by Steven E. Jones

The Book of Mor­mon makes the bold state­ment that Jesus Christ, shortly fol­low­ing His res­ur­rec­tion, vis­ited peo­ple in the New World and invited them to “feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am...the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world. ... Ye are they of whom I said: Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice...” (3 Nephi 11:14, 15:21). The Bible states that Jesus “showed him­self alive after his pas­sion by many infal­li­ble proofs, being seen of them forty days” and that this wit­ness of Christ would be “unto the utter­most part of the earth.” (Acts 1:3–8) and that Jesus would indeed visit “other sheep” (John 10:16).

Sev­eral years ago, an idea popped into my head: Would peo­ple in the New World who also saw Jesus Christ leave memo­ri­als of this super­nal expe­ri­ence by show­ing marked hands of Deity in their art­work? So I began a search with the fol­low­ing hypothesis-to be tested: Ancient art­work por­tray­ing a deity with delib­er­ate mark­ings on his hands will be found some­where in the Amer­i­cas. A crazy idea, maybe — but wait till you see the art­work of the ancient Maya!

Death of Itzamna

Fig­ure 1 por­trays the death of the great Mayan Deity known as Itzamna, as found in a paint­ing from a clas­sic Mayan vase. (Mar­vin Coho­das, “Trans­for­ma­tions: Rela­tion­ships Between Image and Text” in Word and Image in Maya Cul­ture, 220). Notice that both hands of this dying Deity show def­i­nite round spots. The artist evi­dently took some pains to bring the right arm over the head, and the spot on this hand can be seen as well as the mark­ing on the left hand. Only one foot is vis­i­ble, and it again dis­plays a round mark­ing! The very notion that the great and kindly Itzamna would die is sug­ges­tive; we soon learn that this Deity will later be resurrected!

In describ­ing the scene, Mar­vin Coho­das explains that this is related to the beau­ti­ful leg­end of Hunab Pu “who dies and trav­els to the under­world later to be reborn [or res­ur­rected]” (Ibid, 229–230). While much could be said about this leg­end [see Jones 1999], I would just com­ment briefly on the death and res­ur­rec­tion of Hunab Pu/Itzamna and the sym­bolic con­nec­tion to the planet Venus. Although lack­ing tele­scopes, the Maya achieved an impres­sive breadth of knowl­edge about the stars and plan­ets. In par­tic­u­lar, they stud­ied and recorded data on the planet Venus because it rep­re­sented to them a Deity. Closer to the sun than earth, Venus appears in the sky as “the evening star” just after sun­set, or as “the morn­ing star” just before sun­rise. When the travel of Venus takes it in front of or behind the sun, it can­not be seen for a few days. Thus, Venus appears as the “evening star” then dis­ap­pears for sev­eral days after which it re-appears as the “morn­ing star.”

A non-LDS scholar explains the Mayan leg­end:
“Accord­ing to tra­di­tion, [Hunab Pu] appeared as morn­ing star after being dead for [sev­eral] days, the period between dis­ap­pear­ance of Venus as evening star and the planet’s reap­pear­ance as morn­ing star. As Venus as morn­ing star is fre­quently depicted with death sym­bols, one may assume that he obtained these in his jour­ney through the under­world dur­ing the [few] days between his dis­ap­pear­ance in the west as evening star and reap­pear­ance as morn­ing star in the east.” MHW 172

Thus, in the Mayan view, the Deity Hunab Pu/Itzamna is asso­ci­ated with Venus and the “morn­ing star” with his res­ur­rec­tion. The Maya fol­lowed the death of the evening star and its tran­sit through the world of spir­its. Men would fol­low this path also. Venus as Morn­ing Star thus sig­ni­fies the Deity fol­low­ing his res­ur­rec­tion. The notion that Christ, the Morn­ing Star of the New Tes­ta­ment (Rev. 22:16), descended into the under­world prior to His res­ur­rec­tion is found in the Bible:

“Now that he [Christ] ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?” Eph­esians 4:9 (See also I Peter 3:18–19.)

