纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 051玛雅宫廷放血仪式浮雕（4）（在线收听）

Our stone sculpture of the queen lacerating her tongue comes from the city of Yaxchilan. Between 600 and 800 AD, so late in the classic Maya age, Yaxchilan became a large and important city, the major power in the region. It owed its new eminence to the king shown on the stone lintel, Shield Jaguar. At the age of 75, he commissioned a building programme to celebrate the successes of what would eventually be his 60-year reign. The lintel sculpture comes from a temple that seems to have been dedicated to his wife, Lady K'abal Xook.

On the carving, King Shield Jaguar and his wife are both magnificently dressed, with spectacular headdresses, probably made of jade and shell mosaic, and decorated with the shimmering green feathers of the quetzal bird. On top of the King's headdress you can see the shrunken head of a past sacrificial victim. On his breast he wears an ornament in the shape of the sun god, his sandals are of spotted jaguar pelt, and at his knees there are bands of jade. His wife, meanwhile, has spectacularly elaborate necklace and bracelets.

This image is one of three found in the temple, each one positioned above an entrance. Together they make it clear that the act of pulling thorns through the tongue was not just to make the Queen's blood flow as an offering, but was deliberately intended to create intense pain - pain which, after due ritual preparation, would send her into a visionary trance. For the Queen to inflict such suffering on herself was a great act of piety - it was her pain that summoned and propitiated the kingdom's gods, and that ultimately made possible the king's success. Here's psychotherapist and writer on women's psychology, Susie Orbach: