SCULPTURAL TRADITIONALISM AND INNOVATION IN THE CLASSIC MAYA KINGDOM OF SAK TZ'I', MEXICO

Abstract In this article we analyze the content and form of 58 stone monuments at the archaeological site of Lacanjá Tzeltal, Chiapas, Mexico, which recent research confirms was a capital of the Classic Maya polity Sak Tz'i' (“White Dog”). Sak Tz'i' kings carried the title ajaw (“lord”) rather than the epithet k'uhul ajaw (“holy lord”) claimed by regional powers, implying that Sak Tz'i' was a lesser kingdom in terms of political authority. Lacanjá Tzeltal's corpus of sculptured stone, however, is explicitly divergent and indicates the community's marked cultural autonomy from other western Maya kingdoms. The sculptures demonstrate similarities with their neighbors in terms of form and iconographic and hieroglyphic content, underscoring Lacanjá Tzeltal artisans’ participation in the region's broader culture of monumental production. Nevertheless, sculptural experimentations demonstrate not only that lesser courts like Lacanjá Tzeltal were centers of innovation, but that the lords of Sak Tz'i' may have fostered such cultural distinction to underscore their independent political character. This study has broader implications for understanding interactions between major and secondary polities, artistic innovation, and the development of community identity in the Classic Maya world.

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KA'KAW POTS AND COMMON CONTAINERS: CREATING HISTORIES AND COLLECTIVE MEMORIES AMONG THE CLASSIC MAYA OF XUNANTUNICH, BELIZE

Ancient Mesoamerica ◽

10.1017/s095653611000026x ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 21 (2) ◽

pp. 341-351 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Lisa J. LeCount

Keyword(s):

Collective Memory ◽

Classic Maya ◽

Community Identity ◽

Domestic Consumption ◽

Collective Memories ◽

Public Offerings ◽

Natural Cycles ◽

Lowland Maya

AbstractReconstruction of foodways at the Lowland Maya center of Xunantunich, Belize, illustrates how commensality is fundamental to the construction of multilayered identities. Collective memory and linear histories form the foundation of identities because they are the mental frameworks people use to construct shared pasts. At Xunantunich, community identity was expressed though pottery and practices associated with the preparation of foods for domestic consumption and public offerings. In a world of natural cycles centered on family reproduction, horticultural activities, and yearly ceremonies, these symbols and rituals structured the lives of all people and embodied within them a collective memory of community. Linear histories were recorded in images and texts on drinking paraphernalia that were likely used for toasting honored individuals, ancestors, or gods during commemorative rites. These inscriptions and bodily practices marked individuals and their houses as people and places of prominence with separate identities.

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Decentralizing the Economies of the Maya West

The Real Business of Ancient Maya Economies ◽

10.5744/florida/9780813066295.003.0023 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 403-417

Author(s):

Charles Golden ◽

Andrew Scherer ◽

Whittaker Schroder ◽

Clive Vella ◽

Alejandra Roche Recinos

Keyword(s):

Economic Benefits ◽

Classic Maya ◽

Best Interests ◽

Long Distance ◽

Exchange Networks ◽

Regional Powers ◽

Trade Networks ◽

Goods And Services ◽

Piedras Negras ◽

Royal Courts

Reconstructions of Pre-Columbian Maya economies are frequently based on a centralized model of exchange, in which dynastic capitals acted as centers of production, and import-export hubs, while royal courts provided some form of management over long-distance trade networks. However, recent research in the Usumacinta River Valley of the western Maya Lowlands, suggests that it was often hinterland elites who maintained those long-distance networks. These elites functioned as critical allies, and must have provided goods and services, to the royal courts of regional powers. But hinterland sites were centers of production in their own right, with exchange networks that did not always intersect with those of the dynastic center. Hinterland elites pursued their own ambitions and sought local economic benefits that could diverge from the best interests of the courts. In this chapter, we present the results of research in the hinterlands of Yaxchilán and Piedras Negras, and consider these data in light of a decentered model of Classic Maya economies.

