The Yaxchilan lintel showing Lady Xoc performing a bloodletting ritual is Lintel 24. This Late Classic Maya limestone relief portrays Lady Xoc, principal wife of Yaxchilan ruler Itzamnaaj Bahlam III, drawing a rope fitted with sharp blades through her tongue while the king holds a flaming torch above her.
Lintel 24 dates to about AD 723–726 and originally stood above a doorway in Structure 23 at Yaxchilan, an important Maya city in present-day Chiapas, Mexico. Its inscription identifies the royal participants and describes the scene as an act of penance or ritual bloodletting. The relief is now in the British Museum.
The ritual was not simply private self-harm. Maya rulers and nobles used bloodletting to communicate with gods and ancestors, reinforce royal authority, and mark important ceremonies. Blood was collected on paper and burned, creating smoke believed to help open a supernatural passage. Lintel 25 continues the ritual imagery with a vision serpent emerging from the blood offering.
A common mix-up is confusing Lintel 24 with Lintels 25 and 26, which were also installed at Structure 23 and feature Lady Xoc. Together, the three monuments emphasize her political and religious importance, but Lintel 24 is the canonical answer for the scene of the queen actively drawing the bloodletting rope through her tongue.