Yaxchilan is a Mayan civilization located on the southern banks of the Usumicenta River in Chiapas Mexico. This place is so remote, you still need to take a boat to get to it. The center building of Yaxchilan is called Structure 23 and is famous for two stone carvings called lintel 24 and lintel 25. These two carvings contain two figures, Shield Jaguar and Lady Xook that you’ll learn about in this article.
(You can also view my YouTube video Yaxchilan’s Shield Jaguar and Lady Xook Lintel 24 and 25)
Yaxchilan Lintel 24
Bloodletting
In Structure 23 on the left entryway above the door frame on the lintel, looking up at the ceiling, is a beautiful carving titled lintel 24. Depicted here is Shield Jaguar and his wife Lady Xook participating in a very sacred ceremony known as bloodletting. Bloodletting was a really sacred ritual to the Mayans that allowed them to communicate with the gods and their spirits.
Depicted in this scene you can see a long rope with sharp barbs or thorns off to the side. Lady Xook drags the rope through a hole in her tongue. Little droplets of blood flow from her mouth and create rivulets on her cheeks. Finally, the blood is caught in a bowl located near her knees. (Side note, men used to do this on their genitals – ouch!)
Shield Jaguar and Lady Xook
Watching over Lady Xook is her husband Shield Jaguar holding a lit torch. This may suggest that this ceremony was done either at night, in a dark windowless room, or some other sacred space.
If you zoom in on Lady Xook’s costume, you can see the individual threads woven together to create this piece of cloth. You can see that so much care was put into this piece to honor this incredible woman.
She’s also shown in an idolized state, which means she’s perfect, she is the ideal beauty, the height of perfection to Mayans at the time. The height of beauty was to have a long sloping forehead that connected to your nose in this nice vertical line, sloping foreheads, large noses, almond shaped eyes, and being adorned with jewelry made of gold and jade. This is Lady Xook in all of her perfected glory.
Her husband is similarly attired and depicted. You can see that idealized beauty in his face and his structure, but you can also see how much he’s adorned in gold and jade jewelry as well. Look at his headdress – it’s immaculate, it shows power both military and political. And if you zoom in a little closer on that headdress you can see an actual head. Yup, that’s a shrunken head. Definitely there to invoke fear in enemies, but also to promote power of the Mayan ruler. (Side note, to make a shrunken head you remove the skull from the neck and then you just let the skin dehydrate for a couple of days.)
The glyphs and Mayan calendar
Off to the left and upper side of the panel you can see some glyphs. Now these glyphs weren’t translated until the 1960s, which is incredible because Yaxchilan was discovered in the 1800s, so we waited a long time to figure out what was actually being said here. But we found out that they’re very descriptive.
These picture-like squares tell us a couple of things. Mostly they tell us dates, and they tell us names of people involved in the scene, which is how we know this is Shield Jaguar and his consort wife Lady Xook, and it’s also how we know that the date of this panel was October 24th 709 CE.
The Mayans are known for their really complex calendar system. If you were around in the year 2012, you can remember that we thought the world was going to end because this calendar system ended. This really complex calendar system gives us some really specific dates. Which helps us understand when important events happened. The next lintel is a great example of this.
Yaxchilan Lintel 25
Lintel 25 of Yaxchilan is located in the central entrance to that same building where lintel 24 is found, structure 23. But here we have a little bit different scene being depicted. We still have our two main characters Lady Xook and Shield Jaguar. The date off to the side on this one though is in the year 681 in the month of October, which is the date and year that Shield Jaguar ascended to the throne so this is an important event that’s being depicted here.
You still see our famous Lady Xook kneeling in the same position, but this time in her hands she holds that bowl with those maybe pieces of paper or an open codex or book. You can see actual droplets of her blood on there signifying this is after the bloodletting scene.
Next, look at her face. As you look at her face you kind of get this sense that she’s in this trance-like moment. She’s hallucinating. Now after the bloodletting ritual, there would have been a lot of blood loss, and there would have been a lot of incense burning, so hallucinations were not uncommon during bloodletting scenes. Her eyes roll back to her head as her head tilts upward toward this image.
Who is coming out of the serpent in lintel 25?
Now what she’s looking at here is a man emerging from the mouth of a serpent. You can see his body as it kind of curves down the side of the lintel, but there’s this person coming out. We’re not quite sure who this person is, but through the adornment and that incredible headdress we can almost exactly assume that this is someone of high importance.
There’s three hypotheses as to who this person could be the. The first hypothesis is that it could be a spirit or a god of the Mayan culture, that makes sense. The second person it could be is Shield Jaguar coming out of the mouth of the snake, which makes sense because you know this is his party. The third hypothesis is that it’s Lady Xook herself, and she’s kind of having this double out of body experience.
I love the idea that this could be Lady Xook in some sort of mirror trance. This would show her power, royalty, and spiritual side. I love that idea. But the hypothesis that I think makes the most sense to me at least is that of Shield Jaguar. Like I said, this is his party. This is his year, and there’s a lot of connection throughout the globe of ruling kings and their connections to becoming gods. It just makes more sense.
The Human Connection
Lintel 24 and 25 of Yaxchilan would have been brightly painted in their full glory. You can see remnants of blue and red paint that really would have popped with the design. I love these pieces because of the stories they tell. You can see that the Mayans really tried to show their connections to each other, their king, and spiritual realm. This connection is what drives a lot of art throughout history and across the globe. And they are the same connections we are trying to make sense of today.