Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T02:23:04.085Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A SEVENTH-CENTURY INSCRIBED MINIATURE FLASK FROM COPAN FOUND AT TAZUMAL, EL SALVADOR

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2016

Jeb J. Card  and
Marc Zender
Jeb J. Card*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Miami University, 120 Upham Hall, 100 Bishop Circle, Oxford, Ohio 45056
Marc Zender
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Tulane University, 101 Dinwiddie Hall, 6823 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118
*
E-mail correspondence to: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Late Classic interaction between Copan and western El Salvador has been archaeologically recognized in prestige items, monumental influences, and the common use of Copador ceramics. An inscribed flask excavated in 1952 in the main pyramid at Tazumal, El Salvador provides historical evidence for these ties. The flask is dedicated as the property of K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil (Copan Ruler 12), a long-lived seventh-century ruler who presided over the expansion of Copan's influence far outside of the Copan valley. The flask is the only hieroglyphic text from El Salvador naming a recognizable individual or that can be dated to an absolute calendrical span, one of only a few miniature Classic Maya vessels tagged with an individual's name, and the only one naming an ajaw (lord). The vessel's text, iconography, and context brings the political relationship between Copan and western El Salvador into sharper focus.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , Fall 2016 , pp. 279 - 292
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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

REFERENCES

Andrews, E. Wyllys, V 1996 Stanley Harding Boggs: 1914–1991. American Antiquity 61:57–61.Google Scholar
Andrews, E. Wyllys, and Fash, William L. 2005 Issues in Copán Archaeology. In Copán: The History of an Ancient Maya Kingdom, edited by Andrews, E. Wyllys and Fash, William L., pp. 395–425. School of American Research Advanced Seminar Series. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe.Google Scholar
Barrera Vásquez, Alfredo, Bastarrachea Manzano, Juan Ramón, Sansores, William Brito, Salas, Refugio Vermont, Góngora, David Dzul, and Dzul Poot, Domingo 1980 Diccionario Maya. Compañía Tipográfica Yucateca, Merida.Google Scholar
Beaudry-Corbett, Marilyn 2002 Ceramics and Their Use at Cerén. In Before the Volcano Erupted: The Ancient Cerén Village in Central America, edited by Sheets, Payson, pp. 117–138. University of Texas Press, Austin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bello-Suazo, Gregorio 2009 Museo Nacional de Antropología Dr. David J. Guzmán, El Salvador. Fundación Empresarial para la Acción Social, San Salvador.Google Scholar
Bill, Cassandra R. 1997 Patterns of Variation and Change in Dynastic Period Ceramics and Ceramic Production at Copán, Honduras. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Tulane University, New Orleans. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Bishop, Ronald L., and Beaudry, Marilyn P. 1994 Appendix B: Chemical Compositional Analysis of Southeastern Maya Ceramics. In Ceramics and Artifacts from Excavations in the Copan Residential Zone, by Willey, Gordon R., Leventhal, Richard M., Demarest, Arthur A., and Fash, William L. Jr., pp. 407–433. Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 80. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Bishop, Ronald L., Beaudry, Marilyn P., Leventhal, Richard M., and Sharer, Robert J. 1986 Compositional Analysis of Copador and Related Pottery in the Southeast Maya Area. In The Southeast Maya Periphery, edited by Urban, Patricia A. and Schortman, Edward M., pp. 143–167. University of Texas Press, Austin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boggs, Stanley H. 1942–1963 Field Notes. Papers in possession of the Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University, New Orleans.Google Scholar
Boggs, Stanley H. 1943a Notas sobre las excavaciones en la Hacienda “San Andrés”, Departamento de La Libertad. Tzunpame 3:104–126.Google Scholar
Boggs, Stanley H. 1943b Observaciones respecto a la importancia de Tazumal en la prehistoria salvadoreña. Tzunpame 3:127–133.Google Scholar
