Hieroglyphic serpents
Hieroglyphic serpents flank the central stair of the Acropolis.
Western hieroglyphic serpent
The serpents are portrayed with open mouths and extended tongues on which a dedication is written. Alfonso Lacadena García-Gallo translates the inscription as:
It is the sculpture of the Win Uh (which) is the name of the stairway of Kalo'mte' Ukit Kan Le'k Tok', sacred king of Talol.
Serpent poised to strike
The poised serpent mouth, with chevron-patterned palate & small set of fangs.
Glyphic inscriptions
The serpents' tongues are covered with glyphic inscriptions. Glyphs in the second row from the bottom spell out the name of Ukit Kan Le'k Tok', the founder of the Talol Dynasty and the occupant of the tomb on Level 4 of this pyramid, while the bottom left glyph is the emblem glyph of Ek Balam, which was known as Talol in ancient times.
Looking west along 1st story
Looking west along the first story past the hieroglyphic serpent. The text, matching the one from the Eastern Hieroglyphic Serpent and whose texts reproduce with little variation an identical pattern, is a part of the dedicatory inscription present in the central stairway of the Acropolis that commemorates the major architectural remodeling of the main access to the Royal Palace, probably in relation to the construction of the ten large rooms-1-5 and 6-7 that flank it.
The Glyphic Corpus from Ek' Balam, Yucatán, México. Alfonso Lacadena García-Gallo. FAMSI 2004.
Rooms 1 thru 5 of the newly constructed rooms on the west side of the stairway can be seen here. The Acropolis is huge and stretches on both sides of the serpent stairway for almost 500 feet.