Panel 3 was carved circa 782 ce in the reign of K’inich Yat Ahk II, but the sculpted image portrays his father, Itzam K’an Ahk II, in 749 ce. The image is a scene from the past, showing Itzam K’an Ahk II in the midst of the celebration marking his first k’atun in office. Panel 3’s hieroglyphic text covers a time span from 749 to 782 ce and recounts events from the lives of Itzam K’an Ahk II and K’inich Yat Ahk II (fig. 4.2).2 The textual narrative begins in 749 with the celebration of the k’atun anniversary of Itzam K’an Ahk II’s accession; this celebration included dancing, drinking of chocolate, and a visit from a Yaxchilan ruler named Yopaat Bahlam. The narrative
Figure 4.2. Piedras Negras Panel 3, limestone, ca. 782 CE. In collection of Museo Nacional de Arqueologia y Etnologia, Guatemala. a. Photograph by author. Courtesy of the Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes de Guatemala and the Museo Nacional de Arqueologia y Etnologia de Guatemala. b. Drawing by John Montgomery © Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc., Www. famsi. org.
Then moves forward in time and mentions Itzam K’an Ahk II’s death and burial and then, twenty-four years later, a ritual burning of his tomb in 782 by K’inich Yat Ahk II (Escobedo 2004:277; Grube 1999:124; Houston and Stuart 2001:69; M. Miller 1993:396-97; M. Miller and Martin 2004:130; Morley 1937-38, 3:221-29; Schele and Grube 1995:111; Schele and Mathews 1991:231-34).
The focal point of the Panel 3 image is Itzam K’an Ahk II seated on a throne, leaning forward and gripping the throne’s edge with one hand. Surrounding him are fourteen standing and seated attendants and visitors; these include the heir to the throne, members of the court, and visitors from Yaxchilan (Houston and Stuart 1998:79; 2001:72; Houston, Escobedo, and Webster 2008; Martin and Grube 2008:149). The figures inhabiting the room make slight movements, such as raising a hand, tapping a neighbor’s back, or crossing their arms. Their gestures are intimations of motion, speech, touch, and sight, as they communicate inside the throne room. In addition, among the small incised texts within the image are first - and second-person spoken captions, in which characters in the scene speak to one another (Stuart, Houston, and Robertson 1999:42-43, 205). These quotations further enliven the scene, signaling an event in progress and complementing the action of each figure.
Panel 3 is analogous to other posthumous stone panels produced in the kingdom that portray ancestors in scenes from their lives. One example is Panel 4, commissioned by Itzam K’an Ahk I and installed on Structure R-5, apparently the burial hill of his father, K’inich Yo’nal Ahk I. Another is Panel 15, commissioned by K’inich Yo’nal Ahk II and set on Structure J-4, which may be Itzam K’an Ahk I’s burial hill (Escobedo and Zamora 1999:217; 2001b:205; Houston and Escobedo 2001:620-21; Houston, Escobedo, Child, et al. 2000:103-105; Houston, Escobedo, Terry, et al. 2000:10).
Panel 3’s text, comparable to that of the other panels, narrates a ceremony that K’inich Yat Ahk II performed at his father’s tomb decades after his death. This narration corresponds with the evidence that Burial 13, beneath the plaza in front of Structure O-13, was reentered and burned (Escobedo 2004). The narrated interaction correlates with other material relationships evident on the building, including K’inich Yat Ahk II’s installation of Stelae 15 and 12 on Structure O-13. As discussed in chapter 3, the textual narration of the relationship between ancestor and successor on Panel 3 and other panels was analogous to the material relationship between ancestor’s tomb and successor’s stelae on the funerary pyramid. In these cases, the Classic period Maya used both narrative and material forms to shape and display social memory, and each makes explicit or lays bare processes of the other. In this way, Panel 3 and Structure O-13 followed in the tradition of the site’s earlier pyramids and panels. K’inich Yat Ahk II also made contact with his father by portraying him in the panel’s image, through which he brought his ancestor into the present.
But the motivation for making Panel 3 appears to be not only ancestor veneration but also the polity’s relations with Yaxchilan, specifically, the visit of Yopaat Bahlam to Itzam K’an Ahk II’s court in 749 ce. Piedras Negras and Yaxchilan had a history of alternating alliance and conflict during previous centuries; this history was narrated in text and image on sculptures from both polities. In contrast to multiple bellicose images that narrate episodes of conflict, Piedras Negras Panel 3 depicts a moment of alliance and celebration. The scene is staged in the intimate space of a palace room,
Figure 4.3. Detail of Piedras Negras Panel 3, with damaged figure and name of T’ul Chihk highlighted.
