A Constellation?
Stela 28 at Tikal has this glyph. It is a jaguar with a face within its mouth. It is a rare glyph, but is it so rare? The various serpent bars held by the rulers, either the double headed, or the manikin-type, shows a head emerging from the dragon/snake mouth. The head is sometimes a Kawii'l image coupled with a different head on the other side. As Kawii'l, there is usually a cigar-shaped torch extending from his forehead. Many times, the Kawii'l figure is located at the tail end of the serpent body and the head of an old man is in the serpent's mouth.
It has never been understood why the "old man" is in the serpent mouth, but if the serpent was the old form for the the "sky," the jaguar-image being the new version, then there may be a valid reason for this representation. As seen in the article, The Radish: Inca/Maya Astronomy a head which appears within the mouth of a jaguar form may indicate a constellation in the night sky. The head at the beginning of this article does not have a torch-cigar in its forehead, but it does seem to have the torch on top of its head. Here it seems that the form must fit into a more compacted space. The eye, as in the Madrid Codex,(p. 39C) is blank, with a crueller form around the socket.
, and, of course, in Tikal, the "radish" form is missing. It may not be the same constellation, but it appears to be a "constellation" format that was used quite often; not as ancesters, but as propitious stars to be honored, or bad stars that had to be sacrificed to in order that there be no disturbance within the kingdom.Until all the glyphs of Stela 28 at Tikal are deciphered, there is no clue as to which constellation is illustrated as a glyph.