·     No glyphs given in K&H, K&L, BMM9, 25EMC.

·     Deer-heads and rabbit-heads resemble one another in certain ways (both have a “droopy” ear, and the head is that of a herbivore). In the case of HEEW, it’s a deer-head (see below).

·     Readings:

o TOK.p30.r3.c4 lists it but treats it as a syllabogram he, not the logogram HEEW.

o Houston-AFCHIT.p3-4 treats this as a logogram – HEEW.

o Other epigraphers have HE’EW (or hen / he’en, see below under syllabogram-only spellings).

·     Sim: with a wa following it (e.g. in PAL Palace Tablet B18) this glyph could just as easily be treated as a he, giving he:wa è he’ew. Indeed, in other contexts (even without the wa at the end), it could still be he with the ‑w underspelled, to write he’ew. Either analysis seems equally valid:

o As a logogram HEEW, with or without end phonetic complement wa.

o As a syllabogram he, with wa spelling he’ew, and without wa still nevertheless spelling he’ew (with underspelling).

Nevertheless, Houston gives a convincing argument that it’s HEEW not he (see next bullet-point).

·     Houston-AFCHIT.p3.para2.l+3: The title is followed by a partially preserved distance number that led to the lost record of another event—mi-HEEW-mi-WINAAK-ji-[ya] …, “no days, no months, … thence.” The numeral classifier for the “count of days” is written here with a rare version of the logograph HEEW, which depicts a deer head under two bones; to our knowledge, the only other example occurs on Bonampak Sculptured Stone 1:C1. It differs slightly from other versions that display a deer head with two crossed bones over the eye (e.g., Pestac Stela 1:D6; Palenque Palace Tablet:B18; Quirigua Stela H:T2) or a deer head with two bones that frame the head (Tonina Monument 162:A, Monument 170:A, Monument 175:pJ). Possibly, these relate to images of deer covered by mantles with crossed bones and eyeballs (e.g., Ek’ Balam Mural of the Deer; K2785). Excepting a few examples (Bonampak Sculptured Stone 1:C1; Quirigua Stela H:T2), the sign is usually complemented by a syllable wa. This surely cues a complex vowel in a logograph read HEEW. Importantly, the sign under discussion is not attested in other contexts, which excludes its interpretation as a syllable he. [Sim:

o Houston distinguishes three different sub-variants (or perhaps two, with one having two sub-sub-variants).

o Viewing this glyph as related to a deer-head rather than a rabbit-head is undoubtedly due to some examples where a XUKUB = “deer antler” is visible as a forehead ornament (e.g. 1692st).]

·     The defining characteristics for this glyph are:

o A dear-head with an L-shaped ear (if not obscured by other elements such as bones).

o One or two bones, either in an X-configuration obscuring the eye, or in an L-formation on the top and right of the glyph.

o (Optionally) a XUKUB = “deer antler” as forehead ornament. The (also optional) YAX-outline as forehead ornament is probably the remnants of the XUKUB forehead ornament. This too might be absent if obscured by other elements such as bones).

·     Houston-IU.p74.pdfp21.fig3.14b (CPN HS) is an example of a full-figure variant:

o The “deer ear” of the head variant appears as the full figure of a deer.

o Curiously the two bones don’t appear in this particular example – the element in/covering the eye is a K’IN (perhaps the actual K’IN of which the HEEW is the noun-classifier?).

o The glyph-block reference is not given, perhaps in part because so many of the glyph-blocks of the CPNHS are known not to be in their original position. I was unable to find the glyph-block in MHD:

§ AV3 is the mammal head with crossbones. I looked for “objabbr contains CPNHS” and “blcodes contains AV3” but only “13” and ZQ1a/“MIH” turn up as coefficients in this context (while the Houston-IU drawing suggests a coefficient of “14” (or possibly “12”, if there are two fillers)). So, in all likelihood, the full-figure HEEW is not coded as AV3 in MHD.

§ Conversely, a search on “objabbr contains CPNHS” and “blcodes contains 014” produces 7 hits, but most of them are coefficients of other units than that of “day” (winals, tuns, and katuns, with one being the coefficient of tz’akbul = “successor” and another of a Haab date). The only occurrence of ”014” as a coefficient of the day unit is with SN4b/“K’IN(ICH)”, which isn’t HEEW.

§ Unfortunately, MHD doesn’t have a glyph-block by glyph-block series of drawings for this inscription, as it does with practically every inscription. This means that it’s not possible to do a visual search for the full-figure deer by stepping through, glyph-block by glyph-block (which would be very difficult anyway, given that this inscription has more than 1,100 glyph-blocks).

·     Do not confuse HEEW with the visually (slightly) similar K’EK’EN = “peccary”:

o HEEW has a deer head with (often) crossbones over the eye (or some form of bones elsewhere).

o K’EK’EN has a mammal head with a trilobate nose, with a trilobate element over the eye.