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ABSTRACT
This presentation is about sexed and gendered individuals in contexts of social relations
and mortuary practices. More specifically, we consider women who were interred with
seeming respect in several burial chambers in the Late Classic Maya elite residential
compound of Copan Groups 8L-10 and 8L-12, nicknamed the Copan North Group. We
reflect on whom they might have been, why they were laid to rest in this particular
location, and in the manner they were. Newly available bioarchaeological findings
contribute invaluable evidence about origins of individuals. Interpretations based on
material culture remain more ambiguous. While our combined inferences must thereby
remain more elusive than firm, we consider their potential implications for Classic Maya
women in life and death. We eagerly join the growing voices seeking to bring such
women into a clearer light of understanding.
Why the women of the Copan North Group? Excavations in this locale
encountered remains of three women, none of whom has received virtually any
significant interpretive attention—until now. We propose that all were noblewomen and
related to the Copan royal court, if perhaps in mutually different ways. Few in number as
they are, we believe these women of the North Group allow us to contribute to some new
thoughts on studying gender, social standing, and inhumation practices in the Classic
Maya world. Our argument builds from what Alison Wylie refers to as “cabling”: “As the
cable metaphor suggests, even when there is no single commensurating ground for
judgment—no one line of argument that is sufficient on its own to secure an explanatory
considerations of] evidence, data, reasons, and arguments can be rationally decisive . . .
The relativist conclusion that “anything goes” does not follow from the fact that no one
provoke consideration.
Location of Copan North Group (8L-10, 8L-12) in the Copan urban core (by Chris Carrelli for Ashmore
1991)
The Copan North Group perches in the foothills of the Copan Valley, 1 km north
of the Principal Group, where dynastic rule spanned four centuries, from 426 to 822 CE
(Andrews and Fash 2005). In 1988 and 1989, the Proyecto Arqueológico Copan de
Cosmología, or Copan North Group Project (Operación XLII [42]), sought to test ideas
Women of the Copan North Group 3
(Ashmore and DeLance)
about whether archaeological Groups 8L-10, 8L-11, and 8L-12 at that Classic Maya
(Ashmore 1988a, 1988b, 1989, 1991, 2015). The North Group project hypothesis was
that, if such were the case, project members should encounter material allusions to north-
related elements—the Maya celestial realm, ritual activities, and royal ancestors. Group
8L-10, the more northerly of the paired architectural compounds yielded such evidence:
in architectonic sculpture that cited, among other things, the Principal Bird Deity who
lives in the sky; a stone effigy stingray spine for ritual bloodletting: and name-glyph
medallions for Waxaklajun Ubaah K’awiil, the 13th ruler of Copan, who was killed in 738
evidence places known architecture of the Copan North Group in the eighth through ninth
centuries CE (Ashmore 1989, 1991, 2015), toward the end of dynastic rule in 822 CE.
Map of Copan North Group (8L-10, 8L-12) with select structure numbers and burial locations marked (B4
Two decades after the North Group Project, independent visibility and access
analyses at Copan suggest that occupants of the North Group “positioned themselves in
[a] strategic [location] that afforded them a very high degree of social connectivity,
including providing greatest access to the ruler” (Richards-Rissetto 2010: 471, 515, 738-
739). Using these and other spatial analyses, Heather Richards-Rissetto (2010: 506, 522;
Richards-Rissetto and Landau 2014) and Kristin Landau (2015) posit that Group 8L-10,
specifically, played a wider civic role in life at Copan. Because of its relatively open
architectural layout, and its association with ritual activities, including explicit allusion to
a revered royal ancestor—the 13th king of the dynasty—its occupants could have hosted
Moreover, several scholars have proposed that Copan’s 16th and final dynastic ruler, Yax
Pasaj Chan Yopaat, commissioned construction projects with architectonic sculpture and
hieroglyphic texts beyond the Principal Group—as in the Copan North Group—“to
display his power and reach out to lesser elite in an attempt to preserve the existing social
hierarchy,” and “to curb power loss and bring the city’s occupants together during a
Julia Miller and we also observe that, based on the excellent Proyecto
