I will refer to the first arm and hand gesture we will look at as Gesture 1. It consists of one arm leisurely resting on a thigh, while the other one, typically the right one, is held across the chest with the palm held either to one side or downward (illustrations b, c, and a). It might be argued that this is just a relaxed pose and not a gesture, but certain constants that are present whenever it is depicted do support its identification as a gesture. No scenes have been found, for example, where more than one character adopts this gesture, and the one that adopts it is always the focal or central figure. This notwithstanding, the gesture does not appear to have been used just to mark individuals with the highest relative status in any given scene. Lords of lesser ranks who happen to be central figures in certain scenes never assume this gesture. This suggests that the gesture was a marker of absolute and not relative rank and as such reserved to the highest status lords.

Illustration courtesy of Justin Kerr's Mayavase Database.