The notion of a Deity who dies then is res­ur­rected is remark­able among the Maya and rem­i­nis­cent of the Chris­t­ian belief. Strik­ing indeed is the fact that the vis­i­ble foot and both hands of this Deity as he died are each marked by a round spot [Fig­ure 1].

Mayan Deity Itzamna

Look at the sculp­ture in Fig­ure 2 — notice any­thing pecu­liar about the hands? George E. Stu­art and Gene S. Stu­art describe the sculp­ture as “...the exalted Itzamna, lord of sky and earth” (The Mys­te­ri­ous Maya, 97). And Robert Elliot Smith describes the line draw­ing of a sim­i­lar sculp­ture [shown in Fig­ure 3] as “Itzamna, the old god...[with] promi­nent cheek­bones, markedly Hebraic nose...” (Robert Eliot Smith, The Pot­tery of Maya­pan, Peabody Museum of Archae­ol­ogy and eth­nol­ogy, Har­vard Uni­ver­sity, 1971, pp. 50–52). Yes, the nose does look “Hebraic” as he says, not like the typ­i­cal Mayan nose. Inter­est­ing. [I quote only non-LDS sources in this paper, by the way. And all of the art­work pre-dates Colum­bus by many years.] Accord­ing to Michael Coe, Itzamna can be traced to the hiero­glyphic record to “the mid-second cen­tury after Christ” (Early Steps, 117). Would you agree that the holes in the hands or wrists of this Deity are clearly portrayed?

Who is Itzamna?

Before going on to more ancient Mayan art­work, let’s see what the non-LDS schol­ars say about this Deity Itzamna:

“Chief of the benef­i­cent gods was Itzamna. He was the per­son­i­fi­ca­tion of the east, the ris­ing sun with all of its man­i­fold myth­i­cal associations....He was said to have come across the east­ern waters. One of his titles was Lakin-Chan, the ser­pent of the East...As light is syn­ony­mous with life and knowl­edge, he was said to have been the founder of the cul­ture of the Itzas and the Mayas. He was the first priest of their reli­gion; invented writ­ing and books...As a physi­cian he was famous, not only know­ing the magic herbs but pos­sessed of the power of heal­ing by the lay­ing on of hands...For his wis­dom he was spo­ken of as the royal or noble mas­ter of knowl­edge” (Daniel Brin­ton, Amer­i­can Hero-Myths).

“Itzamna was also...able to cure the sick and even bring the dead to life. Peo­ple came from all over the land to his shrine, and for that rea­son he was known as Kabul, ‘Maker with his hands’...it seems to be the equiv­a­lent of Bitol, ‘Maker,’ title of the Quiche cre­ator” (J. Eric S. Thomp­son, The Rise and Fall of Maya Civ­i­liza­tion, 229).

“Itzamna was the high god of the Maya. Fit­ting his role as para­mount king, he often bears the title of ahaulil, or “lord,” in the Post­clas­sic Yucatec codices....he was con­sid­ered as the first priest and the inven­tor of writing....Itzamna was iden­ti­fied with the pow­ers of cur­ing” (Mary Miller and Karl Taube, The Gods and Sym­bols of Ancient Mex­ico and the Maya, 99–100).

“The great­est god of the Yucatec Maya, but in some respects the most puz­zling, is Itzam Na. As we shall see, he came near to incor­po­rat­ing most of the other major gods in his person...the Indi­ans of [Yucatan], before the intro­duc­tion of idol­a­try, wor­shiped a sin­gle god named Hunab Itzamna (Itzam Na). Hunab, “Unique,” was a name applied to the creator....we deduce that in one of his aspects Itzam Na was the cre­ator” (J. Eric S. Thomp­son, Maya His­tory and Reli­gion, 209–210).

These descrip­tions of Itzamna com­pare favor­ably with those given of the res­ur­rected Lord in Third Nephi in the Book of Mor­mon, in which the peo­ple come to
the tem­ple at Boun­ti­ful in the New World to hear Jesus Christ, to touch his wounded hands, and to be healed. Now back to the art­work of the ancient Maya as it whis­pers to us from the dust.

