Kahk' Uti' Chan Yopat
Glyph Dwellers Report 57 September 2017 A New Teotiwa Lord of the South: K’ahk’ Uti’ Chan Yopat (578-628 C.E.) and the Renaissance of Copan Péter Bíró Independent Scholar Classic Maya inscriptions recorded political discourse commissioned by title-holding elite, typically rulers of a given city. The subject of the inscriptions was manifold, but most of them described various period- ending ceremonies connected to the passage of time. Within this general framework, statements contained information about the most culturally significant life-events of their commissioners. This information was organized according to discursive norms involving the application of literary devices such as parallel structures, difrasismos, ellipsis, etc. Each center had its own variations and preferences in applying such norms, which changed during the six centuries of Classic Maya civilization. Epigraphers have thus far rarely investigated Classic Maya political discourse in general and its regional-, site-, and period-specific features in particular. It is possible to posit very general variations, for example the presence or absence of secondary elite inscriptions, which makes the Western Maya region different from other areas of the Maya Lowlands (Bíró 2011). There are many other discursive differences not yet thoroughly investigated. It is still debated whether these regional (and according to some) temporal discursive differences related to social phenomena or whether they strictly express literary variation (see Zender 2004). The resolution of this question has several implications for historical solutions such as the collapse of Classic Maya civilization or the hypothesis of status rivalry, war, and the role of the secondary elite. There are indications of ruler-specific textual strategies when inscriptions are relatively uniform; that is, they contain the same information, and their organization is similar.
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