Yuknoom the Great
| Yuknoom the Great | |
|---|---|
| Title | King of Kaan |
| Children | daughter |
| Parent(s) |
Scroll Serpent? Lady Scroll-in-hand? |
Yuknoom Ch'een II' (600–680s), known as Yuknoom the Great, was a Mayan ruler of the Kaan kingdom, which had its capital at Calakmul during the Classic Period of Mesoamerican chronology.
Yuknoom was born on September 11, 600. His parents were possibly king Scroll Serpent and his wife, Lady Scroll-in-hand.
As he acceded in AD 636 and his successor followed him upon the throne in 686, Yuknoom the Great is known to have ruled the Kaan kingdom for fifty years during the height of its power and ascendency over Tikal. He took the name of the Early Classic king Yuknoom Ch'een I upon his accession.
As Tikal was showing strong signs of recovering from the defeat of its king Wak Chan K'awiil almost one hundred years earlier, Yuknoom exerted himself against Kaan's great rival; he accomplished this in the context of a division in Tikal's dynastic line whereby both B'alaj Chan K'awiil of Dos Pilas and his probable brother (or half-brother) Nuun Ujol Chaak of Tikal came to style themselves holy lords of Mutal. The initial circumstances of the relationship between Dos Pilas and Tikal are murky, but in 650 Bajlaj Chan K'awiil was attacked and driven from his city, and he came to acknowledge the Snake ruler as his overlord and ally in the factional dispute with Tikal.
In 657 Yuknoom Ch'een turned his attention to Tikal and vanquished it in a "star war" encounter, as a consequence of which Nuun Ujol Chaak must have pledged some form of fealty, because both he and Bajlaj Chan K'awiil subsequently attended a ritual performed by Calakmul prince Yuknoom Yich'aak K'ahk'. But then in 672 the Tikal king asserted his independence by ousting Bajlaj Chan K'awiil from Dos Pilas and pursuing him as he sought refuge at other sites. Calakmul then intervened in 677 and dealt Nuun Ujol Chaak a second defeat, which was followed in 679 by a decisive vanquishment at the hands of Dos Pilas, almost certainly with Calakmul aid.
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