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CODEX VASES
13 January 2017
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Background
The vases to be discussed in this paper are painted with purely glyphic designs, and list a series of rulers
of the Kan dynasty. There are 11 known Dynasty codex-style vases documented in Justin Kerr’s Maya
Vase Database (Kerr 2016) and discussed by Simon Martin (1997), and an additional one discussed by
Robicsek and Hale (1981) in the Maya Book of the Dead. We will simply refer to them as Dynasty vases
hereafter. The discussion in this paper is restricted to the 11 vases included in the Maya Vase Database,
because the painting on the other one is in poor condition, and the photograph included in the Book of
the Dead is a relatively poor quality composite. The vases include different numbers of rulers, but
always starting with the same ruler, and with the rulers always in the same order. The format of the text
for each ruler is quite standardized, starting with a calendar round date, followed by an accession verb,
the name of the ruler, the Kan emblem glyph and sometimes an additional title, although sometimes
some elements are omitted, particularly towards the end of the inscription when the painter seems to
have realized that space was going to be a problem. Unfortunately, this list of rulers is not known from
any other source, and does not match with the rulers of the Kan dynasty listed on stone monuments.
The vases will be referred to by their Kerr number. This is the number assigned by Justin Kerr in his Maya
vase data base of rollout photographs (Kerr 2016). The longest of the inscriptions is on K6751 and
consists of 19 rulers. This vase was discussed in detail by Simon Martin (1997) in a paper in the Maya
Vase Book, volume 5. The inscriptions sometimes break off in the middle of the “sentence”, and on a
couple of vases ends with a portion of the standard dedicatory formula that often appears around the
top of vases. The dates provided are all calendar round dates, which means that any particular date
recurs after 18,980 days, or about 52 years, making it impossible to place the dates in absolute time
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absent additional information. For the reader who is not familiar with the Maya calendar round dates a
Because both 260 (the length of the Tzolk’in “year”) and 365 (the length of the Haab “year”) are both
divisible by five, but by no other factor, each day sign is associated with a set of four possible Haab
coefficients that can follow it. For example, the Ajaw day sign can only be followed by a Haab coefficient
of 3, 8, 13 or 18. The implication of this is that if you randomly write down day signs and numbers from
0 to 19, 80 percent of these pairs would be impossible as the day sign and the Haab coefficient of a
legitimate calendar round date. This is important because a few of the dates found on inscriptions and
vases are impossible dates. It is natural to ask why these occur and what can be deduced from them. In
this paper we will discuss possible sources of these and other inconsistencies in the dates.
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The Accession Dates on the Dynasty Vases
There are many inconsistencies among the calendar round dates on the Dynasty vases. Table 1 shows
the dates on the 11 vases for rulers 1 through 11. In order to make comparisons across vases easier this
table first lists all the Tzolk’in dates and then all the Haab dates. For example, looking at the Tzolk’in
dates for Ruler 1 we read the coefficient as seven, nine and 12 on different vases. Possible explanations
for these inconsistencies will be discussed below, but it should be kept in mind that this list of potential
explanations may not be comprehensive, and that the various potential sources of inconsistencies
discussed are not mutually exclusive. In fact, it may well be the case that several of these sources of
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Possible Sources of Errors
There are a variety of ways in which errors could creep into designs. The following list includes some
that have been previously suggested or that we think are possible, but the list should not be considered
comprehensive.
Error by the scribe(s) who prepared the template(s) used by the painters (or a Day sign drawn so it was
consistently misread)
The lists on the various Dynasty vases are so similar, being consistent in the order of the rulers and fairly
consistent in the dates (at least the day and month signs and some of the coefficients), that it seems
likely that the painters of these vases were working from one or two templates. For two of the rulers all
the calendar round dates that are legible are impossible given the structure of the Maya calendar. This
suggests the problem rose with the template(s) being used by the painters, rather than in the copying by
the painters. For both these rulers the Day sign is Imix, so it is possible that the original design had a sign
that was poorly drawn and then consistently misread as Imix. If the Haab coefficient is 7 or 12, the most
commonly occurring ones for these Rulers, then the Day sign would have had to be one of: Kawak, K’an,
Muluk, or Ix. Of these only Muluk appears on the vases so we do not have an opportunity to see how
the vase painters would have written the other three signs.
