This article presents a synthesis of new epigraphic readings of hieroglyphic texts from the sites of Sacul and Ixkun, in the northwestern Maya Mountains of Guatemala, with archaeological data previously published by the Atlas Arqueológico de Guatemala. It proposes that a late eighth century king of Sacul broke with his former allies at Ucanal to establish himself as a local suzerain, sponsoring a new vassal kingdom at Ixkun in the process. Visible in both the hieroglyphic and stratigraphic records, these events recapitulated on a smaller scale the geopolitical practices of hegemonic Maya kingdoms like Calakmul and Tikal. The Sacul king’s strategic cultivation of a separate but dependent court sheds light on the possibilities of and limitations on Classic Maya kingship.

Stone stelae and altars inscribed with dates and bearing a portrait of the ruler they commemorate define the Classic period in the Maya lowlands. They attest to the ruling elite's awareness of history and its uses to assert their authority and legitimacy. The power of Maya history remains evident when text decipherments override archaeological evidence. Privileging of texts is especially problematic in interpretations of gaps or hiatuses in the sequence of dates on carved monuments as indicators of site-wide decline. Archaeological evidence from the Lowland Maya city of Tikal contradicts the assumption of general decline during its longest hiatus, as well as a widely accepted historical explanation of its cause. Placing stone monuments and their texts in past cultural context indicates gaps were more likely due to a venerable Mesoamerican tradition of monument desecration carried out by rival elite factions than to specific historical events.

We describe a remarkable artifact discovered during our 2015 excavations at the Maya site of Nim li Punit, Belize. It is a T-shaped jade pectoral worn on the chest by ancient Maya kings during rites in which they scattered copal incense (Figure 1). These rituals are described or depicted on six carved stone monuments (stelae) at the site. What is more, two stelae at the site depict rulers wearing the pectoral. The reverse side of the jade contains a long historical hieroglyphic text. Had the piece been recovered by illegal means and ended up in a private collection, much of the text would make little sense and it could not possibly be ascribed to Nim li Punit. The priceless worth of the Nim li Punit pectoral, therefore, lies not only in its hieroglyphic inscription but also in its known archaeological context and contemporary images of its use. We briefly describe that context and present a translation of the important text on the jade pectoral, which we interpret as a “wind jewel.”

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.

This paper examines ethnohistoric accounts and oral histories accumulated during the last 50 years concerning the movements of the mythical personage of Quetzalcoatl/Kukulcan (Kukul Can) and the role of these narratives in political ideologies between the Epiclassic and Postclassic periods. These narratives outline the movements of Quetzalcoatl/Kukulcan by way of terrestrial, celestial, and subterranean routes that connected pilgrimage centers across the Maya lowlands in the peninsula of Yucatan. Ethnographic and ethnohistoric data presented in this paper describe linkages between important political, economic, and ritual centers that had roots in pan-Mesoamerican social dynamics originating as early as the Terminal Classic or Epiclassic period. Links between cities included not just the physical intersite connections evidenced by causeways that are so prominent in the archaeological record but also intangible, mythical, and symbolic connections embodied in mythical histories of subterranean passageways and celestial umbilical cords. These accounts and oral histories highlight the importance of migration and founding events in the establishment of new cities during the major political, economic, and social reorganizations that took place after the end of the Late Classic period. As a whole, these linkages comprised a political infrastructure connecting a network of cities within the highly integrated and international Postclassic Mesoamerican world. The indigenous histories outlined in this paper complement archaeological data, reflecting an increase in internationalism, economic integration, and the spread of new religious movements beginning in the Terminal or Epiclassic periods across Mesoamerica.

This paper analyzes the roles and attributes of the Maya goddess Ix Hun Ahau, the female manifestation of Hun Ahau that appears in the Ritual of the Bacabs. This Colonial Yucatec text is our earliest surviving source for how Maya cosmology provided a framework for healing practices. Although the extant manuscript dates to the late eighteenth century, it is the culmination of centuries of interethnic interaction, including innovations emerging from the intellectual exchange that characterized Mesoamerica during the Late Postclassic period (ca. A.D. 1200–1500). The accoutrements and activities ascribed to this goddess in the incantations identify her as a Maya parallel to Tlazolteotl-Ixcuina, the Nahua goddess of weaving, sexuality, pollution, and its purification. Pollution concepts and purification practices that are otherwise peripheral in the Ritual of the Bacabs are specifically related to Ix Hun Ahau, suggesting that early intellectual exchange between Mesoamerican peoples extended to medical cosmologies as well.

Although cosmic tree symbolism among pre-Columbian societies of Mesoamerica traces from the Preclassic period, the underlying meaning of the motif and its symbolic permutations are poorly understood. Attempts to identify the plant in a botanical context on ceramic vessels, stucco reliefs, and stone stelae of lowland Maya attribution usually favor determinations as a kapok tree (Ceiba pentandra) or maize plant (Zea mays). A botanical assessment of the morphic and ecological characteristics of these motifs suggests, however, a white-flowered water lily of lowland swamps, Nymphaea ampla. Archeological remains at San Bartolo of the Petén indicate that these iconographic practices were established and codified to a certain extent by the first century b.c. The frequent identification of various gods and dynastic rulers as personifications of a water lily world tree underscores the crucial symbolic and ritualistic roles this plant once played in the practice of religion and kingship among Mayan civilizations.

