Kʼahkʼ Ujol Kʼinich II ("

Fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a fuel in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products. Flames, the most visible portion of the fire, are produced in the combustion re ...

-headed Sun

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

") was a

king King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

Caracol Caracol is a large ancient Maya archaeological site, located in what is now the Cayo District of Belize. It is situated approximately south of Xunantunich, and the town of San Ignacio, and from the Macal River. It rests on the Vaca Plateau, ...

Maya Maya may refer to: Ethnic groups * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Mayan languages, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (East Africa), a p ...

n city-state in

Belize Belize is a country on the north-eastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a maritime boundary with Honduras to the southeast. P ...

. He is also known as Ruler VI and Smoking

Skull The skull, or cranium, is typically a bony enclosure around the brain of a vertebrate. In some fish, and amphibians, the skull is of cartilage. The skull is at the head end of the vertebrate. In the human, the skull comprises two prominent ...

II. He reigned AD 658–680. Martin, Simon; Grube, Nikolia (2008). ''Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens: Deciphering the Dynasties of the Ancient Maya.'' Thames & Hudson. pp. 94–95. .

Life

This ruler's predecessor,

Kʼan II Kʼan II (born on April 18, 588, died on July 21, 658 ; Ruler V, Lord Stormwater Moon and Antenna Top II) was a Maya ruler of Caracol (in present-day Belize). He reigned AD 618–658. Biography Birth and family Kʼan was a younger son of the king ...

, was seventy years old and probably in bad health when he died. In contrast to the normal Maya practice, Kʼahkʼ Ujol Kʼinich acceded while Kʼan was still alive, their reigns overlapping by twenty-nine days. There may have been precedent for this at Caracol in the case of

Yajaw Teʼ Kʼinich II Yajaw Teʼ Kʼinich II was a king of the Mayan state Caracol in Belize. He was also known as Ruler III, Lord Water and Lord Muluc and reigned AD 553-593. Biography Yajaw Teʼ Kʼinich II was a son of the king Kʼan I. His mother was Lady Kʼal ...

and

Knot Ajaw Knot Ajaw was a king of the Maya city-state Caracol in Belize, a successor of his father Yajaw Te' K'inich II. He reigned AD 599-613>. Name Ajaw (Ahaw) means "king" or "ruler" in Mayan. This king is also known as Ruler IV, Ahaw Serpent and Fla ...

. It is not known if Kʼahkʼ Ujol Kʼinich II was a son of Kʼan. The

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and ...

text from Structure B-16-sub of the Caana platform records a "

star war A star war was a decisive conflict between rival polities of the Maya civilization during the first millennium AD. The term comes from a specific type of glyph used in the Maya script, which depicts a star showering the earth with liquid droplet ...

" attack on Oxwitzaʼ, the Caracol capital, by the 37th Ruler of

Naranjo Naranjo (Wak Kab'nal in Mayan) is a Pre-Columbian Maya city in the Petén Basin region of Guatemala. It was occupied from about 500 BC to 950 AD, with its height in the Late Classic Period. The site is part of Yaxha-Nakum-Naranjo National Park. ...

. The text goes on to say that sixty days later Kʼahkʼ Ujol Kʼinich "arrived" at Oxwitzaʼ, presumably from some place of shelter to which he had fled. Because his only known

stela A stele ( ) or stela ( )The plural in English is sometimes stelai ( ) based on direct transliteration of the Greek, sometimes stelae or stelæ ( ) based on the inflection of Greek nouns in Latin, and sometimes anglicized to steles ( ) or stela ...

comes from the outlying site of La Rejolla, this hilltop redoubt is a candidate for the place of refuge. The full stucco text has not been recovered as yet, but it is likely that it followed normal inscriptional rhetoric and went on to record some subsequent triumph by Caracol.

References

{{Reflist Kings of Caracol 7th-century Maya people 7th-century monarchs in North America