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THE BLOOD OF KINGS
Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art
THE BLOOD
OF KINGS
Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art

Linda Schele
Mary Ellen Miller
Photographs by ]stir Kerr

GEORGE BRAZILLER, INC. a New York

in association with the
KIMBELL ART MUSEUM, Fort Worth
 CONTENTS

Foreword/Emily ]. Sano ix

Preface/Michael D. Coe 1

Acknowledgments 5
Library of Congress catalogue number: 86-80193

Introduction
Schele, Linda.
The blood of kings.
Bibliography: p, Prologue 9
Includes index.
I. Mayas-Art. 2. Mayas-Social life and customs.
3. Indians of Mexico-Art. 4. Indians of Mexico-
The Modern Invention of the Ancient Maya 18
Social life and customs. 5. Indians of Central
America-Art. 6. Indians of Central America-Social The Characteristics of Maya Art 33
life and customs. I. Miller, Mary Ellen. II. Kerr, Justin.
Ill. Kimball Art Museum. IV. Title.
Fl435.3.A7S34 1986 704.9'09728l 86-80193 Maya Gods and Icons 41
ISBN 0-912804-22-X (pl'ak.)
ISBN 0-8076-1159-X
Chapters

Copyright © 1986 Kimball Art Museum. All rights rvscrvcd.

I The Royal Person 63
Reprinted with cumxtions September. 1986

All photographs © ]ustin Kerr. 1985 except where noted. II Kingship and the Rites of Accession 103
Figures 6. 7. III. 3, \Lash, V6, and Plate 40 © President and Fellows
of Harvard College. 1985
Plate 66 © Paul Macapia. 1985
III Courtly Life 133
Figure IV 3, Flare 72 © National Geographic Society, 1975
Plates Ill, 119 © Merle Greene Rohertson, 1975 IV Bloodletting and the Vision Quest 175
Flares 80, 98. courtesy of the Seattle Art Museum
Flare 91, courtesy of the Field Muwum of Natural History, Chicago
Figure II, courtesy ofTlle Baltimore Muwum of Art V Warfare and Captive Sacrifice 209
Figure Vl.6, The Ada Tun hull llertle Fund. © The Art Institute of Chicago
All drawings by Linda Schele except where noted.
VI The Ballgame 241
Drawings from the Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic lnsm'ptions (Peabody Museum Press) reproduced courtesy of the Peabody
Museum of Archaeology and Fthnology, Harvard University. Figures V.2, V.3: Plates 6Za, 63a, 64a, 65a (1977); Figure VII Death and the journey to Xibalba
V1.7 (1982) © President and Fellows of Harvard College
265

VIII Kingship and the Maya Cosmos 301

ISBN (Soft): 0-912804-22-X
ISBN (Hard): 0-8076-1159-X The Maya Calendar 317

The Hieroglyphic Writing System 323

Cover illusnu!imLs: (farm) Dcmil. Wxchilan Lintel 24.
Plate 62. The British Museum, London; (back) Rnlluut.
Cylindrical vessel. Plate 48, Kimhcll Arr Muwum, Fun Suggestions for Further Reading 329
Wlxrth.
Index 330

Printed in japan

I
DedUzazed no Giflert G. Griffin
I
This publication has been aided by a generous grant from Inte'rFirst Bank Fort Worth

This publication was issued in connection with the exhibition The Blood of Kings: A New
Interpretation of Maya Art, shown at the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, May 17_August 24,
1986, and The Cleveland Museum of Art, October 8_December 14, 1986. All objects in the
exhibition are illustrated here in color, with the exception of Fig. 11. For didactic purposes,
several unexhibited works are also illustrated, in Plates 9, 10, 19, 38, 39, 45, 46, 58, 72, 90,
106, 111, 113, 119, 122. Organized by the Kimbell Art Museum, in association with The Cleveland
Museum of Art, the exhibition has been made possible, in part, by grants from lnterFirst Bank
Fort Worth, The Anne Burnett and Charles Tandy Foundation, Fort Worth, and The National
Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. A federal indemnity was provided by the Federal
Council on the Arts and Humanities.

3;

f I

J
4
J
FOR EWQR D

HE BLOOD OF KINGS: DYNASTY AND RITUAL IN MAYA ART SEEKS TO

establish a social and historical framework for the architecture and objects produced by
the ancient Maya. Previously lost to the obscurity of prehistory, these remarkable peo-
ple have begun to emerge as genuine historical figures-with names, dates, whole lin-
eages, and a series of recorded actions-all thanks to the tremendous progress made
since 1960 in deciphering Maya hieroglyphic script. As an orientalist by training with
some familiarity with Chinese and ]apanese, I can appreciate the awesome challenge of
learning to read a language recorded in abstract pictographs. The imagination, recon-
structive scholarship, and sheer intellectual tenacity required to crack the code of this
language when the culture had no continuous history, and when informants literate in
the ancient language were no longer living, is staggering to contemplate.
It is now possible to show the Maya were a real people, who lived, loved, hated,
created, possessed and destroyed in a manner characteristic of human beings. A synthe-
sis of new information about the Maya, who have been romanticized for many decades,
is made possible through the combined cooperative efforts of scholars in many dis-
ciplines-archaeology, anthropology, epigraphy, comparative linguistics and art his-
tory. This new picture of the Maya inevitably raises the questions of their origin and
place in the history of world culture. Superficial similarities to Asian culture, particu-
larly that of the ancient Chinese, are apparent. For a student of Asian art, it is impos-
sible to overlook a correspondence in important skills and uses of objects-writing,
jade carving, stone sculpture in both three»dimensional and stele form, ceramic pro-
ductions in vessels and figurines, the use of mirrors-as well as fundamental ideas about
the cardinal points and their association with colors, Hell, and even the reliance on
ancestors to guide the living. These similarities will, no doubt, continue to inspire
diffusionists who argue for an Asian source of native American Precolumbian culture.
However, while the ultimate Asian origin of the people who populated the American
continent is accepted, the form of Maya civilization, its concerns and its peculiar
expressions, are not better understood by comparison to the Chinese. The Maya still
must be taken on their own terms and the context of their time and place in
Mesoamerica to be correctly appreciated. Moreover, we will never know the Maya as
well as we can know the Chinese of 100 B.c. to A. D. 900 for whom countless volumes of
text and considerable material culture remains, but we may be able to know them
almost as well as the Egyptians and Assyrians.
The work here of Linda Schele and Mary Ellen Miller and their colleagues has
shown us the quality of mind and artistic product that mark the Maya as a great civilizer»
son. This recognition of an advanced culture in the Americas necessarily removes
Precolumbian art from the historical concept of "primitive" art. Maya art, the lives of
these great people, their thoughts, their tremendous powers of imagination and reflec»
 4

son make them, as our authors tell us, equal to the great figures of other civilizations. Dr. George Kubler, Professor Emeritus, Department of the History of Art, Yale University
They were a people who had the social organization and the skills to manipulate their
Professor Miguel LeOn-Portilla, Institute de Investigaciones Historicas,
own world. As we continue to look back at them, we may learn why they ultimately Universidad Nacional AutOnoma de Mexico
failed; in the meantime, our respect and wonderment for all they accomplished grows.
Dr. Floyd Lounsbury, Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, Yale University
In February 1985, I encountered a Maya ruin for the first time. At Copan in
Honduras I stood at the top of Temple 11, the most sacred building there, and experi- Mrs. Merle Greene Robertson, Precolumbian Art Research Institute, San Francisco
enced the extraordinary thrill of a sacred site-empty, silent, even partially crumbled, Dr. George Stuart, National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C.
yet strongly imbued with the sense of a world in another time that I could not know. Dr. Gordon Willey, Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University
That experience, shared by thousands of visitors to ruins in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize
and Honduras since the end of the nineteenth century, accounts for the fascination As a corollary of the exhibition, the Kimbell Art Museum undertook to publish
with the Maya. Their spectacular cities of palaces and temples built of hewn blocks of an independent study of the Maya based upon the results of the latest scholarly
stone are hardly the only attraction: stately sculpture, pottery painted with lively im- research. The pioneering approach adopted by Schele and Miller led us away from the
ages, beautifully worked jade and shell ornaments, and, most of all, their mysterious traditional format of an exhibition catalogue to a book with a broader purpose. In
hieroglyphic writing are the material remains that speak eloquently of a sophisticated, proposing this idea to the authors, Dr. Edmund P. Pillsbury, Director of the Kimbell,
complex, highly intelligent people. wrote to them as follows:
This volume is published on the occasion of an exhibition by the Kimbell Art I would like to see the publication developed as a book rather than as an exhibi-
Museum in celebration of the Texas Sesquicentennial. The museum has no plans to tion catalogue. The book should include a substantial introduction outlining
build a major collection of Precolumbian art and has no professional in this field on its the previous literature on the subject and placing the new research into a
staff. The idea for the show was presented to me by Mr. Dee Smith, a resident of Fort meaningful context for a general audience. Following the introduction there
Worth and Maya enthusiast who had attended Professor Linda Schele's Hieroglyphic should be eight long chapters, lucidly written, I trust, treating the individual
Workshop in Austin. Intrigued by the idea of an exhibition of the Maya, we invited a
themes of the exhibition. Both introduction and individual chapters could be
Linda Schele to Fort Worth to explore the possibility of such an exhibition. Schele and illustrated with material that is not in the exhibition as well as the pieces that
her colleague, Mary Ellen Miller of Yale, assisted as guest curators for the show; they are shown, accompanied by descriptive notes. At the end of the volume there
created the exhibition structure of eight themes that explore different aspects of the may be a glossary of technical terms, a bibliography, an index, and other rel-
lives of Kings as portrayed in art and prepared the preliminary list of objects to be evant material.
borrowed.
For the exhibition, it was decided that objects should be first and foremost of As project director and general editor of The Blood of Kings, I wish to acknowl-
supreme aesthetic quality and historical interest to do justice to the extraordinary artist edge those individuals crucial to the project: the invaluable Karen King, Curatorial
tic legacy of Maya civilization. Secondly, and equally important, there was a concern Secretary, put the entire text of a four-hundred page manuscript on disk, working sin-
that objects included in the exhibition come from the public sector. This condition, glehandedly through first draft and revisions. She worked, not only under the pressure
although viewed as arbitrary by some and insufficiently restrictive by others, excluded of time and massive volume, but also with characteristic grace. I am grateful for the
from consideration works that might have a future commercial life. in making our advice of Professor Michael Coe of Yale University and Marilyn Ingram, Curator of
selection, we received advice from leading scholars throughout the world. In particular, Education at the Kimbell, who read the entire manuscript and offered many sugges-
we relied upon the counsel and good judgment of those pre-eminent authorities who tions. I owe special thanks to Pat Loud, Slide Librarian, who undertook the task of
agreed to serve on the Advisory Board for the organization of the exhibition: reading the galleys; the staff of the museum library who fielded bibliographical ques»
sons; Registrar Peggy Buchanan, who coordinated loans and photography; Wendy
Gottlieb, who so efficiently handled promotion of the exhibition and book; and Kath~
Miss Elizabeth Benson, Institute of Andean Studies, Bethesda, Maryland
leen Schorn who assisted me through numerous Federal Express deadlines.
Dr. Elizabeth Boone, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.
The glorious color photographs by ]ustin Kerr, commissioned by the Kimbell
Miss Elizabeth Carmichael, Museum of Mankind, The British Museum, London Art Museum for this publication, are a tribute to the extraordinary talents of this pho»
Professor Michael D. Coe, Department of Anthropology, Yale University biographer. I wish to thank him, and his gracious wife and able assistant, Barbara, for
His Excellency Federico Fahsen, Former Ambassador of Guatemala to the United States their generous assistance to me and to the authors. The choice of Dana Levy to design
Professor David Freidel, Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas the book was an ideal one, because the complexity of the text and volume of illustrate
sons required the assurance and enormous talent that he brings to his craft. The chat»
Professor Beatriz de la Fuente, Institute de Investigaciones Esteticas,
Universidad Nacional AutOnoma de México lenging task of copyediting the long manuscript was entrusted to Letitia Burns O'Con»
nor of Perpetua Press and her associate Sylvia Tidwell.
Mr. Gillett G. Griffin, Curator of Precolumbian and Primitive Collection,
I deeply appreciate the efforts of Deputy Director Dr. William B. Jordan who
The Art Museum, Princeton University
contributed substantially to the negotiation for loans and to the promotion of the book

x FOREWORD
 and exhibition. I also wish to express profound thanks to Edmund Pillsbury for his PREFACE
unstinting support of the project. Dr. Pillsbury recognized the great contribution to be
made to the advancement of scholarship and fully committed the museum to a high
standard in both the exhibition and the book. Without his vision and sympathetic
concern, this project could not have been possible. Finally, to Linda and Mary I wish to
say thank you for countless hours of work under the heavy pressures of full»time aca»
demic schedules, for the use of their drawings and photographs, for their enduring
patience through crises, large and small, and for the contribution of an enthusiastic cc
manuscript that brings the ancient Maya to life. Initially entranced by the lively intel-
ligence of these two women, I have also come to admire and respect them for their LOOD WAS THE MORTAR OF ANCIENT MAYA LIFE," AS THE AUTHORS OF THIS
remarkable strength of character and generosity of spirit. unique volume assure us. Such a statement, based upon the soundest of scholarship,
would have been unthinkable 25 years ago. A virtual revolution has taken place in the
EMILY ]. SANO last quarter century in our knowledge of the New World's most advanced, sophisticated
Kimbell Art Museum I| and subtle civilization, a revolution that reaches its culmination and most definitive
statement in The Blood of Kings.
This intellectual turn-about has taken place on many fronts, but most espe»
cally in epigraphy and iconography. I well remember a day in the year 1959, when the
late, great Tatiana Proskouriakoff- seated as usual in the smoking room of Harvard's
Peabody Museum (she was a cigarette addict)-took me through what she called "a
T

I peculiar patterns of dates," along with associated glyphs, that she had detected on the
carved stelae of Piedras Negras. I was astounded at her accomplishment. She had made
the greatest single advance in the study of the ancient Maya: the Classic Maya inscrip-
tions had become part of history, as _john Lloyd Stephens had foretold in the last cen-
tury, not just records of the passing of time, or of the movements of the heavenly bodies.
So modest and unassuming was "Tania" that she never would have called this the
beginning of a revolution, but so it was.
To continue on a personal note, in March of 1956, my wife and I, then both
graduate students at Harvard and on our spring vacation, found ourselves guests in a
Merida hotel along with Tania. I had just picked up in a local bookshop a Mexican
translation of a work on Maya hieroglyphic writing by a Soviet scholar reputed to have
cracked the script, but otherwise unknown to most Mayanists. The author was Yuri
Valentinovich Knorosov, a specialist in the comparative study of writing systems.
Knorosov had had the audacity to revive the long-discredited "alphabet" written down
in the sixteenth century by Bishop Landa, and had gone on to propose phonetic»syl-
labic readings of various glyphs in the Dresden Codex. I found many of these readings
plausible, and I am convinced that Tania-to whom we lent the pamphlet-did, too,
although then and subsequently she never committed herself to the Knorosov
approach, probably through awe of Eric Thompson, the leading figure in twentieth-
century Maya research and until his death a bitter opponent of the Knorosov school.
My bilingual wife eventually translated into English the bulk of Knorosov's
work, and David H. Kelley took up the cudgel in defense of his approach. Kelley
became the first to recognize the names of rulers spelled completely phonetically in the
Maya inscriptions (for instance, Kakupacal, "Fiery Shield,"at Chic fen Itza), and
made notable advances in the dynastic history of Copan and Quirigua. All subsequent
research on the subject has confirmed the essential correctness of the hypothesis that
the Maya could write everything they wanted to purely phonetically, but never did this
in complete form because of the sacredness and prestige of the ideographs or logograms.

xii BLOOD OF KINGS

 In fact, we know that the Maya script bears a close typological resemblance to other great Mayanists of all time, combining just those fields of epigraphy and iconography
mixed logographic phonetic systems of the world, such as Egyptian and Japanese. This I
that, to use an academic cliche, represent the "cutting edge" of Maya research.
resemblance had not been lost to Knorosov, and it probably was the stimulus behind his I must admit that I have been proud of the Yale representation at this and
discoveries. subsequent conferences. It was at Palenque that David ]oralemon, for example, first
The pace of research on the dynastic inscriptions of the Classic Maya increased presented his groundbreaking paper of bloodletting rites among the Classic Maya elite;
after 1960 (when Tania's epoch-making paper was published), as younger scholars using and the much-lamented Jeffrey Miller, who died early in his career, did the same with
the historical approach entered the field. in the 1970s, another element was added to his extremely important study of the iconography and epigraphy of mirrors, which were
the intellectual ferment. This was iconography, a subject in which the pioneering figure manipulated and used by Classic rulers as emblems of their power, and which appear on
was not Tania, as one might have expected from her long career as an artist, but Eric the bodies of supernatural beings as "god-markings." Certainly the influence of Floyd
Thompson. Others may dispute this, but I think that the reasons were personal. I knew Lounsbury, now Professor Emeritus at Yale, has been immense, both in his linguistic
and liked and admired both of them. Tania was a dedicated atheist, and would even and epigraphic work (it was he who told us how to read the mah k'ina and ahpo titles of
argue that one should not listen to the B»Minor Mass since it was religious! She consist the Classic kings) and in his researches into Maya calendrics and especially astronomy.
tently denied that the Maya even had gods. Thompson was the exact opposite, an enor- The art historian George Kubler, now also emeritus, has trained many new people in
mously devout and conservative-in every sense of the word-Anglican of High the Maya field, not the least of whom is Mary Miller, co-author of this study, whose
Church persuasion. To Eric (later Sir Eric), his beloved Maya were wonderful mainly major work on the paintings of Bonarnpak is a tour de force of placing art in context.
because they were so imbued with faith and piety. There are passages in his great work, Somewhat immodestly, I will bring forth my own contribution to the new out-
Maya Hieroglyphic Writing (a fountainhead of insights into Maya iconography but not look on this ancient and definitely alien people. In 1971, while organizing an exhibit
into the script), which suggest that he thought of the Classic Maya as Anglicans like on Maya writing for the Grolier Club of New York, I had the opportunity to look at a
himself, chanting antiphonal Psalms in the quiet calm of an Evensong service. large number of pictorial Maya ceramics, perhaps the largest collection of these that
any scholar had been able to examine at one time. It suddenly struck me that there were
A final ingredient was the input of field archaeology. In his contribution to the
certain patterns to be discerned here, not only in the scenes and dramatis Personae, but
Alfred Tozzer festschrift, The Maya and their Neighbors (1940), my old teacher Clyde
also in the texts. I began to see imagery clearly related to the Underworld sections of the
Kluckhohn laid the intellectual mine that eventually destroyed the archaeological sec
son of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, for the previous three decades the Popol Vuh, the great Quiche Maya epic written down in its present form after the
Spanish Conquest. To make a very long story short, the evidence is now overwhelming
leading institution in the Maya area; parenthetically, this critique of Maya research was
that 1) Maya pictorial vessels are basically funerary in iconographic content as well as
also the foundation of what was to become the "New Archaeology," the wave of the
in function; 2) the myriad gods, divine heroes, beasties and hobgoblins on these ceram-
future. In the postwar years, all archaeological projects focusing on the Maya would
ics can be related in large part to the Xibalba (Underworld) section of the Popol Vuh,
have to solve far larger and more anthropologically significant problems than those to
while keeping in mind that the latter transmits to us only a tiny fragment of what must
which Carnegie had previously been devoted. Among these were questions regarding
have been an immensely long "Book of the Dead"; and 3) these wonderful ceramics
settlement patterns-where and how did the Maya live, and were the great Maya sites
present the largest corpus of Classic Maya iconography available to modern
cities or relatively empty "ceremonial centers"?-patterns of trade, and nature of Clas-
sic Maya subsistence in the Lowlands. As the reader will find from this volume, it has
scholarship.
now been determined that the Maya did live in real cities, and that while they carried Having said this, what is the picture of the Classic Lowland Maya so vividly
on milpa or slash-and-burn agriculture, as advocated in the well»known books of presented to us in The Blood of Kings? First of all, these were no peaceful theocracies, as
Sylvanus Morley and Eric Thompson, there was widespread and highly productive claimed by Morley and Thompson, but rival and very aggressive city-states, no one of
intensive agriculture in the swampy bajos that characterize the southern Lowlands. which ever managed to dominate all of the others. Constant warfare and the taking of
All of these lines of inquiry came together in the conferences of the 1970s and prominent captives (and dispatching them after lengthy degradation and torture) were
19805 that were held at Dumbarton Daks, Princeton, and Palenque. Those of us who the name of the game. The rulers of these petty states seemed to have dragged around
were present at the Primera Mesa Redonda de Palenque, held in December 1973, will some of the unfortunate victims for years, and they always boasted about them (cf.
never forget that occasion. Linguists, epigraphers, art historians, archaeologists and Yaxchilan's "He of the 20 Captives"). The carnage was probably only occasionally sub»
ethnologists came together in a remarkable collaboration that broke new ground for dyed by royal marriages between polities, making the Maya not so different-in this
Maya studies. The piece de resistance of the meeting was when Peter Mathews, Floyd respect only-from the principalities of northern Italy during the Renaissance.
Lounsbury, and Linda Schele worked out before our very eyes the dynastic sequence And how do we get to the statement about blood that began this Preface?
and architectural history of Palenque, including the long rule of Pacal the Great, the These rulers were divine, descended from the most ancient of gods. The Maya equated
seventh-century king buried in the crypt of the Temple of the Inscriptions. This was my (as we do) lineage with blood, and it was the obligation of these kings and queens to
first meeting with Linda, an artist who had drifted into Palenque one day with her shed their own blood on important ritual occasions, undoubtedly before the assembled
husband David, and who had fallen immediately in love with this beautiful site and nobility and perhaps even in view of an awestruck populace. So significant was this act
with the Classic Maya. There is no doubt in my mind that she has become one of the that the bloodletter, often a stingray spine, was itself deified. The magnificent stone

2 THE BLOOD OF KINGS

 lintels from Yaxchilan included here show the majesty and mystique of this painful ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ceremony, which must have confirmed the royal legitimacy. Perhaps more private were
the rituals surrounding the taking of intoxicating enemas, known largely on
polychrome pottery but surprisingly frequent in that medium. Some of the actions of
the Maya elite were very strange, indeed.
It was not only their own blood that the kings shed, but also that of high-
ranking captives, the most important of whom were themselves rulers of rival states.
The sinister role that the ballgame played in this process is made apparent by Linda
Schele and Mary Miller: it now seems that captives were forced to play a game in which
the dice were loaded, so to speak, with decapitation the inevitable result. The Aztecs IS BOOK HAS BEEN WRITTEN WITH THE HELP AND SUPPORT of many indi-
have received a very bad press for their penchant for human sacrifice, but they certainly viduals, but most of all, we wish to thank Emily Sano, Assistant Director for Programs
never inflicted upon their victims the torture and mutilation that were characteristic of and Academic Services and the Curator of Asian Art at the Kimbell Art Museum, who
Maya sacrifice. read every word of the book many times and thoughtfully commented on both details
Since we now can actually read most of the Classic Maya texts, we are in a and ideas in the manuscript. Through Emily's patient editing, the manuscript took
position to say something about the meaning of what we see in Maya architecture and shape, and without her drive, energy and encouragement, this book could not have
sculpture. As the authors say, Maya buildings, beginning in the Late Preclassic, were been written.
virtual billboards, replete with stucco and stone reliefs proclaiming the oneness of the It has been a pleasure for us to collaborate with ]stir and Barbara Kerr, who
ruling elite with the gods. The stelae, lintels and panels celebrate major events in the took the photographs for this volume. Their images have shaped this book, and at
lives of the dynasts and their predecessors (even mythological ones, as in the case of times their insights have also helped us shape our ideas. In addition to the Kerr photo»
Palenque). In the close marriage of picture and text, they remind one of the reliefs of graphs, this book is heavily illustrated with Linda's drawings. Many were drawn from
ancient Egypt, in which pharaohs smite enemies, take captives, and celebrate jubilees. photographs, and some were redrawn from other sketches and drawings, but still others
As with Egypt, the Maya inscriptions are extremely parsimonious in what they say: were made from the original object. We thank Ian Graham at Harvard's Peabody
these are the concerns of the royal persons, not of the populace as a whole. Museum for having made many of his drawings available to us, not only now, but
A deep concern with death and the Underworld pervades Maya art and archi- throughout the years. Barbara Fash provided many drawings of Copan materials. In
tecture. Ever since the epoch-making discovery of Pacal's tomb, it has become increas- New York, Anna Roosevelt, formerly Curator of South and Middle American
ingly clear that most Classic temple-pyramids were built as the last resting-places of Archaeology at the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, and Gordon
deceased kings. Here the great paradigm for the rulers was the myth of the Hero Twins, Eckholm, Curator Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, the American Museum of
preserved for us in the Popol Vuh, which must have played a role among the Classic Natural History, made it possible for Linda to handle and draw complicated objects.
Maya that the Iliad and Odyssey did for the ancient Greeks. The myth states that the Virginia Crawford offered assistance at The Cleveland Museum of Art, as did Yvonne
Twins, unlike their father (the Maize God) and uncle, were not slain by the horrible Schumann of the Merseyside County Museums, Liverpool. Elizabeth Carmichael,
denizens of Xibalba, the Underworld, but defeated them and thus overcame death it- Assistant Keeper, The Musuem of Mankind, facilitated the documentation at The Brit-
self, rising up to become heavenly bodies. ish Museum, and Ted ]. I. Leyenaar, Deputy Director and Curator, Latin American
The elite caste which ruled the Maya masses must have identified themselves Department at the Rijksmuseurn veer Volkenkunde, assisted in Leiden. Ricardo
with these marvelous heroes: they would never really die like ordinary mortals. Interred Agurcia, Director, Institute HondureNo de Antropologia e Historia in Tegucigalpa,
inside their mausoleum-pyramids, they would continue to be worshipped as divine supported our work at Copan, and his enthusiasm for this project has been especially
ancestors by their descendants, nourished with the blood of their own royal lineages. gratifying.
Although we can now understand much of the thousand years of art so beau- Many other people have generously shared their ideas with us. Dee Smith was
tifully illustrated here, there is much yet to learn. The discovery of a single bark-paper the catalyst in initiating the project, and Beverly and Gordon Smith graciously opened
book of Classic date, or even better, ten or twenty of them, would probably change all their home to us during the planning stages of our work. At critical moments, George
our thinking about these strange people. We would certainly get a better idea of the role and Gene Stuart offered moral support. George, in particular, understood the difficul»
played by the scribes, who may have fulfilled many of the functions one attributes to ties of such an undertaking and provided photographs, encouragement, and friendship.
priests in the outdated model of a "theocratic" Maya society. But, as this book exempli- Mil fry Polk shared her time and home with us as well. When we were launching this
fies, we have come a very long way in the past quarter century in arriving at the ulti- project, Betty Benson gave us sound advice.
mate meaning of Maya art. Michael Coe read the entire book in draft and made many helpful suggestions.
William Fash and David Freidel also read much of the manuscript and offered useful
M1CHAEL D. COE comments. David Stuart, Stephen Houston, and Karl Taube have kindly shared their
Yale University unpublished work with us.

4 THE BLOOD OF KINGS

 Part of the excitement of writing this book was the fun of working together. NOTE TO THE READER
Dashing from one computer to another and exchanging ideas as fast as we could, we
wrote the Introduction together in Austin. Later, at our respective homes, we learned
from one another as Linda wrote the chapters on themes 1, 2, 4, 7 and 8, as well as the The pronunciation of Maya words in The Blood of Kings presents a problem to English speakers un-
sections on the hieroglyphic writing system and the Maya calendar, and Mary wrote familiar with Spanish and the conventions used to record the consonants particular to Mayan lan-
the chapters on themes 3, 5 and 6. Throughout, our generous husbands have been guages. Mayan languages were first transcribed into a Latin alphabet by early Spanish friars, who devel-
bulwarks, and when called upon, they repaired computers and retooled grammar. We oped special or thographies, many of them confusing to the modern reader, to record the sounds of
thank them most heartily. Maya words. The vowels follow the conventions of Spanish, as follows:
a is like the a in "far" or "father"
LINDA SCHELE e is like the e in "prey" or "obey"
Aus t i n i is like the double e in "see"
o is like the 0 in "hello" or "open"
MARY MILLER u is like the double o in "zoo.
New Haven When 14 precedes a, e, i, or O or falls at the end of a word, it is pronounced like the English w, as in
February 1986 lulu, pronounced "a~haw." Each vowel in a word is an independent syllable, except for the u pro-
nounced as w. El Baul is "el ba»ool.'
Mayan languages have a number of consonants that do not exist in Spanish-or, for that
matter, in English. For these, the Spanish friars developed a number of conventions still used today.
The sound like the English so was written with an x. The word max is pronounced "yash," and
Xcalumkin is"sh»ka-loom-kin." The letter C is always pronounced like a k, regardless of the vowel it
preceeds. The word Ami is pronounced "bee»mee," and eh is pronounced "kay."
Mayan languages also distinguish between consonants in plain form and those in glottalized
form. Glottalized consonants are pronounced with the glottis, or "voice box," closed. Since we do not
use glottalized consonants, they are hard for English speakers to hear and to pronounce; they sound
like a very hard form of the regular consonant. The glottalized k is written with a k, and all other such
l consonants are written with an apostrophe following the letter, as in t'. To Maya speakers, the words
tool, "person," and t'ul, "rabbit," are as different as very and berry sound to English speakers.
One other consonant in both its plain and glottalized form is difficult for English speakers,
because neither form exists in English. Written as to or sometimes as dz, the sound is somewhat like an
English z hut is pronounced with the blade of the tongue against the ridge behind the teeth. Its
glottalized form is written tz', as in the word for "bat," zotz' or in the day name Etz'nab.
The use of the Spanish letter j also causes problems for English speakers-even for protest
signal archaeologists. The h sound in Mayan languages is very close to the h in English, as in"hat,' or
the h in final position, like the English exclamation "shah" Because the Spanish Ii is very weak, many
place names are spelled with j to approximate the Maya sound more closely. English speakers often
make the mistake of pronouncing this Spanish j as if it were the Englishj in "jet." The place name
Ahaj Takalik is pronounced "a-bah to»ka-lik," and Kaminaljuyu is "kg-mee»nal-hoo-yoo." The j in
Maya names is never pronounced like the English j.
The accent in Maya words is almost always placed on the last syllable, as in the following
¢ names for rulers of the Palenque dynasty and Maya sites:
Pacal "pak»kal"
Chan»Bahlum Ill "Chan hahfléom"
Kan»Xul "kan shOot"
Chaacal "Cha-kail"
Uaxactun 'we-shak~tUn"
Xunantunich "shoo-nan»tLln-ich"
l

We use the adjective Mayan to refer exclusively to the language: the people are the Maya, and the
subject of this hook is Maya art.

6 THE BLOOD OF KINGS

 INTRQ D U CTION

,J PROLOGUE

M;83QAM5g1CA c RIBB NS A

HE GREAT PROGRAMS OF MAYA ART, INSCRIPTIONS AND ARCHITECTURE

NORTHERN LOWLANDS
known today were commissioned by Maya kings to memorialize themselves and ensure
their place in history. They would sometimes declare their actions to be reenactments
of cosmic events that had occurred millions of years in the past, and by projecting dates
~-I and events forward to our time and beyond, they anticipated that they would be known
and remembered for millennia. Yet for about one thousand years after the abandonment
of their cities, the art and architecture of the Classic Maya were lost to the jungle,
unseen and unknown.
'1

4
The Maya, builders of one of the most fascinating civilizations in the history of
9 * l 14 the world, are not just an archaeological race. There are over two million people who
4

"iv
still speak one of the more than thirty Mayan languages living today in Mexico, Guatef
mala, Belize and Honduras. One of the largest groups of native American peoples to
3

1 \ survive as a coherent group, the Maya still live in traditional communities as well as in
2
modern, integrated societies. More than just the genetic descendants of the ancient
J )
PETEN
Maya, these people retain a mythology, world view, languages and beliefs that have
-< J Nay anlo .
roots in the Precolumbian civilizations of their ancient forebears. As with all native
aECa
8°
0 La#
4:>»-
a
r a American peoples, they struggle to retain their traditional mode of living against the
\ ,I OF pressures and political realities of twentieth-century life.
CHIAPAS SOUTHERN LOWLANDS
HIGHLANDS The ancient Maya lived in an area that modern researchers call Mesoamerica,
\ W
Qs
II

a term designating a cultural and historical context as well as a geographical region. i

"\ 1
The societies identified as Mesoamerican share a number of features: the 260-day cal-
»9

a» )
I

endar; various elements of religion, including parts of a deity pantheon, self-inflicted

3
/

"_,
la \ v.

bloodletting and captive sacrifice; cultivation of maize; the use of cacao as money and as
r
( / \ I
a beverage; folding-screen books made from either fig-bark paper or deerskin; a
f
/
_/'
l

ballgame played in specially built courts; pyramidal architecture; and the sense of a
\< 4 `Re label
/ common cultural origin-in much the same sense that most Europeans think of theme
i menu;

`\ »t _)`~
V ,A us selves as the natural inheritor; of GII€€k and Roman civilization.
\
/
G U A T E M A L A HIGHLANDS
up ,ii the eastern third of Mesoamerica (Fig. 1). Maya
17
g
/
Cop . (
lands, both ancient and modern, occupy the Yucatan Peninsula, whose topography
varies from volcanic mountains, called the Highlands, in the south, to a porous lime~
0
9
Tang
.
,Q>
:>
H( stone shelf, called the Lowlands, in the central and northern regions. The Lowlands
.
E Baul s extend from Copan, Honduras, in the south to northern Yucatan. The east»west axis
r \\
includes Belize, most of modern Guatemala, and the Mexican state of Tabasco, where
/ ,QQ C us Comalcalco, the westernmost Classic-period 'Maya center is located. Few sites of the
r
J o I a Classic period are located at any significant altitude. Among the highest are Caracol,
r

\
Belize; Chinkultik, Chiapas; and Copan, Honduras, all of which are under 3,000 feet.
FIGURE I The Puuc Hills, in the states of Campeche and Yucatan, the Maya Mountains of Belize
 and the Chiapas Mountains (as opposed to the Sierra Madre of Chiapas) are the on winter and summer seasons of the northern latitudes. February through May (when
topographic relief completely encompassed by the Classic Maya realm. Geologically think of springtime and renewal) is the dry season, the hottest and most uncomfortable
most of the region has an undulating karst foundation, making limestone and flint the time of the year. The newly cut fields must be burned during this time so that they will
most readily available stone. Fine kaolin clays also abound, particularly along sources be ready for the coming of the rains in late May or early june. Thus, not only is the dry
water season hot but even today, the smoke from burning fields makes it a time of dingy
The limestone underl the Lowlands creates a distinct topography and spe gritty skies, with no rains to wash them clean. With the coming of the rains, the earth
cal conditions. In the southern Lowlands, where rainfall can be as high as 160 inches and the forest are renewed in a contrast almost as dramatic as the rebirth of spring in
year, water drains toward the Gulf and the Caribbean in great river systems. As the the north. The smell of dead animals is washed away from fields and forests; the air is
yearly rainfall diminishes toward the north, surface water disappears. Water is found cleansed and cooled; the leaves of plants swell visibly with the water of life. The thun
only where the stone formations above underground rivers collapse to form water holes derstorms of summer are followed by a short, twos to three-week dry period in August
called cenotes. or artificial water cisterns. called cfmltuns. that were built by the ancient and then by the winter rains, the gentle, soaking rains that come with the storms called
Maya to collect rainwater. River systems were vital to Lowland civilization as the trans norres. The rhythms of Maya life built the changes from the dry to the wet
port system that moved people and materials. Of the rivers that drain the southern season. as success or failure in farming and life itself depends on the timely arrival of
Lowlands, the largest are the Usumacinta, with its tributaries the Lacantun, the rains
Chixoy and the SuasiOn; the Grijalva River drains the Chiapas Highlands. In the east The principal cultigen was maize, but the Maya grew squash, beans, chili
en regions the Rio Hondo, the New River, the Belize River and the Sarstoon empty per, amaranth manioc and cacao. One of the main methods of farming involved
into the Bay of Chetumal and the Caribbean. In the south, the Motagua, which clearing the forest and burning the debris to create fields, called mil
through the Guatemalan Highlands and the Chamelecon, in the Honduran Highlands lanted just before the rainy season began. Such slash»and»burn agriculture is steffi
both drain into the Caribbean sent, since any single field cannot be planted for more than two or three years before it
The southern Lowlands are covered b a rain forest whose average height exhausted. and from very early times, the Maya developed intensive farming meth
around 150 feet: it is broken by savannas and swamps, or bajos. The drier forest of the ods. Land on slopes or near gullies often terraced, but raised»field farming, the most
northern Lowlands characteristically has smaller, often thorny, trees. The Highlands widespread and effective method was practiced along slow moving rivers and
defined as lands above 1,000 feet (305 meters), are covered by pine forests. The High swampy areas. Canals were cut between fields and their bottom matter placed
lands are cooler and drier than the hot and humid Lowlands. which are, for the most prepared fields to enrich the soil. Periodically. when the canals dredged, the bot
part, only slightly above sea level. Certain resources obsidian, jade and other pre tom detritus was again used to fertilize the fields. The attributes associated with this
sous materials, such as cinnabar and specular hematite-could only be obtained from type of farming-the chest-deep water, the water-lilies that grew in the canals, the fish
the volcanic Highlands, and a lively trade in these minerals developed. Maya civilizer that lived in them, the birds that ate both plant and fish and the caiman that ate
son in ancient, colonial and modern times has always contrasted the societies of the everything came to symbolize abundance and the bounty of the earth. 3 Added to the
Lowlands to those of the Highlands. This contrast is less apparent today because the yields from milpa and raised-field production domestic gardens and husbandry of
Spanish depopulated the central Lowlands in the seventeenth and hteenth centuries the forest. The fruit imagery incorporated into Maya art, as on the sides of Pacal
their efforts to bring what they perceived as savages under civil and religious control sarchophagus at Palenque, indicates that they either raised or harvested from the forest
Only in the last decades has this process begun to reverse itself. as Tzotzil-. Tzeltal-. and quantities of avocados, Chico zapote fruit guanavana, nance, cacao and possibly
Chol»speaking groups have begun establishing communities in the Lowlands of ramon nut or breadfruit. Other important crops included cotton, used for light cloth
Chiapas; Kekchi-speaking groups have established similar communities in the Low and sisal, used for heavy cloth and
lands of Belize and Guatemala Maya history is divided into three great phases, each with several subdivisions
The tropical forests rich in animal life, of which the most dangerous spe (Fig. Z). The Preclassic period, during which civilization emerged in many parts of
cies to man were the jaguar the largest spotted cat in the world; the caiman. an Ameri Mesoamerica, begins at 1500 B.c. and continues until A.D. 200. Its subdivisions are the
can crocodile with the same appetite as its Qld World cousins the bull shark;2 Early Preclassic (2000-900 B.c.), the Middle Preclassic (900_300 B.c.) and the Late
variety of poisonous snakes, including the rattlesnake, the fer-de-lance, the bushmaster Preclassic (300 B.c.-A.D. 200), the period during which Maya civilization arose
and the coral. Food animals included deer, turkeys, peccaries, tapirs, rabbits and several Classic period (A. D. 200-900), considered to he the golden age of Maya civilization, is
kinds of large rodents, such as pace and agouti. The upper canopy of the forest divided into two subdivisions, the Early Classic (A.D. 200-600) and the Late Classic
inhabited by spider monkeys, loud»voiced howler monkeys and a variety of brilliant (A. D. 600-900). The society of the Classic period collapsed around A. D. 900. which led
colored birds, including parrots macaws. rnotmots and. in the elevations between the to the final phase of Precolumbian Maya history-the Postclassic, dated from A.D. 900
Lowlands and the Highlands, the famous quetzal. Other animals consistently repre to the Conquest of the Maya region by the Spanish in 1541
sented in Maya art include foxes, coatimundis, armadillos, water birds, such as the For about 150 years, ever since john Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood
heron and cormorant, owls, harpy eagles and hummingbirds made their famous explorations of the Maya realm and brought back romantic drawings
In the tropics, the yearly seasons are very different from the strongly contrasting of abandoned ruins shrouded by damp rain forests. the Western world has been as

10 THE BLOOD OF KINGS

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PROLOGUE 13
THE MAYA IN WORLD HISTORY
The chronologies for Europe and Asia are based'on Feople and Places of the Past, general editor, George Stuart (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 1983).

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FIGURE 2

12 T H E B L OODOF K IN GS
 cinated by the beautiful and mysterious art of the ancient Maya. Detached from the
the color of blood or in blood symbols. In the Maya view, none of these behaviors was
context that once gave them meaning, these works were regarded as exotic objects. The
bizarre or exotic but necessary to sustain the world. To speak of the Maya and their
hundreds of thousands of visitors to the ruins of Maya cities have gazed at the Mayas' rulers is, therefore, to speak of The Blood of Kings.
descendants in detached curiosity and have bought their crafts to adorn their homes.
The title and point of view put forth in this study are revolutionary. The here-
The Classic Maya are now emerging from a dimly perceived archaeological tofore popular view of the Classic Maya has never taken into account such preoccupa-
prehistory to become a people with a written history. From 50 B.c. until A.D. 900, the
tions as blood and bloodlines, nor has it emphasized the individual rulers prominent in
Maya recorded the histories of their kings and captains on stone monuments in a script
Maya history. As this new understanding of the Maya has emerged over the past
that until 1960 remained mute and unread. During the last twenty-five years, however,
twenty-five years, many people have been repulsed by convincing evidence of human
advances by epigraphers and scholars have pierced the mystery of that writing system,
sacrifice and blood offerings and have drawn away from such a tangible or realistic view
thereby providing us a window into a world that heretofore was shrouded by the mists of
of the Maya. In Mesoamerican studies, a propensity for gore had always been attributed
prehistory. Rather than anonymous priests and unnamed gods, the works depict men
to the Aztecs. In contrast, the Maya were always assumed to be a superior race, thor-
and women of power and renown in their own time. From stone monuments that re-
oughly removed in time, space and culture from such behavior. In the new view pre-
count their deeds and the source of their power, we reclaim not just the faces of these sented here, however, the Maya have fallen from their pedestal; in doing so, they
kings, but more important, a detailed record of their lives, their names, their ancestry become a part of the community of man, the builders of a civilization that included
and their view of the world around them. The written history of the Americas began in both the darkest and the most brilliant possibilities of human behavior.
50 B.c., and from that moment on, the records resound with the names and lives of The methodology of this study derives from the union of hieroglyphic
individuals: Pacal of Palenque, Bird ]agar of Yaxchilan, Yax-Pac of Copan, among decipherment and the interpretation of pictorial imagery, which together allow us to
many others. Now these kings and the world they constructed can take their place on
discover patterns inherent in Maya art. Writing loses meaning unless it follows struc-
the stage of world history beside such counterparts in the Old World as Rameses II,
tural rules governing word use and grammar. These patterns are so prevalent in Maya
Assurnasirpal and Alexander the Great. writing that twenty-five years ago, Tatiana Proskouriakoff was able to deduce the mean»
This study is called The Blood of Kings for very specific reasons. The word king is ing of glyphs without determining the Maya words they represented.5 Maya imagery,
used instead of the Maya words for their rulers, mah k'ina ("great sun lord") or aha like their writing, has inherent patterns that can be "read" like glyphs. These patterns
("lord"), because the Maya words have no meaning to English speakers and because the are the primary key to understanding Classic Maya art.
original English meaning of king is appropriate to the way these rulers lived. King is an The dates the Maya recorded on many of their monuments make up one of the
Old English title borne by leaders of Anglo»Saxon tribes; it shares its root with the primary patterns that have been used to construct a history of Maya art. The assump-
words kin and kinship, and it originally referred to rulers of petty states, not unlike those tion that the dates are generally contemporary with their images has been confirmed by
that existed among the Classic Maya.4 There was no Maya emperor, no single Maya archaeological data. For some time, early works have been distinguished from late
king who gained ascendancy over all others. Pacal of Palenque ruled at the same time as
works, even when their meaning remained obscure, and undated works could be as-
Smoke jaguar of Copan; one hundred years later, Kuk of Palenque and Yax-Pac of cribed to an appropriate period of manufacture, because of their stylistic similarity to
Copan reigned simultaneously. We use the word king here in the sense that Arthur, not dated monuments. When combined with knowledge of the origin and intent of works
Henry Tudor, was king.
of art, chronological information could be used to determine the continuities and
The Blood of the title refers directly to several aspects of Maya life and to Maya changes in style that depended on time and place.
beliefs about their world and their kings. Blood was the mortar of ancient Maya ritual The texts embedded in pictorial scenes or carved on the sides and backs of
life. The Maya let blood on every important occasion in the life of the individual and in
r

Maya stelae are our primary sources in working out the meaning of Maya art. Fun
the life of the community. It was the substance offered by kings and other nobility to damentally, the imagery of Maya art portrays the text in explicit terms. A text can be
seal ceremonial events. Even more important, the purpose of art was to document the I

cleverly configured by a superb artist or perfunctorily inscribed by a less inventive one,

bloodlines of Classic Maya kings. Kingship normally passed from father to son: descent
but it is always embedded meaningfully, and it is not to be treated lightly_it is never a
and bloodlines dominated the determination of legitimate rule. For this reason, records
gloss or an afterthought. The most important verb (or in many cases the sole verb) is
of parents and ancestors transferring power to their children consume a large part of illustrated by the picture, although the same verb is rarely illustrated in identical fashf
Maya pictorial imagery and writing. After the birth of an heir, the king performed a ion twice. Through these verbs, we may identify the same action as it was recorded at
blood sacrifice, drawing his own substance as an offering to his ancestors. Human sacri»
different times and places; by comparing the way in which representations of the
fice, offered to sanctify the installation of a king in office, was in some cases recorded as
actions differ according to time and place, we can come to an understanding of Maya
a vital part of accession imagery. Among the most common events recorded on Maya ritual and historical interactions. At Yaxchilan, capture may be shown actively as an
monuments are war and capture. Although Maya warfare fulfilled several needs, the ongoing event. At Piedras Negras, it may be recorded only by the display of the victims
primary ritual role was to provide the state sacrificial victims, whose blood was then caught. When a static verbal locution is provided alongside a more diverse pictorial
drawn and offered to the gods. At death, Maya kings were placed in richly furnished image, different aspects of a single event are revealed. This in turn permits us to under
tombs that often displayed the imagery of the watery Underworld, their walls painted
stand what the relationship, in terms of programmatic sequence among several monu-
|

I4 THE BLOOD OF KINGS

 merits, may have been; how the objects associated with the event were used; and how
the event functioned in a ritual cycle. Furthermore, the images not only memorialize A Calendar Round date simply names the same day in two different calendars:
and illustrate a text hut also reflect the historical circumstances elucidated by that text. the Tzolkin, composed of twenty day names and thirteen numbers combining to give
A war event illustrated and recorded on one monument, for example, may reveal how 260 days, and the Haab, a year of 365 days, composed of eighteen 20-day months and a
the artistic style from the site of the defeated reshaped or influenced the artistic tradi- 5-day period at the end of the year. A day like 8 Ahau 8 Uo is named in both systems: in
tion of the victors. is 8 Ahau in the 260-day Tzolkin and the eighth day of the month Uo (the second
The surviving glyphic repertory of Classic-period Maya inscriptions is limited, month) in the 365»day Haab. It takes 18,980 days, or fifty-two 365-day years, for a day
as is the visual imagery. Certain verbs occur again and again. Accession, bloodletting, of this combined name to repeat. A combination of a Calendar Round date and the
success in battle-these are the events celebrated by Maya kings across the Lowlands Long Count date, as in 9. 13.0.0.0 8 Ahau 8 Uo, is a unique day in the history of the
for one thousand years. Other events, such as birth and burial, are not illustrated, currently running era of creation.
although rituals associated with them may be. Warfare, because of its inherent sequen» In the past it has been assumed that since 13.0.0.0.0 will occur again in the
rial nature, gave rise to more varied depictions than did any other theme. Maya calendar on December 23, 2012, the Maya era, and the world with it, will end on
Maya writing was recorded in inscriptions on stone and wood used within that day. This is a misconception, however: the Maya projected events forward to Octo-
architecture or in conjunction with it; on jade and shell objects; on pottery; and in
I

ber 15 and 23, 4772, and there is evidence that they perceived this creation to have a
i
folding-screen books made from the bark of the fig tree. Many of these books were minimum cycle of slightly under 142 nonillion years." A more detailed explanation of
placed in tombs but did not survive the destructive humidity of the tropics. Many other the calendar, the writing system and the process of glyphic decipherment appears at the
I

ers were deliberately destroyed by the Spanish as the work of the devil."The four Maya conclusion of this book.
books known today-the Dresden Codex, the Madrid Codex, the Paris Codex and the
This study is organized into discussions on eight themes, or patterns, of Maya
Grolier Codex7-record astronomical and calendric information and were very prob- art; they have been chosen because they recur in Maya art time and again. !°Through
ably used to time events in the ritual life of the Maya. All four date from the Postclassic them we can understand the preoccupations of Classic fperiod Maya life. The first
period, but there is no doubt that there were many such codices used in the Classic theme, "The Royal Person," is an explanation of the royal costuming and ritual objects
period as well, not only to keep track of ritual but to record fully detailed historical depicted throughout Maya art.
information-the genealogies of kings and noble lineages, as well as tribute and trade "Kingship and the Rites of Accession," treats the single most important ritual
exchanges. of a king's life, his installation into office, the point at which he inherits the position of
The hieroglyphic writing of the Maya was a fully functional writing system head of his lineage and leader of his city. The religious explanation that upheld the
capable of recording every nuance of the spoken language. It is composed of a combina- institution of kingship asserted that Maya rulers were necessary for the continuance of
tion of different signs, some representing the value of whole words, others recording the the universe itself.
sound of a single syllable (a consonant plus vowel). Information could be conveyed in The kings who ruled the major sites were served at home and Li subsidiary sites
inscriptions alone, most often, however, a text recording when, what and who is com» by nobles, or cabals, who acted as administrators and governors. The activities of these
bined with pictorial information that shows action. Text was often not limited to the nobles-the delivery of tribute, interaction with foreigners, marriage alliances, formal
event pictured but linked the scene depicted to previous events as well. The inscriptions rituals of dress and courtly councils-are all shown in Maya art and, here, under the
are in many ways the most important cultural remains of the Maya, since their theme "Courtly Life. '
decipherment has produced the names of their kings and precise details of their history. Personal bloodletting, now recognized as a regular ritual of Maya life rather
The texts name the actors as priests, gods, kings or military officers; without them, we than an occasional penance, is the subject of the theme "Bloodletting and the Vision
would not know that a scene depicts accession. why 1 bloodletting rite took place or Quest." Through bloodletting, the Maya elite demonstrated their legitimacy and com»
the nature of many of the other rituals. I
municated with ancestors who were understood to reappear as visions. These rituals
The events recorded in the inscriptions were set in a complex and precise tem» occurred under many circumstances, as part of the life events that include accession,
poral framework. The Maya believed that the world had been created and destroyed at marriage, birth and warfare. They occur with greatest regularity, however, at the com-
least three times, the last creation beginning on August 13, 3114 B.c.** Historical dates pletion of the twenty»year period, the katun.
in Maya inscriptions are given in one of two forms-the Long Count and Calendar In "Warfare and Captive Sacrifice," the imagery of battle that dominates cer-
Round dates. Long Count dates are precise counts of elapsed time based on a 360-day tain sites is discussed. Undoubtedly some Classic Maya cityfstates were more bellig-
year, called a tun, which was divided into 18 months of 20 days each, called a uinal. erent than others, but few places failed to record victory in war in some way. Even
Since the Maya numbering system is based on twenty rather than on ten, they counted during the Early Classic period, when texts were more laconic and multi figural com-
years in groups of twenty tuns, called a katun ("20-tun"), and twenty katuns, called a positions unusual, captives were shown bound under the feet of the ruler.
baktun ("400-tun"). A Long Count date, such as 9. 13.0.0.0, simply records that nine "The Ballgame" discusses an activity that was by no means a sport in modern
groups of 400 tuns and thirteen groups of 20 tuns have ended since the beginning of this terms but a ritual of kingship. Ballgame imagery_in which the Maya king is victorious
era, or 9x400 + 13x20 = 3,860 years of 360 days. at play-relates closely to that of warfare.
The final themes, "Death and the journey through Xihalba" and "Kingship

