We have already in year 2024 posted three reports by Hellmuth on God N and three on God D. Now we post two on God L and a third report that shows a headdress that shares some features with God L to the point that I call it a “pseudo-God L” headdress. It is worn by warriors and deer hunters and by Maya ballplayers who may be showing their relationship to warriors or to deer hunters. But the actual God L is a patron of long-distance merchants who hiked from the Maya heartland north deep into Mexico (through and past Cacaxtla) and probably also hiked down to Costa Rica (though the Maya may have traded through the Costa Sur where Costa Sur people went back and forth to Costa Rica so that the Peten Maya had only to go to Kaminaljuyu to get goods brought up from the Costa Sur trade network.
It is also now well known that there was a Maya barrio or zone in the imperial capital of Teotihuacan and Teotihuacan barrio in Tikal and probably other sites as well.
It helps to learn how to recognize old God L and how to distinguish him from old God D and old God N.
These reports are to assist the classification and cataloging with search terms for both Kerr rollouts in the new Dumbarton Oaks database and also to assist in the classification and cataloging with search terms for all the Nicholas Hellmuth photos that show God L, that are now donated to Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University.
So a helpful segment is a list of rollouts which have God L in search terms in the Maya Vase Data Base but are unlikely God L whasoever.
Since God L is an aged deity like God N and God D, and since there are now one or maybe even two aged deities—one a deer hunting patron, the other resides also in a giant fanged serpent monster mouth. One is probably the “old dying god” with deer antlers and/or deer ears. We have a monumental four volumes in preparation on the iconography of deer in Maya art that shows all the variants of these old gods—which are listed as God N or occasionally God D in Maya Vase Data Base—most are neither though a few may be God N-variants.
 |
 |
God M is also considered a Merchant God, but he is mainly present in the codices and only rarely in Classic Maya vases, bowls, and plates.
Posted by Nicholas Hellmuth, January 23, 2025