Arqueológico Copan maps (Fash and Long 1983), Burial XLII-5 is directly north of the
Acropolis, and perhaps most specifically, north of the inferred tomb in Structure 10L-18
of that same 16th ruler, who exhibited what some have called a “consistent
He tentatively reads the Str. 8L-74 medallion texts as “It is the Senior Obsidian [Sakun
ordered/assembled.” Together with colleagues, he infers that those who bore the noble
title taaj were skilled in writing, eloquent speaking, and creating paper, books, and
murals, and in teaching these skills to others (Rossi et al. 2015: 13). He recognizes a
particularly prominent Taaj at Copan during the rule of its sixteenth and final king,
named on Altar U alongside the king, his brother, and their mother (Rossi 2015: 138). For
the Copan North Group, however, Rossi further suggests that text could refer to a
Calendar Round date before Waxaklajun Ubaah K’awiil was seated as king, and
identifies the compound as where a Sakun Taaj might have worked as teacher to the
On many measures, then, the Copan North Group appears to have been a socially,
politically, and ritually important place, importantly shaped by late eighth- and early
Most publications from the Copan North Group Project have centered on the
2010; 2015; Ashmore and Sabloff 2000, 2002; Carrelli 1990; Yorke 2006), and have
prompted responses, both pro and con (Ashmore and Sabloff 2003; Barrera Rubio 2011:
81; Keller 2006; Landau 2015; Maca 2002, 2006; Smith 2003). Together with several
colleagues, Ashmore has suggested repeatedly that cranial remains in one of the
interments might have actually been those of the aforementioned 13th ruler, whose name
Women of the Copan North Group 6
(Ashmore and DeLance)
is cited there so prominently (Ashmore 1991, 2013, 2015; Ashmore and Geller 2005;
Carrelli 1990).
In this presentation, however, we change focus, to bring other individuals into the
interpretive limelight—more specifically the women whose final resting place was Group
8L-10, in the Copan North Group, or CNG. Our working conclusion is this: Based on
evidence from bioarchaeological and material cultural evidence, we infer slightly varied
social standing for individual women, while affiliating all three with noble or royal
identities. We also suggest possible reasons for their burial in that particular location. The
reasons, we propose, involve both ties to and reverence for Ruler 13, and elements of the
Burial 42-1
Burial 42-5
Burial 42-4
Group 8L-10
Group 8L-10, Copan, with women’s burials highlighted (after Ashmore 1991).
Women of the Copan North Group 7
(Ashmore and DeLance)
investigations, 3 were sexed female, 6 male, and 2 sex-indeterminate (Buikstra and Miller
2005; Miller 2015a; Storey, personal communications, 1988, 1989). We refer to the
females as “women” because of their ages at death and the objects encountered with them
(Carrelli 1990). All three were interred in Group 8L-10. Who were they? As in many
cases, including the woman in Copan’s Margarita tomb, we lack recorded names and
depictions, but their bodies and interments have given us many clues. We cable together
Jane Buikstra, Katherine Miller, and Rebecca Storey (Buikstra et al 2004; Geller 2004,
2012; Piehl et al. 2014; Saul 1972; Storey, personal communications, 1988-1989; Tiesler
(1) Important insights about decedent identity come from advances in isotopic analyses of
ancient bones and teeth, about origins, mobility, and diet (Price et al. 2010). Katherine
Miller (2013:6) points to Group 8L-10 as a “cool case—the values suggest 50% non-
locals.”
(2) Cranial and/or (3) dental modifications in life potentially point to social rank. Cranial
shaping necessarily begins in infancy, as bones begin to grow, and occurs across social
rank (Geller 2004, 2011; Miller 2009). In contrast, dental modification occurs later in
Women of the Copan North Group 8
(Ashmore and DeLance)
life, usually after eruption of permanent dentition (Geller 2004, 2006; but see Somerville
et al 2016: 155, Bu. 5/1). At Copan, tooth filing or notching does not imply elite status,
but the presence of inlays does (Buikstra et al 2004: 194, citing Tiesler; Tiesler 2011:
200).
(4) Chamber form and particular grave goods can also hint at social, political, and
(5) Marking interments at plaza level by a stone “altar,” is associated with what Houston
and colleagues at Piedras Negras call the “special dead,” those worthy of repeated acts of
(6) Grave placement with respect to architecture can imply intentions in recognizing the
buried dead.
For the three CNG women, all six of the foregoing measures cited point to noble
standing.