The hypothesis of an error in the template(s) is reinforced by the fact that for ruler 3 the Haab
coefficients are all 12 or 7, and for ruler 6 12 is the most frequent coefficient. The difference of 5 in the
coefficients (12 – 7 = 5) appears to be a common error on these vases, and an explanation for why it
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Copying error by the artist painting the vase
This could include a copying error in an intermediate version of the text between the original and the
vase. It should be mentioned at this point that several painters were involved in painting these vases,
and the various hands have been identified and discussed in papers by Kerr and Kerr (1988), Cohodas
The obvious errors or inconsistencies between vases are confined to the numbers and in contrast the
There are several rulers for which some of the vases have possible dates, but other vases have
impossible ones, and it seems clear that the error was in the Haab coefficient and not in the Day sign, as
the Day signs are entirely consistent between the vases. This is the situation with rulers 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8,
10 and 11. In the case of ruler 2, the legitimate coefficient 14 occurs four times, 12 occurs five times
and 10 once. The reading of 12 where 14 was meant could simply be the misreading of two dots as
spacer(s). Many of the inconsistencies in numerical coefficients are readily understandable once one
tries to read the numbers. The bars representing five are written in various ways: Thin vertical lines,
outlines of wider bars, filled-in wider bars outlined with a black line. It is often difficult to determine
whether it is one or two bars that are meant, and this manifests itself in differences of five between the
coefficients. For several of the rulers the painters read the coefficient sometimes as 7 and sometimes as
12.
There are other situations where the misreading is in the units (dots), where spacers could have been
read as units or vice versa. For example, for ruler 2 both 12 and 14 occur, which would be two bars with
two dots and spacer(s) versus two bars with four dots.
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Date in mythological time
It has been suggested by numerous scholars that impossible dates may have been used to indicate that
an event took place in mythological time rather than being a real historical event. This certainly appears
to be a plausible explanation for some of the impossible dates for clearly mythological texts relating to
the births of gods and the start of the long count in 3114 BCE. However, we would suggest that this is
unlikely to be the explanation for impossible dates on these vases. The first ruler has 11 legitimate dates
and only one invalid date, so the sequence of rulers is starting with a legitimate calendar round. The first
ruler would be the most likely to be mythological. In addition, the majority of the dates on the vases are
legitimate. If they were being generated without concern for whether they were legitimate dates or not
once would expect 80% to be invalid and only 20% valid. Also, some of the rulers’ names occur as the
names of rulers found on stone monuments associated with the Kan dynasty. The reuse of ancestral
In summary, it is unlikely that the invalid dates are intended to be in mythological time when the rulers
with these invalid dates are bracketed by other rulers in the list with legitimate dates, and particularly
Some of the vases have been retouched or repainted, either by restorers or in preparation for the
antiquities market to make them appear more valuable. The repainting could have introduced errors if
the design being repainted was eroded and the repainting did not replicate the original design.
However, the pattern of inconsistencies would suggest that repainting is not a major source of
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introduced errors and that the other explanations provided above are more likely to be the source of
Additional Evidence
Various possibilities for the sources of the discrepancies in dates were presented in the previous section
so it is natural to ask whether there exists any other evidence that might allow for a refinement of the
discussion. Several researchers have attempted to distinguish the various painters involved in the
decoration of these vases based on stylistic considerations. Simon Martin (1997) summarizes the
assignment of painters to vases in Table 1 of his paper “The Painted King List”, labeling the painters A
through E.
These painters segregate into two groups based on the coefficients they use in the calendar round
dates, and the differences between the coefficients used by the two groups provide some clues as to
how the inconsistencies may have arisen. The following Table 2 summarizes selected coefficients for the
first four kings in the list (these are the kings that appear on all of the vases, albeit not legibly on some
of them, and so for which the most dates are available). The coefficients not listed for these kings (e.g.,
the Haab coefficient for Ruler 1) show little or no variation, so would just add complexity to the table.
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The remarkable consistency illustrated in this table would suggest that the two groups of painters were
working from different copies of the design, and that mistakes were made by one or both of the
copyists. The nature of the different “mis-readings” fits with the discussion of possible errors above.
