Itzamnaaj B'alam II - Yaxchilan Dynasty 681 - 742

Bloodletting ritual - October 28, 709
The ruler, Shield Jaguar, holds a torch while his consort, Lady Xoc, pulls a rope studded with what are now believed to be obsidian shards through her tongue in order to conjure a vision serpent.

Itzamnaaj B'alam II was a Maya king who ruled in Yaxchilan from 681 until he died in the year 742. He is also called Shield Jaguar II by modern writers and commonly referred to simply as Shield Jaguar based on his name glyph before the phonetic name was deciphered. He was born in 647 to Lady Pacal and 6-Tun-Bird-Jaguar and later had a son named Yaxun B'alam IV who ascended to the throne after Itzamnaaj B'alam's death. Little is known of Itzamnaaj B'alam's early life except that when he was eleven years old one of his siblings participated in a war that involved Pacal the famous king of Palenque.

In order to become king, Itzamnaaj B'alam defeated Ah-Ahaual (a Mayan noble) in war and took him captive to Yaxchilan. At the age of 34 around October 23, 681, he became king of Yaxchilan. He was married to Lady Xoc and she held a great amount of power.

Vision Serpent bloodletting rite - March 24, 755

One of the wives of Bird Jaguar IV invoking the Vision Serpent in a bloodletting rite. She communes with a spirit called up from the otherworld. This entity is an aspect of the waterlily serpent, itself the nagual of the lightning deity, K'awiil. She is carrying a basket with the paraphernalia used for auto-sacrifice: a stingray spine, a rope and bloodied paper. The Vision Serpent appears before her, springing from a bowl, which also contains strips of bark-paper.

One of Itzamnaaj B'alam's greatest accomplishments was the construction of what is now called Temple 23. At Temple 23, Lady Xoc is shown performing a bloodletting ritual for three different occasions: Itz'amná B'alam's accession to the throne, the birth of Yaxun B'alam, and the dedication of Temple 23.

Rise to Supremacy - 681 ad
Temple 23 was one of the first buildings to be constructed, and was dedicated to Shield Jaguar II's wife, Lady K'ab'al Xook. The carved lintels inside the temple commemorate Shield Jaguar II's rise to the throne. Lady Xook holds a bowl containing bloodletting apparatus consisting of a stingray spine and bloodstained paper^. The Vision Serpent rising before her has two heads, one at each extreme, from the mouth of one emerges a warrior, from the other emerges the head of central Mexican deity Tlaloc, the war god of the distant metropolis of Teotihuacan in the Valley of Mexico. The previous century had been one of constant warfare between Yaxchilan and her neighbors, and the new king showed prowess for war. For forty years Shield Jaguar II led his people to dominate the conflict. The situation finally calmed in 723. Shield Jaguar II showed skill as a peacetime ruler as well, and launched a massive rebuilding campaign.

Itzamnaaj B'alam married a second wife named Lady Eveningstar of Calakmul with whom he had his son Yaxun B'alam. He chose Yaxun B'alam to be his successor despite the fact that Lady Xoc, his other wife, had a strategically important bloodline. It is believed by Linda Schele and David Freidel that Itzamnaaj B'alam had Temple 23 in Yaxchilan constructed to honor Lady Xoc while also gaining public support for his son to become king. The majority of the buildings constructed during Itzamnaaj B'alam's reign occurred in the last third of his life. As well, he was still leading his troops to battle in his eighties. Itzamnaaj B'alam II died at the age of 95.

K'inich Janaab' Pakal-Palenque Dynasty 603 - 683ad

K'inich Janaab' Pakal (23 March 603 – 28 August 683) was ruler of the Maya polity of Palenque in the Late Classic period. Pakal ascended the throne at age 12 on July 29, 615, and lived to the age of 80. The name pakal means "shield" in the Maya language.Palenque (Baak' in Maya) was a Maya city state in southern Mexico that flourished in the 7th century. The Palenque ruins date back to 100 BC to its fall around 800 AD. After its decline it was absorbed back into the jungle.

During a long reign of some 68 years Pakal was responsible for the construction of some of Palenque's most notable surviving inscriptions and monumental architecture.

Temple of the Sun, Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico

Classic Maya civilization city state.  This dedication temple built around 683A.D. 

After his death, Pakal was deified and said to communicate with his descendants. Pakal was buried within the Temple of Insciptions. The secret to opening his tomb—closed off by a stone slab with stone plugs in the holes, which had until then escaped the attention of archaeologists—was discovered by Mexican archaeologist Alberto Ruz Lhuillier in 1948. It took four years to clear the rubble from the stairway leading down to Pakal’s tomb, but was finally uncovered in 1952. His skeletal remains were still lying in his coffin, wearing a jade mask and bead necklaces, surrounded by sculptures and stucco reliefs depicting the ruler's transition to divinity and figures from Maya Mythology