K'inich Yax K'uk' Mo'

Kʼinich Yax Kʼukʼ Moʼ is named in Maya inscriptions as the founder and first ruler, kʼul ajaw, of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization polity centered at Copán, a major Maya site located in the southeastern Maya lowlands region in present-day Honduras. The motifs associated with his depiction on Copán monuments have a distinct resemblance to imagery associated with the height of the Classic-era center of Teotihuacan in the distant northern central Mexican region, and have been interpreted as intending to suggest his origins and association with that prestigious civilization. He is the founder of the Yax Kuk Mo Dynasty of rulers of Copan that lasted until 822 a.C. One of the most commonly cited motifs for this interpretation is the "goggle-eyed" headdress with which Yax Kʼukʼ Moʼ is commonly depicted; this is seemingly an allusion to the northern central Mexican rain deity known as Tlaloc by later peoples, such as the Aztecs. However, modern strontium isotope analysis of the human remains recovered from the tomb attributed to him indicate that Kʼinich Yax Kʼukʼ Moʼ spent his formative years much closer to Copán, at Tikal, and had not himself lived at Teotihuacan.