A. Photograph by author. Courtesy of the Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes de Guatemala and the Museo Nacional de Arqueologia y Etnologia de Guatemala.
B. Drawing by John Montgomery © Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc., Www. famsi. org.
Without any military overtones. The choice to depict a celebratory scene may have been attributable to contemporary politics circa 782 ce, perhaps to foster diplomacy between allied polities. The depiction of the 749 ce celebration not only commemorated Itzam K’an Ahk II but also recalled and renewed the inter-polity alliance from the past.
Notably, some of the figures portrayed on Panel 3 are named with important titles but are not mentioned in other extant sources from their polity of origin. For example, standing to Itzam K’an Ahk II’s left (the observer’s right) is the figure—now mostly destroyed—of a child named T’ul Chihk who bears the title chok yokib ajaw, or young Yokib lord (fig. 4.3). This is a title used for heirs, although there is no record of his ascending to the throne. In fact, there is no other extant reference to him at Piedras Negras. As noted in chapter 3, Houston, Escobedo, and Webster (2008) suggest T’ul Chihk was Itzam K’an Ahk II’s named successor, but he did not accede because he was taken captive by Yaxchilan under Bird Jaguar IV, as recorded on La Pasadita Lintel 1. K’inich Yat Ahk II used the opportunity of Panel 3’s retrospective image to portray T’ul Chihk as the named heir in Itzam K’an Ahk II’s court. K’inich Yat Ahk II thereby brought T’ul Chihk into the polity’s visible history; in doing so, he displayed a pristine image of him before he was captured and did not mention his demise.
In a similar case, the visiting Yaxchilan ruler Yopaat Bahlam, shown also on Panel 3, is not mentioned on any extant monument from Yaxchilan. He may have reigned
During the interregnum between Itzamnaaj Bahlam III (who died in 742 ce) and Bird Jaguar IV (who acceded in 752 ce); but if he did, he was erased from history, possibly because of internal and external political conflict or disgrace (Escobedo 2004:277; Grube 1999; Grube and Martin 1998:132). Indeed, Bird Jaguar IV may have erased him from memory. After his accession, Bird Jaguar IV dedicated numerous monuments demonstrating his right to rule. Some are scenes of ceremonies that purportedly took place years before the sculptures were made. The production and display of these scenes may have been part of an attempt to smooth over a rupture in the succession and present an image of Bird Jaguar IV as the named successor to Itzamnaaj Bahlam III (Herring 2005:155; P. Mathews 1988:135, 155; Noble Bardsley 1994:91; O’Neil 2005:157-82; Proskouriakoff 1963:163-64; Schele and Freidel 1990:272-76; Tate 1992:125-28, 133). Panel 3, then, recovers and celebrates the memory not only of Itzam K’an Ahk II but also of T’ul Chihk and Yopaat Bahlam, two figures who were contemporaries but had been lost to—or erased from—history at their respective polities.
Yet Panel 3’s text also evokes an earlier moment in the relationship between Pie-dras Negras and Yaxchilan, for a second-person caption incised in front of Itzam K’an Ahk II, in which he speaks to the Yaxchilan visitors standing before him, mentions the accession of a-mam (your grandfather/ancestor), Bat Jaguar of Yaxchilan. His accession is said to have taken place under the authority of the Piedras Ne-gras ruler (Stuart, Houston, and Robertson 1999:42-43, 205).3 Martin and Grube (2008:149) interpret this text as part of a “history lecture” that Itzam K’an Ahk II gives to the Yaxchilan visitors about the two polities’ past relations; they further suggest that this recounting of history had political overtones. The reference to a Yaxchilan accession under the authority of Piedras Negras was a reiteration of that earlier subordination. However, incised into the background of the panel, it is less prominent than the image’s convivial scene.
The contemporary motivation for evoking a past alliance with Yaxchilan is unclear, for there is no mention on Panel 3 or any other monument from Piedras Negras of the Yaxchilan rulers—Itzamnaaj Bahlam IV and K’inich Tatbu Skull IV—who reigned at the same time as K’inich Yat Ahk II. The name of K’inich Yat Ahk II, however, would appear several decades later in an inscription on Yaxchilan Lintel 10, where K’inich Tatbu Skull IV named him as his captive, circa 808 ce (Stuart 1998b).
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