PENGARUH KESENIAN PĀLA TERHADAP GAYA SENI ARCA CANDI MENDUT

Indian culture presents a massive influence in the Early Classic Period in Java. One of the traces found in arts. However, which part of Indian art influenced is rarely mentioned. Some scholars said it was Gupta Art’s influence enormously in the Early Classic Period. Is it just Gupta Art? or another else? This paper aims to add knowledge about another Indian art, namely Pāla Art, which also presents in the Early Classic Period. The style of Pāla Art affects the depiction of Candi Mendut’s sculptures. The data collection using observation techniques and description as well. The data analysis using a qualitative approach by descriptive analysis methods. And finally, the data interpretation using the results of comparative studies. The conclusion reveals the similarities between both data. However, Candi Mendut’s sculptures did not entirely absorb the foreign influences, but they show authentic attributes known as a character of classical Javanese Art. Kebudayaan India memberikan pengaruh yang besar terhadap periode Klasik Tua di Jawa. Jejak kebudayaan India, salah satunya nampak pada bentuk-bentuk kesenian. Meskipun demikian, selama ini jarang disebutkan secara terperinci kesenian India mana saja yang memengaruhi kesenian Jawa klasik. Beberapa ahli berpendapat bahwa kesenian Gupta yang memberikan pengaruh besar terhadap bentuk kesenian Jawa pada periode Klasik Tua. Namun, benarkah hanya kesenian Gupta semata? Tulisan ini bertujuan untuk menambahkan pengetahuan mengenai gaya seni India lainnya, yakni kesenian Pāla, yang juga ditemui pada periode Klasik Tua. Pengaruh kesenian itu terlihat pada penggambaran arca-arca candi Mendut. Telaah dihasilkan melalui tahapan kerja yang bertingkat-tingkat, dimulai dari pengumpulan data dengan cara mengamati dan mendeskripsikan data; pengolahan data melalui pendekatan kualitatif dengan menggunakan metode analisis deskriptif; serta penafsiran data berdasarkan hasil studi komparasi. Simpulannya memperlihatkan persamaan gaya seni yang membuktikan bahwa kesenian Pāla memberikan pengaruhnya terhadap gaya seni arca Candi Mendut. Meskipun demikian, pengaruh kesenian Pāla tidak serta merta diserap secara utuh, melainkan terdapat ciri khas yang ditemui pada arca Candi Mendut yang menjadikannya sebagai karakter kesenian Jawa klasik.

A Reversal of Fortune: Problematical Deposit 50, Tikal, Guatemala

The contents, context, and date of Problematical Deposit 50 bear on the origin, function, and meaning of Teotihuacan stylistic traits in the Southern Maya Lowlands. Archaeological data and material culture research appear to support emulation and adaptation by local rulers and elites, while an actual presence of Teotihuacanos is asserted by epigraphy and iconography. PD 50, the partial contents of a probable Early Classic chamber burial, appears to support local emulation, but an extraordinary pottery vessel, nicknamed here the “Arrival Bowl,” implies direct contact. The chronology and archaeological context demonstrate that the appearance of Teotihuacan stylistic traits at Tikal during the later Early Classic period is functionally distinct from the goods distributed over an interregional interaction sphere of much longer duration in which both Central Mexico and the Maya area participated. Furthermore, together with other features at Tikal, PD 50 suggests that adoption of Teotihuacan ideology by Tikal's elite was eventually met with resistance that contributed to the violence at the end of the Early Classic period that is manifested in the archaeological record.

Refining Kaminaljuyu Chronology: New Radiocarbon Dates, Bayesian Analysis, and Ceramics Studies

Since Kaminaljuyu was first systematically excavated in the 1930s, the chronology of the site has been fraught with confusion and scholarly disagreement. In recent years, scholars generally adopted the chronology presented by Shook and Popenoe de Hatch (1999) as the most authoritative account. In 2014, however, Inomata and colleagues proposed a revision of this chronology by shifting its Preclassic portion (including the Las Charcas and Providencia phases) roughly 300 years later in time. In this article, we analyze a total of 108 radiocarbon dates with Bayesian statistics, tying them to detailed ceramic analysis. These dates include previously reported dates, measured after the year 2000, as well as 68 new radiocarbon dates obtained from Kaminaljuyu and nearby sites. The results largely support Inomata and coauthors’ (2014) revised Preclassic chronology, placing the Las Charcas–Providencia transition around 350 BC and the Providencia–Verbena transition around 75 BC. In addition, we present new dates on the Early Classic period, although some ambiguity remains for the Esperanza phase, when Teotihuacan-related elements were introduced to Kaminaljuyu. The revised chronology, combined with environmental data, suggests an explosive increase in population and construction activity during the Verbena and Arenal phases.