This article explores the sacrificial symbolism of cacao (Theobroma sp.) on the Pacific coast of Guatemala, manifest in the iconography of ceramic objects and stone sculptures from the Classic period, in textual references from the colonial period, and in contemporary ethnographic data from the southern highlands. The iconographic and textual metaphors contained in these sources linked cacao pods with dead warriors, captives, and sacrificial victims. As interpreted in this article, the harvest of cacao was equated with the acquisition of sacrificial victims, and both were conceived as precious sources of nourishment for the gods. Changes in artistic representations are discernible from Early Classic Teotihuacan-style censers to Early Postclassic Plumbate ceramic effigies. Cacao and other fruits from the Pacific coastal piedmont are still related to the symbolism of war and sacrifice in contemporary rituals from the Tz'utujil town of Santiago Atitlán. Data from southern Guatemala may be relevant to understand the sacrificial symbolism of cacao throughout Mesoamerica.

This article reports on the discovery of an unusual type of secondary burial found at two Middle Formative sites in the Mascota valley of Jalisco, West Mexico. We examine these burials within a Middle and Late Formative period context as well as a broader temporal context of funerary customs and mortuary programs involving secondary-type burials. Tightly wrapped, elaborately processed bundled burials were recovered at the cemeteries of El Embocadero II and Los Tanques. We report on the human remains from both sites and examine burial context and biological identity to seek explanations. The individuals selected for this burial treatment are not associated with any markers of high status. These burials may represent a different ethnic, familial, community or ancestral identity, and we consider the broader secondary burial phenomenon as the possible expression of a ritual of seasonal interment associated with the use of a mortuary hut to curate and process the bodies.

In this article, I present the results of an analysis of codex-style polychrome ceramics recovered from excavations of commoner households at the Late Postclassic center of Tututepec (Yucu Dzaa), Oaxaca, Mexico. In employing a basic semiotic approach, I examine the images depicted on these materials to draw inferences regarding salient themes they expressed, and how these themes related to broader social discourse and political ideology. In short, I argue that the data suggest an articulation between the popular ideologies of commoners and ideals that were promoted by the site's ruling elites, a concordance that likely arose through dialogic social processes, rather than coercion or false consciousness. This state of affairs may have contributed to the success of the polity, which was the center of a powerful territorial empire at the time of Spanish contact.

Maya participation in the Postclassic Mixteca-Puebla or International Style has long been recognized in murals and manuscript painting. Recent explanations for Maya adoptions/modifications of this central Mexican style have shifted from invasion or “influence” to emphasize the active and selective participation of the Maya. I examine two examples, the solar murals of Mayapan and Flores Stela 4, to elucidate how they reflect Maya uses of the Mexican Other in service of local political and religious power. I argue that these works represent a Late Postclassic continuation of a long Maya tradition of using central Mexican forms and iconography as exotic ideological “prestige goods” reinforcing the legitimacy of local elites. They cannot be understood apart from the previous history of interactions between the Maya and central Mexico, particularly in the Early Postclassic, and some of the “Mexican” elements in these examples may derive from Maya-Mexican interactions during this earlier time.

For Eloise Quiñones Keber, and in memory of H.B. Nicholson

The aim of this paper is to use the example of one type of pre-Hispanic Nahua song, the teponazcuicatl, or “log-drum song,” to present the problems that arise in the classification of preconquest Nahua verbal art identified by sixteenth century Europeans according to Western criteria of categorization as songs, poetry, or the verbal component of performances. A close examination of this genre, focused on its relationship with performance and, particularly, with pre-Hispanic theater, provides insights into how sixteenth century scribes' interpretation of Nahua oral discourse and the graphic arrangement of the alphabetically transcribed text influenced in the way Nahua culture and discourse are perceived.

In this study I argue that modern ethnographic data can be used in the interpretation of ancient Mesoamerican art and pictography, in particular, beyond iconographic analysis. Ancient painted texts were read in a performative way, with recitation, enunciation, and context playing a fundamental role in conveying meaning. While normally pictography is approached as a provider of content information, the way meaning is encoded and decoded is also integral to pictorial language. In this essay, I attempt to trace durable forms of Mesoamerican religiosity by comparing ancient depictions, their colonial transformations, and modern Mazatec chants through the prism of the “religious specialist.” This figure embodies an ecstatic experience: a direct contact and communication with the divine, which requires a cognitive transformation materialized in words, texts, and pictures.

Recent investigation among the Ayöök (Mixe) people of Oaxaca showed that the on-going use of a 260-day calendar complements the divinatory technique of casting maize seeds. This paper offers a detailed description of this mantic practice as a means to approach and better understand precolonial divinatory practices and the people who practiced them, such as the tonalopouhque among the Nahua. In particular, this new data will also serve to shed light on the use of the pictorial manuscripts that portray the 260-day calendar, such as the so-called Borgia Group Codices. Along these lines, historical and colonial accounts, origin narratives, visual culture, and the archaeology surrounding divination will also be re-examined. This article will show that, similar to the Ayöök contemporary daykeepers and diviners, those that lived in the past were also wise women and men who were specialized in managing the complicated system of symbolism surrounding prognostication and prescription set out over 260 days. Furthermore, they employed divination for medical purposes and aided people with afflictions, curing them of sickness.