He is the founder of the Yax Kuk Mo Dynasty of rulers of Copan that lasted until 822 a.C. One of the most commonly cited motifs for this interpretation is the "goggle-eyed" headdress with which Yax Kʼukʼ Moʼ is commonly depicted; this is seemingly an allusion to the northern central Mexican rain deity known as Tlaloc by later peoples, such as the Aztecs.

However, modern strontium isotope analysis of the human remains recovered from the tomb attributed to him indicate that Kʼinich Yax Kʼukʼ Moʼ spent his formative years much closer to Copán, at Tikal, and had not himself lived at Teotihuacan.

His remains were found in the Hunal tomb inside of Temple 16, in the Copán acropolis;[1] he was buried with jade and shell jewelry, including his 'goggle-eyed' headdress.

The skeleton exhibited a number of traumas including healed fractures of the arm, sternum, and shoulder which have been surmised to have resulted from ball court matches.

[2] The implication of this, regardless of Kʼinich Yax Kʼukʼ Mo's physical point of geographic origin, is that later Copán rulers, in particular Kʼakʼ Yipyaj Chan Kʼawiil and Yax Pasaj Chan Yopaat retrospectively sought to attribute Teotihuacano heritage to the ʼfoundingʼ ruler of their dynasty as a means of legitimising the dynastic claim.