·     In addition to meaning “big”, it is also a noun meaning “banner” (perhaps because banners are big/wide?):

o 25EMC.pdpf56.c2: lakam – banner; great; title.

o BMM9.p110.pdfp44.#12 lakam n / adj “banner” / “great”

o EB.p122.pdfp127.#3 lakam (1) n. “banner” » la-LAKAM-ma > lakam “banner” (giving as reference K2914 “House of the Tax Collector”).

o EB.p215.pdfp220.#26: banner lakam.

o K&H.p85.pdfp87.#1  LAKAM lakam:

§ (1) banner (n) la-ka-ma.

§ (2) great (n) LAKAM-ma.

§ (3) title (n) LAKAM.

o K&H.p110.pdfp112.#12 lakam n / adj “banner” / “great” (Also as a military and administrative rank/title).

o K&L.p29.pdfp29.#1: ‘banner’ ‘estandarte, bandera’ (Rebus for lakam ‘great).

o K&L.p97.pdfp97.#12 =  K&H.p110.pdfp112.#12.

·     It is also a non-royal title held by a person in the Classic Maya administrative system:

o Tokovinine&Beliaev-PotR.p179.c1.para2.l+3: a district governor or lakam.

o Martin-AMP.p93.para4: Another object-derived epithet comes from the word LAKAM, “banner” (Lacadena 2008; see Martin 2014a: table 8) (Figure 9e). It was first recognised on an unprovenanced cylindrical vessel (Kerr 1992: 640), where three such lords sit before a king of Motul de San José adjacent to the statement tz’ahpaj upatan ux lakam yichonal, “the tribute of the three lakam is set down in his sight” (Houston and Stuart 2001: 69). It is clear that they have delivered the bundled goods in the scene, but conceivably they were also involved in its collection (Lacadena 2008: 7–9).

o Lacadena-ETL is a 21-page paper discussing this title. Lacadena-ETL.p23.pdfp1.abstract: Lakam – LAKAM-ma, la-LAKAM-ma, la-ka-ma – is a rare title mentioned in some few Maya hieroglyphic texts from the Classic Period, first identified by Houston and Stuart (2001). The contexts in which this title appears relate it at the same time both to tributary and military activities. In this work it is proposed that lakam is a title involved in the internal organization of Classic Maya kingdoms. The lakams would be the officers responsible of collecting tribute and recruiting warriors from the administrative units on their responsibility, quarters or districts within the cities and towns that conform Classic Maya kingdoms, being equivalents to Northern Yucatan Postclassic ah cuch cab. The mention of the lakam title on minor supports—texts on pottery—and its apparent absence from monumental epigraphic and iconographic records suggest that it is a minor-level rank title, whose bearers possibly did not belong to nobility nor formed part of the Royal Court. The identification of the lakams could partially answer the proposals made from Archaeology concerning the existence of intermediate social segments placed in between the ruling nobility and the mass of commoners, at the same time that throws some light on the internal organization of Maya kingdoms in the Classic Period.

o This is a Late Classic title, see Foias-AMPD.p128.l-5: Lacadena (2008) has suggested that the rare Late Classic title of lakam may refer to new political positions, and possibly positions for non-elites, and may also signify the beginning of a process of bureaucratization during the Late Classic.

o This is not a common title, Foias-AMPD.p119.para2.l+2: The administrative title of lakam, which appears in only a few polychrome vessel texts from Peten, may have applied to non-elites. The duties of this office possibly involved the collection of tribute and military contingents from intrasettlement districts or neighborhoods (Lacadena 2008).

o Raven (personal communication 2022) explains that Lakamoob were tax collectors – rather low-ranking officials – and definitely not members of the nobility – as evidenced by the fact that they are portrayed and spoken about on vases, but never on monuments: neither in the text nor iconography of a monument.

o In reference to K4996 (“The Tribute of the Three Lakams”):

§ Prager&Wagner-aPLX.p11.pdfp11.para4 says that: A speech scroll between the central text box and the king’s face indicates that the main text field contains the “transcription” of the king’s speech to the three seated officials bearing the title lakam, an epithet most likely referring to administrative or tax officials (Lacadena García-Gallo 2008) or district governors (Tokovinine and Beliaev 2013:175).

