Yo'nal Ahk III

IK'-NA:H-CHAK-? yo-o[AHK]-NAL, "Black House Red/Great ?-Turtle". Drawing, transcription and translation after Martin and Grube (2000).

Maya ruler of Piedras Negras; also known as Ruler 5. Reigned AD 758-767.

Acceded: 9.16.6.17.1, 7 Imix 19 Wo (March 10, 758).

Monuments: Stelae 14 and 16.

Given that Pyramid O-13 is almost certainly the mortuary shrine of Yo'nal Ahk III's predecessor Ruler 4, the fact that Yo'nal Ahk set both of his stelae at its base suggests that Ruler 4 was his father (Martin and Grube 2000:150, 151).

Stela 14, Yo'nal Ahk's accession monument, is considered to be the finest of the "niche" stela type (ibid.:150).

Stela 16, erected eight years later, was previously thought to record the AD 763 accession of the next king in the Piedras Negras sequence; but this candidate for Ruler 6 turns out to be neither a "holy lord" nor a local one, but rather a sajal of neighboring La Mar (ibid.:150). That his installation into office would be recorded at Piedras Negras suggests the extent to which its kings had come to rely upon the support of this subsidiary site; it also raises the possibility that Yo'nal Ahk had some personal connection to La Mar (ibid.:150).

El Cayo was another important subordinate; Yo'nal Ahk presided at the burial rites of its sajal in 763 (the same year as the La Mar event) (ibid.:150). It is noteworthy, however, that the accession two months later of the late sajal's successor was supervised, not by the king of Piedras Negras but by Aj Sak Maax of Sak Tz'i' (ibid.:150). This would not be the last time that a ruler of "White Dog" exercised an intermediate role in the hierarchical relationship between Piedras Negras and one of its dependents (ibid.:146, 150).

Yo'nal Ahk's motivation for maintaining a strong base of support may be glimpsed in the capture of one of his lords in 759 by Bird Jaguar IV of Yaxchilan (ibid.:150).

The foregoing is based on Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens by Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube (2000:151). Their sources include Stephen Houston (1983b) on Ruler 6 and Linda Schele and Nikolai Grube (1994d) on the identification of La Mar as the site known glyphically as "rabbit stone". Martin and Grube indicate in a footnote (2000:232, Piedras Negras n. 17) that Yo'nal Ahk III is also named in 760 on a provincial panel now in the Kurt Stavenhagen collection (Mayer 1984:Plate 180).