Itzamnaaj Bahlam III

Sixty-one years on the throne, and what everyone knows about him is a lintel in which he holds a torch while his wife pulls a rope of thorns through her tongue. That is not an accident of survival: Yaxchilán's kings put their women on the monuments to a degree no other Maya city did, and Structure 23 is Lady K'abal Xook's building. The registry held neither of them, and the Yaxchilán lintels are among the three or four most reproduced things in Maya art.

Children

• Yaxun B'alam IV

Domains

• kingship
• bloodletting

Relations

• spouse: Lady K'abal XookAlso described in the reference treatments as his aunt.Reference treatment of Lady K'abal Xook as the principal wife of Itzamnaaj Bahlam III. (secondary)
• father of: Yaxun B'alam IVHis successor, after a ten-year gap.Reference treatment of Yaxun B'ahlam IV, Bird Jaguar IV, as the son of Itzamnaaj Bahlam III. (secondary)

Sources

• Itzamnaaj Bahlam III, Shield Jaguar, is king of Yaxchilán from October 681 to his death in June 742, husband of Lady K'abal Xook, with whom he performed the bloodletting rite of 28 October 709 carved on Lintel 24, and father of Bird Jaguar IV.: Reference treatments of Itzamnaaj Bahlam III, the Yaxchilán lintels and the succession. (secondary)