Boggs, Stanley H. 1944 Appendix C: Excavations in central and western El Salvador. In Archaeological Investigations in El Salvador, by Longyear, John M. III., pp. 51–72. Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 9, No. 2. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Boggs, Stanley H. 1962 Excavations of Tazumal, El Salvador. Year Book of the American Philosophical Society:488–491.Google Scholar
Boggs, Stanley H. 1963 Excavations at Tazumal, El Salvador. Year Book of the American Philosophical Society:505–507.Google Scholar
Breedlove, Dennis E., and Laughlin, Robert M. 1993 The Flowering of Man: A Tzotzil Botany of Zinacantán, Vol. 2. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Brown, Linda A., and Gerstle, Andrea I. 2002 Structure 10: Feasting and Village Festivals. In Before the Volcano Erupted: The Ancient Cerén Village in Central America, edited by Sheets, Payson, pp. 97–103. University of Texas Press, Austin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruhns, Karen Olsen 1996 El Salvador and the Southeastern Frontier of Mesoamerica. In Paths to Central American Prehistory, edited by Lange, Frederick W., pp. 285–296. University Press of Colorado, Niwot.Google Scholar
Callaghan, Michael G. 2014 Maya Polychrome Vessels as Inalienable Possessions. In The Inalienable in the Archaeology of Mesoamerica, edited by Kovacevich, Brigitte and Callaghan, Michael G., pp. 112–127. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, No. 23. Wiley, Hoboken.Google Scholar
Canuto, Marcello, and Bell, Ellen E. 2008 The Ties that Bind: Administrative Strategies in the El Paraíso Valley, Department of Copan, Honduras. Mexicon 30:10–20.Google Scholar
Card, Jeb J. 2013 Introduction. In The Archaeology of Hybrid Material Culture, edited by Card, Jeb J., pp. 1–21. Center for Archaeological Investigations Occasional Paper No. 39. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale.Google Scholar
Carrasco Vargas, Ramon, Sylviane Boucher, Paula Alvarez Gonzalez, Vera Tiesler Blos, Valeria Garcia Vierna, Renata Garcia Moreno, , and Javier Vazquez Negrete, 1999 A Dynastic Tomb from Campeche, Mexico: New Evidence on Jaguar Paw, a Ruler of Calakmul. Latin American Antiquity 10:47–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cobos, Rafael 1994 Síntesis de la arqueología de El Salvador (1850–1991). Colección antropología e historia, No. 21. Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y el Arte, Dirección General del Patrimonio Cultural, and Ministerio de Educación, San Salvador.Google Scholar
Coggins, Clemency Chase 1975 Painting and Drawing Styles at Tikal: An Historical and Iconographic Reconstruction. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Fine Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Coggins, Clemency Chase 1988 On the Historical Significance of Decorated Ceramics at Copan and Quirigua and Related Classic Maya Sites. In The Southeast Classic Maya Zone: A Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks, 6th and 7th October 1984, edited by Boone, Elizabeth Hill and Willey, Gordon R., pp. 95–123. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Creamer, Winifred 1987 Mesoamerica as a Concept: An Archaeological View from Central America. Latin American Research Review 22:35–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deagan, Kathleen 2013 Hybridity, Identity, and Archaeological Practice. In The Archaeology of Hybrid Material Culture, edited by Card, Jeb J., pp. 260–276. Center for Archaeological Investigations Occasional Paper No. 39. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale.Google Scholar
Demarest, Arthur A. 1988 Political Evolution in the Maya Borderlands: The Salvadoran Frontier. In The Southeast Classic Maya Zone: A Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks, 6th and 7th October 1984, edited by Boone, Elizabeth Hill and Willey, Gordon R., pp. 335–394. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Dunkelman, Arthur 2007 The Jay I. Kislak Collection at the Library of Congress: A Catalog of the Gift of the Jay I. Kislak Foundation to the Library of Congress. Library of Congress, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Eberl, Markus 2007 Community Heterogeneity and Integration: The Maya Sites of Nacimiento, Dos Ceibas, and Cerro de Cheyo (El Peten, Guatemala) During the Late Classic. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Tulane University, New Orleans. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Eppich, Keith, and Loughmiller-Cardinal, Jennifer A. 2014 Breath and Smoke: Tobacco among the Maya. Electronic document, https://www.academia.edu/7116682/Breath_and_Smoke_Tobacco_among_the_Maya, accessed on July 6, 2014.Google Scholar
