Itzamna
The aged creator god of the Maya, lord of the sky, shown as an old man and named in the glyphs with a sign like a shield or mirror. Mayanists also call him God D.
Meaning
Itzamna (Itzamnaaj in current spelling) was, according to several sources the archaeologist Tomás Pérez Suárez cites, the supreme god of the Maya pantheon, the creator of everything and an image of the cosmos itself; his name refers to a world made of great two-headed reptiles, one in each direction. As creator he was shown as an old man who lives in the sky and rules from his seat on a sky band, the strip of planets and stars in Maya art. He had other forms: as the bird Itzam Ye he was the sky, as the crocodile Itzam Kab Ayin the earth. In hieroglyphic writing his name is a sign shaped like a shield or a mirror joined to his face, and rulers took the sign into their own names. Karl Taube calls him the old, necromantic creator god, and says earlier texts gave him the epithets Ah Dzib, “the scribe”, and Idzat, “learned person”.
Origin and history
Itzamna appears in the Dresden Codex. On page 4b, the epigrapher Erik Velásquez García writes, the old God D looks out from the jaws of the primordial crocodile, which colonial writings call Itzam Kaab Áayin, “earth crocodile”, and which seems to stand for the surface of the earth floating on the ocean. The augury painted on the crocodile’s body reads, in his translation, “Kiimil is death, bad is his omen, evil, punishment by fire.” Paul Schellhas gave him the letter D in 1904, when the gods of the codices could not yet be named, and the letters are still used.
He is also in clay and stone. The Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City has a censer of Itzamnaaj from Mayapán, 60 cm tall. Diego de Landa, describing the rites of the Yucatec New Year, wrote that in a year whose “dominical letter” was Ix, people made a statue of Yzamna, whom he called a demon, and set it up in the house of the man chosen to lead the festival.
Itzamna as a teacher today
The Smithsonian’s Living Maya Time website gives Itzamna a new role: its maths game has him introduce himself as “Itzamná, Maya Lord of Knowledge and Wisdom”, there to tell players about his people, “who were expert mathematicians”. It is a modern use of the old god of scribes, alongside the bar-and-dot numbers the game teaches.
See also
Chaac, Kukulkan, Maize God, Maya calendar, Maya numerals (bar and dot).
Sources
- Itzamnaaj. El dios creador (Dios D) (Tomás Pérez Suárez, Arqueología Mexicana), Tomás Pérez Suárez, “Dioses mayas”, Arqueología Mexicana no. 88, pp. 57–65, Arqueología Mexicana (Editorial Raíces / INAH), article text and captions
- Dios D o Itzamna’, señor supremo del panteón maya (Erik Velásquez García, Arqueología Mexicana), Erik Velásquez García, “Página 4 (Escriba 2). Almanaques misceláneos, serie II”, Arqueología Mexicana edición especial no. 67, pp. 20–21, Arqueología Mexicana (Editorial Raíces / INAH), article text
- Antiguos dioses mayas (Karl A. Taube, Arqueología Mexicana), Karl A. Taube, “Antiguos dioses mayas”, Arqueología Mexicana no. 20, pp. 20–29, Arqueología Mexicana (Editorial Raíces / INAH), article text
- Relación de las cosas de Yucatán (Diego de Landa, ed. Brasseur de Bourbourg, 1864), Diego de Landa, Relación de las cosas de Yucatán, Spanish text with French translation, ed. Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg (Paris, 1864), §VI and the year rites; Internet Archive full text, Internet Archive, the year rites (año de letra dominical Ix)
- Maya Math Game (Living Maya Time), Living Maya Time, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, Maya Math Game
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Last reviewed October 3, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research
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