Dynastic History|Temple XIX, Palenque — A God's Accession Used as a King's Warrant

Until 1998 this was a mound under forest at the southern edge of Palenque, noticed mainly because it faces the Temple of the Cross. Excavation by the Proyecto Grupo de las Cruces, run jointly by the Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute and INAH, recovered four inscribed monuments from it: a balustrade tablet, a carved limestone panel from the pier inside the doorway, a painted stucco panel beside it, and a low platform built against the northeast corner of the interior.

The pier panel shows K'inich Ahkal Mo' Nahb, fourteenth in Palenque's own reckoning of its rulers, on the day he took the throne: 9.14.10.4.2 in the Long Count, 30 December 721 with the Long Count converted on the 584285 constant in the Julian calendar. Two nobles kneel beside him, one supporting him, taking part in the headband ceremony the accompanying text describes. The officers of the court are in the picture, doing the work of making a king.

The platform text reaches much further back. Its opening date, 12.10.1.13.2, falls before the era base of the Long Count — 10 March 3309 BC in David Stuart's reading — and records the inauguration of the Palenque deity epigraphers call GI, overseen by Itzamnaaj. Both accessions fall on the day 9 Ik'. The pairing is the argument: a reigning king's inauguration set on the same day-sign as a god's, carved twelve to fifteen years into his reign. It is a charter for a claim rather than a record of an event, and reads best as one.

The restored temple stands at the south end of the archaeological zone. The pier panel is displayed in the site museum.

📸 Cover: The Temple XIX pier panel, K'inich Ahkal Mo' Nahb with a kneeling attendant, photographed in the Palenque site museum rather than in situ, lapin.lapin, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons