CMGG entry for haab      (This article is part of the Learner's Maya Glyph Guide.)

Translation: calendar unit haab, 3rd position in the LC = 360 days = Maya “year”
Part of speech: Noun

Logogram spellings of haab

                                                         

K&H.p55.#3.2                 TOK.p12.r4.c2               BMM9.p11.r6.c3                     25EMC.pdfp34.#6.1&2&3&4

HAAB                                HAAB                              HAB                                           HAB

 

                        

K&L.p63.#1                                                                                                                                                         IC.p16.pdfp20.#3.1&2

                                                                                                                                                                              TUUN / HAAB

HAAB                                                                                                                                                                   

 

                   

MHD.XH2a.1&2&3&4                                                                                    0548bt           0548bv =  Grube-WwH.p169.fig2a                    

HA’B                                                                                                                  HAAB             

 

                   

BPK Stela 2 D3                       

13.<HAAB:ya>                       

 

                                                                                               

K&H.p55.#3.1 = BMM9.p19.r3.c2              TOK.p27.r2.c4                      25EMC.pdfp34.#6.5&6&7&8                                                                 

HAAB                   HAB                                    HAAB                                     HAB                                                                                                             

 

                                                         

K&L.p63.#2.1-10&16                                                                                             IC.p16.pdfp20.#3.3&4                          Montgomery = Coll-1                 

                                                                                                                                                                                                    YAX HS2 Step 7 M2      

HAAB                                                                                                                        TUUN / HAAB                                         13.HAAB                         

 

                                                                   

MHD.SB5.1&2                                     1034st = Grube-WwH.p169.fig2c                    YAX Lintel 48 B7-B8

HA’B                                                      HAAB                                                                    HAAB

 

                                                                           

0548hp = Grube-WwH.p169.pdfp5fig2b (Prager)              T1031c

HAAB                                                                                          -

 

                                           

K&L.p63.#2.11                    MHD.SS8                 T1031d

HAAB                                    HA’B                         -

                                                                                      

Stuart                                    Schele                                                                Looper

PNG Stela 3 E1b                  DO Unprovenanced Panel 2 (PAL)                QRG Stela E C4

3:HAAB:ya                           4.<HAAB:ya>                                                     0.HAAB

 

            

K&L.p63.#2.12&14                                     MHD.SS1b.2

HAAB                                                             HA’B

 

                                                                           

K&L.p63.#2.13&15                              IC.p16.pdfp20.#3.6                   MHD.SS1a                   MHD.SS1b.1

                                                                YAX Lintel 48 B7-B8                                                        

HAAB                                                      TUUN / HAAB                            “13”                              HA’B

 

0548bb

HAAB                                 

 

                   

0548hh                             

HAAB                                 

 

                                    

IC.p16.pdfp20.#3.5                   

PAL PT B7-B8                             

TUUN / HAAB                            

 

·    AT-E1168-lecture6.t0:37:03 is where Tokovinine explains that HAAB is a drum.

·    The “traditional” explanation (among epigraphers) was that drums were used to celebrate the change of the year, and hence by extension came to indicate a year, but Dorota Bojkowska says this is now no longer considered correct, and that the iconographic origin of HAAB is not even actually a drum.

·    Variants (6):

o A. Abstract:

§ A boulder outline with a horizontal line dividing it into two parts:

·      Top:

o    A bold inverted-U, forming a second “ceiling”.

o    Two non-touching vertical bars from the second ceiling to the floor, optionally cross-hatched.

·      Bottom:

o    a circle in the centre.

o    two arcs – one on the left and one on the right, attached to the ceiling.

These three elements form a sort of “face”.

·      Optionally, below the bottom: two or three circles (medium sized) – left and right and (optionally middle, and optionally non-touching or touching when there are three). This is often indicated in CMGG transliterations with a “blue dot” (“●”) – an element which sometimes occurs at the bottom of this variant of HAAB, but which is not a reflection of anything in the pronunciation.

·      Are there some epigraphers who consider this element to be a variant of ba, making it perhaps an end phonetic complement for HAAB?

·      Bonn also recognizes a sub-variant of the abstract variant – a reduced form consisting basically of just the three dots (in this case non-touching). Bonn’s 0548bb is the only example I know of – the printed pedagogical sources do not give this variant.

