·     Variants (2):

o A. Boulder – features:

§ A cave or symmetric cave – often divided in half by a vertical line or band, with the right half cross-hatched (to indicate the darkness within the cave).

§ An infixed element, usually straddling the light and dark areas – this element can be one of three things:

·       Bone-jaw with 2 to 4 teeth (touching), on the left upper edge of the jaw.

·    Always straddles the light and dark areas.

·    Halfway between the floor and the ceiling.

·       Eyeball:

·    Always straddles the light and dark areas.

·    Halfway between the floor and the ceiling.

·    (Optionally but quite commonly) there can be an optic nerve to the right.

·    (Optionally) the pupil can be cross-hatched.

·       K’IN:

·    May or may not straddle the light and dark areas.

·    When straddling, it behaves like the bone-jaw and the eyeball, i.e. is halfway between the floor and the ceiling.

·    When not straddling, it can be either:

o  Totally within the dark area (with a tendency to being on the floor in that case?), or

o  Occupy almost the entire area of the cave – in this case there is no dark area anymore.

Do not confuse this with the visually similar MUK = “grave”. Both are divided down the middle by a vertical line or band, with darkness in the right half. MUK has a “step” outline on the top and left, while CH’EEN has a boulder outline. Also, MUK has an infixed skull, whereas CH’EEN has one of the three elements described above.

o B. Bird head – features:

§ Left (optional but common): an element which resembles a bunch of bound sticks:

·       Three or more straight vertical bands (“sticks”), with

·       Three superimposed horizontal cross-bands (top, middle, and bottom), “binding” the “sticks” together.

This often resembles TAJ = “torch”, without the “flames” at the end, however, there are also variants where the three horizontal bands taper to the left, making them resemble flames or leaves rather than bands which “bind” a bunch of sticks (e.g. K&L.p15.#3.6&7&10&12, TOK.p26.r4.c4)

§ Right:

·       A beak on the left.

·       (Optional) feather (=o) in the top right – there are a few rare instances of something resembling a mammal ear (K&L.p15.#3.5 and BMM9.p19.r3.c1).

·       (Optionally) a trilobate element covering the eye, leaves pointing down – it can resemble CH’ICH’ or JUUN (“jewel”).

The “bound element” (the torch-like element on the left) is occasionally omitted (e.g. K&L.p15.#3.1&4&5&8&9&13, MC.p163.r1.c5).

·     Dorota Bojkowska: the difference between CH’EEN (in the K’IN variant) and YIHK’IN is that:

o In CH'EEN:

§ The K'IN is small(er) inside the cave.

§ The K’IN itself is not dark (no part of the K’IN is cross-hatched).

§ Half the cave is dark (with the K’IN partially or mostly in the dark part, and often towards the bottom).

o In YIHK’IN:

§ The K'IN occupies (almost) the whole cave.

§ Half the K'IN is dark (i.e. cross-hatched).

·     Do not confuse the bird-head variant of CH’EEN with the (only superficially) vaguely similar variant of ha (the “knot and skull” variant):

o In CH'EEN:

§ The element on the left is a bundle of sticks tied in three positions.

§ The element on the right is a bird-head.

o In ha:

§ The element on the left is an asymmetric knot.

§ The element on the right is a skull.