K'inich Janaab' Pakal - Iconography of Pakal's Sarcophagus Lid

Iconography of Pakal's Sarcophagus Lid

The large carved stone sarcophagus lid in the Temple of Inscriptions is a unique piece of Classic Maya art. Around the edges of the lid is a band with cosmological signs, including those for sun, moon, and star, as well as the heads of six ancestors. The central image is that of a world tree. Beneath Pakal is one of the heads of a celestial two-headed serpent viewed frontally. Both the king and the serpent head on which he seems to rest are framed by the open jaws of a funerary serpent, a common iconographic device for signalling entrance into, or residence in, the realm(s) of the dead. The king himself wears the attributes of the Tonsured maize god and is shown in a peculiar posture that may denote rebirth. In the past, the lid's interpretation has raised controversy. Linda Schele saw Pakal falling down the Milky Way into the southern horizon, a view that has not found general acceptance among scholars, and even shows some resemblance to the ancient astronaut theories of Von Däniken (see next section).