Ground work has been amply laid by many before us, including Saul (1972),
Buikstra (1981, Buikstra et al. 2014), Geller (2011, 2012), Ardren (2002), and Tiesler
(Tiesler et al 2004), and from Patricia McAnany’s (1995, 2014) Living with the Ancestors
to James Fitzsimmons and Izumi Shimada’s (2011) Living with the Dead. We learn from
all. In what follows, we are guided most directly by recent presentations of four
noblewomen of El Perú-Waka’, by Jennifer Piehl, David Lee, and Michelle Rich (2014)
and of elite burials more generally at Piedras Negras, by Andrew Scherer (2016; also
Burial 42-1
Women of the Copan North Group 9
(Ashmore and DeLance)
For the woman in double-burial 42-1, some 40-55 years at death, strontium ratios
(Sr87/Sr89 = 0.7077), radiogenic strontium, and biodistance measures identify her non-
local origin, coming to Copan from elsewhere, and Katie Miller (personal
communication, Feb 2016) indicates the strontium ratio is consistent with either the
the deceased woman are signs of the highest echelons in Copanec and Maya society more
generally, and would seem to favor Maya lowlands as her place of origin. Specifically,
her skull was tabular erect in form, a shape associated closely with Copan elites and
royalty in Early Classic times (Buikstra et al, 2004: 195; Tiesler 2014: 231). Her
maxillary incisors and canines bore jade inlays on notched teeth, together forming the
wind sign in silhouette, the Ik’-shape dentition of the sun god (Buikstra and Miller 2005:
1; Carrelli 1990: 30; Houston et al. 2006: 146-147). Indeed, teeth and skull of only that
one CNG woman, an outsider, indicated elite standing, and a jade-inlaid tooth found
loose in Burial 42-1 might have come from that same woman—or from the local man in
that chamber—in Katie Miller’s words, “deposited at her feet”—or even from someone
else altogether. A spindle whorl was retrieved from matrix not directly associated with
either individual. A jade pendant lay by her upper right arm; a slightly larger version
accompanied the male, 24-30 years of age, buried with her. Both decedents were clearly
secondary interments. Together, the pair was laid to rest in “a formal masonry-walled
[container] complete with a lid . . . of large flat [stone] slabs,” with internal height less
than 0.5 meters, a simple crypt, in Scherer’s terms (2016: 6). The woman’s remains were
allotted well more than half of the chamber space. A circular “altar” stone, with signs of
burning and thereby ritual observance, marked the presence of Burial 42-1. Rossi (2015:
Women of the Copan North Group 10
(Ashmore and DeLance)
144) suggests that the two pendants in Burial 42-1 are reminiscent of “similar flat
pendants (though ceramic) found with the Taaj of Burial 11 at Los Sabios [Xultun],” and
by implication that the two individuals might have held analogous roles.
Burial 42-4
Burial 42-4 was the interment of a young woman between 20 and 30 years old at
death, a primary burial whose deeply flexed body lay on her left side. In that position, she
“faced” into the courtyard to the south, and her head lay toward Burial 42-1. Although
she evinced no evidence of cranial modification, two upper right incisors were inlaid with
jade (Buikstra and Miller 2005: 6), once again an indicator of noble or royal status. Her
bone chemistry identified her as non-local, with a strontium isotope ratio (Sr87/Sr89 =
0.7078) consistent with a home in either the South Central Lowlands OR North/Central
Honduras, as with the woman in Burial 42-1 (Miller, personal communication, Feb
2016). She was buried alone, accompanied by a small jade fragment, plausibly placed in
her mouth, plus a ceramic ring, bone fragment, and most strikingly a small, eroded
ceramic jaguar head. Although her decorated dentition and perhaps the broken jaguar
effigy seem most consistent with high status, her burial in a pit, or simple burial, might
appear to diminish her inferred standing (Scherer 2016: 6). Alternatively, the close spatial
and stratigraphic juxtaposition to Burial 42-1 might hint at a subsidiary relation to the
Burial 42-5
Women of the Copan North Group 11
(Ashmore and DeLance)
The 40-55 year-old woman interred in double-burial 42-5 had local roots; to her
south lay a local man, age 20-30 years at death. Her cranium had acquired a tabular erect
shape, described as a “beautiful” example of the form by Buikstra and Miller (2005: 7)
and in similarly admiring terms by Storey (personal communication, 1988). For a local
woman this shaping is a sign of noble or even royal status, as noted earlier. Although her
upper front teeth were notched, they bore no inlays. When encountered, her skeletal
remains were associated in the chamber with two spindle whorls, a small jade ornament
(earflare?), a bone bead, a fragmentary shell ring, and three pottery vessels. While two of
the vessels were common types at Copan for the eighth and ninth centuries, the third was