Ancient Maya Queenship

Olivia Navarro-Farr and colleagues explore another example of how the Snake Kings manipulated the political landscape of the Classic period with a fascinating case study in ancient Maya queenship at Waka’ in Chapter 10. Waka’ was first embroiled by the geopolitics of the lowlands during the Teotihuacan entrada of AD 378, after which the kingdom was apparently incorporated into the New Order’s political network based at Tikal. Kaanul subsequently brought Waka’ into its hegemony near the end of the Early Classic period with the marriage of the first of at least three royal Kaanul women to kings of Waka’. Beyond simply telling this story, Chapter 10 explores monumentality in two ways. First, Waka’ is presented as a contested node on the vast political and economic network of the Classic period, its importance evident in its role in the entrada, the deliberate and long-term strategy to integrate it into the Kaanul hegemony through royal marriage, and Tikal’s Late Classic star war conquest of Waka’ in AD 743. Second, Navarro-Farr and colleagues examine how, through reverential manipulation of monumental sculpture and architecture, the occupants of Waka’ continued to honor the great Kaanul queens for over a century following the failure of institutional kingship at the city.

BUILDING THE ENVIRONMENT AT PALENQUE: THE SACRED POOLS OF THE PICOTA GROUP

Throughout the world, past and present, social organizations develop to cope with restricted water sources. Relying on traditional archaeology, labor estimates, and ethnographic data, the Palenque Pool Project set out to better understand a series of interconnected artificial water features located in the western sector of this Classic Maya site. Here, we detail our 2014–2015 fieldwork. First, there is consideration that the Picota Group was a civic-ceremonial center first established in the Early Classic period (a.d. 250–500), one km to the west of the “downtown” nucleus of the site. A review of labor estimates for the construction of architectural features of the Picota Group follows. We then explore the ethnographic component, comparing similar pool configurations investigated in the highland Tzotzil community of Chamula in 2015. The article concludes with a theoretical discussion of how and why social organizations evolve to manage water resources in the region, with reference to ethnographic information from highland Tzotzil communities.

A New Method in Attribution? Attempts of the Employment of Geometric Morphometrics in the Attribution of Late Archaic Attic Lekythoi

In the Late Archaic - Early Classic period, the Attic ceramic industry was characterized by a kind of duality. On the one hand, the red-figure technique was flourishing, when Euphronios’, Douris’ or the Berlin Painter’s works represented the height of Greek vase painting. On the other hand, the market was also covered by large quantities of low-quality black-figure pottery. Not only in Athens, but even in the whole Ancient Mediterranean these mass-produced vessels emerge constantly, even from modern excavations. Therefore, in contrast to most vases of more talented painters they can be attached to an archaeological feature or layer. Due to their inadequate style, relatively few characteristics can be determined while looking at the painting. Thus, the manufacturing criteria, such as the details of the shapes, are more important in the attribution. In this paper, I study the late black-figure lekythoi of the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest with the help of geometric morphometrics using 3D reconstructions.

VARIATION IN RESIDENTIAL PRISMATIC BLADE PRODUCTION AND STATUS DURING THE EARLY CLASSIC AT PALO ERRADO, VERACRUZ

Intrasite variation in the production and consumption of obsidian prismatic blades is investigated at the Protoclassic to early Late Classic period site of Palo Errado in Veracruz, Mexico. There, the recovery of macrodebitage, as well as eraillure flakes, platform overhang flakes, and debitage with 90 degree angles between dorsal scars indicates that local blade production occurred at the site from imported marcocores and large polyhedral cores. In addition, detailed ceramic and obsidian data from excavated contexts demonstrate that the elite were involved in blade production and consumption, while the inhabitants of Mound 9, a non-elite, residential workshop locus, were specializing in prismatic blade production for exchange. At some point in the Early Classic period, the elite of the site undergo a significant change that intensifies their use of status markers, such as serving ware and personal adornment that corresponds to a decrease in elite blade production and an increase in blade consumption. However, no change in how blades are used by the elite is evident in this transition. While the vast majority of the obsidian artifacts recovered were made from Zaragoza-Oyameles obsidian, significant intrasite variation in minor sources, as well as the types of blades recovered and degree of edge wear suggests that the elite and nonelite participated independently in a variety of obsidian provisioning networks. In the case of the Mound 9 residents, the ceramic and obsidian assemblage suggests that their economic independence corresponded to a physical and ideological separation from the rest of the site. In general the production and consumption of obsidian does not suggest its use in a local political economy. Rather, the inhabitants of Palo Errado may have been exchanging and obtaining obsidian commodities within local and regional marketplaces.

Drought, agricultural adaptation, and sociopolitical collapse in the Maya Lowlands

Paleoclimate records indicate a series of severe droughts was associated with societal collapse of the Classic Maya during the Terminal Classic period (∼800–950 C.E.). Evidence for drought largely derives from the drier, less populated northern Maya Lowlands but does not explain more pronounced and earlier societal disruption in the relatively humid southern Maya Lowlands. Here we apply hydrogen and carbon isotope compositions of plant wax lipids in two lake sediment cores to assess changes in water availability and land use in both the northern and southern Maya lowlands. We show that relatively more intense drying occurred in the southern lowlands than in the northern lowlands during the Terminal Classic period, consistent with earlier and more persistent societal decline in the south. Our results also indicate a period of substantial drying in the southern Maya Lowlands from ∼200 C.E. to 500 C.E., during the Terminal Preclassic and Early Classic periods. Plant wax carbon isotope records indicate a decline in C4 plants in both lake catchments during the Early Classic period, interpreted to reflect a shift from extensive agriculture to intensive, water-conservative maize cultivation that was motivated by a drying climate. Our results imply that agricultural adaptations developed in response to earlier droughts were initially successful, but failed under the more severe droughts of the Terminal Classic period.