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WHEN MEMORY REPEATS ITSELF: THE POLITICS OF HERITAGE IN POST CIVIL WAR LEBANON

International Journal of Middle East Studies ◽

10.1017/s0020743808080902 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 40 (2) ◽

pp. 314a-314a ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Lucia Volk

Keyword(s):

Archaeological Site ◽

Community Identity ◽

National Unity ◽

United Nations Educational ◽

Cultural Organization ◽

The Past ◽

National Heritage ◽

The World ◽

Shared Humanity ◽

Identity Based

In 2005 the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization accepted Lebanon's archaeological site of Nahr al-Kalb into its Memory of the World Programme, turning it from national heritage into a globally memorable text. I argue that it is not the content of the commemorative inscriptions but the mode of repeated commemoration that makes it possible to reinterpret potentially divisive markers of Lebanon's past into icons of national unity and a shared humanity. By focusing on the intersection of public monumentality, repetition, and the construction of community identity based on the logic of resemblance, I show that governmental elites at times of political transition need to make public interventions into the past to bolster their legitimacy, new commemorations are confined by rules and conventions of public memorializing, and the logic of resemblance inherent in commemorative processes can be used to convert a fragmented history into a memory of unity and strength

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Trend Surface Analysis and the Lowland Classic Maya Collapse

American Antiquity ◽

10.2307/279989 ◽

1981 ◽

Vol 46 (1) ◽

pp. 93-112 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

Frederick J. Bove

Keyword(s):

Surface Analysis ◽

Response Surfaces ◽

Classic Maya ◽

Surface Model ◽

Trend Surface Analysis ◽

Late Classic ◽

Response Models ◽

Trend Surface ◽

Stone Monuments ◽

Maya Collapse

The methods of trend surface analysis, a form of regression analysis, are applied to complex archaeological surfaces, or response surfaces, derived from a series of points representing carved stone monuments in the Lowland Classic Maya region bearing the most recent dates. Results of a comparison of trend surface and residual maps produced and of an analysis of variance with expected maps do not support a strong west to east diffusionary trend for the collapse, nor a hypothesized invasion. Evidence is presented indicating the probable existence of five regional zones or sociopolitical spheres in the Late Classic whose existence may bear directly on the collapse through increased competition. The utility of the trend surface model is demonstrated, primarily as a method of formalized data description and as an aid in the building of process-response models.

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People Who Lived in Stone Houses: Local Knowledge and Social Difference in the Classic Maya Puuc Region of Yucatan, Mexico

Latin American Antiquity ◽

10.7183/1045-6635.22.2.143 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 22 (2) ◽

pp. 143-158 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Kelli Carmean ◽

Patricia A. McAnany ◽

Jeremy A. Sabloff

Keyword(s):

Local Knowledge ◽

Archaeological Site ◽

Classic Maya ◽

Cultural Value ◽

Social Difference ◽

Social Differences ◽

Linguistic Evidence ◽

The Social ◽

Maya Architecture ◽

Social Landscapes

AbstractThis study builds on the premise that local knowledge of limestone—and its workable characteristics—was foundational to landscape inhabitation in the Puuc region of Yucatán, México. Classic Maya architecture of the northern Yucatán generally is considered to represent the apogee of Maya construction prowess with extensive use of core-veneer masonry and the creation of tall, wide corbelled vaults. Less commonly discussed is the variable distribution of high-quality limestone across the Yucatán, the social matrix that undergirds the quarrying, transporting, and working of limestone, and the pronounced social differences materialized in stone architecture. This study explores these three topics by bringing to bear Yucatec Mayan linguistic evidence and excavation data from the archaeological site of Sayil, in the hilly Puuc region of Yucatán. That information provides a basis for understanding the development of a sprawling residential complex, the role that variable limestone quality played in its expansion, and serves as an index of intra-compound social difference. Late additions to the dwellings indicate that recognition of the cultural value of carved stone persisted long after masonry skills became attenuated. The durability of stone renders it a particularly effective—if underutilized—medium for interpreting social landscapes of the past.

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Ucanal Stela 29 and the Cosmopolitanism of Terminal Classic Maya Stone Monuments

Latin American Antiquity ◽

10.1017/laq.2020.70 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 31 (4) ◽

pp. 817-837 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Christina T. Halperin ◽

Simon Martin

Keyword(s):

Gulf Coast ◽

Ninth Century ◽

Active Role ◽

Classic Maya ◽

Political Movements ◽

Stone Monuments ◽

Terminal Classic ◽

Political Ideologies ◽

Precipitous Decline

The Terminal Classic period (ca. AD 800–1000) in the Southern Maya Lowlands witnessed a precipitous decline in the erection of carved stone monuments, a decline that corresponds to shifts in political ideologies and the disappearance of many prominent royal dynasties. Although Southern Lowland sites are often considered peripheral to the events and innovations occurring elsewhere in Mesoamerica during this time, a recently discovered stela, Stela 29, at the site of Ucanal in Peten, Guatemala, underscores the active role of the site in broader political movements in the ninth century. Our iconographic, textual, and stylistic analysis of this stela, in concert with other Terminal Classic monuments from the site, reveals a vernacular cosmopolitan aesthetic whereby local Classic Maya styles were infused with images and elements that referenced connections with peoples from northern Yucatan, the Gulf Coast, and Central Mexico.

