Yaxchilán, Chiapas, Mexico (now British Museum, London)

Yaxchilán Lintel 26, Structure 23: Lady Kʼabʼal Xook and the Offering Bowl Vision

1248

c. October 681 C.E. (Late Classic Maya period)

Yaxchilán Lintel 26 from Structure 23, carved c. October 681 CE and now in the British Museum, depicts the causal mechanism of Lady Kʼabʼal Xook’s vision: a kneeling royal figure in an elaborately patterned woven garment with geometric squares and crosses, jade bead collar, and pectoral ornaments faces a Vision Serpent coiling upward from a ritual offering bowl filled with blood-stained paper — the material offering generating the immaterial apparition — with hieroglyphic glyph blocks integrated into the upper corners and central vertical register recording historical dates and royal titles.