16 THE BLQUD OF KINGS

 and the Maya Cosmos," are closely connected. Maya funerary imagery prepared the Babylonia-indeed, they are so utterly impersonal, so completely non-individualistic,
king for his journey into the Underworld, where he was required to defeat the Lords of that it is even probable that the name glyphs of specific men and women were never
Death in order to ensure his rebirth into the sky as a celestial being. recorded upon the Maya monuments. 12
We are expected to believe that these priests did not live in cities like those of
the preindustrial Old World, such a- Beijing, Timbuktu or Constantinople. Rather,
THE MODERN INVENTION OF THE ANCIENT MAYA they were said to live in ceremonial centers, mostly vacant until the priests invited the
peasantry to witness spectacle and ritual. The word city was even expurgated from
T HE POPULAR UNDERSTANDING OF THE ANCIENT MAYA HAS CHANGED OVER TIME,
depending on the historical perspectives of the people who have studied them. Syl-
writings on the Maya, lest it convey the notion of true habitation. 13
The ancient Maya were described as worshipers of time, involved totally with
vanus G. Morley's The Ancient Maya and l. Eric S. Thompson's Rise and Fall of the Maya abstractions. They were peace loving, religious, modest, conservative and clean about
Empire were published over thirty years ago. These two books, addressed to the public their persons! Nameless and faceless to modern man, the Classic Maya dwelt during a
by the two most important Mayanists of their time, espoused a view that lingers today. time of peace. Contact between ceremonial centers was limited to conferences on the
The publications found an eager audience, for the romance of a lost civilization calendar and astronomy. War did not exist; in fact, the Maya were said to adopt warlike
rediscovered in ancient pyramids and sculptures hidden deep within tropical rain forests behavior only centuries later, under the tutelage of central Mexicans.
captured the imagination of the public, just as it had at the beginning of the nineteenth Thompson and Morley believed that the peasantry practiced bidden, or slash-
century through the writings of ]ohn Lloyd Stephens. These books were different from and»burn agriculture, to support the small elite of calendar priests who advised them
earlier popular writings, however, for their authors were the leading scholars of the day, when to plant and when to reap. Since this severe agricultural system soon diminishes
and their work carried the weight of professional anthropology and archaeology. Morley the soil and requires new plots to be brought into production after three years of use,
and Thompson, who also published articles in such popular magazines as Life, National savannah eventually replaced jungle. Without metal plows to break sod, the Maya
Geographic and the Illustrated London News, completely dominated the information avail- eventually found themselves without arable land in the tropical rain forest. According
able to the layman; even today, their works are the most likely to be found in public to the view espoused by Morley and Thompson, during the ninth century, the Maya,
libraries around the world. now desperate, began forced migrations north to the Yucatan, where the "New Empire"
In 1955, a reader of Morley would have found the Classic period of Maya was founded during the Early Postclassic period. Civilization thrived there at Chic fen
civilization, his "Old Empire," almost like a glorious Camelot. For most of their his- Itza, particularly in the tenth and eleventh centuries, under central Mexican cultural
tory, the Maya occupied the Lowlands, from northern Honduras to southern Mexico, dominance. During this "Mexican" florescence, the peaceful paradise known under the
in communities surrounding great ceremonial centers. This version of Maya culture "Old Empire" vanished. The Maya, who were by nature kind, honest and good people,
focused upon the calendar priests, who manipulated knowledge of the heavens to mys- adopted bloody Mexican habits. Sacrifice, both self»inflicted and that of captives, was
tify the masses, and under their direction, the Maya created their greatest works of art offered to the gods, and belligerent behavior prevailed.
and architecture, all datable by Long Count inscriptions to A.D. 300 to 900, or the The foregoing view of the Classic Maya spelled out cultural behavior known
Classic period. Befeathered priests were thought to have passed their lives casting come from no other civilization on earth. In fact, if we were to learn today that a highly
plex auguries and stargazing long into the nights to fix the movements of heavenly sophisticated culture had been found in which there was no warfare, in which all intel-
bodies with minute precision. They were said to have commissioned texts that lectual activity was devoted to the chronicling of the heavens and time and in which
chronicled the relentless march of time, which was perceived to consist of burdens ¢
the peasantry supported the elite merely in exchange for the knowledge of agricultural
carried by the gods of numbers. As Thompson stated, timing that any seasoned farmer has already mastered-we would register profound
I disbelief. This was, however, the popularly established view of the Maya, and like
These texts, to the best of our knowledge, contain no glorifications of ruler or recital of
conquest, such as are customary on the monuments of other peoples. Instead, they are
compelling science fiction, it was accepted.
an impersonal record of steps in the search for truth, as the Maya saw it, that is, the The ideas culminating in Morley and Thompson's summary works had evolved
whole philosophy of time with its interlocking cycles of divine influence. 1 1 slowly. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Maya were styled as
filling this peace-loving role as a necessary foil to the Aztecs in the New World. Cus-
The calendar priests were anonymous and impersonal. A reader of Morley and toms of warfare and sacrifice, as well as of dense city living and the "crass" commercial
Thompson was led to believe that the images on stelae were priests or gods, not kings or practices of merchant warriors known as Pochteca, were well known among the Aztecs,
captains; unlike writers of inscriptions anywhere else in the world, however, the Maya and these concerns were thought to be reflected in their art. When early nineteenth
calendar priests were without vanity: they did not record information about century explorers began to document Maya art and architecture, works of a profoundly
themselves. different nature were discovered. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that by the time of
The Maya inscriptions treat primarily of chronology, astronomy-perhaps one might Morley and Thompson, Maya art seemed to reflect a culture so different, it would
better say astrology-and religious matters. They are in no sense records of personal appear to hardly have been part of Mesoamerica at all.
glorification and self»laudation like the inscriptions of Egypt, Assyria, and i The most important nineteenth-century commentator on the Classic Maya

18 THE BLOOD OF KINGS

MODERN INVEN7
 was john Lloyd Stephens, who, without evidence to the contrary, thought that the
Maya had been contemporaries of the Aztecs. Basing his views on their art and if scrip
sons, Stephens believed that Maya civilization was independent of other
Mesoamerican cultures: he did assume that they shared what we would call today
cultural tradition. however
Trained as a lawyer with a sharp eye for details, Stephens described the Maya
ruins he visited with care. He believed that the acres of rubble at Copan, Honduras
remains of a city with a residential population and that the men carved on the
monuments there were that city's rulers. When he looked at the carved inscriptions, he
hazarded a guess as to their content
One thing I believe, that its history is graven on its monuments. No Champollion has
yet brought them the energies of his inquiring mind. Who shall read them?'4

And of Stela A at Copan, he wrote

The front view is a portrait. The back entirely made of hieroglyphics. and each
tablet has two hieroglyphics joined together.... The tablets probably contain the his
try of the king or hero delineated, and the particular circumstances or actions which
constituted his greatness
Perhaps because Stephens believed the Maya to have flourished in the same era as the
Aztecs, he assumed that there had been war and sacrifice; he also noted. however. that
he saw no monuments on which weapons of war were wielded, thereby inadvertent
laying the seeds for later notions about the Maya and their "peaceful" behavior
Perhaps no other work about the ancient Maya has been studied so intense
FIGURE 3 the four volumes that Stephens published between 1841 and 1843. The books
Stela A, Copan, Honduras
among the great bestsellers of the nineteenth century, and these volumes remain some
Late Classic period ca. A.D. 750
Lithograph by Frederick Catherwood, 1844 of the best books ever written on the Maya. The illustrations engravings by Frederick
Catherwood (Fig. 3), conveyed the romance of the subject, as well as fairly dependable
information about the ruins. Stephens noted the consistent unity of the hieroglyphic
writing system throughout the region where he traveled, whether the writings were
recorded on stone or in book form, and he argued that the monuments were historical
art. Most important for his own time, he firmly believed Maya culture to have been
indigenous civilization of the Americas that developed without fertilization from
Egypt, India or China, the sources popularly mentioned in his day
Over the course of the nineteenth century, many of Stephens's ideas were lost
to scholars. By the end of the century, the notion of a peaceful Maya civilization had
begun to grow because little progress had been made determining the meaning of the
carved monuments and inscriptions. Of the many Maya cities, little was known outside
of a handful of principal temples. The first Maya art to become widely known. for
example came from Palenque and Copan, largely by means of Catherwood
engravings. The placid, courtly images of monuments at these two sites were high
readable. They emphasized human forms and placed particular emphasis on faces, .
cally when compared with the conventionalized human figures of Aztec art. Western
observers embraced the art of the Maya, whose culture seemed to be pure and
untarnished by the preoccupations of the Aztecs. Count Waldeck French explorer
who lived for a time in ruins of Palenque, expressed a sentiment in 1838 that
formed to the prevailing notions of the day. The Maya were, he assured his readers,
people and culture derived from Asia, perhaps from India. Even when his writings were

20 THE BLOOD OF KINGS

was john Lloyd Stephens, who, without evidence to the contrary, thought that the
Maya had been contemporaries of the Aztecs. Basing his views on their art and if scrip»
sons, Stephens believed that Maya civilization was independent of other
Mesoamerican cultures; he did assume that they shared what we would call today a
cultural tradition, however.
Trained as a lawyer with a sharp eye for details, Stephens described the Maya
ruins he visited with care. He believed that the acres of rubble at Copan, Honduras,
were the remains of a city with a residential population and that the men carved on the
monuments there were that city's rulers. When he looked at the carved inscriptions, he
hazarded a guess as to their content:
One thing I believe, that its history is graven on its monuments. No Champollion has
yet brought them the energies of his inquiring mind. Who shall read them?l4

And of Stela A at Copan, he wrote:

The front view is a portrait. The back is entirely made up of hieroglyphics, and each
tablet has two hieroglyphics joined together... The tablets probably contain the his-
tory of the king or hero delineated, and the particular circumstances or actions which
constituted his greatness. is FIGURE 4
South captives, House A of the Palace at
Perhaps because Stephens believed the Maya to have flourished in the same era as the Palenque
Aztecs, he assumed that there had been war and sacrifice; he also noted, however, that Late Classic period, ca. A.D. 700
he saw no monuments on which weapons of war were wielded, thereby inadvertently Drawing by Count Waldeck, 1866

laying the seeds for later notions about the Maya and their "peaceful" behavior.
Perhaps no other work about the ancient Maya has been studied so intensely as
the four volumes that Stephens published between 1841 and 1843. The books were dismissed, the illustrations he made in an Egyptianizing style subtly promoted his ideas
among the great bestsellers of the nineteenth century, and these volumes remain some (Fig. 4). Moreover, his comments may also have promoted the notion of the peaceful
of the best books ever written on the Maya. The illustrations, engravings by Frederick Maya. When Count Waldeck looked at the stuccoed piers of the Temple of Inscriptions
Catherwood (Fig. 3), conveyed the romance of the subject, as well as fairly dependable at Palenque, he wondered if the tender-hearted ancient Palencanos could have ever
information about the ruins. Stephens noted the consistent unity of the hieroglyphic been cruel, or even rough, to one another, since he thought the adult figures on the
writing system throughout the region where he traveled, whether the writings were monuments were depicted carrying children. It is now known that what Waldeck as-
recorded on stone or in book form, and he argued that the monuments were historical sumed were children are, in fact, supernaturals, right down to their snaky bodies and
art. Most important for his own time, he firmly believed Maya culture to have been an serpent feet. is
indigenous civilization of the Americas, one that developed without fertilization from The still-intractable hieroglyphic writing system on the monuments further
Egypt, India or China, the sources popularly mentioned in his day. compounded the romantic ideas that Westerners had about Maya art. By the end of the
Over the course of the nineteenth century, many of Stephens's ideas were lost nineteenth century, many breakthroughs had been made in deciphering dates, but little
to scholars. By the end of the century, the notion of a peaceful Maya civilization had else; the remaining inscriptions seemed to be abstract, beautiful texts to be admired but
begun to grow because little progress had been made in determining the meaning of the perhaps never to be read. The dates were clear evidence of the arithmetical and calen-
l
carved monuments and inscriptions. Of the many Maya cities, little was known outside drical skills of the Maya, and this gave rise to the idea that they were philosophers of
of a handful of principal temples. The first Maya art to become widely known, for s time and numbers.
example, came from Palenque and Copan, largely by means of Catherwood's The correlation between the Christian and Maya calendars determined by ].T.
engravings. The placid, courtly images of monuments at these two sites were highly Goodman in 1905 has held to the present day. By the Christian calendar, the Classic
readable. They emphasized human forms and placed particular emphasis on faces, espec Maya were found to have erected their great Lowland monuments from the fourth to
cally when compared with the conventionalized human figures of Aztec art. Western the ninth centuries A.D. The fact that in Yucatan, most monuments were of later date
observers embraced the art of the Maya, whose culture seemed to be pure and gave rise to the theory that the Maya had two periods of florescence, the so-called Old

untarnished by the preoccupations of the Aztecs. Count Waldeck, a French explorer and New Empires. The Maya were considered the Creeks of the New World, and the
who lived for a time in the ruins of Palenque, expressed a sentiment in 1838 that con- Aztecs were seen as Romans-one pure, original and beautiful, the other slavish,
formed to the prevailing notions of the day. The Maya were, he assured his readers, a derivative and cold. By the end of the century, these notions had begun to be system-
people and culture derived from Asia, perhaps from India. Even when his writings were atized. Alfred P. Maudslay wrote:

MODERN INVENTION OF THE ANCIENT MAYA 21

 from the sculptures and mural paintings at Chic fen Itza, this change from
south to north seems to have been a change from a peaceful to a warlike condition, and
it therefore appears likely that the peopling of Yucatan may have taken place after the
Maya had been driven by force from their peaceful southern homes, and had been
compelled to cultivate the arts of war in order to save their race from extinction

Other evidence was thought to corroborate the view that the Maya had been
peaceful, too preoccupied with time and their calendar to wage war. The first Classic
Maya site to be explored in any detail (and it remained the only one for thirty years)
was Copan. At that time, the end of the nineteenth century, excavators from the Pea
body Museum found no walls such as would have been built for defense. The stelae and
reliefs did not show figures readily identifiable as warriors. Burials, when found. did not
suggest the mass burials one might expect from the carnage of warfare. For many years
the data gathered at Copan (and just as important, the data not gathered) helped shape
a view of the peaceful Classic Maya. Practices described by both the Maya and the
Spanish at the time of the Conquest continued to be discounted as Postclassic invert
sons, atypical of the Classic Maya and inspired by central Mexicans. That. of course
returned the source of barbaric practices to the precursors of the Aztecs and stimulated
the notion of a Greek-Roman dichotomy
Yet other ancient Maya ruins, which also came to light at the turn of the
fury, should have challenged some of these interpretations. Maudslay, for example
visited Yaxchilan in 1882: he was so struck by the beauty of the monuments that he
ordered several to be shipped to England, where they became the core of the British
Museum's collection of Precolumbian antiquities. Nearly twenty years after he first
the lintels, Maudslay published some of the Yaxchilan material without comment on
imagery. Nevertheless, the drawing that accompanied Lintel 17 is telling
scene-quite obviously one of self-sacrifice_the woman pulls rope through her
tongue, and the man directs a sharpened bone to his groin. In Maudslayls drawing
however, only the text and faces of the protagonists are shown. The rope was not shown
being drawn through the woman's mouth, and the scene no longer held any indication
of violence blood sacrifice (Fig. 5b). Apparently, either Maudslay Annie Hunter
his excellent draftsman, made an editorial decision
It now seems surprising that in the first few decades of the century, no one 'gnu
looked at the newly discovered Maya art of Yaxchilan and Piedras Negras noticed the
clear evidence for the Maya preoccupation with battle and blood offerings. At Piedras
Negras, nearly half the monuments show warriors, many of them with captives, and
some of the "niche" stelae single sacrificed victim is shown. At Yaxchilan. whole
lintel programs were dedicated to showing assaults on captives. Despite the ht of all
these images, however, the content of these monuments was not acknowledged. is In a
series of photographs of the monuments, published between 1896 and 1911 by the
Peabody Museum. it would appear that Teobert Maler made no judgments about the
FIGURE 5 interpretation of the Yaxchilan and Piedras Negras material; nevertheless, unless they
Contrasting studies of a detail
from Yaxchilan Lintel 17
were on the front of the monument, gyp were not included un his photographic
Late Classic period, ca. A.D. 775-770 documentation (Fig. 6). Not only were they not available for study, to Maler they
a. Modern drawing appeared not to exist, for he did not even include them systematically among his
b. Nineteenth century drawing b
Annie Hunter for Alfred R Maudslay
unpublished materials. A few years later, Herbert Spinden correctly recognized ruler
portraits and the violent content of the monuments photographed by Maler at Piedras
Negras and Yaxchilan, but his obsession with the correlation of the Maya and Christian

22 THE BLOOD OF KINGS

 ]udging from the sculptures and mural paintings at Chic fen Itza, this change from calendars and his position just outside of what was becoming the Mayanist mainstream
south to north seems to have been a change from a peaceful to a warlike condition, and I
prevented serious consideration of his ideas.l9 Even when the monuments of Piedras
it therefore appears likely that the peopling of Yucatan may have taken place after the Negras were studied, as they were by the influential art critic Roger Fry in 1918 (who,
Maya had been driven by force from their peaceful southern homes, and had been ironically, advocated "a revolt against the tyranny of the Graeco»Roman tradition"),
compelled to cultivate the arts of war in order to save their race from extinction. 17
he used them as a foil to Aztec art: "In Mexico there is no doubt about the superiority,
Other evidence was thought to corroborate the view that the Maya had been from an aesthetic point of view, of the earlier culture-the Aztecs had everything to
peaceful, too preoccupied with time and their calendar to wage war. The first Classic learn from the Maya, and they never rose to the level of their predecessors."2° Fry
Maya site to be explored in any detail (and it remained the only one for thirty years) I
effectively ignored the content of Maya art and unwittingly preferred the linear, repre»
was Copan. At that time, the end of the nineteenth century, excavators from the Peak ; sentational elements of Maya art, which more closely approximate the Gl'3€CO'ROm3Ill
body Museum found no walls such as would have been built for defense. The stele and tradition he professed to abhor.
reliefs did not show figures readily identifiable as warriors. Burials, when found, did not From its first funding in 1914 until its dissolution in 1955, the Historical Divi»
suggest the mass burials one might expect from the carnage of warfare. For many years I

sign of the Carnegie Institution of Washington dominated Maya studies in the United
the data gathered at Copan (and just as important, the data riot gathered) helped shape States. It directed, published and plotted the design of most of the Maya archaeology
a view of the peaceful Classic Maya. Practices described by both the Maya and the
i

carried out by Americans during those years, and it influenced all other work on the
Spanish at the time of the Conquest continued to be discounted as Postclassic invert» Maya done elsewhere. The moving force behind the Carnegie Institution was Sylvanus
sons, atypical of the Classic Maya and inspired by central Mexicans. That, of course, G. Morley. Morley set up projects at Uaxactun, Guatemala and Chic fen Itza in the
returned the source of barbaric practices to the precursors of the Aztecs and stimulated Yucatan w test theories about the Maya, and he embarked on a campaign of explore
the notion of a Greek»Roman dichotomy. son to document all Maya ruins and inscriptions, a project that eventually led to the
Yet other ancient Maya ruins, which also came to light at the turn of the cen- discovery of many new sites and sculptures." For this work, the most important consid-
tury, should have challenged some of these interpretations. Maudslay, for example, eration is the point of view the Carnegie Institution publications espoused.
visited Yaxchilan in 1882; he was so struck by the beauty of the monuments that he l

One of the by»products of archaeology in the Maya region was familiarity with
ordered several to be shipped to England, where they became the core of the British modern Maya life. For those who worked at Chic fen Itza, the cycle of modern Yucatec
Museum's collection of Precolumbian antiquities. Nearly twenty years after he first saw life was compelling, and many researchers fell under its spell. Morley watched the
the lintels, Maudslay published some of the Yaxchilan material without comment on pattern of slash-and-burn agriculture and applied it to the past, thus making the Maya
the imagery. Nevertheless, the drawing that accompanied Lintel 17 is telling; in the an anomaly: a high civilization based on primitive agricultural methods. This conclu-
scene-quite obviously one of self-sacrifice-the woman pulls a rope through her sion, however, limited conjecture of the total population of the Classic Maya to one
tongue, and the man directs a sharpened bone to his groin. In Maudslay's drawing, supportable by such techniques. To Thompson, the vacant market towns of highland
however, only the text and faces of the protagonists are shown. The rope was not shown Guatemala revealed that ancient ones were little more than ceremonial centers.22 His
being drawn through the woman's mouth, and the scene no longer held any indication view (and perhaps his ability to argue it) was so overpowering that despite the fact that
of violence or blood sacrifice (Fig. 5b)- Apparently, either Maudslay or Annie Hunter, settlement studies carried out at Uaxactun argued for a population of 50,000 or so,
his excellent draftsman, made an editorial decision. Tatiana Proskouriakoffls reconstruction drawings of Uaxactun (made for the Carnegie
It now seems surprising that in the first few decades of the century, no one who Institution) show vacant ceremonial centers isolated Li the jungle, as if there had been
looked at the newly discovered Maya art of Yaxchilan and Piedras Negras noticed the no resident population. No other drawings of Maya architecture have been as accurate
clear evidence for the Maya preoccupation with battle and blood offerings. At Piedras as Proskouriakoffls, but they conveyed a powerful point of view. Her drawings remain
Negras, nearly half the monuments show warriors, many of them with captives, and on the most influential reconstructions of Maya architecture and may never be superseded
some of the "niche" stelae, a single sacrificed victim is shown. At Yaxchilan, whole in quality, yet they will continue to promote the notion that Maya cities were vacant FIGURE 6
lintel programs were dedicated to showing assaults on captives. Despite the weight of all (Fig. 7).23 Stela 35, Piedras Negros, Guatemala
Late Classic period, ca. A.D. 662
these images, however, the content of these monuments was not acknowledged. is In a Early in his career (and notably before his long association with Thompson), Photo by Teobert Maler
series of photographs of the monuments, published between 1896 and 1911 by the Morley adopted the view of the Maya put forth by Stephens: that mundane, historical Courtesy of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and
Peabody Museum, it would appear that Teobert Maler made no judgments about the information was borne by Maya inscriptions. Nevertheless, by the time he amassed his Ethnology, Harvard University
interpretation of the Yaxchilan and Piedras Negras material; nevertheless, unless they great five-volurne corpus, Inscriptions of Peten, he had apparently abandoned any hope
were on the front of the monument, glyphs were not included in his photographic of reconstructing the historical content. Morley's treatment of inscriptions beyond
documentation (Fig. 6). Not only were they not available for study, to Maler they calendrical data was simple: he did not draw them.24 The assumption, one might say,
appeared not to exist, for he did not even include them systematically among his was bold-if he could not decipher them, then no one could. Thompson, who es-
unpublished materials. A few years later, Herbert Spinden correctly recognized ruler poused this negative viewpoint more energetically, may have been responsible for
I
portraits and the violent content of the monuments photographed by Maler at Piedras persuading his colleague to follow his lead. Indeed, elaborate hypotheses were invented
Negras and Yaxchilan, but his obsession with the correlation of the Maya and Christian to explain the content of Maya writing:

MODERN INVENTION OF THE ANCIENT MAYA 23

 hieroglyphics became better understood. In 1958 Heinrich Berlin showed that certain
.am Q
W' .
glyphs, which he called "emblem" glyphs, were site-specific references of either lin-
eages or places. In 1960 Tatiana Proskouriakoff published a watertight argument about
I

5
the historical content of Maya glyphs and art. Although it focused on the inscriptions
at Piedras Negras, her work showed beyond a doubt that similar historical information
was found at all sites. In two essays on Yaxchilan, she showed the rulers Shield jaguar
and Bird jaguar to be military leaders who memorialized themselves in image and text as
1 great warriors. Thus, by the early 1960s in just four seminal articles, the Maya had
become regionally oriented, dynastic and warlike. Their images were no longer abstract
representations of calendar priests but glorifications of individual kings.
Following the dissolution of the Carnegie Institution in 1955, many Maya as
chaeologists chose to investigate technical and theoretical problems. Leading a world-
wide trend in archaeological studies, Mayanists turned away from the study of site
centers and began to concentrate on the archaeology of mundane life. The archaeolo-
gist's tools were enriched by new technical capabilities, such as radiocarbon dating,
pollen studies and aerial photography. Sensitive to criticism that Mayanist studies had
become "intellectual stamp collecting,"27 they concentrated on "scientific" questions,
I

FIGURE 7 I
three of which have implications here: What was the basis of Maya agriculture? Where
View of Copan, Honduras did the Maya live? When did Classic Maya civilization emerge?
Drawing by Tatiana Proskouriakoff
Courtesy of the Peabody Museum of Archeology and
l
For most of the century, and because of observation of the modern Maya, the
Ethnology, Harvard University 1 notion of small populations supported by slash-and~burn agriculture had thrived-in
I

1
notable contrast to Aztec raised-field agriculture-by observation of the modern
Maya. In 1972, however, Dennis Puleston and Alfred Siemens used aerial photography
I am persuaded that inscriptions were longest around 9. 13.0.0.0 (A. D. 692) because the to document raised fields, probably of Classic-period date, in southern Campeche. Sud-
Maya scientists were then deep in argument on two problems' the length of the solar denly, after years of considering only the hypothetical possibility of greater agricultural
year and how best to record lunar data. A century later, after these matters had been
solved to the satisfaction of the priest-astronomers, the inscriptions on stele were
yields, Maya archaeologists understood intensive agriculture to have been the rule, not
much abbreviated." I the exception. This revelation admitted to denser, more urban environments. More»
I over, new studies had begun to indicate that ceremonial centers were surrounded by
The discovery in 1946 of the painted murals of Bonarnpak is a watershed of
significant populations during the Classic period. At the site of Dzibilchaltun in north-
Maya studies, for these paintings transformed our view of the Classic Maya. In no other
.I

ern Yucatan, for example, a population of 50,000 was projected for Classic times; a
work of Maya art do so many figures appear, and even to the uninitiated, they look like
similar size was subsequently calculated for Tikal.2** One can only hazard a guess at the
particular individuals, and the short columns of glyphs beside them are almost undoubt- i
total population of the Maya area during the Classic period, but many archaeologists
edly captions. In a pageant of rulership that covered the walls of three rooms in a small
consider two million to be a reasonable estimate. Although not large by preindustrial
temple, the murals showed a series of ceremonies, including the single greatest battle
standards-Teotihuacan in central Mexico is thought to have had a population of
painting of the ancient New World. Thompson, who wrote about these works for a
nearly 250,000 by A.D. 550-centers of 50,000 people were indeed cities, supporting
Carnegie Institution publication, forced them to conform to his own view of Maya
dense residential settlements, and the Maya may have had twenty cities of this size. The
society by calling the scene a minor raid of little historical significance. The pictures,
image of the peaceful, pastoral Maya and its corollary theories had lasted less than a
however, spoke for themselves; the idea of the peaceful Maya was on the point of
century, but at last these theories gave way before overwhelming evidence to the
becoming a vanishing myth."
The identity of the figures on Maya stelae was a subject both Morley and I contrary.
Finally, the earliest date of many of the cultural elements we call Classic-long
Thompson obscured, preferring not to mention it, although at various times they called accepted to be around A.D. 300-can be attributed to the Late Preclassic period, to as
them "gods" or "calendar priests." They were not, to Thompson or Morley, the men early as 150 B.c. The earliest dated Maya monument (Stela 29 at Tikal, dated to A.D.
and women who had ruled their respective sites. To have made them tangible would 292) has traditionally been used to mark the beginning of the Classic period and, by
have necessitated an explanation of their behavior. Instead, the image of a peaceful, extension, the beginning of Maya civilization. Yet evidence from excavations at El
theocratic and nondynastic Maya became a philosophical haven from the warlike, Mirador, Tikal, Uaxactun, Lamanai and Cerros makes it patently clear that, with the
secular twentieth century known to these writers. exception of stelae, all elements characterizing Maya civilization were thriving in the
Mesoamericanists only began to see the Maya in a different light when the Maya Lowlands in the first century B.c., and the huge buildings at El Mirador may have

24 THE BLOOD OF KINGS

MODERN INVE
 I
i

been constructed a century earlier. Thus, in the truest sense of the word, "Classic" the Maya glyph for sun or day, were placed at the base of the lowest tiers of these
Maya civilization was in place by 100 B.c. The origins of Classic Maya civilization are pyramids. A long crocodilian snout at the top of these masks probably identifies the
i

now shown to conform chronologically to the rest of Mesoamerica, and are confirmed form as Venus. This configuration shows the prototype of the Morning Star pulling the

gQ
E

to be contemporary with developments in central Mexico and Oaxaca. sun in its journey across the sky. Like billboards, this cosmic imagery dotted the land-
The first great phase of Mesoamerican cultural history, the Preclassic, cor» 1
; scape across the Maya Lowlands at most sites in Late Preclassic times.
responds in general to the emergence of civilization in Mesoamerica. The Early I

Meanwhile, particularly at Abaj Takalik and El Baul in the Highlands, the

Preclassic period (2000-900 B.c.) is dominated by the Olmec, who developed into the Maya erected slab stelae showing individuals who were probably historical rulers. On
---"
ET
dominant society in Mesoamerica by 1200 B.c. Their far»flung trade routes served as Stela 1 at El Baul, a ruler stands with his face and legs in profile and his torso frontally
distribution networks, not only for material goods but for ideas. By 1000 B.c., Olmec positioned (Fig. 8). He wears great ritual paraphernalia while holding a wavy-bladed
symbolism often appears on pottery in the Copan Valley, and sites of this early date that flint knife, and he is accompanied by a Long Count date of the seventh cycle, in the r

exhibit Olmec influence are documented throughout the Chiapas and Guatemalan year A.D. 37.32 It is possible that the preoccupations of historical rulership were never L J

Highlands, especially on the Pacific side (although Olmec symbolism is, by cornpari» lost in the Highlands but were maintained continuously from Olmec times. Whatever
son, rare in Lowland archaeology). the impetus, by the Late Preclassic period, the stele format was an established method
The Middle Preclassic period (900-300 B.c.) is a time of change, especially in of illustrating historical records in the Highlands.
the Maya region. The great Olmec city of San Lorenzo was abandoned by 900 B.c. , and
La Venta arose as the prominent Gulf Coast site of the Olmecs. By 600 B.c., villages
By A. D. 200 at the latest, at Tikal and Uaxactun in the central Peten region, as
well as at other Maya sites there, including Rio Azul, these two critical aspects of Late
993,
_ 14

were being established throughout the Maya Lowlands and Highlands, many of them Preclassic art-architecture carrying mask assemblages and stele recording historical
specializing in trade or production." The growing complexity of public ritual is in evi- kingship-coalesced to forge the Early Classic. While this symbolic system had been
dence at Cuello, where a new platform was dedicated around 400 B.c. with the sacrifice manifested on building facades during Late Preclassic times, during the Early Classic ( '-` W
and dismemberment of over twenty victims. 30 Perhaps most important for the develop- period, Maya kings took the imagery from the architecture and began to wear it. The
ment of civilization, the Middle Preclassic period saw the beginning of intensive ag» most complete early records contributing to our incomplete understanding of this trans-
riculture in raised-field systems and the development of major water management pro- formation are stelae from Tikal dating to the third and fourth centuries; even by then,
/
grams at sites like Edzna." however, it is clear that the visual symbolism of kingship had been systematized and was I ,?JI#PlF

The Late Preclassic period (300 B.c.-A.D. 300) was a time of transformation shared by all Lowland Maya: the Maya had embarked on the civilization that would FIGURE 8
for the Maya; it resulted in what we see today as civilization. Both in the Highlands and thrive through the ninth century A.D. Stela 1, El Baul, Guatemala
the Lowlands, the Maya began building large population centers ruled by elite groups. The Classic period saw the great flowering of Maya art and architecture and Late Preclassic period, A.D. 37
In the Lowlands, long»resident populations replaced their villages with massive build- the widest dispersion of elite cultural manifestations, such as the stele cult, the iconog-
ings, some of the largest ever built in the Precolumbian Americas. In the south, archi- raphy of kingship and hieroglyphic writing. The two main phases of the Classic period,
tecture was less overwhelming in size, but it was accompanied by stelae depicting the Early Classic (A.D. 200-600) and Late Classic (A.D. 600-900), are separated by a fifty~
Long Count calendar, as well as images of rulers enacting important rituals. Most of the year gap, dubbed the "hiatus" by Morley, who noted the paucity of inscriptions datable
early sites in the southern area-Izapa, Abaj Takalik, El Baul, Chalchuapa_are on to A.D. 530-580. Ceramics, sculptural style and composition, architectural elements
the Pacific side of the Continental Divide. Only Kaminaljuyu was built in the region and the nature of imported goods all change at this boundary, although the differences
between the northern and southern drainage system. Early sites in the Lowlands are are neither so marked nor so dramatic as once supposed. Even so, inscriptions discos
found along the river drainages, although at least one, El Mirador, sits in swampland ered from the period are still limited, particularly at Tikal and Uaxactun, where the
between the Caribbean and Gulf drainage systems. During the Late Preclassic period, hiatus appears to have been the most profound, but at many other cities-Yaxchilan,
the template for Maya kingship and their world view was set for the next one thousand Palenque and Caracol-it appears to be a time of expression and growth. Since most
years of civilization. buildings constructed before the Late Classic period (and probably most other art as
At Cerros along the coast of Belize and at El Mirador in the Peten, a dramatic well) were overlaid by subsequent construction, the Early Classic forms are known only
change occurred that allows us to speculate on how Classic Maya civilization devel- at sites that have been extensively excavated.
oped. Throughout Mesoamerica in general and the Maya region in particular, popula- Most archaeological evidence for occupations of the first half of the Early Clas-
tions were growing rapidly. Long-distance trade expanded, concentrating wealth iii just sic period have been found in the central and northeastern Peten region. Around A.D.
a few hands-probably in one clan or lineage, who exercised increasing power. The 350, however, three occurrences of major importance to the cultural history of the
world in which the Maya of Cerros lived, for example, was no longer a i egalitarian Maya took place. Sites all over the area inhabited by the Maya, especially those at the
farming community. Around 50 B.c., all constructions at Cerros were razed, and new periphery, such as Copan, Palenque and Tonina, begin to develop their own dynastic
constructions-stepped pyramids dominated by huge stucco masks in a dramatic new histories, presumably as independent states. At about the same time, most of the sites
imagery-were built; in this imagery, the primary elements of Classic Maya iconogra- in the southern region (except Kaminaljuyu) lost vitality and thereafter did not particif
phy, the sun and Venus, appeared for the first time. Great jaguar masks marked by kin, pate in the elite manifestations of Maya culture. Finally, in both the Highlands and the

MODERN INVENTION OF THE ANCIENT MAYA 27

 Lowlands, substantial interaction between the Classic Maya and Teotihuacanos from The continuity and success of Maya civilization for nearly a thousand years is
the Valley of Mexico is evidenced by the appearance of alien iconography, exotic goods astonishing, and their collapse has always fascinated modern people, perhaps because
(such as obsidian, feathers, cotton and shells), pottery vessel forms and some sharing of the cities of the Classic landscape were abandoned. As early as Maudslay's time, it had
architectural conventions (although it is clear that the Lowland Maya absorbed the become evident that the latest dates recorded in the Maya inscriptions were five hun»
other culture's forms far more liberally than did the Teotihuacanos). died years earlier than the Conquest." Morley, finding no counterevidence, based his
The Late Classic period (A.D. 600-900) saw the intensification of Maya elite Old and New Empires on this pattern of dates. The Old Empire, he thought, had ended
culture through the southern Lowlands, including the florescence of sites in the in the ninth century because of overuse of the tropical rain forest. Thompson, influ-
Chenes and Puuc regions of the northern Lowlands. Previously small and unimportant enced by the traumatic history of this century, assumed that there had been a popular
sites, such as Quirigua and Palenque, expanded dramatically and competed with more revolution of the masses, who rose up and slaughtered their masters. The collapse has
established neighbors. Hundreds of cities, large and small, were ruled by lineages that continued to be one of the great preoccupations of Maya archaeologists, who have
warred with one another, oversaw the construction of extraordinary buildings and ref tested many of the speculated causes, such as agricultural failure, disease ,
corded their histories in stone and plaster monuments. overpopulation and foreign invasion. Current evidence suggests that all of these factors
Hereditary kingship flourished throughout the Maya area, at what would contributed to or were symptoms of the decline, but no single causal factor has yet been
appear to be many city~states. These city-states battled one another frequently, and determined.
their ruling lineages intermarried, possibly to forge alliances but to draw the royal farnf Few investigators, however, have used the most important evidence that
flies together and reduce competition as well. Since such tactics were ineffective for the remains, namely, the history of the collapse as written by the Maya themselves." For
royal families of Europe, it should come as no surprise that the Maya were often at war example, interesting changes occur in the focus of Maya political art in the eighth
with close kin. Kings were often polygamous, and the size of the lineage must have century. While warfare was prominent in Maya records throughout the Late Classic
expanded over time. period, in the late eighth century, its documentation changed in scale and purpose. War
Important members of these ruling lineages were called aha, "lord," but only became an event that served individuals rather than systems and allowed small sites and
the king bore the title of mah k'ina, or "great sun." Particularly at places adjacent to their rulers to achieve status far in excess of their historical position. As more warfare
Yaxchilan, Bonampak and Palenque, elite figures who are depicted with the king gen- was carried out, it seems to have gained a new scale and purpose, and under the leaders
erally bear the title cabal. These underlords may have been governors (possibly military ship of expansionist kings, some small sites and their lords furthered their status
governors) of the towns that fell within the sphere of influence of the greater city. The dramatically. Palenque, Copan, Naranjo and Seibal lost their kings, who were taken
Maya practiced primogeniture; kingship generally passed from father to son. Royal captive and probably sacrificed by conquering cities. At Piedras Negras, Yaxchilan and
women bore elevated titles, such as lady ahau, or lady cabal, but they do not seem ever Bonampak, the last statements recorded and illustrated are of victory in warfare. In
to have carried the mah k'ina title. Nevertheless, at least at Palenque, inscriptions show scriptions at many sites along the SuasiOn and Petexbatun rivers in the southern Peter
that twice a woman was the chief ruler and occupied the office normally held by the region in central Guatemala record war waged by Dos Pilas kings, who may have been
male king-in other words, women on rare occasions could become "kings." Records attempting a unification of that area into a single "superstate."'7 We can only guess at
indicate that the political machinery was elaborate during the Late Classic period, and the number of battles that went unrecorded, but it is evident that some Maya kings felt
the visual documentation of the situations grew increasingly complex. the need to establish hegemony over larger territories than they had ruled in earlier
During the last two hundred years of this period, monuments celebrating war times. The movement toward centralized regional states, however successful, did not
and conquest became gradually more numerous. By A.D. 810, people without the eth- survive longer than the lifetimes of the men who forged them. No regional states or
nic features-the sloping foreheads and stepped haircuts-of the Classic Maya appear confederations arose until after the collapse, and then, only among Yucatec speakers in
on the monuments of Aguateca, Seibal and other sites within the Usumacinta drainage the north, whose rulers were invaders and thus foreigners.
system, and with them came fine orange ceramics, taken by Mayanists to signal an Outside pressures were undoubtedly present as well. Throughout Mesoamerica
invading people, called the Put un, from the Gulf Coast of Tabasco. 33 Around this time , in the eighth and ninth centuries, long, stable cultural traditions disappeared. The
Classic sites began simply to shut down-Palenque, Yaxchilan and Copan around A. D. history of Maya civilization followed the pattern of the whole of Mesoamerica, in that
800; Naranjo and Quirigua by A.D. 820. The latest date at Tikal and other nearby sites the established mechanisms of statecraft, kingship and symbolism disappeared. Non-
is A.D. 869. Around A.D. 849, Seibal underwent a short-lived renaissance, during Mayas were probably perceived as barbarians; and their search for croplands and rights
which these ethnically foreign rulers tried to use the traditional symbolism of Maya to waterways may have been an impetus to warfare. It is possible that in such warfare,
kingship to support their reigns; the revival did not hold, however. At Chic fen Itza, the old rules of capture and sacrifice, followed by tribute without exchange of territory,
Kakupacal and his family" (also described as foreigners in Yucatec sources) ruled, while no longer applied and that new conditions of warfare, particularly expansion of terrify
Lord Chac sat on the throne of Uxmal: The dates of both dynasties occur between A. D. try by capture, replaced them. Thus, the view of cultural reality of the Classic Maya
850 and 900. The last Long Count date was recorded on an unassuming little monuf elite, which had been carefully manipulated since the Late Preclassic period, no longer
rent at Tonina in the central part of Chiapas in A.D. 909. The glories of the Classic described the world in which they lived. The Classic Maya, unlike their forebears of a
period were over, and Maya civilization (at least in its first manifestation) had thousand years earlier, were not able to adjust their ideology to the new reality. Cultural
collapsed.

MODERN INVENTION OF TH
THE BLOOD OF KINGS
 tered at Chic fen Itza and another at Mayapan, developed; they were controlled by
lineages, such aS the Itza, that the Yucatecs described as foreigners. 38 In the Highlands
'
1b/{»,y4ma I pa, 7 ,.,$44'»vu
so| vi
a. v >'Fm~»~ 6 , , , _ , of Guatemala, Cakchiquel and Quiche dynasties came to dominate the region, both

vu- ¢J.51'J
claiming that they were inheritors of the Toltec, the legendary people of the Terminal
.r¢ f"'*""""
no-VL/P" 40014 »ffnc¢»-.£»~acA4M¢»¢y» , kg Classic period, from whom most Postclassic peoples claim political descent. The High»
7 £'"
'L~~»»-' 5¢¢§» 6ffw %'1'~ ~°`
lands of Chiapas were dominated by the Tzotzil; the Candelaria and lower Usumacinta
rivers by the Acalan Chontal Maya.
p
¢¢1~»~°-""~'*'.
' L.l..;pa»~-- u
¢£¢£*{L,[.»»¢.1,¢§
The Spanish conquered Yucatan and established their capital at Mérida in
4yl 7ww% m

¢»~»~-'»»'J-
°-~;~31l»f3-=¢}¢-4 1542; the Quiche and Cakchiquels of the Highlands had come under the Spanish heel
1 4/zm,z,,. @@ one year earlier, in 1541. We know far less about the people who the Spanish found in
the southern Lowlands, because the conquerors did not thrive in those regions. They
' -m°c-
4'4'"" TU WWe -A-, 4 J- 8a.-.L systematically depopulated the region by enslavement, raiding and conversion, moving
~-7¢¢.4»&n ,. ~.-44 34*,,*_,£
what they called "wild Indians" to Highland or coastal communities established for the
sole purpose of keeping the Maya under control. The last Maya community of any size,
gjjjm \ A 'Vi\, 7'*1*°~~~»
c;83;3 7.
zL31.
the Itza stronghold on Lake Peten-Itza, fell in 1697. The tired remnants, ancestors of
r1»4m.fL-11. W~~4p~l »L~-H, today's Lacandon, were left to roam the forest in small family bands.
At the time of the Conquest, elite Maya held an understanding of the Classic
world that, despite major transformations, brought them closer to the past than we will
1T"¢*°2@5@ ever be. Many of the same deities were worshipped, but most important, they continf
§6mn'5;9.~a,L<
e' IN
f4,8°"''
I m °=» Us

L L L
red to write in the same script as the Classic Maya. These deities and the customs of
Maya sacrifice provoked Spanish outrage. Catholic priests began extirpating the indig»
eros religion; the native books and sculptures were gathered and destroyed.

@Q@ @
m 1 pp in X., ><
Diego de Landa, the first bishop of Yucatan, was recalled to Spain in 1568 by
the Inquisition for his overzealous application of their own religious laws. Landa wrote
his Relacién de las coses de Yucatan, an account of life in Yucatan, as part of his legal

Qs O 8 M 80 %9 8 defense. Although scanty when compared to the volumes written on the New World by

-
friars in central Mexico, Landaus text is an invaluable document. He described the
place, the modern towns, the Maya cyclical rituals and the calendar-even his call for
native manuscripts in order to burn them. Most important for Maya archaeology, Landa
' 44.4 44 - 411 In described a hot afternoon when he sat with a literate Maya informant and asked of him
w5».4 ` B~--=4Mf¢,.7 ~ ?m¢ m .L:4Y»1 his "letters" (Fig. 9). Landa wrote out the Spanish alphabet, and pronouncing each
Spanish letter, he queried his informant for glyphic equivalents, an inappropriate but
FIGURE 9
I., we? 9° understandable attempt on the part of a man who could not imagine that a writing
The "alphabet" recorded in Landa's Relacién de
las coses de Yucatan system worked otherwise. The confused Maya gave him back exactly what he asked
I for-the sound of the Spanish letters written in the syllabary system of the Maya.
I Exasperated at not getting single signs for single letters, Landa told the Maya to write
dinosaurs, the Maya elite, their cities and their art largely vanished within a few gen» anything he wanted. In a wry commentary on his frustration, the Maya wrote ma in kg»
i~ ii, or, in colloquial English, "I don't wanna." For nearly a century Landaus record baf-
elations from the southern Maya Lowlands.
During the Postclassic period, a different kind of Maya culture thrived, even at fled scholars before it was conclusively demonstrated in 195239 that the values he re-
places like Dzibilchaltun, where the collapse had little affect. New styles of architecture corded provided a profound key to Maya writing, of both the Postclassic and Classic
arose; correspondingly, given Lowland Maya patterns, a slightly altered cosmic vision of eras.
how the world worked was in place. Maya inscriptions and art were still made, but the Throughout the New World in the sixteenth century, Spanish friars taught the
glorification of the ruling dynasty was different in character, and the offices may have native nobility how to read and write their own language using the roman script of
become more important than the individuals who held them. Europeans. No native Maya hieroglyphic books recounting extensive mythic narrative
It should be emphasized that the people and their complex society did not survive; one, however, was transcribed into European script in the middle of the six
disappear during the Postclassic period. In Yucatan, Puuc sites, such as Uxmal, Labna, teeth century by a young Quiche noble in Guatemala. The single most important
Sayil and Kabah, continued until A.D. 1100, and a series of confederations, one cen- document of Maya mythology, the Popol Vuh, describes the creation of the world, the

MODERN INVET\
30 THE moon oF KINGS
 exciting adventures of the Hero Twins and the legendary origins and history of the humans could see altogether too well. Man "understood everything perfectly," so the
Quiche Maya, one of the groups that dominated the Guatemalan Highlands at the time gods sought to limit his vision and his understanding, for it was not right for man to
of the Conquest. The Popol Vuh stories are not illustrated word for word in the art of have the very power of divinities. The gods gathered together and said, "Now we'll take
the Classic period, but many elements of the story line have compelling parallels in them apart just a little, that's what we need," and changed the nature of human vision.
Classic imagery created seven hundred years before, and some appear to be directly Mankind was "blinded as the face of a mirror is breathed upon. Their eyes were weak-
illustrated, suggesting that these stories are fragments, surviving to the time of the ened. Now it was only when they looked nearby that things were clear. And such was
Conquest, of very ancient myth cycles describing the universe and the origins of gods the loss of the means of understanding, along with the means of knowing
and man. Above all, the Popol Vuh expresses Maya concepts of good and evil, of defeat everything. "41
and victory. The discovery that the Popol Vuh had direct meaning for the Classic Maya Like those first men, our vision, too, is dimmed. We can see only what is close
should be no more surprising than Schliemann's discovery that Homer's works record at hand or what is passed, not what lies ahead. Like all those who have come before us,
real, historical events, couched in mythic terms. we are bound by historical perspectives that will be clear only to our successors, and
The Popol Vuh is divided into four parts. A new translation of the text has they cast a shadow over the mirror in which we look to seek the face of the Classic
shown that the work is conceived as a performance, an oral narrative that could have Maya.
taken days to complete.4° In Part One, great gods gather and attempt to create man
three different times, each time without success. In Parts Two and Three, stories of the
Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, are told, although not in chronological
THE CHARACTEfUSTICS OF MAYA ART
sequence. In Part Two, the Hero Twins defeat evil deities of the earth. Part Three
returns to a time before the birth of the Twins, when their father and uncle were
defeated by the Lords of the Underworld. The Twins were conceived when spittle from
T HE OBJECTS THAT WERE SELECTED TO BE THE BASIS OF THE BL(D()D (JF KINGS ARE
beautiful works of art that touch our sensibilities even without knowledge of their
their father's severed head impregnated an Underworld goddess, who fled from the
meaning. They date from the earliest to the latest periods of the Classic Maya and were
Underworld to the Middleworld to give birth. Like Hercules, the Hero Twins were
imbued with meaning by their makers. They come from palaces, temples and tombs;
demigods whose mission was to overcome divine opponents.
they were made for domestic and ritual life or to accompany the dead into the Afterlife.
The Hero Twins exemplify the Maya definition of a hero, which is fundamen»
They are made from stone, clay and shell, for the use of the individuals who owned
tally different from the hero of Western oral literature. A hero need not overpower his
them, or as public propaganda by the kings who commissioned them. Their importance
enemy. Brute strength is no advantage, nor, as in the case of Western epics, is divine
for us is in their beauty as objects of art and their function as carriers of cultural infer»
intervention from an Upperworld. There is no deus ex machine for the Maya. The
motion. Moreover, they are imprinted with a symbolic language combining imagery
Hero Twins win because they are witty and clever, not because they are purer, stronger,
and writing that was shared by the people who made them.
greater brutes or more faithful to gods Cr ideals. In the Underworld, for example, evil
The experience of art in our own lives does not prepare us to encounter and
lords try to sacrifice the Twins each successive night following ballgame play, and each
understand the role of art and the artist in Maya society. The language of Maya art is
night the lords are unsuccessful_not because they are weak, but because they are
alien to us: it was wrought from a different kind of social experience, its message aimed
outwitted. When the lords substitute Hunahpu's head for the ball in the final ballgame,
at people of another age. To experience Maya art as more than an exotic creation of
Xbalanque in turn substitutes a rabbit, who bounds out of sight, distracting the lords
curious aspect, we must learn to see in a different way and to hear a different message.
and giving Xbalanque time to repair his brother's head. The ability to recognize
The Maya artist was not concerned with creativity and originality as defined by twenti»
falseness and combat it with imaginative, even amusing, solutions is the primary quality
eth-century critics. The content, the media and the function of art were givens, stab»
of the Maya hero.
fished by cultural experience, education, and tradition. The artist had little control
When a Maya king died, like the Hero Twins he descended into the Under» over subject matter or iconography; individual creativity was demonstrated by the
world to enter into a contest with the evil Lords of Death. He had prepared himself refinement of execution, in innovations of style and i: i the use of subtle metaphor that
mentally to combat terror with wit in order to survive the Underworld trials and be at times approaches visual word play.
reborn as a celestial body. Thus, mental quickness regenerates Maya kingship, perpet- Technologically, the Maya must be classified as Stone Age artisans, since all
uating a cycle from earth to Underworld to Upperworld. This sophisticated wit is still sculpture, architectural construction, and lapidary art were executed without the use of
perceived by modern Maya in Honduras, Belize, Mexico and Guatemala today to be metal. Preferred sculptural media were the softer, more pliable stones, such as the lime»
the sine qua non of a great man. Verbal quickness, repartee and humor based on pun- stone characteristic of the Maya Lowlands. To some degree stylistic development was
ning are, for example, highly respected among the Maya. formed by the properties of locally available stone. For example, Palenque sculptors
In Part Four of the Popol Vuh, the gods successfully create man from maize. preferred wall-mounted slabs to stelae, perhaps because their local limestone, although
Unlike the gods' previous creations of animals and men from mud and wood, this one an excellent medium for relief, was too brittle to use for freestanding stelae. By con»
was successful: the maize men could praise their creators and acknowledge their debt to trast, the tuff available in the Copan Valley gave rise to a brilliant, fully volumetric
them. When the gods saw what they had made, however, they realized that these sculptural style, the rival of any European tradition. Harder stones from the volcanic