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Leadership at Sayil

Ancient Mesoamerica ◽

10.1017/s0956536100001978 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

pp. 259-270 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Kelli Carmean

Keyword(s):

Community Leadership ◽

Classic Maya ◽

Leadership Roles ◽

Residential Areas ◽

Religious Activities ◽

Stone Monuments ◽

Terminal Classic ◽

Maya Site

AbstractThis paper explores the nature of community leadership within the Late–Terminal Classic Maya site of Sayil, Yucatan, Mexico. The distribution of political and religious activities—as represented archaeologically by cylindrical stone monuments (“altars”) and Oxkutzcab Applique censers—is examined. It is argued that such activities are dispersed into the upper ranks of Sayil society, rather than concentrated in the royal, ruling sector. It is further argued that the residential areas in which political and religious activities were concentrated may have been the loci of lineage heads of Sayil, who maintained important leadership roles despite attempts at centralization by the rulers.

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O Lugar das comunidades na preservação do património arqueológico. Um projeto de investigação.

Cadernos de Sociomuseologia ◽

10.36572/csm.2017.vol.54.05 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Maria Candido

Keyword(s):

Archaeological Site ◽

Community Identity ◽

Archaeological Sites ◽

Research Project ◽

The Relationship

In this article we present the research project underway in the PhD in Museology by ULHT, where it is proposed to map the archaeological sites of Setúbal, identifying the sites with relevance to the community (s) and with which they identify, characterizing the memories associated to the archaeological sites with connection to the communities and to analyze the relation that the communities establish with these sites. Along with the relationship established between the community and the archaeological site, the methods of dissemination and communication of archeology as a science and as a practice are analyzed, proposing terms such as Clandestine Archeology and Trench Archeology. Keywords: Memory; Community; Identity; Archaeological practices; Archeology of trench

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Archaeological Site of Persepolis (Iran) – the Finishing Technique of the Stone Monuments

Archaeology and Conservation along the Silk Road ◽

10.7767/9783205200468.95 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 95-108

Author(s):

Alireza Askari Chaverdi ◽

Pierfrancesco Callieri ◽

Marisa Laurenzi Tabasso ◽

Stefano Ridolfi

Keyword(s):

Archaeological Site ◽

Stone Monuments

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Ritual Diversity and Divergence of Classic Maya Dynastic Traditions: A Lexical Perspective on Within-Group Cultural Variation

Latin American Antiquity ◽

10.7183/1045-6635.27.1.74 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 27 (1) ◽

pp. 74-95 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Jessica Munson ◽

Jonathan Scholnick ◽

Matthew Looper ◽

Yuriy Polyukhovych ◽

Martha J. Macri

Keyword(s):

Cultural Practices ◽

Semantic Content ◽

Diversity Indices ◽

Classic Maya ◽

Complex Societies ◽

Cultural Variation ◽

Unit Of Analysis ◽

Stone Monuments ◽

Hieroglyphic Writing ◽

Cultural Traits

To study the Classic Maya is to at once recognize the shared material representations and practices that give coherence to this cultural category as a unit of analysis, as well as to critically examine the diversity and idiosyncrasy of specific cultural traits within prehispanic Maya society. Maya hieroglyphic writing, in particular the tradition of inscribing texts and images on carved stone monuments, offers evidence for widespread and mutually intelligible cultural practices that were, at the same time, neither unchanging nor uniform in their semantic content. As conduits of linguistic and cultural information, Maya hieroglyphic monuments offer detailed records of Classic Maya dynastic history that include the names, dates, and specific rituals performed by élite individuals. In this article, we analyze the distribution and diversity of these inscriptions to examine ritual variation and the divergence of dynastic traditions in Classic Maya society. Diversity indices and methods adapted from population genetics and ecology are applied to quantify the degree of ritual differentiation and evaluate how these measures vary over time and are partitioned within and between elite populations. Results of this research refine our understanding about the variation of Clássic Maya ritual traditions and make substantive contributions to examining the population structure of cultural diversity within past complex societies.

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