomb.  By doing the glyph project I felt more connected to the site.  As Cindy and I spent so much time trying to interpret our lentil it reminded me of how we learned about the progression of Maya society.  To me these hieroglyphs are quite complex.  Apparently Yaxchilan was a commonly warring city.  This can be seen in some of the lentils.  Such depiction, as mentioned for Bonompak, was probably a mean’s of legitimizing ajawship.  The Gran Plaza was commissioned under Bird Jaguar IV.  Structure 16 had 3 lentils each carved solely on the outside and not on the underside.