BPK Stela 2 D3 is an unusual form – extremely stylized and with very simple lines, perhaps even “more abstract” than the usual abstract variant.

o B. Bird-head (most of K&L.p63.#2):

§ AT-E1168-lecture6.t0:34:55-36:55 discusses the head variants of PIK, WINIKHAAB, and HAAB. For HAAB, Tokovinine explains that:

·      It’s a bird, but in this case, a skeletal bird as there is:

o    A skeletal jaw (“bone-jaw”).

o    A skull-like opening instead of nostrils (although beaks don’t technically have a nose).

·      The eye has a HIX infixed. This is either a:

o     A “full” HIX: a horizontal line dividing the top and bottom half, with “grass blades” on the bottom of the top half and three non-touching dots in a triangular formation, triangle pointing downwards, or

o    Just three non-touching dots in a triangular formation, triangle pointing downwards.

·      There are jaguar spots in the upper part of the head.

§ Summary of distinguishing characteristics: a bird-head (usually with two syllabogram o feathers, one on each side of the head) with a bone-jaw and nose-hole, HIX-eye, jaguar spots in the upper part of the head.

o C. Waterlily Serpent with infixed HAAB:

§ Bottom – the Waterlily Serpent.

§ Top – the abstract variant of HAAB (0548pp/0548hp, T1031c, PNG Stela 3 E1b, DO Unprovenanced Panel 2 (PAL), QRG Stela E C4, K&L.p63.#2.11). As with other instances of the Waterlily Serpent, this variant can have an optional “knotted bow” above (K&L.p63.#2.11) or around (MHD.SS8, T1031d) the HAAB. Just as a matter of convenience, I’m treating the two elements flanking the HAAB in T1031d as a variant of the knotted bow, though they could be something completely different.

Chinchilla-ItCotMG.p438.pdfp15.para1.l+6: Stuart suggests a reading for its hieroglyphic name as Juun Witz’ Nah Kan. In the hieroglyphic script, the Water-Lily Serpent served as the head variant of the number thirteen, and it also substituted for the HAAB’ logogram. Several studies interpret it as symbolizing standing bodies of water. This may explain its association with the Maize God, who frequently appears in aquatic settings in ancient Maya art. MHD makes the useful distinction of SS1 being the Waterlily Serpent but SS1a = “13” vs. SS1b = HAAB. This enables accurate statistics to be gathered (see below).

o D. Waterlily Serpent with infixed scroll:

§ Bottom – the Waterlily Serpent.

§ Top:

·      A scroll from the floor going upwards and curling to the left (K&L.p63.#2.12&14, MHD.SS1b.2, though K&L.p63.#2.14 lacks the dotted protector that the other two have).

·      These have an optional “knotted bow” around or under the element containing the scroll (K&L.p63.#2.13&15, IC.p16.pdfp20.#3.6, MHD.SS1b.1.

o E. Head:

§ This is simply the animated form of the abstract variant – it has the abstract variant infixed in a (somewhat) generic head – perhaps that of an old man.

§ Bonn’s 0548hh is the only example I know of for this variant – the printed pedagogical sources do not give this variant.

o F. Full figure:

§ So far, I’ve only seen them in PAL PT (the HAAB on YAX Lintel 48 is a bird-head).

·    MHD statistics (2024-09-29). These statistics are available only for the abstract, bird-head, and waterlily-serpent variants (and the two waterlily-serpent variants are rolled into one group for convenience). This is because I’m not aware of the MHD codes for the last two variants – if they even exist. And even if they did and I knew them, the number of hits for these two obscure variants would probably be extremely low anyway. The MHD search was “blcodes contains <3-character-MHD-code>”:

o Abstract/MHD.XH2a/0548bt/0548bv: 1,554 hits.

o Bird-head/MHD.SB5/1034st: 275 hits.

o Waterlily serpent/MHD.(SS8+SS1b): 169 hits (= 119 + 50).

This shows that the abstract variant is far more common for writing HAAB than either of the two animated variants, as one might expect.

·    Some epigraphers make the distinction that the Haab is 365 days long, being the days of the Haab-calendar, with 18 months of 20 days and 1 month of 5 days (360 + 5 = 365) vs. the Tun which is 360 days long, being the 3rd unit in the LC (acting like an odometer). However, in practice the two terms are used interchangeably.