Spearthrower Owl facts for kids
"Spearthrower Owl" is the name commonly given to a Mesoamerican personage from the Early Classic period, who is identified in Maya inscriptions and iconography. Mayanist David Stuart has suggested that Spearthrower Owl was a ruler of Teotihuacan at the start of the height of its influence across Mesoamerica in the 4th and 5th century, and that he was responsible for an intense period of Teotihuacan presence in the Maya area, including the conquest of Tikal in 378 CE.
Name
"Spearthrower Owl" is a name invented by archaeologists to describe the Teotihuacan-originated spear-holding owl symbol, stylised as one or two Maya glyphs usually used to represent his name.
One version of the ruler's name glyph shows a weapon (an atlatl or other type) combined with an owl sign. At Tikal, the name appears written once with phonetic elements, suggesting the Mayan version of the name is Jatz'om Kuy, "striker owl," or "owl that will strike". The weapon-owl version is therefore probably the logographs for JATZ' together with KUY or KUJ.
Various logographs or glyphs depicting an owl and a spear-thrower are documented in Teotihuacan and in the Maya cities of Tikal, Uaxactun, Yaxchilan, and Toniná. They may or may not refer to the same individual, or have other symbolic meanings.
Biography
Maya inscriptions at several sites describe the arrival of strangers from the west, depicted with Teotihuacan-style garments and carrying weapons. These arrivals are connected to changes in political leadership at several of the sites.
Stuart noted that the Marcador monument at the Petén Basin center of Tikal records Spearthrower Owl's ascension to the throne of an unspecified polity on a date equivalent to 4 May 374 CE. Monuments at El Perú, Tikal and/or Uaxactun describe the arrival of a personage Siyaj K'ak' somehow under the auspices of Spearthrower Owl in the month of January 378. The exact date of his arrival in Tikal is identical with the death of the Tikal ruler, Chak Tok Ich'aak I. Tikal Stela 31 describes that in 379, a year after the arrival of Siyaj K'ak' at Tikal, Yax Nuun Ayiin, described as a son of Spearthrower Owl and not of the previous ruler Chak Tok Ich'aak, was installed as king of Tikal. His rule saw the introduction of Teotihuacan-style imagery in the iconography of Tikal. Stela 31 was erected during the reign of Yax Nuun Ayiin's son Siyaj Chan K'awil and describes the death of that ruler's grandfather, Spearthrower Owl, in 439 CE (Maya date 9.0.3.9.18).
Spearthrower Owl was mentioned in later texts; for example, on a door lintel of Temple I where the Tikal ruler Jasaw Chan K'awiil I celebrated the thirteen k'atun (13x20x360 days) anniversary (in 695 CE) of Spearthrower Owl's death by "conjuring the holy one."
See also
In Spanish: Átlatl Cauac para niños