CE. Both decedents might have been placed in a seated position, plausibly achieved by
bundling the corpse while still fleshed, as suggested by the arrangement of bones as
These could plausibly have been secondary interments. As in Burial 42-1, the woman’s
practice, is evident at least at the southeast corner of Burial 42-5 (Ashmore 2015; Chase
and Chase 1996, 2003; Eberl 2005: 111-116, 2011; Fitzsimmons 1998, 2002, 2011;
Tiesler 2004). The evidence was a disturbed patio surface east of the southeast corner of
the chamber (Ashmore 1988b). We do not know the exact date of such intrusion, but it
might have involved placement of the simple bowl containing fragmentary remains of
Individual 42-5C, sex-indeterminate but with jade-inlaid teeth. It might also have been
Women of the Copan North Group 12
(Ashmore and DeLance)
then that the male decedent’s bones were confined to a space much more constricted than
serpent head (CPN 15115), possibly once an architectonic element and perhaps an
offering made upon reclosing the crypt. We lack positive evidence of equivalent re-entry
on the north, but presence of a Pabellon Molded-Carved vase implies deposition after 830
CE, as noted earlier. Because of the architectonic allusion across the courtyard on
Structure 8L-74, to a specific date in the Calendar Round linked potentially to the death
crypt in Scherer’s terms (2016: 6), similar in concept with the simple crypt, but larger,
with more complex layouts—here, two in-wall niches—and an internal height of 0.5-1.0
meters. At Burial 42-5, a square stone sat on the patio just east of the chamber location,
and directly overlay a discrete offering of a box containing a small Spondylus shell, a
small shell disk, and a 5cm-long stingray spine—arguably paraphernalia for bloodletting.
Spondylus shells correlate with royalty and ritual, and this box and its contents are very
loosely reminiscent, if in a decidedly diluted manner, of the elaborate cache at the foot of
remains of blood (Fash 2001: 146-149). Akin to the burning on the altar at Burial 42-1,
the ceramic box offering and its contents at Burial 42-5 bespeak commemorative ritual,
for what Houston and colleagues (2003) label the “special dead,” those worthy of
In sum, all three CNG women were laid to rest in a high-status location, as
Women of the Copan North Group 13
(Ashmore and DeLance)
members of potentially differing rank in the uppermost levels of the social pyramid. The
bioarchaeology and cultural associations of the three women evinced indicators of noble
standing for each. For decedents at the Copan North Group, treatment followed common
practices, executed in almost all cases with care and seeming respect.
The potential roles for the elite CNG women are quite varied. Ethnohistoric
evidence places tasks such as weaving textiles and preparing food as squarely in the
domain of Maya women, whatever their social rank. Monumental iconography of women
in ancient Maya sculpture acknowledges some as mothers or wives of rulers, and active
participants in bloodletting rituals in support of the king (Joyce 1992, 1996, 2000;
Marcus 2001; Proskouriakoff 1961). Some were themselves rulers, even warrior queens
2011). Public sculpture and texts occasionally identify women as regents for children
who had ascended to kingship at a very young age, while some women ruled kingdoms in
their own right. Some at Yaxchilan were allotted courtly titles, if largely honorific
(Jackson 2013: 77). DeLance has opened new study of women portrayed on painted
ceramics, exploring the relationship of clothing and pose to elite women’s roles and
statuses (DeLance 2015; Hendon 2002; Houston et al. 2006; Pincemin Deliberos 2003;
Uaxactun royal women “observed face-to-face the political acts of men, commented on
them, and at times participated more directly in them” (Inomata 2008: 63; Miller and
Martin 2004: 94). Indeed, Sarah Jackson (2013: 69) and others note the importance of
Women of the Copan North Group 14
(Ashmore and DeLance)
“witnessing” in the work of all court members. As for domestic work, Mary Miller and
Simon Martin (2004: 95) note that bones of courtly women lacked marks of repetitive
activities like kneeling to grind corn, likely having allocated that and other domestic tasks
to the house staff they managed. Freed of those mundane chores, elite women would have
had more time for “spinning, weaving, and brocading” (McAnany 2010: 119). On the
other hand, Mary Miller (1974) also suggests that women portrayed by Jaina figurines
include slaves. In short, there is ample depictive and textual evidence that Classic Maya
women did many things, and much more than cooking, weaving, letting blood, and
bearing children. Which among these might characterize the lives of the women of the
Copan North Group? We have already asserted their noble standing. We focus on textile
work and on courtly activities—to help weave our interpretive cables (pun intended).
