Imagining Courtly Communities: An Exploration of Classic Maya Experiences of Status and Identity through Painted Ceramic Vessels (original) (raw)

A Study of Dress and Identity in the Late Classic Maya Court

2017

This dissertation seeks to understand the relationship between ancient Maya identities and dress during the Late Classic period (A.D. 600-900), through an analysis of sartorial representations of members within the royal court. The specific research question that frames this dissertation is whether roles or offices within the ancient Maya royal court were made salient through dress.

Monumental Discourse and Social Distinction: A Contextual Approach to Classic Maya Sculpture

Tiempo detenido, tiempo suficiente: Ensayos y narraciones mesoamericanistas en homenaje a Alfonso Lacadena García-Gallo, edited by Harri Kettunen, Verónica Amellali Vázquez López, Felix Kupprat, Cristina Vidal Lorenzo, Gaspar Muñoz Cosme and María Josefa Iglesias Ponce de León, 2018

Abstract: The socio-political structures of the Classic Maya have received considerable attention, especially given the sudden advances made in epigraphy. Textual evidence has shed light on titles, offices and interaction among royal and—to some extent—non-royal elites, creating a differentiated panorama of basic mechanisms of social cohesion and distinction. As important as the contents of text and image are for the historical approach, comparably little attention has been paid to their context, i.e. their social function and use as media of communication. For some time, sculpted monuments have been considered as devices of political propaganda, through which the ruling elites legitimised their status. However, it has frequently been ignored who were the addressees of written and depicted messages and how people received and interacted with hieroglyphs and imagery. The spatial environments of monuments are extremely diverse, ranging from closed and sacred spaces to open plazas, so that we cannot assume that the messages they conveyed were meant for the same group of people. The reception of Maya media occurred not only in diverse spatial contexts, but also in specific social situations. In this article, we explore the relationship between the strategic use of visual media and social differentiation. Certain social actors were consciously included or excluded from the active and passive participation in the monumental discourse. When it comes to non-royal social units, we can distinguish various degrees of integration, dictated by the courtly authority, which reflect different political settings and strategies throughout the Maya area.

8 Maya Polychrome Vessels as Inalienable Possessions

Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, 2013

ABSTRACT During the Late Classic period in the Maya Lowlands (C.E. 650–800), polychrome serving vessels were produced and circulated in restricted exchange systems. The production and circulation of these vessels has traditionally been understood in terms of prestige good economy. In this chapter, I use Annette Weiner's concept of inalienable possessions to extend analysis of Late Classic–period polychromes beyond the tenets of prestige goods to: (1) discuss how value came to be embedded in specific polychrome vessels; (2) identify previously overlooked ceramic social valuables; and (3) discuss how these vessels were used to simultaneously promote social hierarchy and integrate communities.

Elite Maya Pottery and Artisans as Social Indicators

Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, 2008

Pre-Columbian Maya Classic period (A.D. 250-850) polychrome pottery underwent a metamorphosis during the sixth century A.D. to become a polyvalent pictorial and hieroglyphic narrative phenomenon whose transformation is tied directly to the period's sociopolitical developments. These specialized ceramics, created for and sometimes by members of the ruling stratum, are important indicators of the social and political dynamics of the Late Classic period (A.D. 550-850). This pictorial pottery informs on the heightened sociopolitical role of specialized crafting and also on that of the artists during this dynamic period. The elevated social identities of some of these artisans, in part created by a perceived connection between them and the gods of Creation, lent prestige to their crafted items. This constructed identity increased the social value of these crafted objects in their role as important accouterments of the sociopolitical power structures of the Late Classic period.

Temporalities of Royal Costume in the Maya Lowlands

Faces of Rulership in the Maya Region, 2024

Part of the enduring power of Maya rulership was its ability to embody the memory, experience, and movement of time. While much is known about the dynastic histories of Maya kings and queens and their memorialization in carved stone monuments during key moments in the Maya calendar, this chapter explores the temporality of Maya k’uhul ajawob through their costume. Drawing inspiration from Ernst Kantorowicz’s (1957) notion of the king’s two bodies, I examine Maya costuming as a part of a central contradiction of kingship—that is, the ruler’s body as both a natural body, limited in time by aging and the human life course, and a body politic, an enduring dynastic tradition grounded in divine kingship. Although many different types of royal costume elements capture the temporalities of both personal narrative and enduring dynastic tradition, I turn to two elements in particular: feathered capes and carved jade ornaments. Carved jade ornaments were intertwined in the biography of individual rulers, both male and female, but also materialized dynastic connections that linked royal individuals to ancestors and deities of the deep past and ensured continuity of spirit and political legitimacy into the future. In contrast, I argue that feathered capes were more closely linked to the living, perishable body, where they marked key historic events in the individual life history of a king, most notably those involving war, conflict, and captive-taking. In this latter case, such costuming was also a critical part of the performance of a particular form of masculinity expressed by a mature adult whose status was not awarded at birth but was lived in the historical moment.

Seeing Power: Masterpieces of Early Classic Maya "High Culture

AJA, 2006

Anyone interested in the visual culture of prehispanic Central America who has the chance to view this exhibition should take the opportunity to do so. Those without such access will find the catalogue an extraordinary document of the objects included, enhanced by the addition of 14 interpretive essays by leading scholars from North America, Europe, Mexico, and Central America. What distinguishes this exhibition most are the extraordinary objects included, many of them with excellent archaeological provenience. These objects are arranged to support an exploration of the origins of "divine kingship," a concept that has long been a staple of Maya studies. The emphasis on origins of kingship leads to a focus on the earliest periods of Maya society, differentiating this exhibition from others emphasizing Late Classic Maya art that have preceded and paved the way for it. The focus on earlier Classic and Late Preclassic Maya society would not have been possible without the extensive archaeological exploration of early sites undertaken in recent

Kingship in the Late Preclassic Maya Lowlands: The Instruments and Places of Ritual Power

American Anthropologist, 1988

The Maya of Central America constitute the only trub literate pre-Columbian civilization. Analysis of ancient Maya hieroglyphic texts and accompanying images dating from the Classic period (A.D. 200-900) documents the presence of a central and pervasive institution of governance: ahaw. The material symbol systems of the Lowland Maya of the protoliterate Late Preclassic period (350 B.C.-A.D. I@), as evinced in monumental decorated buildings and in portable art, suggest that these Maya innovated ahaw, the institution of kingship. The authority of ahaw rested upon direct descent and spiritual communion with the ancestors of all Maya, the Ancestral Heroes. Along with noble lineage, ahaw claimed charismatic power through the peTformance of shamanistic ritual. The Late Preclassic antecedents of the shamanistic parameters of ahaw are discussed in light of Classic and Postclassic ritual expressions. HE ANCIENT LOWLAND MAYA CIVII~IZATION IS NOW RECOGNIZED as an example T of a truly literate society in the pre-Columbian New World. Fundamental breakthroughs in the decipherment and translation of Maya hieroglyphic texts from the Classic period (A.D. 200-900) over the last two decades (