La Estela 87 de Tak’alik Ab’aj: ensayo de un estudio colaborativo

The discovery of Stela 87 in situ in a secondary context, as a reused element of sacralization in a possibly royal residence from the Early Classic, allows us to locate the time of the original function as a stela in the Late Preclassic. It is in the Late Preclassic that the image and the text with 4 glyphic signs allude to the ruler represented there. It is in the early part of the Late Preclassic that stelae at Tak’alik Ab’aj and other early cities represent their rulers, still without a long count date. This was implemented in the second part of the Late Preclassic, of which a good example is Stela 5 (126 ad). For this reason, the iconography and writing of Estela 87 adds another exponent and opportunity, particularly for the Pacific Coast region, to the study of the still small universe of early texts, and more precisely, of the first part of the Late Preclassic (100 BC-50 ad) (Schieber de Lavarreda, 2020a). It is this opportunity that motivated the present collaborative study.