32 THE BLOOD OF KINGS

CHAR,
 Highlands, such as jade, fuchsite, serpentine, specular hematite and obsidian, and
shell from the Lowlands became the preferred material for small sacred objects and
jewelry. Plaster, clay and wood were also exploited, although little wood carving
has survived the ravages of a tropical environment. Weaving in cotton, palm, reed
henequen and other fibers was also a highly developed art, as were feather work and
feather mosaic but like wood. these media do not survive archaeologically We can
y reconstruct their rich development from the pictures of clothing shown in other
media. Finally, although onl small portion of painting and calligraphy survives on
walls, stone objects, pottery vessels, plastered objects and in fig-bark paper books, the
Maya clearly established one of the great painting traditions of the world
Maya art did not develop spontaneously The Maya inherited artistic tech
niques media and much of the imagery developed by early Mesoamerican cultural
traditions. Techniques for carving hard and soft stones in relief as fully vol
metric styles were invented and exploited by the Olmec of the Gulf Coast in the Earl
Preclassic period. At the same time, in the highlands of Guerrero, sophisticated wall
paintings showing Olmec iconography were executed at the caves of Oxtotitlan and
luxtlahuaca; and a tradition of architectural sculpture, also using symbols indistin
guishable from those used in the Gulf Coast Olmec region flourished at the new
discovered site at Teopantequanitla and nearby Chalcatzingo
The stone stele, the most important sculptural format to be used by the Classic
Maya, appeared at La Venta and in Guerrero by the Middle Preclassic period. By 600
B.c. many different peoples throughout Mesoamerica were using Olmec symbols
their own art and the stele was in use in the Chiapas and Guatemalan Highlands. By
100 B.c. the stele had become the dominant format among the peoples living at Izapa
Kaminaljuyu El Baul, Abaj Takalik and Chalchuapa. By 50 B.c., Lowland Maya had
experimented with the stele, adding it to their expressive repertoire as a major narrative
format by the second century A.D The Hauberg Stela (Pl. 66), the earliest known
dated Lowland Maya monument, is inscribed with a date in the year A.D. 199, but
eventually even earlier dates will surely emerge as archaeological investigations of Late
Preclassic level continue
The indigenous artistic form of the Lowland Maya was architectural sculpture
executed in plaster over stone armatures. These large works, which are on a scale with
the freestanding colossal heads of the Olmec, first appeared in architecture on pyr
amidal terraces at Tikal, El Mirador, Lamanai, Cerros (Fig. II. 1) and Uaxactun as
150 B.c. Earlier societies in Mesoamerica had experimented with architectural sculp
tune, but the medium was stone, the technique shallow relief and the impact limited
FIGURE 10
Because the first successful Maya exploitation of public art for political goals was in
Corbel vaults form of architectural sculpture, architecture became the principal vehicle of all public
House A and the west gallery of House C, the Palace at art throughout subsequent Maya history. Architecture was programmed with symbolic
Palenque, Chiapas
Late Classic period, A.D. 675-750
information expressed in sculpture or painting. Substructures bore huge masks. Outer
surfaces of bearing walls were often covered with relief sculpture, usually executed
. laster. The entablatures and roofcombs were sculpted in relief or volumetric imagery
Door lintels. whether wooden beams or stone slabs, could be carved with relief images
Interior benches were carved or painted, and stone slabs and plaster reliefs were app
to interior walls. Stelae were mounted in the plaza spaces between buildings, and their
programming was often related to the surrounding architectural imagery
Interior space in Maya stone architecture imitated the characteristic shape of

34 THE BLOOD OF KINGS

 Highlands, such as jade, fuchsite, serpentine, specular hematite and obsidian, and ma- the thatched house. Interior spans were constructed using the corbel vault-or
rine shell from the Lowlands became the preferred material for small sacred objects and successive courses of masonry stepped inward to a small gap bridged by a capstone (Fig.
jewelry. Plaster, clay and wood were also exploited, although very little wood carving 10)-although thatch and thick, wood reinforced plaster were used simultaneously as
has survived the ravages of a tropical environment. Weaving in cotton, palm, reed, roofing material for residential structures and, more rarely, in ceremonial structures.
henequen and other fibers was also a highly developed art, as were feather work and The corbel technology of Maya architecture severely limited the amount of interior
feather mosaic, but like wood, these media do not survive archaeologically. We can space that could be incorporated into a building. By functional necessity and tradi-
only reconstruct their rich development from the pictures of clothing shown in other tional definition, access to interior spaces was limited, and the exterior plaza is the
media. Finally, although only a small portion of painting and calligraphy survives on operational space in Maya architecture. Architectural sculpture and painting, as well as
walls, stone objects, pottery vessels, plastered objects and in figfbark paper books, the the stelae, face this open space. Maya buildings functioned like huge billboards
Maya clearly established one of the great painting traditions of the world. manifesting religious and political propaganda for the elite who commissioned them.
Maya art did not develop spontaneously. The Maya inherited artistic tech» They were also great stage fronts for the rituals vital to the sustenance of society as a
niques, media and much of the imagery developed by early Mesoamerican cultural whole. Through the symbolic information carried by sculpture and painting around and
traditions. Techniques for carving hard and soft stones in relief as well as in fully volu- within the architecture, the framework of ritual was defined in terms of the larger Maya
metric styles were invented and exploited by the Olmec of the Gulf Coast in the Early cosmos, the history of the site and region and the personal actions, authority and an-
Preclassic period. At the same time, in the highlands of Guerrero, sophisticated wall cestry of kings."
paintings showing Olmec iconography were executed at the caves of Oxtotitlan and Like public art, objects made for the use of individuals and within small groups
]uxtlahuaca; and a tradition of architectural sculpture, also using symbols indistin- communicated information about the object and its user. Symbols on such objects
guishable from those used in the Gulf Coast Olmec region, flourished at the newly could mark them as instruments of power and identify the owner in terms of name,
discovered site at Teopantequanitla and nearby Chalcatzingo. rank, source of authority and his role in ritual. Symbolism also functioned to transform FIGURE I 1

The stone stele, the most important sculptural format to be used by the Classic mundane objects into power instruments for use in ritual. .lade pectoral
Early Classic period, A.D. 400-600
Maya, appeared at La Venta and in Guerrero by the Middle Preclassic period. By 600 In Maya art, and in all great art styles, the formal properties of art-the way in The Baltimore Museum of Art
B.c. many different peoples throughout Mesoamerica were using Olmec symbols in which an image could be presented-were limited by tradition and technology. Each This delightful jade is identified as the ]guar God of the
their own art and the stele was in use in the Chiapas and Guatemalan Highlands. By society also has its own natural way 7 seeing and producing images. The decisions Underworld by the distinctive cruller that surrounds the
eyes of his youthful face.
100 B.c. the stele had become the dominant format among the peoples living at Izapa, about reality that comprise these ways of seeing are often unconsciously made, learned
Kaminaljuyu, El Baul, Abaj Takalik and Chalchuapa. By 50 B.c., Lowland Maya had by children as they grow to understand their world and to create two-dimensional imag-
experimented with the stele, adding it to their expressive repertoire as a major narrative ery that refers to their three-dimensional experience. We do not know the cultural
format by the second century A.D. The Hauberg Stela (Pl. 66), the earliest known source of these artistic decisions, or why the Maya considered their particular set of
dated Lowland Maya monument, is inscribed with a date in the year A.D. 199, but decisions to be the best solution. But because we too carry culturally acquired ways of
eventually even earlier dates will surely emerge as archaeological investigations of Late seeing that are different from those of the Maya, it is helpful in deciphering Maya
Preclassic level continue." imagery to consider some of the ways that their visual canon differs from our own.
The indigenous artistic form of the Lowland Maya was architectural sculpture The Maya artist did not regard light and shadow to be significant information
executed in plaster over stone armatures. These large works, which are on a scale with in two»dimensional representation. Shadow is never reproduced by change in color,
the freestanding colossal heads of the Olmec, first appeared in architecture on pyr- tone, hue or by the application of modeled shades of gray. The Maya were simply not
amidal terraces at Tikal, El Mirador, Larnanai, Cerros (Fig. II. 1) and Uaxactun as early interested in creating the illusion of shadows-chiaroscuro in traditional art historical
as 150 B.c. Earlier societies in Mesoamerica had experimented with architectural sculpt terminology. 44 However, using natural light sources the Maya created shadows on volu»
tune, but the medium was stone, the technique shallow relief and the impact limited. metric and relief sculptures, as in the architectural sculpture at Copan (Pls. 57, 110).
Because the first successful Maya exploitation of public art for political goals was in the Volumetric sculpture was carved to produce modeled patterns of light and shadow.
form of architectural sculpture, architecture became the principal vehicle of all public Costume objects such as pectorals (Fig. 11), belt heads and headdress elements, were
the Palace at art throughout subsequent Maya history. Architecture was programmed with symbolic often manufactured in half-round forms with a flat, back plane for attachment. The
information expressed in sculpture or painting. Substructures bore huge masks. Outer outer surfaces were modeled so that light and shadow would naturally emphasize these
surfaces of bearing walls were often covered with relief sculpture, usually executed in sculpted features. In relief carving, shadow cast across relief defines the line, as seen on
plaster. The entablatures and roofcombs were sculpted in relief or volumetric imagery. Yaxchilan Lintel 24 (Pl. 62), with its deeper carving, and on Yaxchilan Lintel 17 (Pl.
Door lintels, whether wooden beams or stone slabs, could be carved with relief images. 64), with its shallow relief.
Interior benches were carved or painted, and stone slabs and plaster reliefs were applied Flat color was applied to sculpted or smooth surfaces, with variation usually
to interior walls. Stelae were mounted in the plaza spaces between buildings, and their A achieved by diluting the pigment, as in thin washes of codex-style pottery painting (Pls.
programming was often related to the surrounding architectural imagery. 115, l 16) rather than mixing pigments. Maya color was often translucent, so overlap»
Interior space in Maya stone architecture imitated the characteristic shape of ping strokes would cause changes in hue, seen in the paintings at Bonampak (Pl. 38a).

CHARACTERISTICS OF MAYA ART 35

 Light and shadow patterns resulting from the sculptural modulation of the surface also
interact with the color patterns (Pl. 2), hut color was not changed to create the illusion
of shadow. Paint was often applied to fill in shapes, usually defined by the relief pattern
linear outlines. It also could he applied as line, either following sculptural line or
adding detail not carved the surface (Pl. 39). Colors were bright pigments from
mineral sources as iron oxides. and were rarely mixed to produce different colors
with the exception of the mixing of yellow and blue to produce green The Maya
unlike most other preindustrial people. had an unlimited source of permanent, intense
the attapulgite clay used today commercial paper forms such as write-through
checks"-whose use can be seen on the figurines in Plates 52 and 79. Color could be
used naturalistically to signal the inherent color of materials, as in the clothing of a king
(Pl. 2), but it also had symbolic value. Sometimes the color that appears on menu
merits bears no relationship to the naturalistic representation of particular objects, as in
Yaxchilan Lintel 24, which appears to have been painted a solid blue (Pl. 62)
Most stele compositions included only one figure, as on the Hauberg Stela (Pl
66), perhaps because of the verticality of the stele slab. The use two figures began
with the addition of captives, as on Dos Pilas Stela 16 (Fig. V.4), or ancestral figures, as
Yaxchilan Stela 11 (Fig. V. pa), to the visual field; and tri~figural compositions (Fig
II. 7), began with the presentation of parents flanking the ruler as a statement of legit
mate claim. In the Late Classic period, multifigure compositions were exploited. but
usually on wall-mounted panels like Piedras Negras Lintel 2 (Pl. 40), throne backs
building walls, like the Bonampak paintings (Pl. 38), or in other formats with a domi
rant horizontal axis
Spatial illusion in two dimensional art was severely limited, and the optical
devices used to imply position in space were very few. Most pictorial representations in
both stone relief (Pls. 1, 40) and pottery painting (Pls. 48, 117a) used a groundline to
establish the setting of a scene. People and objects were shown from only two points of
FIGURE 12 frontal and profile, which could be combined in ingenious ways, as in the twisted
]ade plaque, the Leiden Plaque back view of the captive on the middle level of Piedras Negras Stela 12 (Fig. V.8)
Early Classic period. A.D
See also Plate 33
Objects were arranged on the groundline in a logical manner Human figures always
The artist has drawn the figure of the captive at a smaller
stand on it (Pl. 48), and even when the groundline was not drawn, figures are arranged
scale than the ruler, both to signal his lesser importance as if it were there (Fig. 13a). Overlapping, not position in picture plane or relative
and to fit the drawing within the narrow horizontal space scale. is used to show position in space, as in the group of captives on the bottom level
of the Celt
of Piedras Negras Stela 12. Changes in size have meaning such as indicating relative
rank (Fig. 12), but smaller size does not refer to distance. Color and value are not
changed by distance. Maya art gives the impression that all the action takes p
within two feet of a blank wall, an effect particularly evident in Piedras Negras Lintel 2
(Pl. 40). Any action or object that violates these rules can be taken to be supernatural
for example, the floating figures of Ixlu Stela 2 (Fig. IV,3) are gods
The use of groundlines as the major spatial device made it easy to arrange
tiple figures in horizontal compositions. This device was also used by painters who
worked on pottery walls, since the horizontal axis was usually the longer one Figures
be shown in processional sequence with minimal overlap of individuals, as on
Piedras Negras Lintel 2. These long horizontal picture planes can also be broken up into
different episodes, often distinguished by the direction in which the figures face (Pl
68). However, the format of the stele is usually vertical, making compositions of mul
tiple figures difficult to compose and. therefore, unusual. Several compositional solo

36 THE BLOOD OF KINGS

 Light and shadow patterns resulting from the sculptural modulation of the surface also
.,.... M ~»..\.l
interact with the color patterns (Pl. Z), but color was not changed to create the illusion
of shadow. Paint was often applied to fill in shapes, usually defined by the relief pattern
or linear outlines. It also could be applied as line, either following sculptural line or
adding detail not carved on the surface (Pl. 39). Colors were bright pigments from
mineral sources, such as iron oxides, and were rarely mixed to produce different colors,
with the exception of the mixing of yellow and blue to produce green. The Maya,
unlike most other preindustrial people, had an unlimited source of permanent, intense
blue-the attapulgite clay used today in commercial paper forms such as write-through
checks"-whose use can be seen on the figurines in Plates 52 and 79. Color could be
used naturalistically to signal the inherent color of materials, as in the clothing of a king
(Pl. Z), but it also had symbolic value. Sometimes the color that appears on monuf
merits bears no relationship to the naturalistic representation of particular objects, as in
Yaxchilan Lintel 24, which appears to have been painted a solid blue (Pl. 62). d b
Most stele compositions included only one figure, as on the Hauberg Stela (Pl.
66), perhaps because of the verticality of the stele slab. The use of two figures began sons were developed, including multiple horizontal registers, as in the Bonampak mud FIGURE 13a
with the addition of captives, as on Dos Pilas Stela 16 (Fig. V.4), or ancestral figures, as rats in Room 1 (Pl. 38), but the most successful was the use of architectural terracing Pot depicting Chac»Xib-Chac and the Pauahtuns

on Yaxchilan Stela 11 (Fig. V. 5a), to the visual field; and tri-figural compositions (Fig. 4 and interior benches (Fig. 13b) as a logical motivation for placing figures on different Late Classic period, A.D. 650-800

II. 7), began with the presentation of parents flanking the ruler as a statement of legits levels. The Kimbell wall panel (Pl. 86) uses this architectural device, but the most The Pauahtuns and their female attendants are arranged
in two registers. The upper set of figures sit in a row as if a
mate claim. In the Late Classic period, multifigure compositions were exploited, but extraordinary examples, showing the most complex architectural configurations, are groundline had been drawn under them.
usually on wall-mounted panels like Piedras Negras Lintel Z (Pl. 40), throne backs, l found on Fiedras Negras Stela 12 (Fig. V.8) and in the compositions of murals in Room
FIGURE 13h
building walls, like the Bonampak paintings (Pl. 38), or in other formats with a domi- Z (Fig. V.6) and Room 3 at Bonampak.
Detail, cylindrical vessel
nant horizontal axis. Particularly in the Late Classic period, relative position in space was indicated The Art Museum, Princeton University
Spatial illusion in two-dimensional art was severely limited, and the optical by overlap. Some Maya artists, especially at sites in the western area, were accor» See also Plate I 15
devices used to imply position in space were very few. Most pictorial representations in pushed practitioners of foreshortening (Fig. 14). They became quite adept at represent~ The architectural elements of a building platform and a
both stone relief (Pls. 1, 40) and pottery painting (Pls. 48, llama) used a groundline to bench are used by the artist to justify placing the figures
ing bodies in twisted and other unusual postures. Particular skill was used in represent-
on different vertical levels. The doorway, curtain and roof
establish the setting of a scene. People and objects were shown from only two points of ing the cross-legged, seated position and the sideview of body parts, such as shoulders, decoration of the temple function as a framing device for
view, frontal and profile, which could be combined in ingenious ways, as in the twisted as on the Kimbell panel (Fig. 15). Captives and ballplayers were subjects that permitted the scene.
back view of the captive on the middle level of Piedras Negras Stela 12 (Fig. V.8). artistic experimentation with contorted body positions. The captive on Tonina Monu~
Objects were arranged on the groundline in a logical manner. Human figures always rent 122 (Fig.v. l 1) twists his upper torso, looking behind him, and the legs of the
i

[Ive at a smaller stand on it (Pl. 48), and even when the groundline was not drawn, figures are arranged fallen ballplayer (PI. 101) are awkwardly twisted. Apparently the conventions of draw-
or importance as if it were there (Fig. lea). Overlapping, not position in picture plane or relative ing these secondary figures were much less rigid.
horizontal space
scale, is used to show position in space, as in the group of captives on the bottom level Maya art, both painting and sculpture, shows a marked sensitivity to the
of Piedras Negras Stela 12. Changes in size have meaning, such as indicating relative boundaries of the pictorial field, notably through the many innovative devices artists
rank (Fig. 12), but smaller size does not refer to distance. Color and value are not used to break them. Most compositions are framed by borders, some plain bands (PI.
changed by distance. Maya art gives the impression that all the action takes place 86), others glyphic (Pl. 1) or figural. The most accomplished and innovative artist
within two feet of a blank wall, an effect particularly evident in Piedras Negras Lintel 2 it defined these framing bands as cosmic or architectural elements, as on Piedras Negras
(Pl. 40). Any action or object that violates these rules can be taken to be supernatural; Stela 11 (Fig. II.4). In a tour de force of spatial manipulation, the "Cookie Cutter"
for example, the floating figures of Ixlu Stela 2 (Fig. IV.3) are gods. Master of Yaxchilan arranged the glyphs on the rear of Stela II (Fig. V. 5a) to reproduce
The use of groundlines as the major spatial device made it easy to arrange ml» the stepped contour of a corbeled vault. Bird ]aguar stands inside the building; his
tiple figures in horizontal compositions. This device was also used by painters who victims kneel on the step in front of it. Many artists focus attention on these framing
worked on pottery walls, since the horizontal axis was usually the longer one. Figures devices by violating them: feathers overlap them; hands hold them; supernaturals climb
can be shown in processional sequence with minimal overlap of individuals, as on r
on them; body parts vanish behind them or overlap them. Cn the Art Institute of
Piedras Negras Lintel 2. These long horizontal picture planes can also be broken up into Chicago panel (Pl. 101), the foot of the fallen player overlaps the frame. At some sites,
different episodes, often distinguished by the direction in which the figures face (Pl. imagery in the framing bands was used to carry cosmological information separate from
68). However, the format of the stele is usually vertical, making compositions of mul- the narratives, such as the use of the Cosmic Monster to form the band and genealogi»
tiple figures difficult to compose and, therefore, unusual. Several compositional solu- cal information about the protagonist, as on Yaxchilan Stela 11 (Fig. V.5a,b). Glyphic

CHARACTERISTICS OF MAYA ART 37

 texts were also used as framing devices or could be set directly into the pictorial space
Narrative presented variety of compositional formats. For example, it
could show a single moment characteristic of the entire sequence of action, as at
Palenque; continuous series of moments that move from one to another as in Room 1
at Bonampak (Pl. 38); contrasting episodes from different parts of the action sequence
such as bloodletting and accession (Pl. 68); or simultaneous narrative. This last form
the most difficult to understand. It presents a single moment, but it uses the features of
several different stages in a sequence. For example, a captive shown at the instant of his
capture could he dressed in the uniform of the sacrificial victim. which in the real
episode he would not wear for hours or days after his capture, as on Yaxchilan Lintel 8
(Fig. V.3)
The Maya focused attention on three moments in the continuous sequence of
ritual experience: the inceptive, the progressive and the completive. The inceptive
moment is either just before or just after a sequence begins. In Bonampak Room l (Pl
38), lords stand around in informal groups as the chief attendant turns his head to get
last-minute instructions from his king. At Palenque, the king designate leans in antic
patron toward his father, who is beginning to pass the crown to his son (Fig. II.7)
progressive moment shows part of an ongoing action. At Yaxchilan, Lad
Xoc stares at her vision (Pl. 62), or her hands are frozen mid»action as she pulls
barbed rope through her tongue (Pl. 63). The stream of blood given by Bird ]aguar is
FIGURE 14
poised midway on its fall to the censer in front of his feet (Pl. 76)
Detail, Lintel 16. Yaxchilan completive moment occurs when the ritual is done. On the Leiden Plaque
See also Plate 87 (Pl. 33), the king who was installed is shown wearing the full regalia of kingship. The
The legs of the seated captive are foreshortened as he transformation process shown at its inception at Palenque is completed
twists toward his captor, Bird ]guar
Tension was achieved by an extraordinary device developed at sites along the
Usumacinta River. At Bonampak and Yaxchilan, lintels of the three doors of a single
building were programmed to give one level of information in the narrative scenes and
another in the text.46 Each image shows a moment in a single ritual; together they
encompass the entire ritual sequence. By contrast, the texts specify that this ritual took
lace at different times, and at Bonampak, with different actors
Tension was also achieved between two-dimensional and three dimensional
imagery. Early Classic clay artists often began an image on the body of a pot with
drawing or incision but completed it in a three-dimensional extrusion from the lid
Thus, a pot lid could represent a bird, its wings, tail and body painted in line, its head
emerging three»dimensionally from the surface to become the handle (Pl. 105). This
tension between two dimensional and three-dimensional imagery is also characteristic
of the sculpture of Piedras Negras and Tonina, although the most successful examples
found in the zoomorphs of Quirigua and the architectural sculpture of Copan
was preeminent throughout all periods of Maya art, which rivaled the
Chinese and the Japanese as one of the world's great calligraphic traditions. The
mary tool used in Maya writing and painting was the brush (Fig. 16). Like written
Chinese, Maya script was linear and calligraphic in nature. The use of the brush as the
principal writing tool profoundly affected both the graphic configuration of writing and
the style of pictorial art
No writing brushes have survived archaeologically but brushes are depicted
painted sources. In scenes painted on pottery, scribes use paint pots made from conch
shells (Pl. 44) and pointed brushes made of flexible animal hair. The clearest repress
ration of a Maya brush now known, which was incised on a bone excavated from Burial