Marks on Hands of God K

Fig­ures 4a and 4b show pho­tographs of ancient painted cap­stones from a Mayan tem­ple in the Yucatan penin­sula, from a ruin known today as Dzi­bil­no­cac. Eric Thomp­son sug­gests that the paint­ings depict God K of the Maya (F. Nel­son, per­sonal com­mu­ni­ca­tion), who is some­times iden­ti­fied with Itzamna (Nicholas P. Dun­ning, Lords of the Hills: Ancient Maya Set­tle­ment in the Puuc Region, Yucatan, Mex­ico, 142).The orig­i­nal paint­ing on the upper right (4b) is badly faded, but if you search near the cen­ter of the paint­ing you will see a clear black spot on the palm of this deity’s hand. In fact, the spot on the hand is among the clear­est sur­viv­ing fea­tures on this paint­ing. The line draw­ing (Fig­ure 4d) retains this cir­cle on the back of the hand, but shows only an open cir­cle whereas the Mayan artist clearly filled in the spot on the hand. The other cap­stone (Fig­ures 4a and 4c) also shows the deity with a cir­cu­lar mark­ing on the palm of the hand. (The fin­gers are not detailed in this case.)Figure 5 is another depic­tion of Itzamna. Although per­haps not as strik­ing as other paint­ings, we see mark­ings on the left hand and on the wrist as well. The right hand shows a clear mark on the palm. The exam­ples in Fig­ure 6 por­tray circle-motif mark­ings on both hands and wrists. These three were painted on ancient Mayan vases, and do not nec­es­sar­ily rep­re­sent Deity as the pre­vi­ous paint­ings and sculp­tures do. Fig­ure 7 shows a stone carv­ing at Yax­chi­lan, Mex­ico, also dis­play­ing marks in both the hand and wrist. (Pho­to­graph by my son David E. Jones, with line draw­ing by artist Clif­ford Dun­ston.) Latter-day Saints gen­er­ally believe that nails were dri­ven through both the hands and wrists of Jesus (Bruce R. McConkie, A New Wit­ness for the Arti­cles of Faith, p. 14.)

Hands in Mayan Hieroglyphs

Do marked hands appear in Mayan hiero­glyphic writ­ing? Yes they do, num­ber­ing in the thou­sands of marked hands! Fig­ure 8 is taken from Piedras Negras, Guatemala, and pro­vides typ­i­cal exam­ples of marked hand sym­bol­ism in Mayan hiero­glyphic writ­ing. I should men­tion that a Mayan stone carv­ing may show an actual hole or cav­ity in the hand, while the mod­ern line-drawing of the carved glyph often sim­ply uses a cir­cle. Usu­ally the wrist is not shown in these carv­ings. Fig­ure 9 dis­plays Maya glyphs rep­re­sent­ing “the god of the sev­enth day.” (E. Thomp­son, Maya Hiero­glyphic Writ­ing, pl 76.)

As I have asked non-LDS archae­ol­o­gists about the hand-markings, they have gen­er­ally replied that either they don’t know, or per­haps this is a pro­trud­ing wrist bone as the hand is sev­ered from the body. I don’t know who ini­ti­ated this idea, for I have not seen any­one write it down in pub­lished mate­r­ial. Fur­ther thought would sug­gest that the wrist has two bones not just one, and that many of the hiero­glyph­ics show the sin­gle mark near the mid­dle of the back of the hand or the palm. Sev­eral cases have been brought forth which show marks in both wrist and hand. Finally, the spot is seen on hands of Itzamna while con­nected to the rest of his body, both as he dies and evi­dently fol­low­ing his resurrection.

Seri­ous non-LDS com­men­tary con­tin­ues: “[Note] the close rela­tion­ship between Maya hiero­glyphic writ­ing and reli­gion, for there is no doubt that many forms and per­haps the names of hiero­glyphs have reli­gious con­no­ta­tions” (Thomp­son, Mayan Hiero­glyphic Writ­ing, 9).

