THE QUESTION OF FUNCTION AND MEANING OF MAYA ARCHITECTURE (original) (raw)
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Function and Meaning in Classic Maya Architecture
Washington, DC, 1998
M aya archaeology has always been fascinated with the elaborate temple pyramids, palaces, and stelae plazas that formed the centers of the ancient communities from its inception to the present day. Despite the intense interest in large-scale architecture, we still have a rather limited excavated sample of Maya dynastic building programs. The scale of construction of these monuments poses immense logistical problems and other challenges for conscientious investigation, stabilization, and publication. More often than not, the version of a large-scale construction visible on the surface has one or more previous structures buried inside of it. This makes the problem of complete sampling of architectural monuments even more daunting from both a practical and an interpretive point of view. Despite these rather long odds, some remarkable progress has been made. Increased understanding of the writing system and pictorial symbol systems used to adorn the buildings and the principles of organization of Maya architecture on the level of commoners and the nobility help inform our judgments about the function and meaning of the building complexes that formed the heart of the Classic Maya towns and cities. This paper represents an attempt to understand how the ruling families organized their sacred and secular spaces and what kinds of buildings and messages they erected in those environs. It also explores the degree to which one may reliably infer the political strategies, idiosyncratic concerns, and even the personality of royal Maya patrons from the architecture they left behind.
The dedicated city: meaning and morphology in Classic Maya urbanism
The Cambridge World History, 2015
classic Maya cities were dynamic places consrructed throughout the Yucatan Peninsula and adjacent zones during much of the first millennium cø (see Map l.r). All contained elements that have become hallmarks of Maya architecfllre: pyramids, platforms, palaces, ballcourts, smaller settlements, and causeways. A special advantage of these constructions is their contextualization within numerous excavations and surveys. A further feature is their strong meshing with historical and textual information that can be rich yet variable. Copious at some sites, thin or non-existent at others, such messages convey indigenous perspectives on the meanings behind the shape or moqphology of Maya settlements. This chapter examines how Maya cities were understood, used, and altered. Their dynamic growth and intermittent decline reflect an active relation befween the concepts and ritual obligations that exercised an abiding effect on Maya cities and the ad hoc, short-term bursts of construction that reflected the will of kings and the courts around them.
Monuments as Signposts: The Function of Sculpture and Hierarchy of Space in a Classic Maya Centre
2006
The objectives of this study are to describe the methods and present the results of an investigation into the utilisation of sculpture by the Classic Maya as “signposting,” as a means of signaling the function and the hierarchical division of ritual and administrative “spaces” in a city centre. Due to limitations in the breadth of literacy among the greater Maya (A.D. 250–900) population, imagery (as displayed on monuments and architecture) was used by the Maya elite as a supplementary communicative tool. Monumental art was used to signal, among other things, the “identities of sacred places and [their] function through sculptural composition. . . to people using them or coming into the spaces they addressed” (Schele and Mathews 1998: 27). Most often, attempts to understand the function and exclusivity of space within Classic Maya city centres have focused on the interpretation of architectural variation (i.e., points of restricted access implying public and private domains; see Harrison 1970; Andrews 1975; Pendergast 1992). Additional methods of inquiry have included epigraphic decipherment, ethnohistoric investigation, ethnographic analogy, and analysis of artefact residues and their distribution (e.g., Fash 1983; Schele and Mathews 1998; McAnany and Plank 2001). A primary objective of the present inquiry was to determine whether an analysis of the spatial distribution of sculpture within a Maya site would influence current proposals concerning elite-civic demarcation and area function maintained by ethnographic, ethnohistoric, artefactual, and epigraphic assessment. My intention was to apply a social dimension to the inquiry of “space” through the analysis of behaviour and symbolism represented on monumental art and architecture. It is argued that among the Maya “a full range of activities took place in residential compounds, including lineage festivals, administrative overseeing, manufacture, gathering of tribute, adjudications, child rearing, food preparation, and a hundred other enterprises” (Schele and Mathews 1998: 29). As noted by Tilley (1994: 10–11), the “spatial experience [should not be viewed as] innocent and neutral, but invested with power relating to age, gender, social position and relationships with others. Different societies, groups and individuals act out their lives in different spaces.” I saw value in establishing whether imagery, as displayed on monumental art and architecture, could further contribute to our understanding of social order and control within important Maya sites. Cross-culturally, the utilisation of visual media to communicate to the broader masses has long been acknowledged. For the “Greeks, mythologic, heroic, or historic sculpture represented something which had a very vivid interest for everyone. Similarly. . . mediaeval monuments [and] statuary had a meaning perfectly understood by all; it was a means of instruction. The iconography of our great northern cathedrals is a veritable encyclopedia instructing the multitude through the eyes” (Viollet-le-Duc 1987: 214). “Access analysis” of archetypal building groups, combined with the thematic–analytical investigation of fixed sculptural media (positioned within specific spatial contexts), has proven to be an effective method of assessing the role that imagery played in signaling the function and hierarchical division of bounded space. General questions that I sought to address in my inquiry were: (1) What was it that motivated the Maya elite to position sculpture where they did? (2) Is there specific imagery marking specific spaces? (3) Acknowledging the multidimensionality of meaning communicated by Maya sculpture, are there embedded within compositions clues as to how certain space was used and socially demarcated?
1985
Ar"hit""ture arose from a basic human need for shelter. It carne into existence with the construction of simple freestanding dwellings that replaced the use ofcaves and rock shelters by early hunting-and-gathering societies. while such houses served the primary function of protection from the elements and utilized building materials readily available in the immediate environment, their design was determined at least partly by human factors involving the perception of specialized needs and aesthetics.