§ MHD (“objabbr = COLK4996”) translates lakam as “governor” (glyph-blocks M3, M6, and S).

·     The term is also sometimes translated as “bannerman” (probably because the office holder carried a lakam = banner, after which the office is named):

o Powell-AoaMA.p1.figure-label: A Maya vase painting depicts a procession of men identified by hieroglyphs as lakam, an obscure official title that is translated as “bannerman.”

o Powell-AoaMA.p2.para1: It also references Ajpach’ Waal’s official title of lakam, or “bannerman,” an obscure term that Mayanists have speculated about since it was deciphered three decades ago.

o Powell-AoaMA.p3-6: The decipherment of any unknown glyph can change the trajectory of scholars’ efforts to understand this complicated history. Around 1990, University of Texas at Austin epigrapher David Stuart deciphered a Maya hieroglyph that phonetically spelled the word “lakam,” which in modern Yucatec Maya means banner or flag. He found the hieroglyph paired with the word for stone, and, when placed together, the hieroglyphs stood for the word meaning stela. “The Maya understanding of a stela is a stone flag,” says Stuart. “So we had the word ‘lakam’ and understood it as an upright monument.” With the glyph for lakam translated, Stuart and other Mayanists began to notice that “lakam” was used in another, albeit rare, context. A handful of ceramic vessels were painted with the lakam glyph next to depictions of men sometimes sitting near kings in courtly settings. The late epigrapher Alfonso Lacadena of the Complutense University of Madrid proposed that lakam occupied an as-yet-unknown category of official or noble. They may have been men whose social standing lay somewhere between the nobles of the royal court and the mass of Maya commoners. Some of these lakam were depicted speaking with the king, often with bags of goods nearby. One example showed the lakam as part of a war party. Perhaps, proposed Lacadena, lakam were the king’s flag bearers, officials responsible for collecting tribute or for administering military affairs. But depictions of lakam are so rare that it was difficult to know what they really did or how significant a role they played in Maya society. // [Sim: The discovery of Aj Pach’ Waal’s Hieroglyphic Stairway and the subsequent decipherment of its text is then described, including the new knowledge of his journey from El Parma to Copán and back.] The knowledge that Ajpach’ Waal undertook some kind of diplomatic mission in the service of the king of Calakmul is bringing the roles lakam played in ancient Maya society into sharper focus. “We had questions about the lakam, and it remains a fairly rare title,” says Stuart. “But the thing with these glyphs is, it couldn’t be clearer what he was doing.” As a diplomatic official, perhaps Ajpach’ Waal was a metaphorical banner for the king, or perhaps he even carried a banner or standard of some sort as he traveled and engaged in diplomatic rituals at foreign capitals.

o Smith-AMAGRHSDL.p1: As a sign of his office, Apoch' Waal carried a banner on a pole while he walked hundreds of miles to broker alliances between the most powerful dynasties in the Maya world.

·     Sim (summary): the most common context for this word is that of handing over tribute to the ruler (or his wife). That’s the reason for the translation “tax collector”. However, it’s entirely reasonable that such a person also administered the area he collected the taxes from. Hence the other translation of “(district) governor”. Both  sajal and lakam can hence be translated as “(district/provincial) governor”. However, there is a huge difference between these two positions. A  sajal is a military function, and he appears with the ruler in connection with war and the taking (or handing over or humiliation) of captives. In contrast, a lakam is an administrative function, and he appears with the ruler in connection with the handing over of taxes. Smith-AMAGRHSDL shows that diplomatic duties could also be included. This is hardly surprising as administration and diplomacy shade into one another. Lacadena-ETL.p23.pdfp1.abstract posits that the recruiting of warriors from the administrative units under their responsibility was also an important part of their duties.