Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-grxwn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-20T18:13:34.322Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Political Themes on Mesoamerican Monuments: A Case Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Charles D. Cheek
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Many Mesoamericanists today accept the fact that much Mesoamerican art, in various media, depicts historical events and persons. Much of this evidence has come from hieroglyphic texts. This paper attempts to demonstrate the value of using non-glyphic attributes of depictions of personages and of interaction scenes to investigate the same problems. Non-glyphic attributes of scenes and individual dress and ornamentation are treated as coded cultural information that reflects patterned sociocultural phenomena. This approach is applied to Cotzumalhuapan sculpture from Coastal Guatemala. It is demonstrated that there are two distinctive facial types in interaction which seem to represent two different socio-political groups.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , July 1975 , pp. 320 - 326
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Berlin, Heinrich 1958 El glifo “emblema” in los inscripciones Mayas. Journal de la Société des Americanistes (n.s.) 47:111-119.Google Scholar
Binford, Lewis L. 1962 Archaeology as anthropology. American Antiquity 28:217-225.Google Scholar
Borhegyi, Stephan 1965 Archaeological synthesis of the Guatemalan highlands. In Handbook of Middle American Indians, edited by Robert, Wauchope and Gordon, Willey, Vol. 2, pp. 3-58. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Coe, Michael 1971 Review of Bilbao, Guatemala: an archaeological study of the Pacific Coast Cotzumalhuapa region, Vol. 2, by Lee Allen, Parsons. Milwaukee Public Museum, Publications in Anthropology 12. American Antiquity 36:484-485.Google Scholar
Ford, James, and Lee, Parsons 1969 Cotzumalhuapa monuments in the Antigua Basin. Appendix in Bilbao, Guatemala: an archaeological study of the Pacific Coast Cotzumalhuapa region, Vol. 2, by Lee Allen, Parsons. Milwaukee Public Museum, Publications in Anthropology 12.Google Scholar
Graham, John A. 1973 Aspects of Non-Classic presences in the inscriptions and sculptural art of Seibal. In The Classic Maya Collapse, edited by Patrick Gilbert, T., pp. 207-219. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Kelley, David 1962 Glyphic evidence for a dynastic sequence at Quirigua, Guatemala. American Antiquity 27:325-335.Google Scholar
Kuper, Hilda 1973 Costume and identity. Comparative Studies in Society and History 16:348-367.Google Scholar
Lin ton, Ralph 1936 The study of man. Appleton-Century Crofts, New York.Google Scholar
Lowie, Robert 1936 The Crow Indians. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York.Google Scholar
Marcus, Joyce 1973 Territorial organization of the lowland classic Maya. Science 180:911-916.Google Scholar
Miles, Susan 1963 Informe sobre Kaminaljuyu. Antropologia e Historia de Guatemala 15(1):35-38.Google Scholar
Miles, Susan 1965 Sculpture of the Guatemala-Chiapas highlands and Pacific slopes and associated hieroglyphics. In Handbook of Middle American Indians, edited by Robert, Wauchope and Gordon, Willey, Vol. 2, pp. 237-275. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Parsons, Lee A. 1969 Bilbao, Guatemala: an archaeological study of the Pacific Coast Cotzumalhuapa region. Milwaukee Public Museum, Publications in Anthropology 12.Google Scholar
Proskouriakoff, Tatiana 1960 Historical implications of a pattern of dates at Piedras Negras, Guatemala. American Antiquity 25:454-475.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Proskouriakoff, Tatiana 1961 The lords of the Maya realm. Expedition Magazine (Fall): 14-21.Google Scholar
Proskouriakoff, Tatiana 1963-64 Historical data in the inscriptions of Yaxchilan. Estudios de Cultura Maya 3:149-167;4:177-201. Mexico.Google Scholar
Rands, Robert 1952 Some evidences of warfare in Classic Maya art. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University.Google Scholar
Tozzer, Alfred 1930 Maya and Toltec figures at Chichen Itza. 23rd International Congress of Americanists, pp. 155-164. New York.Google Scholar
Woldering, I. 1963 The art of Egypt. Grey stone Press, New York.Google Scholar
Wolf, Eric 1959 Sons of the shaking earth. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar