·    No glyphs given in K&H.

·    Aquatic monster associated with “springs”, “flowing water”.

·    The individual components are not to be read separately – the 2 or 3 elements all join to form a single logogram.

·    Features – variants (4):

o Bottom: zoomorphic head, representing a Waterlily Serpent.

§ The eye is a single “left feeler”, optionally (but often) with a “cruller” under and on both sides of the eye.

§ Beak-like mouth.

§ “Reptilian spiral” on the right of the mouth.

§ Occasionally, crossed bands in the mouth.

o Top:

§ A. HA’.

·        This variant can have a “bow” knotted around the middle of the HA’ – e.g. TOK.p28.r3.c3, T1031b, MHD.SS1a, though MHD does not recognize a reading of WITZ’ for it, only “13” (see below, under other uses of the Waterlily Serpent).

·        The basic HA’ variant can have an optional “fin-like” element on the left (BMM9.p15.r2.c2, TOK.p28.r3.c1, 1031st). This could be just a vestige of the “bow” knotted around the HA’, or it could be a separate, unrelated element. It’s unclear how the optional 3 touching dots of MHD.SS2b relate to either of these aforementioned elements.

§ B. WINIK – Stuart-RtWS.p1.para4 calls this a “dotted WINIK”:

·        The dots are not clear in the article itself, the TOK example does not have dots, but the K&L, BMM9, and 25EMC examples do.

·        On the other hand, the BMM9 example is not totally a WINIK, as there is a le in the top, making it slightly like NAHB.

·        Kupprat “Los mayas y los otros: integración y distinción cultural en el paisaje urbano y rural de Copán”.p47.fig2 shows many examples of WITZ’ with a WINIK without dots, e.g. e, f, g, h, i (mostly from CPN and QRG).

·        Some of the WINIK’s have the optional fin-like element of the HA’ variant (TOK.p28.r3.c2, BMM9.p15.r2.c3, 25EMC.pdfp51.#5.2,  MHD.SS3b.1&2, 1032st).

§ C. Scroll with dotted protector – Bonn (1543st) reads this variant as WITZ’ but MHD (SS1b.2) reads it as HAAB:

·        A circle with a bold wall forming an “anticlockwise spiral”, i.e. resulting in what slightly resembles a bold “left feeler” emerging from the centre of the floor.

·        Inside the circle, a dotted spine / arc of non-touching dots, acting as a sort of protector from above for the bold feeler (= end of the spiral).

·        MHD.SS1b.1 appears to be a compound / “hybrid” form, with both the scroll (in the right half) and the knotted bow (in the left half).

This variant is listed under WITZ’ only for the sake of completeness, because Bonn assigns it the reading WITZ’. A search in MHD on “blcodes contains SS1b” yields 49 hits, an overwhelming number of which are immediately preceded by a coefficient and which (presumably) can be seen to be in a calendrical context where the reading of HAAB is appropriate.

§ D. “PET”:

·        A circle with, within it, either a smaller circle or a “washer”.

·        Flanking and under the circle is a single curved element, very slightly reminiscent of the “cruller” under and on both sides of the eye of the JGU. However, the one associated with this “PET”-variant of WITZ’ has a spine in the flanking elements, making them slightly resemble “fins”.

·    MHD statistics (2024-06-21) – a search in MHD on “blcodes contains <XXX>” where <XXX> = SS1b, SS2b, SS3b, SS4b gives the following results:

 

#	Witz’ glyph	Hits
1	SS1b (“protected scroll” variant)	(49)
2	SS2b (HA’ variant)	32
3	SS3b (WINIK variant)	29
4	SS4b (PET variant)	26

 

The hits for SS1b can be ignored as all of them are read as HAAB not WITZ’. This is because MHD does not read this “protected scroll” variant of the Waterlily Serpent as WITZ’, only Bonn does. We have 32 + 29 + 26 = 87, so each of the 3 variants (infixed HA’, WINIK, PET) are equally represented in writing WITZ’ (approximately 30 each out of a total of about 90).

·    In the first three variants, there can be an additional (optional) element – a knotted bow (resembling a floppy variant of che), or in some cases a “hairlock” (though this is possibly just a variant of the knotted bow). Could this be HUUN, intended to write JUUN (as in Juun Witz’)? A close examination of MHD.SS1b.1 reveals even a YAX in the top left corner, suggesting perhaps Yax Juun Witz’. This is perhaps all the more likely as MHD.SS3b.1 even has a “jewel” JUUN in the top left.

·    Do not confuse this with the phonetically almost identical WITZ (the -tz at the end is unglottalized) which means “mountain”.

·    Do not confuse this with the visually similar animal head variant of K’AHK’ – that one has a full variant K’AHK’ “fire” on top, with a monster head underneath, whereas this one has HA’ “water” or “dotted WINIK” on top, with a monster head underneath.

·    Usage of the Waterlily Serpent in other contexts:

o Written within a “blood cartouche”, in the context of a CR, it is a variant of IMIX (the connection being “water” vs. “Waterlily Serpent”).

o An animal head variant of HAAB as a calendar unit has the Waterlily Serpent with an (abstract) Haab, an element representing a waterlily, or with an element having a left feeler / scroll infixed in the head.

o An animal head variant of “13” has the Waterlily Serpent with an (abstract) Haab, an element representing a waterlily, or with an element having a left feeler / scroll infixed in the head.