Fahsen, Federico 1992 A Toponym in Waxaktun. Texas Notes on Precolumbian Art, Writing, and Culture 35:1–3.Google Scholar
Fash, William L. 2001 Scribes, Warriors, and Kings: The City of Copán and the Ancient Maya. Rev. ed. Thames and Hudson, London.Google Scholar
Fash, William L., and Stuart, David S. 1991 Dynastic History and cultural evolution at Copan, Honduras. In Classic Maya Political History: Hieroglyphic and Archaeological Evidence, edited by Culbert, T. Patrick, pp. 147–179. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Fash, William L., Beaubien, Harriet F., Magee, Catherine E., Fash, Barbara W., and Williamson, Richard V. 2001 The Trappings of Kingship Among the Classic Maya: Ritual and Identity in a Royal Tomb from Copán. In Fleeting Identities: Perishable Material Culture in Archaeological Research, edited by Drooker, Penelope Ballard, pp. 152–169. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper No. 28. Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.Google Scholar
Finamore, Daniel, and Houston, Stephen D. (editors) 2010 Fiery Pool: The Maya and the Mythic Sea. Peabody Essex Museum, London, and Yale University Press, New Haven.Google Scholar
Foias, Antonia E. 2013 Ancient Maya Political Dynamics. Maya Studies. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Fowler, William R. Jr. 1995 El Salvador: Antiguas civilizaciones. Banco Agrícola Comercial de El Salvador, San Salvador.Google Scholar
Fowler, William R. Jr., and Earnest, Howard H. Jr. 1985 Settlement Patterns and Prehistory of the Paraiso Basin of El Salvador. Journal of Field Archaeology 12:19–32.Google Scholar
Gordon, George Byron 1898 Researches in the Uloa Valley: Report on Explorations by the Museum 1896–97. Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Vol. 1, No. 4. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Guenter, Stanley Paul 2014 The Epigraphy of El Perú-Waka’. In Archaeology at El Perú-Waka’: Ancient Maya Performances of Ritual, Memory, and Power, edited by Navarro-Farr, Olivia C. and Rich, Michelle, pp. 147–166. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Grube, Nikolai, MacLeod, Barbara, and Wanyerka, Phil 1999 A Commentary on the Hieroglyphic Inscriptions of Nim Li Punit, Belize. Research Reports on Ancient Maya Writing, Vol. 41. Center for Maya Research, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Hendon, Julia 1987 The Uses of Maya Structures: A Study of Architecture and Artifact Distribution at Sepulturas, Copan, Honduras. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Cambridge. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Hirth, Kenneth G. 1988 Beyond the Maya Frontier: Cultural Interaction and Syncretism along the Central Honduran Corridor. In The Southeast Classic Maya Zone: A Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks, 6th and 7th October 1984, edited by Boone, Elizabeth Hill and Willey, Gordon R., pp. 297–334. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Houston, Stephen D. 2010 Maya Musk. Electronic document, https://decipherment.wordpress.com/2010/06/17/maya-musk/, accessed on March 30, 2016.Google Scholar
Houston, Stephen D., Stuart, David, and Taube, Karl 1992 Image and Text on the “Jauncy Vase.” In The Maya Vase Book, Vol. 3, edited by Barbara Kerr, and Kerr, Justin, pp. 504–523. Kerr Associates, New York.Google Scholar
Houston, Stephen D., Stuart, David, and Taube, Karl 2006 The Memory of Bones: Body, Being, and Experience Among the Classic Maya. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Houston, Stephen D., and Amaroli, Paul 1988 The Lake Güija Plaque. Research Reports on Ancient Maya Writing, No. 15. Center for Maya Research, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Jackson, Sarah E. 2013 Politics of the Maya Court: Hierarchy and Change in the Late Classic Period. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Justeson, John S., and Kaufman, Terrence 1993 A Decipherment of Epi-Olmec Writing. Science 259:1703–1711.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kirchhoff, Paul 1943 Mesoamérica, sus límites geográficos, composición étnica y carácteres culturales. Acta Americana 1:92–107.Google Scholar
