Chemical analysis of residues confirms the veracity of hieroglyphic texts written on Classic Maya vases that often explain their function as cacao drinking vessels. This is the function of the glyphs painted on the lid of a cylindrical tripod vase, beautitully decorated with painted stucco, whose form and decoration recall models from Teotihuacan, the great city of the valley of Mexico that became one of the largest in the world during the early Common Era.

The inscription reads yuk'ib' tayutal kakaw ? b'olom ts'akb'u ajaw, wich may be paraphrased as "[This is] the vase for the cacao beverage (?) of king [personal name], the ninth successor. The name that appears at the end of the phrase identifies the owner of the vessel, whose rank of ajaw indicates his membership in a royal family. The provenance of the vase is unknown, but a royal tomb at Tikal included three vases with very similar text. Arguably, this vase also formed part of the furnishings of a royal tomb in Northeastern Peten.

Such texts are common in Lowland Maya ceramic vessels of the Classic period. May vases and other ceramic objects have texts of a type known as "Primary Standard Sequence", essentially a name tag that identifies the owner of the object. These texts may also include information on the vessel itself, its shape function, and the name of the artist that created it. Many inscriptions written on cylindrical vases identify them as vases for cacao beverages.