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Collections

Yax K’oj Ahk Witnesses the Date of Creationpossibly 845 CE

Not on view
Carved stone Maya hieroglyphic panel in low relief, vertical slab with two columns of approximately eighteen glyph cartouches featuring face-like and geometric forms
Title
Yax K’oj Ahk Witnesses the Date of Creation
Culture
Maya
Place Made
Mexico, Usumacinta River Valley, possibly Chancala
Date Made
possibly 845 CE
Medium
Limestone
Dimensions
52 7/10 x 18 7/10 x 3 4/5 in. (133.858 x 47.498 x 9.652 cm)
Credit Line
Anonymous gift
Accession Number
M.2010.115.112
Classification
Stone
Collecting Area
Art of the Ancient Americas
Curatorial Notes

The Classic Maya kept time using two concurrent calendars—a 260-day divinatory calendar (tzolk’in) and a 365-day solar calendar (ha’b)—which together formed a 52-year cycle known as the Calendar Round. This stone panel, a fragment of a larger inscription from the city of Chak K’uh in what is now Chiapas, Mexico, commemorates an auspicious Calendar Round date: 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk’u, the day that time began.

Alyce de Carteret

2024

Selected Bibliography
  • Stuart, David. "Reinterpreting a "Creation" Text from Chancala, Mexico." Maya Decipherment: Ideas on Ancient Maya Writing and Iconography (March 29, 2011). https://decipherment.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/reinterpreting-a-creation-text-from-chancala-mexico/ (accessed on December 9, 2016).
  • O'Neil, Megan E. Forces of Nature: Ancient Maya Arts from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Beijing Shi: Wen wu chu ban she, 2018.
Selected Exhibition History
  • The Ancient Maya World: Masterworks from the Permanent Collection. Saturday, December 1, 2012- Sunday, March 2, 2014

Related Exhibitions