38 THE BLOOD OF KINGS

 texts were also used as framing devices or could be set directly into the pictorial space. 116 at Tikal, shows an elegant human hand emerging from the gullet of a snaggle-
Narrative was presented in a variety of compositional formats. For example, it toothed dragon holding a brush delicately between thumb and first finger poised for a
could show a single moment characteristic of the entire sequence of action, as at stroke (Fig. 17). The shaft of the brush is rigid and of even width. The heel of the brush
Palenque; continuous series of moments that move from one to another, as in Room l is smaller in diameter than the shaft, and it swells to a broader diameter below the heel,
at Bonarnpak (Pl. 38); contrasting episodes from different parts of the action sequence, before tapering to a fine tip. The Maya seem to have invented a brush identical in form
such as bloodletting and accession (Pl. 68); or simultaneous narrative. This last form is to the Chinese brush, to fulfill the same function-as the tool for calligraphic line
the most difficult to understand. It presents a single moment, hut it uses the features of work in both writing and painting.
several different stages in a sequence. For example, a captive shown at the instant of his Drawings from Palenque demonstrate the dominance of line in Maya art and
capture could he dressed in the uniform of the sacrificial victim, which in the real the use of this Chinese style brush, and reveal rare information about how the Maya
episode he would not wear for hours or days after his capture, as on Yaxchilan Lintel 8 made public art. A plaster medallion, which once completely surrounded the painted
F

(Fig. V.3). I

1
limestone panel called the Oval Palace Tablet, has fallen from the wall, revealing an
The Maya focused attention on three moments in the continuous sequence of underlying master drawing that was used as a guide by the plasterers (Fig. 18). Parts of
ritual experience: the inceptive, the progressive and the completive. The inceptive the master drawing for the carved reliefs on King Pacal's stone sarcophagus in the Tern-
moment is either just before or just after a sequence begins. In Bonampak Room 1 (Pl. ple of Inscriptions (Pl. 119) have also been preserved, perhaps due to the necessity of a
38), lords stand around in informal groups as the chief attendant turns his head to get quick burial. These drawings were painted on the stone sides before the burial chamber
last-minute instructions from his king. At Palenque, the king designate leans in antici- was built, and the relief was carved after the chamber was completed.
pation toward his father, who is beginning to pass the crown to his son (Fig. II. 7). In both examples, a line drawing was applied in black paint by a master callig-
The progressive moment shows part of an ongoing action. At Yaxchilan, Lady rapher. Lines in the drawing are about onefeighth of an inch thick and of relatively
Xoc stares at her vision (Pl. 62), or her hands are frozen mids action as she pulls a even width throughout. The artist pulled long, flowing strokes, some of them continu-
barbed rope through her tongue (Pl. 63). The stream of blood given by Bird ]aguar is ous pulls over a length of two feet or more. Only the Chinese style brush can hold
poised midway on its fall to the censer in front of his feet (Pl. 76). enough paint to pull such a long stroke over a porous surface like plaster or limestone
FiguRE I 5
The completive moment occurs when the ritual is done. On the Leiden Plaque while maintaining such precise control over line width and quality. Detail, captives from a carved panel
(Pl. 33), the king who was installed is shown wearing the full regalia of kingship. The Maya drawings and paintings show a freehand execution. Producing such a See also Plate 86
ripened as he transformation process shown at its inception at Palenque is completed. long stroke while retaining a controlled line required the artist to work rapidly, sustain a The three captive are drawn with fluid motion, animated
gestures and body positions. Overlapping is used to signal
Tension was achieved by an extraordinary device developed at sites along the light touch, and pivot his arm from his shoulder. Linear paintings in the tombs at Rio
position in space. The progression of the hand from the
Usumacinta River. At Bonampak and Yaxchilan, lintels of the three doors of a single Azul and in Burial 48 at Tikal were executed so rapidly that excess paint fell from the mouth of the left figure to the forehead of the kneeling
building were programmed to give one level of information in the narrative scenes and rapidly moving brush, forming drip patterns that were retained as part of the imagery. central figure to the extended gesture of the seated figure
on the right suggests a sense of ongoing activity.
another in the text.46 Each image shows a moment in a single ritual; together they The spontaneity and calligraphic quality of these paintings could not be achieved by
encompass the entire ritual sequence. By contrast, the texts specify that this ritual took tracing previously prepared master drawings.
place at different times, and at Bonampak, with different actors. The contents of inscriptions and pictorial compositions, as well as the relative
_, Tension was also achieved between two»dimensional and three-dimensional proportions of each part of the whole composition, may have been worked out in
imagery. Early Classic clay artists often began an image on the body of a pot with a advance. Guidelines indicating placements for glyphic blocks and pictorial elements
drawing or incision but completed it in a three-dimensional extrusion from the lid. exist in the Dresden Codex and in the wall paintings of the Rio Azure tombs. An unfin-
Thus, a pot lid could represent a bird, its wings, tail and body painted in line, its head ished hieroglyphic stair at Dos Pilas has glyph blocks and rectangular shapes for figures
emerging three-dimensionally from the surface to become the handle (Pl. 105). This cut away from the background stone, but the next two steps in the process-adding the
tension between two-dimensional and three»dimensional imagery is also characteristic master drawing and carving it into the stone-were never done (Fig. 19).
of the sculpture of Piedras Negras and Tonina, although the most successful examples Mistakes in computation, drawing and execution provide interesting informal
are found in the zoomorphs of Quirigua and the architectural sculpture of Copan. son about the artist. At Palenque, Dos Pilas and elsewhere, blatant errors of math»
Line was preeminent throughout all periods of Maya art, which rivaled the ematical computation or in the use of signs were not corrected. Either the Maya did not
Chinese and the ]apanese as one of the world's great calligraphic traditions. The pri- proofread the first drafts made by the masters, or errors were considered to be divine
mary tool used in Maya writing and painting was the brush (Fig. 16). Like written intervention and protected from correction." The frequency of such mistakes also sug»
Chinese, Maya script was linear and calligraphic in nature. The use of the brush as the gests that the process of creating the master drawing was a ritual occasion of major
principal writing tool profoundly affected both the graphic configuration of writing and importance that included fasting, bloodletting and, perhaps, heavy drinking of Maya
the style of pictorial art. beer, called bache. If so, the masters were probably not at their best when they drew the
No writing brushes have survived archaeologically, but brushes are depicted in master painting.
painted sources. In scenes painted on pottery, scribes use paint pots made from conch I

Works at Palenque suggest that a sculpted relief based on a drawing was pro-
shells (Pl. 44) and pointed brushes made of flexible animal hair. The clearest represent duced by other artists, usually more than one. Examination of the Palace Tablet and the
ration of a Maya brush now known, which was incised on a bone excavated from Burial sarcophagus in the Temple of Inscriptions shows the hand of the master drawing to be

CHARACTERISTICS OF MAYA ART 39

 uniform, but the execution of the modeled relief varies in technique and skill. The
most accomplished sculptors carved the figures and important parts of the inscriptions
craftsmen of lesser skill were allowed to work on less sensitive areas. Most interestingly
the craftsmen who applied the plaster and carved the relief of the two drawings
described above did not follow exactly the lines of the master. Sculptors apparently
exercised their own judgment in finishing the sculpture, using the master drawing on
guide since the sculptor was a master in own right and finished the final surface
according to his own sense of aesthetics
Since most Maya draftsmanship was freehand drawing, accuracy, especially in
Rabbit Scribe from the Princeton Pot
delineating important symbols, was controlled by convention.'*8 Certainly, an artist did
FIGURE 16
Detail, the rabbit scribe from a cylindrical vessel
not bring the king and his attendants to a prepared stone or wall to sit for their
See also Plate 115 traits. The configurations of imagery were conventions, learned very probably by rote
with training beginning in childhood. Maya artists were born into their profession
although particularly able individuals probably absorbed into the lineage groups
specializing in the scribal arts. The recently excavated residential compound of
such scribal lineage at Copan indicates that scribes and artists were high on the social
l3ddet.49
Smaller objects, such as pottery and jade, appear to have been produced b
y one hand. However, we do not know if the potter also painted his works, or if the
lapidary artist had assistants to help block an image. Skill levels, as with monumental
art. are varied. Masters of superlative skill worked on special vessels, but workshops
appear to have produced pottery mediocre in construction and painting. Wealth
ier and more prestigious patrons probably acquired the higher-quality products
Clay sculpture was made by both slab and coil techniques, and their surfaces
Tikal MT 53 modeled, incised and painted with clay slips and mineral pigments. Plaster
FIGURE 17 grounds used as paint bases on pottery vessels, as well as on walls and in books
Incised bone from Burial 116. Tikal. Guatemala
Plaster artisans used mold casting, additive techniques and subtractive modeling. Usu
Late Classic period, A.D. 735
ally a stone armature was inserted to reinforce the interior of such sculpture, which
found in styles ranging from shallow relief to fully three»dimensional
Although evidence is scanty, it appears that artists shared common pattern
books, knew of one another's work, and even trained together. At Mul»Chic, for
je, the drawing of the prominent seated warrior in the paintings resembles so close
that of Ruler Seven on the top of Piedras Negras Stefa 12 that one artist seems to have
copied the other. The contours of a captive displayed by Bird jaguar on the La Pasadita
lintel in Berlin is nearly identical to a captive painted in the Bonampak paintings
nearly thirty years later, but the Bonampak figure is reversed, as if an intermediate
tracing had been made. We also suspect that skilled artisans accompanied royal wives
into foreign tribute and may have been exchanged as tribute
The Maya created one of the great art traditions of the world that stands
FIGURE 18
beside the art of the ancient Egyptians or the early Chinese. Maya painting is
Detail, master drawing from the medallion around
the Oval Palace Tablet powerful in its imagery and execution and elegant in its line work: the fine incisions on
House E of the Falace, Palenque, Chiapas shell and jade are precise, yet lyrical in style. Small figurines were modeled from clay
Late Classic period, ca. A.D. 650
with all the detail and presence of life size stone and plaster portraits of rulers and gods
Photo by Merle Greene Robertson
As much attention was paid to the execution and the message conveyed on a small
bone handle for a fan as was spent on the huge architectural monuments that celebrated
the deeds of kings and the order of the universe. Maya art communicates powerfully
with people of the twentieth century, yet at the same time transmits in eloquent detail
the world beliefs and history of the people who made it

40 THE BLOOD OF KINGS

I

uniform, but the execution of the modeled relief varies in technique and skill. The
most accomplished sculptors carved the figures and important parts of the inscriptions;
craftsmen of lesser skill were allowed to work on less sensitive areas. Most interestingly,
the craftsmen who applied the plaster and carved the relief of the two drawings
described above did not follow exactly the lines of the master. Sculptors apparently
1'

9
.r...
_.,.4
I exercised their own judgment in finishing the sculpture, using the master drawing only Flcuaf 19
-I
-- as a guide, since the sculptor was a master in his own right and finished the final surface Unfinished step from a Hieroglyphic Stair at
accordion Dos Pilas, Guatemala
g to his own sense of aesthetics. Late Classic period, ca. A.D. 700
Since most Maya draftsmanship was freehand drawing, accuracy, especially in Fhoro by Merle Greene Robertson
delineating important symbols, was controlled by convention.'*** Certainly, an artist did
metrical vessel
not bring the king and his attendants to a prepared stone or wall to sit for their por-
traits. The configurations of imagery were conventions, learned very probably by rote,
with training beginning in childhood. Maya artists were born into their profession, MAYA GODS AND ICONS
although particularly able individuals were probably absorbed into the lineage groups
specializing in the scribal arts. The recently excavated residential compound of one
such scribal lineage at Copan indicates that scribes and artists were high on the social
ladder.4"
M AYA ART WAS A COMPLEX SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE WITH PROFOUNDLY IMPORTANT
social functions. It was mainly commissioned by kings and other high elite to fulfill
Smaller object s, such as pottery and jade, appear to have been produced by their political and social purposes. Since art communicated the message of the king to
only one hand. However, we do not know if the potter also painted his works, or if the his subjects, the artist was confined to producing works that affirmed a shared reality.
lapidary artist had assistants to help block in an image. Skill levels, as with monumental 1
These constraints did not, however, inhibit the creation of an art of such sensuality and
art, are varied. Masters of superlative skill worked on special vessels, but workshops power that it has reached us across the centuries, even when its message was not under»
appear to have mass-produced pottery mediocre in construction and painting. Wealth- stood. As we decipher the writing system and decode the imagery, we are learning to
ier and more prestigious patrons probably acquired the higher»quality products. understand this message, which, since it is not addressed to us or our sensibilities, is
Clay sculpture was made by both slab and coil techniques, and their surfaces sometimes disturbing. But by reclaiming its meaning, even in part, we will preserve it as
were modeled, incised and painted with clay slips and mineral pigments. Plaster part of the heritage of all humanity.
grounds were used as paint bases on pottery vessels, as well as on walls and in books. In many ways, Maya monumental art is best understood, not as the portrait of
l, Guatemala Plaster artisans used mold casting, additive techniques and subtractive modeling. Usuf people, but as the portrait of ritual. The combination of writing with imagery allowed
ally a stone armature was inserted to reinforce the interior of such sculpture, which is the time, location, action and actor to be described with absolute precision. Glyphic
found in styles ranging from shallow relief to fully three»dimensional. texts reinforced visual narratives recording rituals, documenting a specific ritual involv-
Although evidence is scanty, it appears that artists shared common pattern ing a named individual at a particular time and place. Maya narrative sculpture froze
books, knew of one another's work, and even trained together. At Mul-Chic, for exam- the moment of ritual in time, but since it continued to exist, this art became the means
ple, the drawing of the prominent seated warrior in the paintings resembles so closely by which society was instructed in correct behavior. The historical precedent thus
that of Ruler Seven on the top of Piedras Negras Stela 12 that one artist seems to have established was intended to guide posterity.
copied the other. The contours of a captive displayed by Bird ]aguar on the La Pasadita Since art had to communicate cultural information, it was restricted to symbol-
|
lintel in Berlin is nearly identical to a captive painted in the Bonampak paintings, I
ism and imagery whose meanings were shared by members of the Maya community.
nearly thirty years later, but the Bonampak figure is reversed, as if an intermediate The visual symbol system in Maya art worked like a language, and, as with a spoken
tracing had been made. We also suspect that skilled artisans accompanied royal wives language, individual taste and creative expression had to be subordinated to the
into foreign tribute and may have been exchanged as tribute. imperative of communication. Arbitrary change could not be tolerated. If, in order to
The Maya created one of the great art traditions of the world, one that stands express personal choice or aesthetic judgment, an artist changed the form of a temple so
beside the art of the ancient Egyptians or the early Chinese. Maya painting is both that it looked like a residential building; or altered the way a god was drawn so that its
stallion around
powerful in its imagery and execution and elegant in its line work; the fine incisions on attributes could no longer be discerned; or invented new emblems to mark the rank of a
shell and jade are precise, yet lyrical in style. Small figurines were modeled from clay king or lineage head, then the purpose of this art would have been lost. Because of its
with all the detail and presence of life-size stone and plaster portraits of rulers and gods. social function, Maya iconography was of necessity conservative.
As much attention was paid to the execution and the message conveyed on a small The symbolism of Maya art identified the role of individuals in their immediate
bone handle for a fan as was spent on the huge architectural monuments that celebrated context, as well as in relationship to the larger Maya world and to the Maya cosmos.
the deeds of kings and the order of the universe. Maya art communicates powerfully The proper order of society, the role of the king, commoners and nobles alike, was
with people of the twentieth century, yet at the same time transmits in eloquent detail expressed in permanent and public form through art. Imagery described the cosmos,
the world view, beliefs and history of the people who made it. the origin of supernatural power and how to manipulate it, the reason for the existence

MAYA GODS AND ICONS 41

of human beings, and their place in the cosmos. Ritual was conceived as the bridge individual beings. They are simply there to give a sacred context to the actions of
between the supernatural and the mundane worlds, and the king was the agent of others.
power who made the transition from the sacred to the mundane. Thus, Maya art The anthropomorphs are primarily human in aspect, but they can carry animal
depicts the historical action of civil kings, but those kings acted with sacred authority features as part of their distinctive attributes. While they can be indistinguishable from
and supernatural power. The imagery of art was a symbolic language that depicted both living humans, they frequently have nonhuman square eyes, and their bodies have
the historical actions of kings and the supernatural framework of the cosmos that gave distinctive markings on the arms, legs and torsos, indicating their status as gods. The mirror "brightness" akbal "darkness"
those actions sacred purpose. god markings-either mirrors or signs for darkness-are shown in half view, because
The Maya Universe, in which historical action and daily life took place, was a they are wrapped around a "three-dimensional" body part (Fig. 20). The mirror signals God markings
three»leveled structure, consisting of the Overworld, the Middleworld, and the Under- brightness and perhaps a positive nature; darkness (akbal in Maya) signals an Under» FIGURE 20
world. The Underworld was entered either through a cave or through bodies of stand- world identity and perhaps an association with the night. Historical individuals who
ing water, such as the ocean or a lake. The Middleworld, the world of humankind, was have died, have become ancestors and dwell in a supernatural realm, also bear god
oriented by the four cardinal directions, each associated with a tree, bird and color. The markings that reflect their status.
principal direction was east, the point of the rising sun; its color was red. North, the Zoomorphs may display human or animal characteristics, but their appearance
direction of the ancestral dead, was white. West was black and associated with death is not naturalistic. Their overall form may derive from a particular animal-such as a
and the Underworld. South was yellow and the right hand of the sun. At the center bird, crocodile or deer-but because their features combine with those of several ani»
stood an axis mundi, or central axis, which was most often shown as a great ciba tree mals, they would never be mistaken for creatures of the natural world. Zoornorphs often
with a supernatural bird at its crown. The roots of the tree were in the Underworld, its have distinct head types; these include a ubiquitous head with a long nose, dragons
trunk in the Middleworld and its branches in the Overworld. The souls of the dead and derived from both lizards and snakes, and jaguar-based heads with comparatively short
the supernaturals of the Maya cosmos traveled from level to level via this tree. snouts. Deer, fish, snakes, crocodiles, birds and human bodies are merged with these
The Overworld, also called the Upperworld, best described as the heavens, was zoomorphic heads. The Maya deliberately combined features from animals that occupy
marked by the passage of the sun across the sky. In fact, the Maya may have seen the different ecological niches to confer supernatural status without ambiguity. In Maya
day sky as the Overworld and the night sky as the Underworld passing over their heads cosmology, zoomorphs are usually actors who manifest both cause and effect in ritual
daily. The Milky Way and the fixed stars formed the canopy of the night sky. The and in the natural world. They can be individual beings with independent personal-
moving planets, the procession of constellations and the erratic dance of the moon ities, but they can also manifest the power and animate force of objects, locations and
were seen as the manifestation of the normal activity of the gods. Tracking these move- substances in the Middleworld. Because of this, there is some crossover between the
ments was a critical function of Maya religion, for the behavior of the gods could be categories of zoomorphs and the worldly phenomena.
either beneficial or terribly dangerous to the inhabitants of the Middleworld. Images of animals generally have bodies and physical features like animals of
The gods of Maya myth fall into one of four categories: worldly phenomena, the natural world. However, they move and behave like human beings (as do contemn
anthropomorphs, zoomorphs and animals. A particular god can be manifested in more porary animal cartoon characters). They participate in a variety of Underworld activi»
than one of these forms. Some god images seem to have been immutable; others age ties, including acting as scribes and playing instruments in Underworld musical bands.
and transform, perhaps in symbolic reference to the biological life cycle. The iconogra- In the Underworld, animals are intelligent: they are the first generation of creatures
phy of each deity consists of a distinct set of pictorial and glyphic attributes, and indi- made by the gods, and they behave like men.
vidual images display a partial or complete set of these attributes. Features are some In Maya thought certain points and substances in the natural world may have
times shared by more than one deity, however, and features may be borrowed from one supernatural force that was manifested symbolically in art. These symbols represent
deity by another as a signal of a role change or transformation. Thus, the boundaries categories of phenomena, much as we use the generic term man to refer to all human
between these complexes of images are not sharp. As new patterns of features are beings. Cave, tree, water, blood, cloud, vision, lightning bolt, maize, water-lily, body
discovered and as other are found to be equivalent (or not), the known identities of parts and emanations-all of these could be manifested as animate persons. Sometimes
these gods change. the properties of two objects or substances were conceived to be structurally analogous:
The worldly phenomena, which symbolize sacred environments, have only blood is to the human body as sap is to the tree; smoke is to fire as breath is to humans;
recently been recognized as a special category in Maya art. The Maya believed in a blood is to humans as water is to earth. Symbols representing structural categories with
living universe in which mountains, rivers, the sky, the earth, caves and other things similar appearances were also freely interchangeable. For example, flame, smoke, mist,
we think of as being inanimate are alive with spiritual power. In the imagery of Maya breath, flowing blood, clouds, farts, belches and new maize sprouts were all represented
art, these things do not behave like gods with personality who interact with humans by the same double scroll." The precise meaning of such a scroll can only be distinct
and other beings. They are instead part of the sacred cosmos. They occur as arches guished from the context, and the double entendre was probably intentional.
above actors, as seats on which they sit, as the doors of buildings in which ritual took Inanimate objects manufactured for royal use accrued potency through their
place or as portal leading from one kind of place to another. Human beings and use. This accumulated power became so intense and dangerous that, in order to release
supernaturals act upon them, but the worldly phenomena do not themselves act as it, the Maya regularly "killed" buildings by removing faces of sculptures depicting both

MAYA GODS AND ICONS 43

 humans and zoomorphs and drilling holes pottery. Much of the deliberate damage
done to the faces of kingly portraits and other sculpture was the result of these killing
mat signs rituals. In the Maya system of imagery, this accrued power is depicted as a long-nosed
personification head attached to objects (Fig. 21). The personification head carries no
persorllflcaIlon
personMcatlon specific inherent meaning beyond the concept of force. When it is attached to an
object-a wristlet, an earflare or a cloth sash. for example_the personification head
signals that these objects have accumulated sacred power
Individual entities that appear visually and glyphically unrelated can be the
same gods. For example, the sun can appear as a young male, an aged male
anthropomorph with jaguar features or a half-skeletal zoomorph with a sun-bowl on its
forehead. These contrasting and superficially unrelated forms appear to express dif
ferent aspects of the same entity-in this case the newly risen sun, the sun near sunset
sun in the Underworld and the sun as a cosmic object. Each version is complete
Mai In plain and personMed forms
and yet they are all related variations on the same subject. In any given scene, norn all
y one aspect will be presented
In Maya religious thinking, all of these supernatural entities could enter human
space as physical beings, and humans are depicted interacting with them in a real
physical sense. The vision quest provided one means of access to the divine, the letting
of the ruler's blood another. The costumes characteristic of gods were worn by the
nobility during these events. Images of these rites show humans wearing full-bod
tunes, including masks, to transform themselves symbolically into gods. These scenes
personlhcatlon heads F1OURE 21 do not appear to represent playacting but, rather a true transformation into a divine
being. However, the Maya maintained a clear distinction between images of a true god
and those of a human transformed into a god, by showing a cutaway, or X ray, view of
the mask that revealed the human profile inside
The nomenclature for Maya gods currently suffers from inconsistency. At the
turn of the century, the glyphic names and pictorial images of the gods were first recog
nized the Postclassic codices and given designations in an alphabetic system. The
same gods, however, had also been given names based on their functions or their assoc
ation with deity descriptions compiled by friars after the Conquest, or from Yucatec
Maya literature, such as the Chilam Balam. The problem was further exacerbated
deities and deity complexes were named without reference to earlier terminology
Thus. the same god may be assigned designations in more than one system of
nomenclature
This confused nomenclature is obviously imperfect. Many of the names of gods
are sterile and have nothing to do with the nature of the deity with his importance in
Maya cosmology. Since Classic Maya mythology is not yet fully understood, however
invention of another set of terms at this time would only compound the problem
Therefore. this study uses the existing names but is restricted to the most common and
frequently recognized names for each god. Maya mythology and painting are filled with
hundreds of supernaturals. While it is not possible to catalogue them all, the most
important ones are described here as a guide for the reader

44 THE BLOOD OF KINGS

 humans and zoomorphs and drilling holes in pottery. Much of the deliberate damage
done to the faces of kingly portraits and other sculpture was the result of these killing SACRED FLACES AND THINGS
rituals. In the Maya system of imagery, this accrued power is depicted as a long»nosed
personification head attached to objects (Fig. 21). The personification head carries no The Celestial Monster
sonIficatuorw specific inherent meaning beyond the concept of force. When it is attached to an The Celestial Monster, sometimes also called the Bicephalic Monster or the Cosmic Monster,

object-a wristlet, an ear flare or a cloth sash, for example_the personification head has two heads and a single body (Fig. 22). The body may he rendered as crocodilian or by a band
of symbols, most commonly the skyband. The front head has a long snout, a beard and large
signals that these objects have accumulated sacred power.
teeth and its eye is always lidded and often includes either a Venus or a crossed-bands sign. It has
Individual entities that appear visually and glyphically unrelated can be the
the ears of a deer and often has deer hooves as well. The body of this monster belongs to the
same gods. For example, the sun can appear as a young male, an aged male, an front head; it is not a fusion of two bodies.
anthropomorph with jaguar features or a half-skeletal zoomorph with a sun»bowl on its In contrast to the front head, the rear head is usually inverted because it was carried as a
forehead. These contrasting and superficially unrelated forms appear to express dif- burden by the crocodile. This head has a blunt snout, fleshy eyes and a skeletal lower jaw. The
ferent aspects of the same entity-in this case the newly risen sun, the sun near sunset, forehead is a deep bowl with an inverted rim fused with the glyphic sign of the sun, kin. Atop the
the sun in the Underworld and the sun as a cosmic object. Each version is complete, bowl rest three symbols: crossed bands, a stingray spine and a shell. This four fpart configuration
nd personmed forms
and yet they are all related variations on the same subject. In any given scene, normally is known as the Quadripartite Badge; in instances when the rear head appears detached from the
only one aspect will be presented. crocodile, it is called the Quadripartite Monster.
In Maya religious thinking, all of these supernatural entities could enter human The Celestial Monster is composed of the paired opposition of Venus and the sun. As the
Morning Star, Venus leads the sun out of the Underworld and trails behind it at sunset. The
space as physical beings, and humans are depicted interacting with them in a real,
physical sense. The vision quest provided one means of access to the divine, the letting
Monster appears to represent the dawn with the sun following Venus; the concept of the journey
and its westerly direction is also implicit in the image. When the Monster is used on architect
of the ruler's blood another. The costumes characteristic of gods were worn by the
tune, it is generally placed so that the front head is on the western side of the building. in both
nobility during these events. Images of these rites show humans wearing full-body cos»
pictorial and architectural contexts, it frames portals or creates a framing band, or it may form a
tunes, including masks, to transform themselves symbolically into gods. These scenes throne or altar. Rarely, it can be held as a scepter by a king.
FIGURE 2 l do not appear to represent playacting but, rather, a true transformation into a divine
de e r e ar from Deg pe rs onM e d wi ng s k y b a nd b o d y rear head mverled
being. However, the Maya maintained a clear distinction between images of a true god
and those of a human transformed into a god, by showing a cutaway, or X-ray, view of
the mask that revealed the human profile inside. Ve nus
si gn
The nomenclature for Maya gods currently suffers from inconsistency. At the C e l e s nal B ud
shell

turn of the century, the glyphic names and pictorial images of the gods were first recogf stingray
nized in the Postclassic codices and given designations in an alphabetic system. The spi ne
c ro ssed » b a nd s
same gods, however, had also been given names based on their functions or their associ-
§II§
ation with deity descriptions compiled by friars after the Conquest, or from Yucatec Quadriparme Badge (crossed-band
cauac SIQT1 Stingray spme, shell and bowl)
Maya literature, such as the Chilam Balam. The problem was further exacerbated as
new deities and deity complexes were named without reference to earlier terminology. blood s tre am
ance s t o r blood s tre am
Thus, the same god may be assigned designations in more than one system of FIGURE 22
n omenclat ure.
This confused nomenclature is obviously imperfect, Many of the names of gods
i ron! he ad crocodde toot re ar he ad
are sterile and have nothing to do with the nature of the deity or with his importance in
cross-banded eye
Maya cosmology. Since Classic Maya mythology is not yet fully understood, however,
Celestial Monster from Copan Altar 41
invention of another set of terms at this time would only compound the problem. FIGURE 23

Therefore, this study uses the existing names but is restricted to the most common and The Cauac Monster c a u a c m a rk i n g s M ai ze God fonte ne l or portal
frequently recognized names for each god. Maya mythology and painting are filled with The Cauac Monster (Fig. 23) is always zoomorphic. Its distinguishing features are a cluster of
hundreds of supernaturals. While it is not possible to catalogue them all, the most loops that look like grapes, or three disks forming a triangle and a partial circle with a dotted
important ones are described here as a guide for the reader. perimeter. its eyes are half closed and its forehead is indented by a stepped cleft, out of which »foliated ear
o r nam e nt wi t h
maize may grow (Fig. 23a). The Monster generally appears as a head only, but on the roof of the M ai ze God
Temple of the Cross at Palenque, in one of its few appearances with a body, it has reptilian legs.
The Cauac Monster is the essence of stone; like rock it is a thing of the ground. It represents
openings in rock and in buildings made of rock. It is carved on huge boulders used as altars and \ ,
mouth emanation muzzle earflare assemblage
shown in painted and carved scenes as stone altars and pedestals (Fig. 23b). When it is shown in
stacks, it represents stony walls. The distinctive features of the Monster are shared by the glyph Cauac Monster from Bonampak Stela 1

MAYA GODS AND ICONS 45

 for the day Cauac, a day name derived from the word for lightning bolt. Even today, Maya
peoples believe that obsidian and flint are made when lightning strikes the earth (the word for
ax also derives from "lightning bolt"). Images of the Cauac Monster may represent a cave
which thought to be the physical source of lightning the lightning bolt itself; the Mon
stem can also he the place where lightning strikes. It is, however never shown an actor
Images of stone objects also carry ca14ac markings, but they are distinct from the Cauac Mon
stem. For example, the glyph for stone, cauac, may be joined to that for tree to read "stone
a stele (Fig. 23c). Images of both ritual and functional objects made of flint are also
marked by cauac signs to signify stone (Fig. 23e). Images of the personified form of flint, how
ever, have skeletal features and circular indentations in the contour, in imitation of the edge of
FIGURE 23 chipped eccentric flints (Fig. 2nd); these distinguish personified flints from the Cauac Monster
proper
muzzle

nostril cauac marking

personified
muzzle

Stone ax head from Dumbarton Oaks

Panel

Full-figure Cauac m te-run "stone tree Persomhed 8cc8 flllIc

from Copan Stefa D Cauac Monster from the Metropolitan Pot flrnl from Tables of the
Slave. Palenque

The Water-lilv Monster

In Lowland Maya languages, the words for water-lily and lake are homonyms, hence, the water
lily and its personifications are natural symbols for water. In one primary form, the water-lil
shown as a zoomorphic head, with a mirror or Kan-cross in its forehead (Fig. Z4a). Rootlike
projections emerge from the top and stems, and pads and blossoms rise from these root forms. In
an alternative form a water-lily pad is tied across the forehead by a stem and a blossom, and the
body is rendered as a fish with another, smaller fish nibbling at its tail (Fig. Z4b). This configurer
son represents the god of the number 13 and the personification of tun ("year") in Long Count
dates. The Water-lily Monster is the symbol of standing bodies of water, such as the ocean
lakes swamps and agricultural canals.5l Moreover. because water-lilies were abundant in the
canals used by the Maya, they became the symbol of the earth's abundance
water stacks blossom
root form

FIGURE 24
bigs m
so water scroll zoomorphic Dersoruhcation heat waler»s!ream body

Water-hly Monster-surface of water

The Vision Serpent

The hallucinatory visions central to Maya ritual were symbolized visually by a rearing snake
(Fig. 25a). Most Vision Serpents have smooth bodies, but some also show areas of flayed skin
in some cases, feathered bodies. Serpent heads have long, sometimes bulbous snouts, and
most are bearded. The persons contacted through the vision is shown emerging from a gaping
mouth. In the most common representation of the Vision Serpent, the end of the tail is sur
mounted by a second head with completely different features. This rear head can be replaced b

46 THE BLOOD OF KINGS

 for the day Cauac, a day name derived from the word for lightning bolt. Even today, Maya a flint knife or a smoking ahau glyph and, in one example, Yaxchilan Lintel 25, the Vision blood and jaguar pen headdress
peoples believe that obsidian and flint are made when lightning strikes the earth (the word for Serpent is truly double-headed (Fig. 25b). The most common rear head is the skeletal person
ax also derives from "lightning bolt"). Images of the Cauac Monster may represent a cave, fiction of blood, which indicates that the vision comes from blood. When the personified
which was thought to be the physical source of lightning, or the lightning bolt itself; the Mon» symbol of blood is absent, the Vision Serpent rears up from a blood scroll instead.
stem can also be the place where lightning strikes. It is, however, never shown as an actor. Tlaloc mask
Images of stone objects also carry cauac markings, but they are distinct from the Cauac Mon»
stem. For example, the glyph for stone, cauac. may be joined to that for tree to read "stone serpent head
tree'-a stele (Fig. 23c). Images of both ritual and functional objects made of flint are also
marked by cauac signs to signify stone (Fig. 23e). Images of the personified form of flint, how-
ancestor
ever, have skeletal features and circular indentations in the contour, in imitation of the edge of
FIGURE 23 chipped eccentric flints (Fig. 23d); these distinguish personified flints from the Cauac Monster flayed area
proper. skin

frayed area
cauac marking
personified year sngn

Vision Serpents
persomtled blood
blood scroll
blood scrolls
Stone ax head from Dumbarton Oaks
Panel FIGURE 25
fang Sky
Persons»ed eccemnc The symbol for sky is a band divided into compartments by vertical bars (Fig. 26). Each
Cauac Monster from the Metropolitan Pot flint from Tablet of the
Slave. Palenque
compartment is filled by the symbol for a particular star, constellation or planet, many of which
are as yet undeciphered. Skybands may appear as the body of the Celestial Monster, as frames
The Water-lily Monster
around a scene or as a bench; they are often on the borders of cloth, as though they represented
in Lowland Maya languages, the words for water-lily and lake are hotnonyms, hence, the water»
the concept of an edge.
lily and its personifications are natural symbols for water. In one primary form, the water-lily is
shown as a zoomorphic head, with a mirror or Kan-cross in its forehead (Fig. 24a). Rootlike
projections emerge from the top and stems, and pads and blossoms rise from these root forms. In
an alternative form, a water-lily pad is tied across the forehead by a stem and a blossom, and the
:7
H 9 }§;==.~:f31 < I 848 m'll%H 1
FIGURE 26

body is rendered as a fish with another, smaller fish nibbling at its tail (Fig. Z4b). This configura- S ky-B and

tion represents the god of the number 13 and the personification of tun ("year") in Long Count
Earth
dates. The Water-lily Monster is the symbol of standing bodies of water, such as the ocean,
The earth was represented by bands with coiled spirals characteristic of the glyph caban, a day
lakes, swamps and agricultural canals." Moreover, because water-lilies were abundant in the
sign (the word cab means "earth") (Fig. 27). No personified form of the earth has yet been
canals used by the Maya, they became the symbol of the earth's abundance.
identified.
caban signs
water stacks DIossom pad fl$h
root form

/firm FIGURE 27
pad
E a rt h B a n d
Flcunf 24 Water
water SCI©ll zoomorphic persomflcallon head waterstream body
Water was represented by a series of signs, including a shell, lines of dots (usually alternating
Water-llly Monster-suriace of water groups of small and large dots) and a short stack of graduated rectangular shapes that by their
configuration suggest a loaded canoe (Fig. 28a). These signs can be set in a line representing the
The Vision Serpent surface of water, or they may be arranged within and around a thick line that is usually marked
The hallucinatory visions central to Maya ritual were symbolized visually by a rearing snake with the water-dot pattern (Fig. 28b). Images of water-lilies or their glyphic counterparts can be
(Fig. 25a). Most Vision Serpents have smooth bodies, but some also show areas of flayed skin set among these water signs.
na slgn fish blossom FIGURE 28
and, in some cases, feathered bodies. Serpent heads have long, sometimes bulbous snouts, and shell scroll

most are bearded. The person contacted through the vision is shown emerging from a gaping
coo water-lily
mouth. In the most common representation of the Vision Serpent, the end of the tail is sur- O O
o oo monster
mounted by a second head with completely different features. This rear head can be replaced by /

Water Bands

MAYA GODS AND ICONS 47

 DIOOO SCYOIIS
Blood
Blood was represented in numerous ways (Fig. 29), but it is comrnonlv indicated by a scroll
shaped form outlined with a contour of beads (Fig. 29d,e). Often the glyphs for the colors red
yellow and blue, as well as the signs (Fig. 29a,b) for precious materials, such as shell, jade and
blood glyph bone attached to or placed within the scrolls." The glyphic form for blood shows drops of
blood falling from one of the "precious" signs. The monkey»faced god known as is one
personified form of blood and forms part of a more elaborate personified form, in which God C
the forehead of a larger skeletal zoomorph (Fig. Zinc). Blood may also appear as a bifurcated
scroll or a lazy-S scroll, with or without beaded outlines. Both kinds of scrolls may have signs of
God C head varlanl of blood c pers6r\l1lcat1on head precious materials attached to their ed and set inside their borders. The zoomorphic form of
blood is identified as a Square-nosed Dragon with beads around the mouth, who often emerges
from a branch of the World Tree

Kan-cross

bead and shell

bead and bone
THE PALENQUE TRIAD
The Palenque Triad" is a trio of gods, GI, GII and GIII, celebrated as divine ancestors by the
zero sign
kings of Palenque (Fig. 30). The three gods were born eighteen days apart to parents whose
births occurred before the beginning of the present era The first- and second-born, GI ("G
blood stream one") and GIII ("G-three"), are prototypes of the Popol Vuh Hero Twins. These two gods
particular appear in several forms with different visual features and names these manifestations
FIGURE 29
nonetheless aspects of the same deity comp

GI, the oldest of the Triad siblings, has the same name as his father. but the name is in the form
of a portrait head, and its reading is not known (Fig. 31). One of the glyphs that appears in
name phrase may read Hun-Ahpu, matching the name of one of the Hero Twins from the Popol
GI Vuh. He is associated with Venus, but since he also appears at Quirigua as the number 4. which
The Palenque Triad is more commonly represented as the Sun God. he could also be identified with the sun
FIGURE 30
dual identification with Venus and the sun is echoed in the Hero Twin myth in some versions
Hunahpu becomes the Sun. but others. he becomes Venus."
GI rarely appears on painted pottery, but his image is common on Early Classic cache vessels
and the kings represented on Stela 2 at Tikal and Stela I at Copan wear GI masks. He has
scalloped eyebrows, square eyes and a Roman nose. His front teeth are often replaced by a
shark's tooth or filed into a T-shape, and he wears fishfins on his cheeks. A shell earflare and
headdress of the Quadripartite Monster, often combined with a Water Bird fete his
appearance
Ouadnpartne
Monster

Water Bird

shell earflare

Tish in

FIGURE 31 mouth emanation

48 THE BLOOD OF KINGS

 I
.5Lr;3.l5
Blood GI as Chac-Xib-Chac
Blood was represented in numerous ways (Fig. 29), but it is commonly indicated by a scroll-
Visually, this god is almost identical to GI, except that he is usually zoomorphic (Fig. 32). In
shaped form outlined with a contour of beads (Fig. Z9d,e). Often the glyphs for the colors red,
addition to the shell earflares, he wears a shell diadem, and his long hair is gathered up atop the
yellow and blue, as well as the signs (Fig. 29a,b) for precious materials, such as shell, jade and
head and falls forward in a loop. His body features are reptilian; his arms, legs and body are
bone, are attached to or placed within the scrolls. 52 The glyphic form for blood shows drops of
marked by water scrolls; and he carries both an ax and a God C disk. His form in miniature often
blood falling from one of the "precious" signs. The monkeyffaced god known as God C is one
hangs from the belts of Classic period rulers. He is the figure fishing on the Tikal bones (Fig.
personified form of blood and forms part of a more elaborate personified form, in which God C
323), and he is profoundly associated with the sacrificial death dance, both in the Underworld
is the forehead of a larger skeletal zoomorph (Fig. 29c). Blood may also appear as a bifurcated shell diadem
and in human ritual, as depicted in Room 3 at Bonampak. When he occurs in anthropomorphic blood stone
scroll or a lazy-S scroll, with or without beaded outlines. Both kinds of scrolls may have signs of
form, he has a normal human eye and a shell beard, but he lacks the fishfin of the G1 form
precious materials attached to their edges and set inside their borders. The zoomorphic form of
d
discussed above. His name, as recorded on pottery, is Chac»Xib-Chac (Fig. 32c).55 FIGURE 32
*
blood is identified as a Square-nosed Dragon with beads around the mouth, who often emerges
from a branch of the World Tree. shell diadem human head
Cauac marking
z9omo1phlc head wIth shell beard

water body mark

)
shell earflare
n string knots
Kan~cross 5
GODS
bead and bone
THE PALENQUE TRIAD Chao Xlb Ch ac W ate r
strung knots

zero sign
The Palenque Triad" is a trio of gods, GI, GII and GIII, celebrated as divine ancestors by the GI/Chao-Xib-Chac Flshmg on the TlkaI Bone Ax-wielder iron the Metropolitan Pot
kings of Palenque (Fig. 30). The three gods were born eighteen days apart to parents whose
births occurred before the beginning of the present era. The first- and secondfborn, GI ("G»
e one") and GIII ("G-three"), are prototypes of the Popol Vuh Hero Twins. These two gods in GII (God K)
particular appear in several forms with different visual features and names; these manifestations GII ("G-two") has long been recognized and as such has acquired many different names, such as
F1cupJs 29 God K, Bolon Dzacab, the Flare God and the Manikin Scepter. He is always zoomorphic (Fig.
are nonetheless aspects of the same deity complex.
33) and frequently has a serpent-headed foot. His body has reptilian features, but his hands and
GI one foot are always human. His most characteristic feature is a forehead mirror punctured by a
GI, the oldest of the Triad siblings, has the same name as his father, but the name is in the form Celt, a smoking Celt, a smoking cigar, a smoking torch or a ceramic torch holder. The torch sign
of a portrait head, and its reading is not known (Fig. 31). One of the glyphs that appears in his is a phonetic complement designating that the mirror is made from a material that sounds like
name phrase may read Hun-Ahpu, matching the name of one of the Hero Twins from the Popol the word for torch, pronounced tab in Mayan languages. Since obsidian is also ah, GII is "the
Gill Vuh. He is associated with Venus, but since he also appears at Quirigua as the number 4, which obsidian mirror." A mirror can replace his head (Fig. 33d), or the mirror alone can stand for his
is more commonly represented as the Sun God, he could also be identified with the sun. This name (Fig. 33c).
dual identification with Venus and the sun is echoed in the Hero Twin myth; in some versions, GII, the third-born of the Triad brothers, was particularly important to elite lineages and to
F I GUR E 3 0
Hunahpu becomes the Sun, hut in others, he becomes Venus." rulers. His portrait glyph often occurs in rulers' names. He forms the scepter that appears on
GI rarely appears on painted pottery, but his image is common on Early Classic cache vessels, many different official occasions, including accession, and he is profoundly associated with sac-
and the kings represented on Stela 2 at Tikal and Stela I at Copan wear GI masks. He has rifice, in particular, with self»inflicted bloodletting. Throughout this work, he is called God K.
o
scalloped eyebrows, square eyes and a Roman nose. His front teeth are often replaced by a smoke scrolls
o shark's tooth or filed into a T»shape, and he wears fishfins on his cheeks. A shell ear flare and a
as headdress of the Quadripartite Monster, often combined with a Water Bird, complete his
appearance.
Ouadrvpartxte

8 0a
Monster nnrror

smoke
Water Blrd
Glyphic version with the mirror replacing
god markings the head
wISh

-shell earflare smoking Celt

dark mirror
snake foot
FIGURE 31 mouth emanation
Gil God K or the Manlkln Scepter FIGURE 33

MAYA GODS AND ICONS 49

 GIII, the second-born of the Triad brothers, has the most complex glyphic and pictorial forms
In his "birth passage on the Tablet of the Sun at Palenque, he is named in several ways: Ahau
or "Lord Sun"; with signs of a torch and a jaguar-covered aha, or Mah k'ina Tab Belem
Ahau. which means "Lord Torch ]guar Lord"; and as a sun sign preceding the decapitated body
of a jaguar. Some of the same names are also found on pottery, and each is associated with
different figural representation. Since the names are associated with different sets of attributes
in the past, they were believed to be of different gods. Discrimination among these slight
varying representations (most of which have jaguarian aspects) is complicated, and the patterns
presented below may prove inadequate. Each manifestation described will be assigned simple
descriptive

G III as the Sun God

Al1au~Ki11, Ur "Lord Sun," has a face with a prominent Roman nose and a square squint-eye (Fig
34). The kin sign is usual] laced his cheek forehead, sometimes on the arms or legs. He
has a long, hound hank of hair that falls forward. and his front teeth often filed into a T-shape
the god of the number 4 and presumably the daytime sun. He appears in both youthful and
aged aspects, but it is not known if these are. in fact. the same divinity at different ages, or if they
are different person entirel
FIGURE 34 The most important title of kings, Mah k'ina, could be written in a personified form as the
Sun God, and the Sun God also appears as a pectoral worn by royal persons, both male and
female. He rarely appears as an actor in pottery or monumental scenes

tied hank of hair

squint-eye

Kln Sign

Kln sign

squint-eye

The Number 4 as the Sur god T~sh&ped tooth

Sur god Gill as the Sur god GIII-glyphic name GIII written as Ahau Km Sur god pectoral
Kin svgn

GIII as the Jaguar God of the Underworld

The facial structure of the ]guar God of the Underworld is identical to that of GI. but his
features are different (Fig. 35). He has the same Roman nose, scalloped eyebrows, square eyes
and pointed front tooth, and he often wears a shell beard. Sometimes his eye squints like that of
the Sun God; usually. however. it is a spiral like that of GI. On the jaguar God of the Under
world, the curl extends upward from the lower lid rather than downward from the upper lid

His hair is pulled into a bound knot above the forehead: he has a jaguar ear above his ear flare
gathered hair
and, most characteristic of all, he has a twisted device. called cruller" (named for the pastry)
placed between and under his eyes. Kings wore this cruller when they impersonated GIII
The jaguar God of the Underworld rules the number 7. Since he is the most common image
jaguar cruller on shields, he is thought to be a patron of war. He rarely appears as an actor in narrative scenes
cruller
jaguar but he is the most frequent main head represented on Late Classic incensarios.56 He probably
represents the sun when it is in the Underworld

kln sign

Glll as The Jaguar God of the JGU as a war shield

Underworld (JGU)
FIGURE 35

50 THE BLOOD OF KINGS

 G111 I GIII as the Baby .jaguar
GIII, the second»born of the Triad brothers, has the most complex glyphic and pictorial forms. This manifestation had particular importance during the Early Classic period in the central
In his "birth" passage on the Tablet of the Sun at Palenque, he is named in several ways: Ahau- Peten region. It appears most often paired with Chao-Xib-Chac in scenes of the sacrificial death
Kin, or "Lord Sun"; with signs of a torch and a jaguar»covered ahau, or Mah k'ina Tall Balam- dance painted on pottery. His features are subject to some variation, although he is always
Ahau, which means "Lord Torch ]guar Lord"; and as a sun sign preceding the decapitated body anthropomorphic in form (Fig. 36). His feet and hands may be human or feline, but he always
of a jaguar. Some of the same names are also found on pottery, and each is associated with a has a jaguar tail. His face may be the same as the glyph for "young man" (xi); it may be human
different figural representation. Since the names are associated with different sets of attributes, with a cruller between the eyes; or it may have the scalloped eyebrow, prominent nose and
in the past, they were believed to be of different gods. Discrimination among these slightly pointed tooth of GI and the ]guar God of the Underworld.
varying representations (most of which have jaguarian aspects) is complicated, and the patterns
T»shaped
presented below may prove inadequate. Each manifestation described will be assigned a simple
descriptive name.

Gill as the Sun God

FIGURE 36
Allau»Kin, or "Lord Sun," has a face with a prominent Roman nose and a square squint-eye (Fig. J3QU3f paws and tall
34). The kin sign is usually placed on his cheek or forehead, sometimes on the arms or legs. He GIII as The Baby Jaguar

has a long, hound hank of hair that falls forward, and his front teeth are often filed into a T-shape.
He is the god of the number 4 and presumably the daytime sun. He appears in both youthful and GIII as the Water-lily jaguar
aged aspects, hut it is not known if these are, in fact, the same divinity at different ages, or if they This form of GIII is entirely zoomorphic, but he walks and acts like a human. His special
are different person entirely. attribute is a water-lily blossom or leaf lying atop his head, which may be a reference to the
The most important title of kings, Mah k'ina, could be written in a personified form as the jaguar's love of water (Fig. 37). He sometimes wears a special necklace, called a death»eye collar,
FI G U RE 34
Sun God, and the Sun God also appears as a pectoral worn by royal persons, both male and but his normal attire is a wide scarf tied at the throat. His association with the GIII complex
female. He rarely appears as an actor in pottery or monumental scenes. derives from the appearance of the kin sign on his belly and from the use of the "sun/decapitated
jaguar" phrase as his name. He can be a substitute for the Baby jaguar in the sacrificial death
tied hank of hair dance scene, and his head is worn on the belts of kings. He is a frequent character in Maya
squint-eye ahau narrative scenes, in which role he is not yet fully understood.

