Mayan Civilisation : Carvings

From top to bottom:

1. Commissioned by a Tikal ruler named Stormy Sky, an inscribed stone pillar known as Stela 31 tells of Fire Is Born’s arrival years before—and the death that same day of Tikal’s king, surely ordered by the conquering warlord. When this monument was discovered in 1960, Maya writing was just starting to be deciphered, so Fire Is Born’s name glyph (above left) was first read as Smoking Frog—a simple description of the design. Since then the Maya code has been cracked more fully, and Stela 31 has revealed its long-held secrets.

2. In a terrifying expression of royal power, a stucco mural at Toniná shows a turtle-footed skeleton grabbing the hair of a severed head—with portrait-like features, perhaps of a real person—and a mythical rodent holding another head in a ritual bundle. These characters were the wayob, the affliction-spewing alter egos of kings that were used to curse enemies. They work here amid a scaffold bearing the heads of human sacrifices.

3. One of the last great kings of Cancuén, Taj Chan Ahk, presides over a ceremony in September A.D. 795 on a recently uncovered masterpiece of Maya art. With hundreds of sites still to be investigated, many more such testaments to the glory of the Maya civilization await discovery.