Group 1 read this coefficient mostly as seven, a bar and two dots, with one nine, a bar with four dots.
The four dots could be the mis-reading of one long spacer as two dots, or a repainting. Group 2 read 12,
which is two bars with two dots, so the difference between the two groups is simply whether a
particular design should be read as one or two bars, an easy source of ambiguity.
Group 1 read this consistently as 10, two bars, while Group 2 read it consistently as 12, two bars and
Group 1 read this as 14, and in one instance 10, while group 2 read it as 12. Here we see a switch from
two bars with two dots and a spacer to two bars with 4 dots.
Group 1 writes this consistently as seven, a bar with two dots, and group 2 consistently as 12, two bars
with two dots. This is the situation discussed above for Ruler 1, where a design is being interpreted by
one group as a single bar and by the other group as two bars.
Group 1 writes this consistently as a single dot, while group 2 writes it as seven or nine. This difference,
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Discussion
The artists who painted these vases have been differentiated based on their styles, particularly the way
in which they drew hands. It transpires that these artists fall neatly into two groups based on the
numbers they use in the dates, and some of the differences between the two groups are readily
understandable as being due to ways in which numbers could easily be misread given the Maya system
of writing numbers. A possible explanation for the two groups is that two different copies were made of
an original design, and the mis-readings were due to the different ways in which the copyists read the
numbers in the original. We suggest the possibility that there was also a misreading of two of the day
signs by both of the copyists, and that this would explain the consistently impossible calendar rounds
that appear for two of the rulers (rulers 3 and 6), however this suggestion is more conjectural.
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Data Availability
All the data used for this analysis was extracted from published works cited so are publicly available.
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Appendixes
The calendar round consists of a date in the 260 day Tzolk’in calendar and a date in the 365 day Haab
calendar. Because the least common multiple of 260 and 365 is 18,980 any given combination of dates
recurs after that many days. The Tzolk’in date is a number from 1 to 13 followed by one of 20 Maya day
signs, and to move from one day to the next one increments the numerical coefficient by one (modulo
13, i.e., after 13 you go back to 1) and move one around the list of day signs. The second component of
the calendar round is Haab date, with a numerical coefficient from 0 to 19, and one of 18 month signs.
This year consists of 18 months of 20 days and a 5-day month, the Wayeb, to make up the year length of
365. To move from one day to the next you increment the coefficient by 1 until reaching 19 (or 5 in the
Wayeb) then go back to 0 and move to the next month. A reader desiring more information on the
calendar round, or the Maya calendar more generally, should consult the discussion by Michael Coe and
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References Cited
2005. Reading the Maya Glyphs, Second Edition. Thames and Hudson, New York, New York.
Cohodas, Marvin
1989. Transformations: Relationship Between Image and Text in the Ceramic Paintings of the
Metropolitan Master. In Word and Image in Maya Culture: Explorations in Language, Writing, and
Representation, edited by William F. Hanks and Don S. Rice, 198-231. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake
City, Utah.
1988. Some Observations on Maya Vase Painters. In Maya Iconography, edited by Elizabeth
Benson and Gillett Griffin, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.
Kerr, Justin.
Martin, Simon
1997. The Painted King List: A Commentary on Codex-Style Dynastic Vases. The Maya Vase Book,
Volume 5. Pp. 847-215. Kerr Associates, 14 West 17th Street, New York, New York.
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Robicsek, Francis and Hale, Donald M.
1981. The Maya Book of the Dead: The Ceramic Codex. Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
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Tables
Ruler 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Kerr No. Tzolkin
955 12 chuwen12 imix 3 imix 3 etznab 12 ahaw
999 12 chuwen12 imix ? imix 3 etznab 13? Ahaw
1005 12 chuwen12 imix 3 imix 3 etznab ? 1 imix ? 12 lamat 3 muluk 12 chuwen
1302 7 chuwen 10 imix 3 imix 3 etznab 13 ahaw ?
1334 7 chuwen 10 ? ? 3 etznab 13 ahaw 1 imix
1344 7 chuwen 10 imix ? imix 3? 13 ahaw 1 imix 13? Kib
1371 7 chuwen 10 imix 3 imix 3 etznab 7 ahaw 1 imix 13 kib 11 lamat ? Muluk 7 chuwen
1372 7 chuwen 10 imix 3 imix 3 etznab 13 ahaw? 1 imix 13 kib 8 lamat 1 muluk 11 chuwen 11? kaban
2094 12 chuwen12 imix 3? 3 etznab 7 ahaw 1 imix 12 kib 12 lamat 2? muluk 12 chuwen
5863 12 chuwen12 imix ? 3 etznab 12 ahaw 1 imix 12 kib 12 lamat 2 muluk 12 chuwen 12 kaban
6751 9 chuwen 10 imix 3 imix 4 etznab 13 ahaw 1 imix 13 kib 8 lamat 1 muluk 12 chuwen 11 kaban?
HAAB
955 19 pop 12 yaxkin 12 yax 9 muwan 9 sotz
999 19 pop 12 yaxkin 12 yax 7 muwan 4 ?
1005 19 pop 12 yaxkin 12 yax 7 muwan 4 ? 12 mol ? 7 yaxkin 2 kankin 14? sip
1302 19 pop 14 yaxkin 7 yax 1 muwan ? ?
1334 19 pop ? 7? 1 muwan 8 sots 11 mol
1344 19 pop 14 yaxkin ? 1? Muwan? 11 mol ?
1371 19 pop 14 yaxkin 7 yax 1 muwan 7 sots 10 mol 19 chen 12 yaxkin 2 kankin 8 sip
1372 19 pop 14 yaxkin 7 yax 1 muwan 8 sotz 11 mol 19 chen 11 yaxkin 2 kankin ?5+ sip 12 yax
2094 19 pop 12 yaxkin 12 yax 7 muwan 4 sots 12 mol 19 chen 12 yaxkin 2? kankin ?
5863 19 pop 12 yaxkin 12 yax 7 muwan ? 12 mol 12 chen 12 mol 2 kankin 12 yaxkin 14 chen
6751 19 pop 10 yaxkin 7 yax 1 muwan 8 sotz 12 mol 19 chen 11 yaxkin 2 kankin 8 sip 10 yax
Dates in bold/red are Haab dates that are impossible given the Tzolk’in day sign. Rulers 14 – 19 only
appear on K6751, and Rulers 12 and 13 appear only on K1372 and K6751, and all the calendar round
dates for these Rulers are valid, so are omitted to keep the table to a manageable size. A question mark
indicates an unreadable or only partially readable text.
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Table 2: Calendar Round Coefficients used by the two groups of painters
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Abstract
The 11 dynastic codex vases included in the Kerr Maya Vase database and discussed by Simon Martin
(1997) list the accession dates of a sequence of rulers of the Kan dynasty, but there are inconsistencies
in these accession dates – some of them are impossible in the Maya calendar system. Possible sources
of these inconsistencies are listed and discussed. Prior work by other scholars has differentiated the
painters of these vases based on stylistic factors and this classification of the painters is used to explain
some of the inconsistencies in the accession dates. It is demonstrated that the painters fall into two
groups and that within each group there is a remarkable consistency in the dates, and that some of the
inconsistencies between the groups could be explained if the groups of painters were working from
different copies of an original design that involved mis-readings of numbers that are easy to make given
the Maya system of writing numbers, and the different styles used for writing the numbers.
Abstracto
Unas vasijas Codex dinásticos que aparecen en la base de datos Kerr de vasijas Mayas catalogan las
fechas de ascenso al trono de soberanos de la dinastía Kan. Estas 11 vasijas fueron investigadas por
Simon Martin (1997). Sin embargo, falta coherencia en estas fechas de ascenso. El artículo siguiente
enumera, analiza y propone explicaciones a estas inconsistencias. Estudios previos basados en factores
estilísticos conducidos por otros expertos han encontrado diferencias entre los pintores de estas vasijas.
El artículo utiliza esta clasificación de los pintores para explicar algunas de las inconsistencias en las
fechas de ascenso. Demostrando que los pintores se pueden dividir en dos grupos y que dentro de cada
grupo las fechas concuerdan, propone una possible explicaciόn a las inconsistencias entre los dos
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grupos. Suponiendo que los pintores utilizaron diferentes copias de un diseño original, se puede asumir
que malinterpretaron los números de las fechas. Esto es fácil de hacer dado el sistema Maya de escribir
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