“As in the case of sev­eral of the day signs already exam­ined, the design has been shown to repro­duce a char­ac­ter­is­tic attribute of the deity to whom the day was ded­i­cated; it is vir­tu­ally cer­tain that the hand is the sym­bol of the god of the sev­enth day....The hand is also asso­ci­ated with Itzamna....” (Thomp­son, Mayan Hiero­glyphic Writ­ing, 76).

Thus, the marked hand sym­bol is con­nected to Deity-in par­tic­u­lar with Itzamna, who died, went to the world of spir­its and then was res­ur­rected. All of this is rem­i­nis­cent of Jesus Christ, sup­port­ing the claim of the Book of Mor­mon that New World inhab­i­tants knew of Jesus long before Colum­bus arrived. There is much addi­tional evi­dence, and the inter­ested reader is pointed to ref­er­ence [Jones 1999].

The hypoth­e­sis that started my search, that Christ’s “other sheep” would have art­work depict­ing delib­er­ately marked hands, has led to a remark­able con­clu­sion: Hands (and wrists) with clear holes or marks are depicted in the art as well as the hiero­glyphic writ­ings of the Maya of Mid­dle Amer­ica, dat­ing from within about 200 years of the time of Christ. These hands are asso­ci­ated with Itzamna, a kindly Deity asso­ci­ated with heal­ing and teach­ing the peo­ple. He is shown dying in Mayan art, later to be res­ur­rected. Finally, the Maya await the return of this great res­ur­rected Deity in the not-distant future. [See Jones, 99]

These dis­cov­er­ies have pro­vided me a deeper appre­ci­a­tion for the real­ity of the res­ur­rec­tion of Jesus and of His visit to “other sheep” who heard His voice and saw His wounded hands as did Thomas. My hope is that these new insights will encour­age you to seri­ously con­sider the Book of Mor­mon, Another Tes­ta­ment of Christ. Why don’t you start read­ing right away? The Apos­tle Paul said: “Prove all things. Hold fast that which is good.” (I Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 5:21) Why not? I’ve done this and for me, the Book of Mor­mon is a remark­able new wit­ness for Christ, stand­ing as a com­pan­ion to the Bible.
Appen­dix: Excerpts from a beau­ti­ful Mesoamer­i­can poem that I believe is rel­e­vant, pro­vid­ing fur­ther insights into the beliefs of the Maya:

The ket­tle drums color of jade resound,
Bril­liant dew has fallen over the earth.
In the house of yel­low feath­ers
it pours down with force.

His son has come down, descended there in the spring­time.
He is the Giver of Life.
His songs make flour­ish, he adorns himself.

O friends, let us rejoice, let us embrace one another.
We walk the flow­er­ing earth.
Noth­ing can bring an end here to flow­ers and songs,
they are per­pet­u­ated in the house of the Giver of Life.
Friend­ship is a rain of pre­cious flow­ers.
We are here, we are liv­ing here,
but we are only beg­gars O my friends.

Where do we go, oh! Where do we go?
Are we dead beyond, or do we yet live?
Will there be exis­tence again?
Will the joy of the Giver of Life be there again?
Where is the source of light, since that which gives life hides itself?

Let our hearts not be trou­bled.
One day we must go, one night we will descend into the region of mys­tery.
We will have gone to His house,
but our word shall live here on earth.
Remove trou­ble from your hears, O my friends.
Indeed one must go else­where; beyond, hap­pi­ness exists.

O Lord of the close vicin­ity, it is beyond, with those who dwell in Your house,
that I will sing songs to You, in the inner­most of heaven.
My heart rises; I fix my eyes upon You, next to You, beside You, O Giver of Life!

(Excerpted from Native Mesoamer­i­can Spir­i­tu­al­ity, edited with a fore­word, intro­duc­tion and notes by Miguel Leon-Portilla. Trans­la­tions by Miguel Leon-Protilla, J. O. Arthur Ander­son, Charles E. Dib­ble and Munro S. Edmon­son. NY: Paulist Press, 1980.)