Quick Facts
Biography
Yuknoom Took' Kʻawiil (reigned >702-731>) was a Maya ruler of the Kaan kingdom (Calakmul).
Reign
Yuknoom Took’ K'awiil erected many stelae to celebrate the 9.13.10.0.0 period ending of 702. Although activity within the site is not necessarily an indicator of the strength of external relations, in the same year a variant of Took' K'awiil’s name appears in a text at Dos Pilas (in external references including this one, he is called "Scroll-head K'awiil", one of a confusing series of alternatives and abbreviations for this king in the glyphic record). This suggests that Calakmul’s sphere of influence had at least to some extent survived the Tikal victory or recovered from it.
El Peru, as well, is known to have remained a vassal, with Took' K'awiil supervising the accession of a new ruler of that site at some unknown date; and the continuing loyalty of Naranjo is suggested by the fact that as late as 711, a king there is still professing his allegiance to the late Yukom Yich’ak K’ak.
The 9.15.0.0.0 k'atun ending in 731 saw an even more impressive spate of monument erection by Yuknoom Took’ K'awiil; before looters sawed off their faces in the 1960s, the stelae erected at the base of Structure 1 were the finest surviving sculptures from Calakmul. The magnificent Stela 51, a depiction of Yuknoom, survives in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.
The inference that Calakmul had fully recovered its bygone vitality, however, is belied by an altar at Tikal showing a bound Calakmul prisoner; this dates to between 733 and 736 and is paired with a stela bearing the latter date. Yuknoom Took’ K'awiil may be named in the damaged caption, and Wamaw K'awiil is known to have replaced him on the throne in 736.
Family
Wife of Yuknoom Tookʻ K'awiil was possibly Lady of Stela 54.
A daughter of Yuknoom Tookʻ Kʻawiil married a lord of La Corona in 721.