·     Features:

o Left hand viewed from the back of the hand, with fingers outstretched, pointing right.

o Thumb vertical.

·     Three examples (JM.p75.3, JM.p75.2, and K&L.p36.#3.2) have a different element inside the hand. These are all nevertheless just the partitive disk:

o In the case of JM.p75.2 the crescent pointing up is an early version of the partitive disk, which later became just a dot.

o In the case of JM.p75.3 and K&L.p36.#3.2, it’s perhaps an eroded form.

·     Do not confuse CH’AM = “to grasp”(glottalized initial consonant) with the phonetically similar CHAM = “to die” (unglottalized initial consonant).

·     Do not confuse CH’AM = “to grasp” with the visually similar (y)al = “son of mother”.

o In CH’AM, the hand grasps an “AJAW”-face, whereas in (y)AL = “son of mother” the hand grasps a “sprout” (= bold feeler with protector).

o Canonically, this “AJAW”-face is right-side-up. There are two instances (CPN Altar Q and BMM9) showing the “AJAW”-face upside-down:

§ CPN Altar Q: the preceding u- supports a reading of CH’AM – it would have a ya preceding (as initial phonetic complement) if it were YAL.

§ BMM9: It is difficult to know in this case as BMM9 doesn’t give a reference to a source / context.

·     YAX Lintel 10 has 3 instances of a hand grasping an “AJAW”-face, but there the “AJAW”-face is upside-down. They are read as YAL because of the presence a ya as initial phonetic complement and the fact that “son of mother fits in that context”.