In June 2000 we made further investigations inside the sculptured platform or "throne". We had previously excavated the interior down to floor level, determining that it had been looted in pre-Columbian times. Now we explored a cyst that had been constructed down into the floor.

This was lined with horizontal stones to form a semicircle which must have held the dedication offering. Inside were ceramic fragments, three obsidian cores, a concave oval mirror and four phalanges of a human hand.

The mirror appears to be made out of pyrite.

The obsidian cores from the cyst.

The human hand bones.

Restoration specialists Constantino Armendariz and Marcia Valle assemble an orange-slipped ceramic vessel, some pieces of which were found in the cyst. It is almost half a meter tall.

Here Marcia works on a rectangular ceramic container. A few shards of this were found inside the platform. Others came from in front of it and from a special deposit at the west end of the building.

This large ceramic vessel, here being restored in the lab, was found during our first season in a hole dug in the floor in the center of the building in pre-Columbian times.

Also in June we found another bit of inscription at the west end of the building (extreme zoom). It does not belong to any monument that we have uncovered so far. David Stuart, our hieroglyphic specialist, reads the two glyphs as MUWAAN-ni, Muwaan, a personal or month name, and AJ-K'UH-na, Ajk'uhuun, "keeper of tribute(?)". He comments, "Normally I would see these as the tail-end of a name caption, but they are oddly different in size, almost as if not meant to be read together. If not a part of a date, Muwaan could easily be a part of someone's personal name. The second glyph is a rare spelling of the common "God C title" for non-rulers, also used on the stone panel of Temple XIX (atop the little column of four glyphs by the right kneeling figure). But there it as a possessed noun ya-ja-K'UH-hu-na [see photo and reading].The Muwaan alone isn't enough to give a good i.d. One character named on the carved stone platform (the one with the stubby fingers) has Muwaan in his name, but as the first glyph in the caption [see drawing]. I doubt they are the same."