Anthony Garone Wrote:
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> Hello,
>
> I am an undergraduate Anthropology student working
> on a paper concerning Maya
> cosmological/astronomical interpretation of the
> famous coffin lid of Pacal the Great from the city
> of palenque. The image depicts the deceased Pacal
> symbolically falling across the Wakah Chan into
> the jaws of the Cosmic Monster.
>
> My question to this very knowledgeable group is
> this; through my research I have been able to
> decipher some of the imagery (Itzam Yeh/Ursa
> Major, the The Double-Headed Serpent/ecliptic and
> portals to Xibalba) but I am having difficulty
> locating any information on the specific imagery
> within the sky bands that enclose the image on the
> left and right.
>
> I have found that the crossed bands of one of the
> glyphs represents the sky, but beyond that I have
> discovered precious little.
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated!
>
You need to look at Schele and Miller, The Blood of Kings
p. 269. "This image of death has cosmic implications. Pacal falling down the axis mundi is metaphorically equivalent to the sun at the instant of sunset. Like the sun, which rises after a period of darkness, he will rise after his triumph over the Lords of Death. Pacal carried this symbolic interpretation of his death over into the placement of the Temple of Inscriptions within the sacred precinct at Palenque. The temple was built just off the southwest corner of the Palace, a complex that formed the administrative heart of the city, where kings were seated in office and bloodletting rituals gave birth to the gods. The king sited the Temple of Inscriptions along a line connecting the center of the palace with one of the most important alignments of the sun in the tropical year. At the winter's solstice, the sun reaches its southernmost point, setting exactly on the line that runs through the tomb. Thus, the sun falls into darkness, into the Maw of the Underworld, through Pacal's tomb, confirming the symbolic imagery of this death. As with the Preclassic temple at Cerros (Fig. II.1), the Maya manipulated architecture so that the movements of the universe confirmed the assertions of mythology. Just as the sun begins its move northward following the winter solstice, the dead, after the defeat of death, will rise from Xibalba to take up residence in the northern sky, around the fixed point of the North Star. Pacal, confident of defeating death, has made north his destination: His head was placed in the north end of the coffin, and the World Tree on the lid points north, although Pacal himself is depicted in his southward fall. just as the sun returns from the Underworld at dawn, and as it begins its northward journey after the solstice, Pacal has prefigured his return from the southward journey to Xibalba."

p 282-284 "The image on the sarcophagus lid (pl 111a) depicts the instant of Pacal's death and his fall into the Underworld. The entire image is frame by the skyband with kin. or "day" and "sun," in the upper right (northeast) corner and with akbal, or "night" and "darkness," in the upper left (northwest) corner (Pl. 111b). The cosmic event that forms the context for Pacal's passage into death is the movement of the sun from east to west."

The 5th glyph down the left skyband is identified as the moon and the 8th as the symbol for skyband. The fifth glyph down the right side is identified as the sun.

I, personally, take some of the very explicit explanations of Maya mythology with a grain of salt-- after all we really don't have textual evidence for these-- but then I'm picky about evidence. However, Schele and Miller are highly respected and this book is seminal.
good luck
Bernard

> Sincerely,
>
> Anthony