.Km sign .~.¢»'4'l

water-hly leaf *"*

- squint-eye» TWINS AND OPPOS1T1ONS

uber4 as the Sur god T-shaped tooth - A number of Maya deities are associated as pairs or triads. The members of the Palenque Triad,
Glll-glyphic name GIII wrltien as Ahau Km Sur god pectoral for example, were triplets born at Palenque, and within this Triad, GI and GIII are twinlike,
Kin sign
having the same facial "chassis" with slightly varied features added to differentiate them. Twins
GIII as the jaguar God of the Underworld are also at the heart of the Popol Vuh. The Hero Twins are half brothers to the twins Hun-Batz Gill as The Water-Ialy Jaguar
The facial structure of the _jaguar God of the Underworld is identical to that of GI, but his and Hun»Chuen, and in the Underworld, they actively contest the paired deities One-Death
features are different (Fig. 35). He has the same Roman nose, scalloped eyebrows, square eyes and Seven-Death. Twins of various sorts are also at the heart of Classic-period Maya mythology. F IGUR E 3 7
and pointed front tooth, and he often wears a shell beard. Sometimes his eye squints like that of In some instances, twins appear to represent paired oppositions, such as light and dark. Such
the Sun God; usually, however, it is a spiral like that of GI. On the ]aguar God of the Under- paired oppositions-analogous to the yin-yang concept in Chinese thought-are an important
world, the curl extends upward from the lower lid rather than downward from the upper lid, as component of Maya languages and are often found in hieroglyphic inscriptions.
on GI.
His hair is pulled into a bound knot above the forehead; he has a jaguar ear above his ear flare The Headband Twins
'all
and, most characteristic of all, he has a twisted device, called a "cruller" (named for the pastry), These twins are always anthropomorphic and are named for the elaborate knotted cloth head- Jester God headband
placed between and under his eyes. Kings wore this cruller when they impersonated GIII. bands they wear (Fig. 38). Their glyphic names are Hun-Ahau and Balarn (or perhaps Bolon),
The ]guar God of the Underworld rules the number 7. Since he is the most common image and they are undoubtedly the same divinities as the Hero Twins of the Popol Vuh. 57 Hun-Ahau
on shields, he is thought to be a patron of war. He rarely appears as an actor in narrative scenes, has a single black spot on his cheek and single black spots on his body. He appears in the
but he is the most frequent main head represented on Late Classic incensarios. 56 He probably Dresden Codex as one of the Gods of Morning Star, and in the earlier alphabetic systems, he is
represents the sun when it is in the Underworld. God H, believed incorrectly to be a Chicchan god. The other twin, Balam, has jaguarlike spots l3

" ~ 94. on his lower face and patches of jaguar pelt on his arms, legs and back. He will often wear a shell
on his forehead. He is the god of the number 9 and the other so-called Chicchan god in the
4-. Dresden Codex.
Hun Ahau God of the Number Nine
These twins are very active in Maya narrative scenes. They shoot blowguns; they carry the
GI Glll Headband Twins
GI JGU garments of the Maize God; they confront old gods and they play the ballgame. Flcuns 38
F I GUR E 3 5

MAYA GODS AND ICONS 51

 h II
number tree Y
s e bear deer ear The Monkey Scribes
The Monkey Scribe twins carry paint pots, books, writing brushes, carving tools and work
progress (Fig. 39). They are the gods of writing, artists and artisans, and of calculations. They
the original model for Hun»Batz and Hun-Chuen, the older, twin brothers of the Hero
Twins, who are transformed into monkeys for tormenting their younger brothers
These twins appear in several variant forms. First, both can be depicted as howler monkeys
with human bodies. In this incarnation, each has a shell beard. a deer ear and a tied cloth
headdress. usual the form of a turban. This monkey version appears as the kin Qlvoh for
day" in Long Count dates. Second, both twins can appear as the "Printout God." a nickname
inspired by the stream of bar-and-dot numbers on the tree that emerges from under the arm
The Printout God is fully human (and quite handsome), although he wears the shell beard and
the same deer ear as the monkey. The twins are frequently depicted as one monkey and
Hun Batz'/Hun Chuen Twins
Printout God
FIGURE 39
The Paddlers
These old gods (Fig. 40) are named for their appearance as the paddlers of the canoe of life found
jaguar head on the bones from Burial 116 at Tikal. As deities they have a particular association with period
ending rites and are brought into physical existence through bloodletting rites held on these
days. In the Early Classic period, they appear in the mouth of the Vision Serpent; in the Late
lancet Classic period, in the mouth of the Double-headed Serpent Bar, a scepter carried by rulers. They
also the miniature gods who float in blood scrolls in scenes of scattering rites. In gyp
inscriptions, they are designated by their portrait heads or by the glyphs for night and day. Their
string knot
manifestation of this basic opposition is reflected by the presence of bright, mirror god markings
on one and dark markings on the other
One Faddler, who has acquired the name of the Old Stingray Spine God, is characterized b
Stingray Spine Paddler squint-eye and the presence of a lancet, either a stingray spine or bone awl, in the septum of his
Old Jaguar Paddler He can also wear a shark head as a hat. The other Paddler, the Old ]agar God, wears a
The Paddler Twins jaguar-head hat. Both have prominent Roman noses and the sunken mouths of toothless old
FIGURE 40
and both wear string knots on their belts. Many of the other twins described here wear

The Twins of the Sacrificial Dance

Chac-Xib»Chac and the Baby jaguar, the Twins of the Sacrificial Dance, have been discussed
above as individuals (Fig. 41). While each can appear alone or paired with other actors, they
also have a special affinity to each other. On pottery they are actors in a sacrificial death dance
which Chac-Xib»Chac dances toward a reclining Baby ]guar. On the stele of Xultun, they
are displayed by kings as objects of power and authority

The Uc-Ek-Kan and Bolon-Mayel Pair

This pair appears y in gyp emblematic form, and to date they have not been identified
as actors. One emblem is composed of the number 7 and the glyphs for black and yellow; the
B a b y Ja g u a r other has the number 9 and a rare glyph for the number 20, with footprints above it (Fig. 42)
Chao-Xlb~Chac
These forms occur most often as objects or emblems in scenes on stone stelae; in Earlv Classic
examples. however. one or the other can be held as an object by a ruler. Although their meaning
Twins of the Sacnfical Dance FIG U RE 41 is not yet understood, their most important usage is on top of lip-to-lip cache vessels, special
offering containers made from two large plates stacked together lip to lip

52 THE BLOOD OF KINGS

 1

The Monkey Scribes

The Monkey Scribe twins carry paint pots, books, writing brushes, carving tools and work in footprints

progress (Fig. 39). They are the gods of writing, artists and artisans, and of calculations. They Kan-cross
are the original model for Hun»Batz and Hun»Chuen, the older, twin brothers of the Hero seven o
Twins, who are transformed into monkeys for tormenting their younger brothers." May o
These twins appear in several variant forms. First, both can be depicted as howler monkeys (glyph
for twenty)
with human bodies. In this incarnation, each has a shell beard, a deer ear and a tied cloth
ex headdress, usually in the form of a turban. This monkey version appears as the kin glyph for
"day" in Long Count dates. Second, both twins can appear as the "Printout God," a nickname
Fl cvn rs 4 2
inspired by the stream of bar»and-dot numbers on the tree that emerges from under the arm. persoruhcaiuon he'ad 7 Black-Kan God and Bolon Mayel

The Printout God is fully human (and quite handsome), although he wears the shell beard and
the same deer ear as the monkey. The twins are frequently depicted as one monkey and one
Printout God. OTHER GODS
FIGURE 39
The Paddlers The .lester God
These old gods (Fig. 40) are named for their appearance as the paddlers of the canoe of life found The ]ester God, named for the resemblance of his tri»pointed forehead to the cap of medieval
on the bones from Burial 116 at Tikal. As deities they have a particular association with period- court jesters, is an emblem of royalty rather than an actor (Fig. 43). The image is derived from
jaguar head 0
ending rites and are brought into physical existence through bloodletting rites held on these the zoomorphic personification head attached to a tri-pointed headband element that served as
4879'
days. In the Early Classic period, they appear in the mouth of the Vision Serpent; in the Late
Classic period, in the mouth of the Double»headed Serpent Bar, a scepter carried by rulers. They
the crown of Maya kings in the Late Preclassic period. The god can also be personified in
anthropomorphic form; in full»bodied form, it was held as a scepter. 8
s 4»
are also the miniature gods who float in blood scrolls in scenes of scattering rites. In glyphic tri»pointed cap
inscriptions, they are designated by their portrait heads or by the glyphs for night and day. Their
tri-pointed cap
QI
M

manifestation of this basic opposition is reflected by the presence of bright, mirror god markings
on one and dark markings on the other.
One Paddler, who has acquired the name of the Old Stingray Spine God, is characterized by a "L
93
" ~'@
Jester God from a
anthropomolphlc Jester God scepter
squintfeye and the presence of a lancet, either a stingray spine or bone awl, in the septum of his Drummaior Headdress
persomficanon
Péaddler nose. He can also wear a shark head as a hat. The other Paddler, the Old Jaguar God, wears a FIGURE 43
jaguar-head hat. Both have prominent Roman noses and the sunken mouths of toothless old The Jester God
FIGURE 40
men, and both wear string knots on their belts. Many of the other twins described here wear the
same knot. The Maize God
The Maize God is a handsome young man at the peak of his strength and beauty. Maize leaves
maze foliation
The Twins of the Sacrificial Dance and often an ear of corn spring from the top of his head (Fig. 44). In the Early Classic period, he
Chac-Xib-Chac and the Baby ]aguar, the Twins of the Sacrificial Dance, have been discussed was marked by a line-and-hook design on his cheek, and in this period the foliation often maize kernel maize plant
above as individuals (Fig. 41). While each can appear alone or paired with other actors, they emerges from the glyph for maize instead of from the god's head itself.
also have a special affinity to each other. On pottery they are actors in a sacrificial death dance,
in which Chac-Xib-Chac dances toward a reclining Baby ]guar. On the stele of Xultun, they The Death Gods
are displayed by kings as objects of power and authority. The Maya cosmos was populated by a plethora of death gods, each with its particular name and
attributes. The principal of these was designated God A (Fig. 45a). His face has skeletal fea»
I.
The Uc»Ek»Kan and Bolon»Mayel Pair tores, his limbs are thin and his body is marked by a bloated stomach associated with starvation
This pair appears only in glyphic or emblematic form, and to date they have not been identified and parasitical infestation. The Maize God
as actors. One emblem is composed of the number 7 and the glyphs for black and yellow; the Death God A' (Fig. 45b) has human features, but unlike God A, his body is well fleshed, not
Jaguar other has the number 9 and a rare glyph for the number 20, with footprints above it (Fig. 42).59 like that of a victim of starvation. His lower jaw is skeletal, and a black stripe is painted across FIGURE 44

These forms occur most often as objects or emblems in scenes on stone stele; ..i Early Classic
examples, however, one or the other can be held as an object by a ruler. Although their meaning
disembodied eye
FIGURE 41 is not yet understood, their most important usage is on top of lips to-lip cache vessels, special clml "death" sign

offering containers made from two large plates stacked together lip to lip.60
Ii
I

I Death God A' Death eye FI G U RE 45

Death God A

MAYA GODS AND ICONS 53

S3CYlfICI3l l'l3IYdO eyes. Akbal, the glyph for "night and darkness covers his forehead, marking him
hand as lower jaw
creature of the ht
The personification of the number zero is a god of sacrificial death (Fig. 45c). He is human
but a human hand grips his lower jaw, a gesture that may represent a particularly gruesome form
of sacrificial death, the removal of the lower from a living victim The hair of this god is
bound in the long hank common to sacrificial victims. and he appears dressed as a ballplayer. He
may represent sacrificial death in contrast to other forms of death
Death gods and other inhabitants of Xibalba, the Underworld, have a set of special attributes
that distinguishes them from other creatures. The Maya, who lived the tropics, conceived the
Underworld place replete with disease and vile smells rather than condition of extreme
Death God of the Number Zero De ath Gods
hot or cold. One word for devil was seizin, which literally meant "fatter. " The foul odors expelled
FIGURE 45 from the Xibalbans visibly represented with foliated scrolls. Their jewelry is made not from
jade but from disembodied taken from the dead and d (Fig. 45d). Their special symbol
is the percent sign (%) from the day sign Ami

Muan BIT(
The Old Gods
moan Teether heaooresb A set of toothless old gods, characterized by sunken lips and wrinkled faces seems to have
presided over Xibalba. The first. God L wears a Muan Bird headdress and has a jaguar ear (Fig
46). He can have either a human or a square eye. His is usually depicted sitting on a throne, and
he clearly reigns as a principal god of the Underworld
The second, God N or Pauahtun, has several forms." He emerges from or wears a shell
either that of a conch or a turtle (Fig. 47b). He can also appear in full-bodied form wearing a
section of shell as a pectoral, and a napkin or net headdress (Fig. 47a). His ear is often that of
reptiles or is depicted as a Kan cross with the number 7. In a third form, he is the earth bearer
wearing water»lilies a net headdress and cauac signs on his body_signs that combine to ind
Cate his name, Pauahtun (Fig. 47c). In a younger, more handsome form, he is Bacab. the sk
bearer (Fig. 47d). The Old Pauahtun also overlaps with the Monkey Scribes and seems to have
been the god of writing and of art
The third god, designated God D, has the glyphic name ltzamna (Fig. 48). Like the other
M uon Blrd
gods, he has an old man's face, but his eyes are always square with spiral pupils. His most
moan feather headdress distinctive feature headband extending beyond his forehead to a shield-shaped medallion
containing akbal, the glyph for "night and darkness symbol that is also part of his
wears a shell pectoral and a cut-shell ornament on his head. This god is the on
image from the Classic period that be tied through glyphs to the name Itzamna. the
called Lizard House of Maya religion. That concept, if it existed the Classic period at all
ci gare tle
not associated with this god, however

aczuaf ear

FIGURE 46
water-llly

God N with shell cau ac- l u n

marki ngs

FIGURE 47 God N wi thout shell

P auaht un Bacab

54 THE BLOOD OF KINGS

 his eyes. Akbal, the glyph for "night and darkness," covers his forehead, marking him as a
flower tieaddtess
creature of the night.
The personification of the number zero is a god of sacrificial death (Fig. 45c). He is human, flower headband
but a human hand grips his lower jaw, a gesture that may represent a particularly gruesome form
of sacrificial death, the removal of the lower jaw from a living victim.6I The hair of this god is
squint-eye. M
bound in the long hank common to sacrificial victims, and he appears dressed as a ballplayer. He
may represent sacrificial death, in contrast to other forms of death.
4)/w
Death gods and other inhabitants of Xibalba, the Underworld, have a set of special attributes
that distihguishes them from other creatures. The Maya, who lived in the tropics, conceived the IH

Underworld as a place replete with disease and vile smells rather than as a condition of extreme
Death Gods FIGURE 48
hot or cold. One word for devil was seizin, which literally meant "fatter. " The foul odors expelled God D-Itzamna
F I GUR E 4 5 from the Xibalbans are visibly represented with foliated scrolls. Their jewelry is made not from The Moon Goddess
jade but from disembodied eyes taken from the dead and dying (Fig. 45d). Their special symbol The Moon Goddess is a young woman who sits in the crescent of the moon. She often holds a
is the percent sign (%) from the day sign Ami. rabbit (Fig. 49), whose shape can be seen in the gray patterns on the surface of the moon, the goddess

an Bird
especially when it is full. She is the personification of the number 1. The mothers of rulers at
The Old Gods Yaxchilan were sometimes set in moon signs, while the fathers were presented in sun signs. This moon sign
then headdress A set of toothless old gods, characterized by sunken lips and wrinkled faces, seems to have usage reveals a mythology that defined the moon as female and as the wife of the sun. rabbit

presided over Xibalba. The first, God L, wears a Muan Bird headdress and has a jaguar ear (Fig.
46). He can have either a human or a square eye. His is usually depicted sitting on a throne, and The Celestial Bird
he clearly reigns as a principal god of the Underworld. Many birds populate Maya cosmology. Chief among them is the supernatural Celestial Bird, also
The second, God N 1 7 Pauahtun, has several forms.62 He emerges from or wears a shell, called the Serpent Bird and the Principal Bird Deity (Fig. 50). This Bird has long feathers like
either that of a conch or a turtle (Fig. 47b). He can also appear in full»bodied form wearing a those of tropical birds, short legs with talons and a mirror device set at the base of his tail. His
section of shell as a pectoral, and a napkin or net headdress (Fig. 47a). His ear is often that of wing, which merges with a personification head, has led to the misnomer the Serpent Bird. His FIGURE 49
reptiles or is depicted as a Kan-cross with the number 7. In a third form, he is the earth bearer, head is zoomorphic with a squint-eye and a mirror forehead, and he wears the same shell pec- The Moon Goddess
wearing water-lilies, a net headdress and cauac signs on his body_signs that combine to indi- toral and head ornament as God D. His lower jaw is usually obscured by a disk that hangs from
cate his name, Pauahtun (Fig. 47c). In a younger, more handsome form, he is Bacab, the sky his mouth; it is marked by a triangle of dots and is hung with braided ribbons. This Bird resides
bearer (Fig. 47d). The Old Pauahtun also overlaps with the Monkey Scribes and seems to have at the top of the axis Mundi, the World Tree of Maya cosmology.
been the god of writing and of art.
The third god, designated God D, has the glyphic name Itzamna (Fig. 48). Like the other The Muan Bird
gods, he has an old man's face, but his eyes are always square with spiral pupils. His most The image of the Muan Bird is modeled on a horned owl (Fig. 51). His eyes are round and his
distinctive feature is a headband extending beyond his forehead to a shield-shaped medallion feathers tipped black. He is the Bird that sits in the headdress of God L. His name was Oxlahun-
containing akbal, the glyph for "night and darkness," a symbol that is also part of his name Chaan, or 13»Sky, and he is the personification of the katun and of the sky.
glyph. He wears a shell pectoral and a cut-shell ornament on his head. This god is the only
image from the Classic period that can be tied through glyphs to the name Itzamna, the so The Water Bird
called Lizard House of Maya religion. That concept, if it existed in the Classic period at all, was The Water Bird (Fig. 52) appears to symbolize the general class of aquatic birds that thrived
not associated with this god, however. along the canals, swamps and rivers of the Maya landscape. He has a crested head like that of a
heron, with short legs and a long neck. His beak is shaped like that of a cormorant, and he is
ear often represented holding a small fish. The Water Bird is associated especially with GI; his head
is the main sign of the Palenque Emblem Glyph.

personified wing
FIGURE 46
water~llly 13 Sky swollen beak
l
1, » tipped feather
MIYI'OY forehead
o=<pa...
God N with shell cauac-tun (
markings zoomorphic' head
/
v`¢=:>

The Muan Bard The Water Bird

desk and braided ribbon
The Celestial Blrd The Sacred Birds
I
FIGURE 47 God N without shell Pauahtun Bacab FIGURE 50 FIGURE 51 FIGURE 52

MAYA GODS AND ICONS 55

 13. Mary Ellen Miller, "Sylvanus G. Morley and the Ancient Maya: The Posthumous Revisions," paper
NOTES
read in honor of Sylvanus G. Morley's one-hundredth birthday, ]uly 1983, Merida, Yucatan. When George
Brainerd revised Morley's The Ancient Maya, he systematically excised the word city and replaced it with
ceremonial center.
1. The term Mesoamerica was proposed by Paul Kirchhoff ["Mesoamerica," Acta Americana 1, no. 1
(1943). pp. 92-107] to be used as both a cultural and geographic term in reference to the region bounded 14. ]ohn Lloyd Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan (New York: Harper &
to the northwest by the limit of aboriginal farming, which could not extend beyond the deserts of northern Bros., 1841), I, pp. 159-160.
Mexico, and to the southeast by the eastern extension of Mayan-speaking peoples and their cultural and 15. Ibid., p. 158.
economic influence. 16. jean Frédéric Waldeck, Voyage pittoresque et archéologique dans la Province d'Yucatan (Paris, 1838),
2. ]. Eric S. Thompson first identified the shark as a sign in the Maya writing system, used, he proposed, as p. 101.
a rebus sign for the word count ("The Fish as a Maya Symbol for Counting," Theoretical Approaches no
17. Alfred P. Maudslay and Anne C. Maudslay, A Glimpse at Guatemala and Some Notes on the Ancient
Problems, no. 2 [Cambridge, Mass.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, Division of Historical Research, Monuments of Central America (London: ]ohn Murray, 1899), p. 244.
1944]). Tom ]ones ("The Xoc, the Shar ke, and the Sea Dogs: An Histor ical Encounter ," F ifth Palcnque
18. Teobert Maler, the discoverer of many of these carvings, correctly identified many, but his ideas were not
Round Table, Vol. 7, gen. ed. Mer le Gr eene Rober tson, vol. ed. Vir ginia M. F ields [San F r ancisco: Pr e-
taken seriously-he had become an enemy of the Peabody Museum, his patron, a fact that did not help his
Columbian Ar t Resear ch Institute, 1985], pp. 216-217) cites documented examples of a mar ine shar k
credibility. In addition, he couched such valid perceptions in a mishmash of ideas about Quetzalcoatl, a
being caught in freshwater rivers as far as 300 kilometers from the ocean, He proposed the model of the
principal Postclassic deity. Given the Old Empire-New Empire thinking of the time, that deity could not
Maya Xoc Monster to be Carcharliinus lucas, the bull shark, whose presence has been amply recorded far
up freshwater rivers in North, Central and South America. The bull shark, like the caiman, has a reputa-
have been represented on the monuments. Maler's ideas were discredited as those of a crank. See Teobert
Maler, Researches in the Central Portions of the Usunlatsintla Valley, Peabody Museum Memoirs, vol. 2 (Cam-
tion as a man-eater. ]ones presented a convincing argument that the Yucatec Maya word xoc is the
bridge, Mass.: Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, 1901 _
etymological source of the English word "shark."
1903).
3. Dennis Pulesron, "The People of the Cayman/Crocodile: Riparian Agriculture and the Origins of
19, In a little-known article, "Portraiture in Central American Art," which Spinden wrote for W H.
Aquatic Motifs in Ancient Maya iconography," in Aspects of Ancient Maya Civilization, edited by Francois»
Holmes's festschrift, itself a volume of small distribution (Holmes Anniversary Volume: Anthropological Es-
Auguste de Montequin (Saint Paul, Minn.: Hairline University, 1976), pp. 1-26.
says [Washington, D.C,: Smithsonian Institution, 19171, pp. 434-452).
4. Early, pre-Norman kings held power over petty states. Descent among them did not follow strict rules of
20. Roger Fry, "American Archaeology," The Burlington Magazine 33, no. 188 (November 1918), p. 156.
primogeniture, established later, but in each petty state, there was a kingly lineage. Even after the estab-
lishment of a sovereign English king, minor kings survived in Ireland and Scotland (Compact Edition of the 21. The important contributions of the Carnegie Institution are too many and too varied to report in detail
Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. "king"). here-for example, at Uaxactun, archaeologists explored for the earliest Maya and made the first settle-
ment study. They determined a ceramic sequence, correlated to the inscriptions, that survives today. Tens
5. Tatiana Proskouriakoff, "Historical Implications of a Pattern of Dates at Piedras Negras, Guatemala,"
American Antiquity 25 (1960), pp. 454-475. of sites and hundreds of monuments were documented by Morley himself, and toward the end of the
Car negie Institution's hegemony over Maya studies, the contempor aneity of Teotihuacan and Lowland
6. Bishop Landa said, "We found a large number of books in these characters [Maya writing] and, as they
Maya cultures was demonstrated.
contained nothing in which there were hot to be seen superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them
ZZ. A histor ical pr oblem car efully examined by Mar shall B ecker , in "Peasants, Pr iests, and Cer emonial
all, which they regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction" (Alfred M. Tozzer,
Centers: The Intellectual History of a Model," in Maya Archaeology and Etlinoltistory, edited by N. Ham-
ed. and trans. , "Landa's RelaciOn de las coses de Yucatan; A Translation," Papers of the Peabody Museum of
mond and G. R. Willey (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979), pp. 3-20.
American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University 18 [New York: Kraus Reprint Corp., 1966],
p. 149)- 23. Tatiana Proskouriakoff, An Album of Maya Architecture (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of
Washington, 1946).
7. The Dresden, Madrid and Paris Codices were discovered in European libraries or archives and published
late in the nineteenth century. Work by early epigraphers, especially Ernst FOrstermann, who worked at 24. A pattern begun in his 1920 monograph, Inscriptions at Copan (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institu-
the Dresden library, and Eduard Seler, is the foundation of decipherment today. These scholars brilliantly tion of Washington). There, however, he did not dismiss their potential dogmatically.
worked out the Maya calendar and many of the initial readings of glyphs in the codices and the monu- 25. J. Eric S. Thompson, Maya Hieroglyphic Writing, 3rd edition (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,
ments. The fourth codex was lent by the Saenz Collection to a 1971 exhibition in New York, sponsored by 1971), p. 15.
the Grolier Club and published by Michael D. Coe in The Maya Scribe and His World (New York: Grolier
26. Particularly to a number of Mexican scholars, among them Alfonso Caso, Salvador Toscano and Paul
Club, 1973). It is now in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.
Westheim. Writing in 1958 (although for a book that did not appear until 1962), George Kubler com-
8. The base date of the Maya calendar has been correlated to the Christian Gregorian calendar on the basis mented on a "Mexican mode of behavior" in the presence of "military leaders" at Bonampak and Yaxchilan
of many kinds of evidence. The most widely accepted is the Goodman-Martinez-Thompson correlation, (Ar t and Architecture of Ancient America [London: Pelican, 1962], p. 170).
which sets the beginning of the Maya calendar 584,285 days after the first day of the ]lian calendar.
27. As the invited outsider at a conference to honor Alfred M. 'Ibzzer, Clyde Kluckhohn took the opportu-
Thompson later corrected his original correlation two days, to account for the ongoing Maya calendars still
nity to attack the Carnegie Institution, in particular, A. V. Kidder, for the lack of theoretical foundation
in use today in the Guatemalan Highlands. All Christian correlation dates in this study are given using the
("The Conceptual Structure in Middle American Studies," in The Maya and Their Neighbors [New York: D.
original Goodman-Martinez-Thompson correlation.
Appleton-Century Co., 19401, pp. 41-51).
9. In the west panel of the Temple of Inscriptions, Pacal projected the eightieth Calendar Round anniver-
28. The Dzihilchaltun population estimate, as well as a good history of the problem, was worked out by
sary of his accession date to eight days after the end of the first picture (8,000 tuns), which will occur in
Edward Kurjack, in Prehistoric Lowland Maya Community and Social Organization: A Case Study at
A.D. 4772.
Dzibilcfialtun, Yucatan, Mexico, Middle American Research Institute, vol. 38 (New Orleans: Middle Ameri-
10. This thematic approach was developed and used by George Kubler in lStudies in Classic Maya lconogra- can Research Institute, Tulane University, 1974). William Haviland has worked out various estimates of
Phy, Memoirs of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences 18 (1969), pp. 2-4. the population of Tikal. His most recent hovers near 50,000 ("A New Population Estimate for Tikal,"
II. ]. Eric S. Thompson, The Rise and Fall of the M a y a Empire (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1956), American Antiquity 34 (1969), 429-433). D. B. Dickson has suggested that this number could he increased
p. 256. by half again ("Ancient Agriculture and Population at Tikal, Guatemala: An Application of Linear Pro»
gramming to the Simulation of an Archaeological Problem," American Antiquity 45 [1980], 697-712).
12. Sylvanus G. Morley, The Ancient Maya (Palo Alto, Calif.; Stanford University, 1946), p. 262.

MAYA GOD
THE BLOOD OF KINGS