Longyear, John M. III 1944 Archaeological Investigations in El Salvador. Appendix by Boggs, Stanley H.. Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 9, No. 2. Harvard University, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Loughmiller-Cardinal, Jennifer A., and Zagorevski, Dimitri 2016 Mayan Flasks: The “Home” of Tobacco and Godly Substances. Ancient Mesoamerica 27:1–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, Simon 2015 The Old Man of the Maya Universe: A Unitary Dimension to Ancient Maya Religion. In Maya Archaeology, Vol. 3, edited by Stephen Houston, Charles Golden, and Joel Skidmore, pp. 186–227. Precolumbia Mesoweb Press, San Francisco.Google Scholar
Martin, Simon, and Grube, Nikolai 2008 Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens: Deciphering the Dynasties of the Ancient Maya. 2nd ed. Thames and Hudson, London.Google Scholar
McKee, Brian R. 2002 Household 2 at Cerén: The Remains of an Agrarian and Craft-Oriented Corporate Group. In Before the Volcano Erupted: The Ancient Cerén Village in Central America, edited by Sheets, Payson, pp. 58–71. University of Texas Press, Austin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Mary, and Simon Martin, 2004 Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya. Thames and Hudson, New York.Google Scholar
Moisa, Ana Claudia María Alfaro 2013 Análisis de la cerámica Copador procedente de cuatro sitios arqueológicos de la fase Payu del occidente y centro de El Salvador: Tazumal, Joya de Cerén, San Andrés y Madreselva. Unpublished licenciatura thesis, Departamento de Antropología, Universidad Tecnológica de El Salvador, San Salvador.Google Scholar
Mora-Marín, David F. 2001 Late Preclassic Inscription Documentation Project. Electronic document, http://www.famsi.org/reports/99049/99049MoraMarin01.pdf, accessed August 11, 2016.Google Scholar
Newsome, Elizabeth A. 2001 Trees of Paradise and Pillars of the World: The Serial Stela Cycle of “18-Rabbit-God K,” King of Copan. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Prager, Christian M. 2013 A Study of the Classic Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions of Pusilha, Toledo District, Belize. Indiana 30:247–282.Google Scholar
Reents-Budet, Dorie 1994 Painting the Maya Universe: Royal Ceramics of the Classic Period. Forewords by Michael P. Mezzatesta and Linda Schele. Duke University Press, Durham.Google Scholar
Schele, Linda, and Miller, Mary 1986 The Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth.Google Scholar
Schele, Linda, and Grube, Nikolai 1994 Tlaloc-Venus warfare: The Peten Wars 8.17.0.0.0–9.15.13.0.0. In Notebook for the XVIIIrd Maya Hieroglyphic Workshop, March 12–13, 1994, edited by Albright, Timothy, pp. 79–102. Department of Art and Art History, University of Texas, Austin.Google Scholar
Schellhas, Paul 1904 Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts. Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 4, No. 1. 2nd rev. ed. Harvard University, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Schortman, Edward M., and Urban, Patricia A. 2004 Marching Out of Step: Early Classic Copan and its Honduran Neighbors. In Understanding Early Classic Copan, edited by Bell, Ellen E., Canuto, Marcello A., and Sharer, Robert J., pp. 319–335. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Sharer, Robert J. 1974 The Prehistory of the Southeastern Maya Periphery. Current Anthropology 15:165–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharer, Robert J. 1978 The Prehistory of Chalchuapa, El Salvador, Vol. 3: Pottery and Conclusions. Edited by Sharer, Robert J.. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Sharer, Robert J. 1991 Diversity and Continuity in Maya Civilization: Quirigua as a Case Study. In Classic Maya Political History: Hieroglyphic and Archaeological Evidence, edited by Culbert, T. Patrick, pp. 180–198. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Sheets, Payson 2000 The Southeast Frontiers of Mesoamerica. In The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas: Volume II Mesoamerica, Part 1, edited by Adams, Richard E. W. and MacLeod, Murdo J., pp. 407–448. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheets, Payson 2006 The Cerén Site: An Ancient Village Buried by Volcanic Ash in Central America. 2nd ed. Thomson Wadsworth, Belmont.Google Scholar
