One grisly spectacle in English history, and for that matter in Catholic history, is the Cadaver Trial. Formosus was exhumed and draped in the Papal regalia for the "horrendous synod"; Lord Cromwell's Parliament put Charles I's corpse on display and, of course, Charles' heir would return the favour for the departed Lord. So: Papmalil in K'anwitznal.
K'anwitznal was a kingdom of of late Classic Choltal, now in that big panhandle of Guatemala upstream of Belize. The site we care about is that now called "Ucanal".
Some faction, 773-881 CE by radiocarbon, burned the king's bones - but not the king they'd replaced. Nah: these men dug the bones out of some king's tomb - decades gone - and publicly burned these bones in a 800°C holocaust. I use that term because the king's treasures went with him.
One suspect is Papmalil. He seems not to be of the Choltal, and never called himself Ahau. He took instead a title meaning something like "lord from the west". The region speaks Kekchi now with a smattering of Yucatec (Itza, Mopan, maybe Lacandon). That looks more like southwest to me but hey.
I tend to agree that Papmalil is my prime suspect, as well. There are many analogies with Cromwell, who also melted down the old royal paraphenalia.
No comments:
Post a Comment