·     AJ <K’UH.mu>:li è aj k’u’mil / aj k’u’mul = “seller of nixtamal”.

·     In AT-E1168-lecture11.t0:46:43-47:34, Tokovinine explains: And then the other person is a seller of nixtamal. So in Mesoamerica – to facilitate the digestion of corn – they actually soaked the grains with calcium – with limestone – usually overnight. And then they ground them. So ground and soaked corn is called nixtamal in Mexico today – that’s from the language of the Aztecs – but it’s called k’u’mil or k’u’mul in the Classic Maya inscriptions. So that’s probably a corn dough – like, ground and nixtamalized (soaked in lime) – ready for tortilla, for a corn bread, for tamales. Once again there seems to be a sampler plate, and somebody is checking [it] out. You can’t eat it, but you can cook with it, so presumably a buyer is making sure it’s proper nixtamalized corn.

·     Of course there is enough information on nixtamalization available on the internet, but not that many to nixtamalized corn in Maya inscriptions. Tokovinine’s explanation may be a summary of an analysis by Martin (see next bullet point). The glottalized-u in aj k’u’mil / aj k’u’mul is got from the text of the slide – in Tokovinine’s pronunciation, the glottalized-u is less clear.

·     Martin-HftPP.p69.pdfp5.c2.para2: Although quite well preserved, the caption is very difficult to read (Figure 22). After AJ, we have three signs, the first of which is a curl motif normally ascribed the value mu. Here it is joined to the portrait of “God C” usually read K’UH “god,” and completed by a suffixed li. It is strange to see the God C head in this context and we might interpret it in one of two ways. Firstly, it could be joined to the curl as part of a single compound sign. The full-form of mu combines the curl with a toad-like head, and it is possible that God C replaces it in a rare or idiosyncratic variant. The poorly understood overlap between mu and bu in the script might tempt us to entertain bu as another possible value. While mu-li is not meaningful in this context, bu-li would yield bu’ul “bean,” of potential relevance to the bean-shaped object in the male’s hand. However, another Phase 3 text, from SO-O1 (Figure 38), shows bu in its more conventional form—casting the “bean” reading into the realm of wishful thinking. This leads us to the second option, a spelling strategy in which logograms lose their semantic function and are used for their sound value alone. Although the God C portrait works as logographic K’U “god” in Postclassic Yukatek (Ringle 1988), this is only because this is a language in which terminal aspirants have been lost. In Classic times it always carries the glottal aspirant and was read as K’UH (Stuart et al. 1999:41). No viable contender for the sequence as written, mu-K’UH-li muk’uhil, emerges from Mayan lexicons, but if superimposition is at work, then the order could easily be K’UH-mu-li, setting up a possible tie to k’u(h)m/ch’u(h)m “calabaza” (David Stuart, personal communication 2006). An even better option may come from an entry in Ch’orti’ of k’ujmar “special dough for making tamales” (Hull 2005:76; Alfonso Lacadena, personal communication 2007). Related terms are found in Yukatekan languages, specifically k’u’um “nixtamal” (Barrera Vásquez et al. 1980:422; Bricker et al. 1998:159; Hofling and Tesucún 1997:401; Ulrich and Ulrich 1976:64). In this scenario K’UH-mu-li would produce k’uhmil or k’uhmuul.

·     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization: Nixtamalization (/nɪʃtəməlaɪˈzeɪʃən/) is a process for the preparation of maize, or other grain, in which the grain is soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution, usually limewater […], washed, and then hulled. […] // Nixtamalized maize has several benefits over unprocessed grain: It is more easily ground, its nutritional value is increased, flavor and aroma are improved, and mycotoxins are reduced by up to 97%–100% (for aflatoxins). // Lime and ash are highly alkaline: the alkalinity helps the dissolution of hemicellulose, the major glue-like component of the maize cell walls, and loosens the hulls from the kernels and softens the maize. Corn's hemicellulose-bound niacin is converted to free niacin (a form of vitamin B3), making it available for absorption into the body, thus helping to prevent pellagra. // […] As a result, while cornmeal made from untreated ground maize is unable by itself to form a dough on addition of water, the chemical changes in masa [= maize dough that comes from ground nixtamalized corn] allow dough formation. These benefits make nixtamalization a crucial preliminary step for further processing of maize into food products, and the process is employed using both traditional and industrial methods, in the production of tortillas and tortilla chips (but not corn chips), tamales, hominy, and many other items.