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The Founders of Lineages at Copan and other Maya Sites*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2010

Linda Schele
Linda Schele
Affiliation:
Art Department, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78723
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Abstract

Decipherments and interpretations presented by Peter Mathews and Bertold Riese a decade ago led to the identification of numbered-successor titles that list individual rulers according to their numerical position in a historical succession of kings. Work on the inscriptions of Copan has shown that the “counts of successors” there began with a single founding ancestor, who has been identified archaeologically. Since the rulers of other kingdoms calculated their descent from different founding ancestors, the evidence suggests that Maya kingdoms were ruled by lineages or dynasties of males who calculated their descent for a single anchoring ancestor, who was very probably a historical individual. Evidence from Naranjo also suggests that alternative descent lines were calculated from supernatural anchoring ancestors. The metaphorical term for these lineages was “spout-tree-house.” All of the people in the lineage descending from these founders were called “sprouts,” while the ruling patriarch was the ahau of the descent line.

Resumen

Este artículo reporta el descubrimiento de referencias glíficas a los fundadores de los linaje reales de Copan y otros sitios mayas, incluyendo Yaxchilan, Tikal, Naranjo y Quirigua. Los descendientes de un fundador particular pertenecían a una entidad social llamada “Casa del Retoño de Arbol”; a su vez, los miembros del linaje se describían a sí mismos como “retoños” del arbol. En conjunto con otros datos, esta investigación demuestra que durante el período clásico, el señorio estaba basado en el concepto del linaje.

Type
Special Section: The Archaeology of Ancient Copan
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , Spring 1992 , pp. 135 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

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