First, textile work: Elite and royal Maya women took prestige from association
with spinning and weaving (Kowalski and Miller 2005). Patricia McAnany and Shannon
Plank (2001:95, emphasis added) even assert “royal women defined themselves in terms
of textile production.” At Chichén Itzá, Ruth Krochock (2002:160) draws from spindle
whorl distribution and unusually large quantities to suggest that the imposing Las Monjas
building was both a residence for elite women and a gathering place for them to spin and
Hendon asserts that, “[a]s in many other cultures where cloth serves as a material symbol
distribution emerges as one domain in which women, especially elite women, may be
able to act independently of men” (1997: 45; Joyce 2000; Reents-Budet 2006). She
observes “a clear correlation between the intensity of cloth production and the highest
bones” carry hieroglyphic texts of ownership (Houston and Stuart 2001:64, 77; McAnany
2010: 184-189). The woman in Copan’s Margarita Tomb, believed to be the queen of the
spinning and weaving, analyzed so thoroughly by Ellen Bell (2002, 2007). These are
thought to mark the queen as the quintessential weaver and the epitome of the female.
The same tomb apparently preserved a fragment of cloth with an impressively high
thread count, attesting to the quality of some woven materials, and perhaps left as an
decedent’s standing. On the other hand, the adult occupant of Burial 1 at Nakum, sex
indeterminate, is identified as a king, whose tomb grave goods include, not only a jade
pectoral, earflares, and an Olmec jade heirloom, but also four spindle whorls at his feet
(Zralka et al. 2012). Spindle whorls are known from two CNG women’s burials, and the
Elsewhere in the Classic Maya world, depictions and texts affirm eloquently that
women of the court played an active role in political machinations. Honorific titles at
Yaxchilan were mentioned earlier. The justly famed murals of Bonampak Structure 1
show multiple roles. On the North wall of Room 1, a woman, likely the queen
Women of the Copan North Group 16
(Ashmore and DeLance)
accompanies the ruler on his throne, adjacent and subservient to her sovereign (Miller
and Brittenham 2013:82-83, 125). In Room 2, the king receives prisoners, while his wife
and his mother observe the judging of war captives, an essential and highly political act
(Miller and Martin 2004:174). And in Room 3, white-robed women let blood from their
tongues, inferred as marking a transition from death of one ruler to emergence of another
(Miller and Brittenham 2013: 142; compare DeLance 2015). All of the CNG women were
plausibly members or attendants of the Copan royal court. Two of them were foreign-
born, and the one in a paired interment was perhaps a wife in marriage alliance.
Maya women. At Calakmul, women are shown selling or dispensing goods such as
pottery, salt, or maize gruel. Today, Maya women produce food and crafts and then sell
them in a public marketplace, and the same could plausibly pertain to ancient Maya
however, is that the famous Calakmul “Lady in Blue” was perhaps “the essence of
quotidian necessaries (Houston 2014). In a similar vein, the five courtly women on the
Princeton Vase are frequently identified as a harem, attending on a smiling God L (Kerr
and Kerr 2005). Our own analytic categories doubtless underplay the richness of ancient
lives.
In sum, elite Maya women likely had complex and varied roles in life. Because
they could delegate mundane domestic tasks to attendants, they would have been able to
apply their own expressive labor in weaving and the like. They would also have had
political obligations including diplomacy, ritual participation, and even royal servitude.
