The birth of the Gods at Palenque

Abstract

Heinrich Berlin (1963) has recently presented the interesting hypothesis that the Temples of the Cross, the Foliated Cross, and the Sun al Palenque are each associated with a particular deity and specified glyphs. He also suggested that these deities are somehow involved in lengthy cycles, not yet known. In studying these hypotheses, I found what I regard as substantial supporting data, and reached the further conclusion that the inscriptions refer to the birth of certain wellknown Mesoamerican deities, who can be identified by the glyphs pointed out by Berlin.