Who Were The Maya Snake Kings?
PUBLISHED
2 days ago
The real king cobras.
BENJAMIN TAUB
Freelance Writer
Edited
by
Francesca Benson
Calakmul
The Snake Head rulers resided at Calakmul, southern Mexico.
Image credit: Alfredo Matus/Shutterstock.com
The ancient Maya civilization is often erroneously described as an empire, when in reality it was made up of numerous disjointed polities, united by a shared culture but divided by allegiances to multiple rulers and vast swathes of impenetrable jungle. However, for a brief, glorious period in the sixth and seventh centuries CE, a group of upstarts appeared from nowhere, conquered some of the most powerful cities in the Mayan world, and formed the closest thing to an empire that the region ever saw. It was known as Kaanul, or the Snake Head dynasty.
Taking its name from its emblem glyph - which features a grinning snake - the Snake Kingdom was unheard of until the 1960s, when archaeologists began finding these smiling serpents carved into temples and tombs throughout the jungles of the Petén region of southern Mexico and northern Guatemala. The following decade, researchers discovered the ruins of Calakmul, an enormous ancient city that once housed an estimated 50,000 subjects and served as the seat of the snake kings.
Though much remains unknown about Kaanul, it’s thought that the polity emerged in the shadow of the glorious city-state Tikal, which had dominated the region throughout the Maya era. However, in 562 CE, a snake king known as Sky Witness led an army to Tikal and sacrificed its ruler Double Bird, thus ending the supremacy of this world-famous superpower.
The Snake Head emblem glyph of the Kaanul dynasty.
Image credit: Alopeus via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
In 599, a subsequent Snake lord called Scroll Serpent expanded Kaanul’s sphere of influence by defeating the powerful city of Palenque and its queen, Heart of the Windy Place. Shortly afterwards, snake kings took on the new title of Kaloomte, which has been translated as "Paramount Ruler" or "High King".
More:
https://www.iflscience.com/who-were-the-maya-snake-kings-73787