Women of the Copan North Group 17
(Ashmore and DeLance)
Although no depictive evidence illustrates the Copan North Group women directly, the
activities just described and material traces that are available cable together to create a
processing and interment practices, shaped treatment of the Maya deceased at and after
death, of any sex/gender. These are certainly evident in the Copan North Group. But why
the interments: while the woman with jade inlays in the simple pit (42-4) was tucked into
her grave under the base of the low northern Structure 8L-73, the other two women lay in
masonry chambers on the central axes of prominent buildings defining the north and west
sides of Group 8L-10, respectively Structure 8L-72 and 8L-77. Elsewhere in the Maya
area, too, plaza-side central axes of buildings were prime locations for burials and cached
offerings (Ashmore 1988b, 1991; Becker 2003; Carrelli 1990: 181). The architectural
counterpart on the east was the northern building of the Str. 8L-74 platform—the one that
Let us turn now to the burial pairs. Maya multiple burials are encountered
their mutual simultaneity or sequence in burial (Ardren 2002; Carrelli 1990; Chase and
Chase 1996, 1998; Miller 2015a; Scherer et al. 20014; Somerville et al 2016; Weiss-
Krejci 2003: 370-371, 2004). Often these are viewed as family groups, sometimes of
Women of the Copan North Group 18
(Ashmore and DeLance)
multiple generations. We suggest that while the women with tabular erect crania might
have been related to the men with whom they were interred, the relationship need not
In her 1990 thesis on mortuary practices at the Copan North Group, Carrelli
reviewed comparison cases both in and beyond greater Copan. Locally, she notes other
interments with multiple individuals, finding that when women were paired, it was most
often with children. In serendipitous counterpoint, when she wrote, archaeologists had
just encountered the tomb of male Ruler 12, in the Copan Acropolis; a 12-year-old male
accompanied the king, at the north end of the chamber (Carrelli 1990: 106-108; Weiss-
Krejci 2004: 393). With one, almost eerie exception, she found no close counterparts to
the double-occupant interments of the North Group. The exception, Tomb 6, was located
“‘about half a mile north from the [Principal Group], in a northeasterly direction, on the
lower foothills,’ probably in Morley’s Group 5,” according to John M. Longyear (1952:
1.9 m north-south, 76 cm wide, 91 cm high, and roofed by three stone slabs. The chamber
was divided in two by a row of stones, and contained the “[r]otted remains” of one
skeleton in the south, and “parts of a second and skull of a third” north of the stone
divider (Longyear 1952: 42-43). The description suggests almost a mirror image of
Burial 42-5, and from Longyear’s account, they would have been mutually contemporary.
Ceramic forms and the internal separation differ markedly from attributes of Copan North
Group tomb Burial 42-5, and we lack data on the sexes of the deceased. But—and here’s
the eerie part—the location, while inexactly described, would have been very near, if not
the very same as the Copan North Group. During the Copan North Group Project, we
Women of the Copan North Group 19
(Ashmore and DeLance)
could locate no nearby architectural groups that might have sheltered Tomb 6, and we
saw no clear evidence within the North Group of past excavations of that sort. Might the
summit “dip” on the mound of Structure 8L-74, the platform yielding the architectonic
sculpture, signal “collapse” of a previously excavated tomb? Because project goals and
permit did not include probing architecture conclusive testing of the latter was not an
option.
The situation leads us to ponder the cosmogram model again, and to suggest that
burials in the two masonry chambers were acts of mortuary commemoration of more than
thorough and critical assessment of models for Maya social organization, and is a strong
2015a). All we suggest here is that there might have been other relationships as well that
would lead to these individuals’ co-occupancy. As Katie Miller (2015b) put it, “both of
the females had ‘local’ males deposited at their feet.” Mutual similarity of jade pendants
marriage, sibling-ship or other. Rossi tentatively proposes a link for both occupants with
teaching royal arts, as noted earlier. No such similarity occurs in grave goods in tomb
Burial 42-5. In each case the interments were either definitely or plausibly secondary, and
at each site there was material evidence of continuing ritual recognition. Our proposition
is that the two pairs were moved to their final resting places to honor the royal family and
its much admired 13th King, Waxaklajun Ubaah K’awiil, as suggested earlier on one or
bespeaking their elite standing. Our working conclusion remains this: Based on cabling
slightly varied social standing for individual women, while affiliating all three with noble
or royal identities. The reason for their placement in specific places seems partly
determined by that standing, and perhaps partly to wider commemoration of Ruler 13.
The practices leading to inhumation were expectably multiple, and burial sites of two of
the women evinced continued ritual performances, whether in their recognition or that of
the slain king. Recall that Ruler 16 likely commissioned visible construction of the North
Group, and that he was “pre-occupied” with Ruler 13, Waxaklajun Ubaah K’awiil.
Ultimate interment in this location might very well have added to the women’s prestige,