Yaxchilan. Chiapas, Mexico. Maya 725 CE Limestone.

• Function
  • City set on a high terrace; plaza surrounded by important buildings
  • Flourished c. 300-800, ce
• Structure 40
  • Form
    • Overlooks the main plaza
    • Three doors lead to a central room decorated with stucco
    • Roof remains nearly intact, with a large roof comb(ornamented stone tos on roofs)
    • Corbel arch interior
  • Patronage
    • Built by ruler Bird Jaguar IV for his son, who dedicated it to him
• Lintel 25, Structure 23
  
  • Form and Content
    • The lintel was originally set above the central doorway of structure 23 as a part of a series of three lintels
    • Lady Xook(bottom right) invokes the Vision Serpent to commemorate her husband’s rise to the throne
    • The Vision Serpent has two heads: one has a warrior emerging from its mouth, and the other has Tlaloc, a war god
    • She holds a bowl with bloodletting ceremonial items: stinging spine and bloodstained paper; she runs a rope with thorns through her tongue
    • She burns paper on a dish as a gift to the netherworld
    • The depicted ritual was conducted to commemorate the accession of Shield Jaguar II to the throne
  • Function
    • Linetls intended to relay a message of the foundation of the site–there was a long pause in the building’s history
    • Shield Jaguar’s building program throughout the city may have been an attempt to reinforce his lineage and his right to rule
  • Context
    • The building is dedicated to Lady Xook, Shield Jaguars II’s wife
    • The inscription is written as a mirror image–extremely unusual among Mayan glyphs; uncertain meaning, perhaps indicating she had a vision from the other side of existence and she was acting as an intercessor or shaman
    • The inscription names the protagonist as Shield Jaguar II
    • Bloodletting is central to the Mayan life. When a member of the royal family sheds his or her blood, a portal to the netherworld is opened and gods and spirits enter the world
  • Theory
    • Some scholars suggest that the serpent on this lintel and elsewhere depicts an ancestral spirit or founder of the kingdom