The Ancient Maya King Who Had a Beard and Face Tattoo | ATG Highlights

For regular videos on ancient cultures and forgotten civilizations, please subscribe. Welcome to Khabar. This was the entrance to the city of Khabar, and running up to this arch was a long sakbe. It's a white paved road. It's kind of a causeway that goes all the way to Uxmal about 11 miles away, and there's another city halfway called Nopat, and then you come here to Khabar. That means that these three cities were connected by this long road. The road was not just a regular road for travel. It's a formal road. It was put in here by the government, so it's probably used for government traveling or something political or maybe religious, could be economic, but we're still a little unclear about that. And this is the way you would have entered the city of Khabar. This arch is one of only a few freestanding examples in the Puuk region. Note, if you will, that there's no architectural sculpture on this arch. The facing stone is smooth. That's typical of early Puuk architecture, which is plain or minimally decorated. It was probably covered with a thin layer of stucco and painted. Entering Khabar from Uxmal, one would have passed between the thick walls of the arch and then down into the city on a smooth stone ramp. An internal sakbe ran southeast toward a small group of buildings. Off to the left are the ruins of Khabar's Great Pyramid, which once was the tallest and most visible structure at Khabar, but today it's in an advanced state of collapse, so all you can really make out are remnants of steps on the southern side. To date, there haven't been any systematic excavations of the pyramid. A main north-south internal sakbe connected the Great Pyramid to the smaller pyramid to the south, also in ruins. But we made our way to Khabar's greatest attraction on the other side of the highway, where the main entrance to the park is. The pottery found here indicated that Khabar was occupied as far back as 800 BCE, but it wasn't urbanized until about 600 CE. Like its neighbor Uxmal, its heyday was during the Terminal Classic, around 800 to 925 CE. During their heyday in the Terminal Classic period, it does not appear that one site held control over the others. Oh no, the area was politically decentralized, although there is some evidence that suggests that Uxmal may have consolidated power at the end of the 9th century for a time. The Codes Pulp is the most recognizable building at Khabar. It's one of the most complex buildings from ancient Mesoamerica. It gets a lot of attention because it's right off the highway, but also back in its day, it was the central focus at the time it was built. We're here at the Codes Pulp in Khabar, probably the most magnificent structure here. And sometimes you'll see it's pulped spelled with one o, sometimes with two, and that's why you hear people sometimes referring to it as the Codes Poop, but it's not the Codes Poop. The word codes means roll, and the word pulp means mat, a roll mat, and it's called that because of the way the facade looks with all the texture along it. But it's not the original name or anything like that. So don't call it Codes Poop, all right? It has nothing to do with poop, but actually now that I think of it, I have to go to the restroom after this. The Codes Pulp was not all constructed at one time. It had numerous modifications over the years. Maya buildings typically were modified, reused, rebuilt all the time. Monumental architecture is for public display, and it was sanctioned by the elite. Iconography on these structures was manipulated in order to meet local political objectives. In fact, architecture was the principal medium through which rulers communicated with the people. So what you're going to see in the Pu'uk region, for example, is the intentional combination of historical imagery with mythological imagery to communicate something about local identity. Look at this. Glyphs. Glyphs and more glyphs. There's glyphs everywhere. The door jams marking the entrance to room 21 refer to historical events. These allow us to see how the artists of Kaba used visual narrative. So we have an inside look into the way the people created monuments and what they chose to represent and how they chose to represent it. Now on both sides of the door jam, you have these mirror images of one another. Here's one side of the door. In the upper scene, a dance is being performed, and in the lower scene, a prisoner is being subjugated. And there's this horizontal band of hieroglyphics in the middle. It has a date, and the date is October 14, 859. In the top image, there's this figure with distinctive facial markings. They're going around his eye. They loop around down his mouth. You see that? And in the bottom image, he's on the right side. His clothing changes from scene to scene, but that physical characteristic could be a tattoo or maybe scarification or even paint. This figure is in both scenes. We call this individual the King of Kaba. I don't know if you can make this out, but he's also got a mustache and a beard. And you know what? Facial hair is not that common in Maya art. What else can we learn about this guy? Looking closely at the upper scene, we see the two figures dressed for battle or perhaps a celebration, but they're carrying darts and dart throwers. They're standing in front of a wits, as it's called, which is the animate mountain of Maya mythology. We don't know who the figure on the right is. The lower scene shows the king and someone else, also not identifiable, wearing very little clothing, leaning over a captive. And the captive is struggling with the king. The king has his left hand raised, and he holds a knife. He's pointing it at the captive, whom he's gripping by the hair with his other hand, and he's stepping on the captive with his foot. This is a long-standing symbol of domination in Maya art. The captive's left foot is in the groin of the king, which he appears to leverage by grabbing part of the belt. And the captive's right hand is pushed against the King of Kaba's arm. This appears to be a defensive posture. The scenes depicted on the upper and lower panels of the Room 21 doorjams are mixing myth and history. The figures are historic persons, and they're engaged in actions that are tied to a specific date, and they're participating in what we believe are universal rituals that are associated with office. But the disembodied, zoomorphic head behind the scenes suggests that the actions are taking place in a spiritual realm, or at least an actual place imbued with some kind of supernatural force. But let's learn a little bit more about this king with the tattooed face. Who is he? What's he all about? Is there anything else that we can tell about him? Oh, yes. Other decorative doorjams have been found in the Code's Pope, which purport to depict the accession of the King of Kaba's heir. But these are not visible to the public, nor have they been published as yet by archaeologists. Although the glyphs are in poor condition, and they can't be read fully, we do get a name, the name of the king. It repeats three times in the doorjam inscription, and his name is Chak Shib Chak. Now, this is a name of a Maya deity, but it's also a name that rulers, even in other places in the Yucatan, adopted. We've got the guy's name. Isn't that cool? The eastern facade of the building here is a powerful example of how rulers used architecture to connect the human world with the supernatural world. And here you can see two figures here of the great king Chak Shib Chak. He's standing right there on the medial molding, and around him is, I don't know if you can tell, it's the coils of a snake's body. And a snake was a representative of the supernatural world, so it's tying the human world and the supernatural together. A distinctive feature of Chak Shib Chak's face is that tattoo marks he has on the side of his face, and you can see them there on the side of that figure. It was a fundamental responsibility of the kings to maintain order by communicating with the other side, so that's why this kind of imagery is important. The cold's pulp was intended to function as a sacred place. It is a manifestation of the supernatural world in the physical world, and the king used it to promote his own authority. The king couldn't always be present for everyone to see all the time, so the building is acting as a surrogate for him.