Cultural: It is at this point that we should again remember the Mesoamerican habit of torturing victims. A Maya pot shows a captive dancing who face is swollen from apparent torture (Freidel, David, Linda Schele, and Joy Parker. Maya Cosmos. William Morrow and Company, 1993, p. 265). A remarkable series of depictions allows for the tracing of the humiliations of a particular captive:
"As we have mentioned before, prestigious captives taken in battle were often kept alive for years on end. They were displayed in public rituals and often participated in these rituals in gruesome, humiliating, and painful ways. Smoking-Squirrel and Wac-Chanil-Ahau were enthusiastic practitioners of this sacred tradition. Kinichil-Cab of Ucanal survived his capture to reappear four years later, on May 23, 698, in an event that was in all probability a sacrificial ritual of some sort. Later in the same year, on September 23, Shield-Jaguar suffered through the same rite in "the land of Smoking-Squirrel of Naranjo." A year later, on April 19, 699, it was lady Wac-Chanil's turn. The hapless Kinichil-Cab appeared again in a public ritual she conducted. On Naranjo Stela 24 we see her standing on the bound, nearly naked body of this unfortunate warrior. Finally, on 9.13.10.0.0 (January 26, 702), the day Smoking-Squirrel dedicated both Stela 22 and Stela 24, the young king displayed his famous captive, shield-Jaguar of Ucanal, in a public blood-letting ritual. As depicted, the ill-fated captive is nearly naked, stripped of all his marks of rank and prestige, holding his bound wrists up toward the magnificently dressed fourteen-year-old king who sits high above him on a jaguar-pillow." (Freidel, Schele, Parker. Pp. 189-191).
Although these events are separated by over 700 years, there is an uncanny and unholy resemblance between the stories of Kinichil-Cab and Shield-Jaguar and the depiction of the treatment of Alma and Amulek. When we account for the process of translation where Joseph would have understood the generalities, but not the specifics, and then account for time and cultural differences, there yet remains a remarkable number of parallels. In particular, we have the stripping and binding of the prisoners in both the Maya case and the Ammonihahite. As in the vase mentioned, there were beatings on the face, and similar striking on the face is mentioned for the Ammonihahites.