·    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 (optionally, but rarely, bold) dividing it into two parts:

·      Top:

o    An inverted-U (optionally bold), forming a second “ceiling”.

o    Two non-touching vertical bands 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 “main sign” glyphs, 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):

§ It’s well established that PIK, WINIKHAAB, HAAB each have a bird-head variant. As a rule of thumb, the bird-head has:

·      In PIK: A hand-jaw.

·      In WINIKHAAB: Neither a hand-jaw nor a bone-jaw – an “ordinary jaw” (actually, no jaw at all, the word “ordinary” is just for the sake of the mnemonic – see below).

·      In HAAB: A bone-jaw.

Mnemonic: H.O.B = Hand-jaw, Ordinary-jaw, Bone-jaw – think of a bird unable to fly, hobbling along – for PIK, WINIKHAAB, HAAB, respectively.

§ 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 birds don’t technically have a nose).

·      The eye is that of a jaguar.

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

§ Summary of distinguishing characteristics:

·      A bird-head with two o feathers:

o    The left one “outside” the main outline, like a “forehead ornament”.

o    The right one “inside” the main outline, in the top right corner.

·      A bone-jaw and nose hole.

·      (Optionally, but very commonly) a “HIX-face”-like eye:

o    A small circle divided in two halves by a horizontal line.

o    Top half: “blades of grass” / a series of vertical ticks on the floor.

o    Bottom half: three non-touching dots in a triangle, pointing down (a “face”).

The ticks or the face may be absent, sometimes even the horizontal dividing line, leaving just the three dots in a triangular formation inside the circle.

·      (Optionally, but very rarely) the “darkness” property marker in the middle right (K&L.p63.#2.3&5&6) – not to be used as a distinguishing characteristic; mentioned only for the sake of completeness.

·      (Optionally, but quite commonly) a 3-compoent element in the bottom right which resembles an “upside down SAK”:

o    It consists of a circle, a grip or semicircle, two or three leaves, with the leaves pointing downwards (K&H.p55.#3.1, 25EMC.pdfp34.#6.7, K&L.p63.#2.4&7&16, IC.p16.pdfp20.#3.4).

o    The circle may contain another circle, a washer, or a scroll.

o    This component may be replaced by another 3-element component: a larger circle with a quincunx in it with two smaller touching la--faces below it (K&L.p63.#2.1).

o    There is a remote possibility that this is some form of an earspool, but unlikely.

·      (Optionally) jaguar spots in the upper part of the head (TOK.p27.r2.c4,  K&L.p63.#2.1). The spots can also be dots of more even size and more regular distribution (K&L.p63.#2.4&7&8,  MHD.SB5.2) and this “shades into” the bony properly marker not inappropriate for a skeletal bird-head (K&L.p63.#2.3).

o C. Waterlily Serpent with infixed HAAB:

§ Bottom – the Waterlily Serpent.

§ Top – the abstract variant of HAAB (0548pp/0548hp, T1031c, PNG Stela 3 E1b, Dumbarton Oaks 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.