CMGG entry for lem?      (This article is part of the Learner's Maya Glyph Guide and Concordance.)

Translation: shiny
Part of speech: Adjective

Logogram spellings of lem?

                                                      

TOK.p6.r5.c1                       TOK.p6.r5.c2                       BMM9.p10.r5.c4              

LEM?                                    LEM?                                     LEM?                                   

 

         

25EMC.pdfp41.#5                                                           

LEM?                                                                                 

 

                                                                

TOK.p18.r1.c1                    MHD.SM6                     0121hc                           1017ab                         

LEM?                                    LEM?                             LEEM?

 

·     No glyphs given in K&H, K&L.

·     The pronunciation and more precise meaning of this logogram appears to be quite uncertain:

o Only TOK, BMM9, 25EMC list the glyph at all, and all three sources have LEM? for the pronunciation.

o In the iconography, it’s an element used to label shiny objects (polished surfaces, fruit, etc), but only 25EMC gives a tentative meaning “shiny?”.

o Furthermore, it appears to also mark divinity, when it’s shown on the body of a full figure in the iconography – HrubyEtAl-AICV.p157.pdfp5.c1.para-1 (in connection with an unusual vessel excavated at Ucí): Panel I (Fig. 60 depicts an old god. The large squarish cycs, perhaps infixed with mirrors, and god markings on his arms show that this is not a mortal, and the chapfallen smile indicates advanced age. [Sim: he has a LEM-like element on each upper arm and on his left thigh.]

o Even without glyphs, the word lem is not listed in the dictionary parts of K&H, K&L and EB (from which K&H and K&L are derived).

·     Variants (2):

o A. Abstract: rectangular boulder outline containing one internal arc and that internal arc containing, in turn, its own internal arc.

o B. Head: an anthropomorphic head (human or god) with the abstract variant infixed in the forehead (and optionally in the bottom right?).