Starrat, Harold E. 2001 Excavations in El Cementerio, Group 10L-2, Copán, Honduras. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Tulane University, New Orleans. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Stone, Andrea, and Zender, Marc 2011 Reading Maya Art: A Hieroglyphic Guide to Ancient Maya Painting and Sculpture. Thames and Hudson, London.Google Scholar
Strömsvik, Gustav 1942 Substela Caches and Stela Foundations at Copan and Quirigua. Contributions to American Anthropology and History, Vol. 7, No. 37, Publication 528. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Stuart, David 1989 Hieroglyphs on Maya Vessels. In The Maya Vase Book, Vol. 1, edited by Kerr, Justin, pp. 149–160. Kerr Associates, New York.Google Scholar
Stuart, David 1998 “The Fire Enters His House”: Architecture and Ritual in Classic Maya Texts. In Function and Meaning in Classic Maya Architecture, edited by Houston, Stephen D., pp. 373–425. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Stuart, David 2005 A Foreign Past: The Writing and Representation of History on a Royal Ancestral Shrine at Copan. In Copán: The History of an Ancient Maya Kingdom, edited by Andrews, E. Wyllys and Fash, William L., pp. 373–394. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe.Google Scholar
Stuart, David 2007 Reading the Water Serpent as WITZ'. Electronic document, https://decipherment.wordpress.com/2007/04/13/reading-the-water-serpent/, accessed November 14, 2015.Google Scholar
Taschek, Jennifer T., and Ball, Joseph W. 1992 Lord Smoke-Squirrel's Cacao Cup: The Archaeological Context and Sociohistorical Significance of the Buenavista “Jauncy Vase.” In The Maya Vase Book, Vol. 3, edited by Barbara, and Kerr, Justin, pp. 490–503. Kerr Associates, New York.Google Scholar
Taube, Karl 1992 The Major Gods of Ancient Yucatan. Studies in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology, No. 32. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Traxler, Loa P. 2004 Redesigning Copan: Early Architecture of the Polity Center. In Understanding Early Classic Copan, edited by Bell, Ellen E., Canuto, Marcello A., and Sharer, Robert J., pp. 53–64. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Tunesi, Raphael 2008 Some Thoughts About a New Vase and an Old God. The PARI Journal 9:18–23.Google Scholar
Willey, Gordon R., Leventhal, Richard M., Demarest, Arthur A., and Fash, William L. Jr. 1994 Ceramics and Artifacts from Excavations in the Copan Residential Zone. Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 80. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Wisdom, Charles 1950 Materials on the Chorti Language. Microfilm Collection of Manuscripts on Middle American Cultural Anthropology, No. 28. University of Chicago Library, Chicago.Google Scholar
Yaeger, Jason, Brown, M. Kathryn, Helmke, Christophe, Zender, Marc, Cap, Bernadette, Rodriguez, Christie Kokel, and Batty, Sylvia 2015 Two Early Classic Elite Burials from Buenavista del Cayo, Belize. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 12:181–191.Google Scholar
Zagorevski, Dmitri V., and Loughmiller-Newman, Jennifer A. 2011 The detection of nicotine in a Late Mayan period flask by gas chromatography and liquid chromatography mass spectrometry methods. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry 26:403–411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zender, Marc 2002 The Toponyms of El Cayo, Piedras Negras, and La Mar. In Heart of Creation: The Mesoamerican World and the Legacy of Linda Schele, edited by Stone, Andrea, pp. 166–184. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Zender, Marc 2004a Glyphs for “Handspan” and “Strike” in Classic Maya Ballgame Texts. The PARI Journal 4:1–9.Google Scholar
Zender, Marc 2004b A Study of Classic Maya Priesthood. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Archaeology, University of Calgary, Calgary. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Zender, Marc 2009 Report on the New Peccary Skull Glyphs. FYI Friday: Newsletter of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology 13 February. Harvard University, Cambridge.Google Scholar