Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T20:28:45.994Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

LIGHTNING SKY, RAIN, AND THE MAIZE GOD: The Ideology of Preclassic Maya Rulers at Cival, Peten, Guatemala

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2006

Francisco Estrada-Belli
Francisco Estrada-Belli
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, Box 6050 Station B, Nashville, TN 37235, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Research in the northeastern Peten region at Holmul and nearest minor centers shows a complex history of public ritual activity from the Middle Preclassic onward. Patterns of public architecture, monumental sculpture, iconography, caches, and burials at sites such as Holmul and Cival document early development of the ideology of Maya kingship. Late Preclassic monumental sculptures adorning large pyramid temples provide immediate and elaborate metaphors for the ancestral patrons of emerging dynasts. Middle Preclassic architecture and caches are encoded with the ideological program of the earliest ruling institutions, incorporating themes of cosmological order; sun, water, and maize deities; the agricultural cycle; and ancestor veneration. All of these early remains are found in the sacred space of the first “E-group” plazas.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , January 2006 , pp. 57 - 78
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

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 V, E. Wyllys 1990 Early Ceramic History of the Lowland Maya. In Vision and Revision in Maya Studies, edited by Flora Clancy and Peter D. Harrison, pp. 1–19. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Arnold, Philip P. 1999 Eating Landscape: Aztec and European Occupation of Tlalocan. University of Colorado Press, Boulder.
Aveni, Antony F., Anne S. Dowd, and Benjamin Vining 2003 Maya Calendar Reform? Evidence from Orientations of Specialized Architectural Assemblages. American Antiquity 14(2):159–178.Google Scholar
Bauer, Jeremy 2005a El pasado preclásico y monumental de Holmul: Resultados de las temporadas de excavación 2003 y 2004 en Cival, Peten. In XVIII Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, edited by Juan PedroLaporte, Barbara Arroyo, Hector Escobedo, and Hector Mejia, pp. 201–214. Ministerio de Cultura y Deporte, Guatemala City.
Bauer, Jeremy 2005b Between Heaven and Earth: The Cival Cache and the Creation of the Mesoamerican Cosmos. In Lords of Creation: The Origins of Sacred Maya Kingship, edited by Virigina M. Fields and Dorie Reents-Budet, pp. 28–29. Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Scale Publishers, London.
Benson, Elizabeth 1995 The Olmec World: Ritual and Rulership. Art Museum, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.
Benson, Elizabeth, and Beatriz de la Fuente 1996 Olmec Art of Ancient Mexico. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
Christenson, Allen J. 2000 Popol Vuh. The Mythic Sections—Tales of First Beginnings from the Ancient K'iché-Maya, translated and edited by Allen Christenson. Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, Provo, UT.
Coggins, Clemency C. 2006 The Measure of Man. In Cultural Astronomy in New World Cosmologies, edited by Gary Urton and Clive Ruggles. University Press of Colorado, Boulder, in press.
Dahlin, Bruce H. 1984 Colossus in Guatemala: The Preclassic Maya City of El Mirador. Archaeology 37(5):18–25.Google Scholar
Dahlin, Bruce H., and William J. Litzinger 1986 Old Bottle, New Wine: The Function of Chultuns in the Maya Lowlands. American Antiquity 51(4):721–736.Google Scholar
Demarest, A. Arthur, Robert J. Sharer, William R. Fowler, Eleanor King, and Joyce Fowler 1984 Las excavaciones: El Mirador. Mesoamerica 7:14–52.Google Scholar
Diehl, Richard A. 2004 The Olmecs: America's First Civilization. Thames and Hudson, New York.
Drucker, Philip, Robert F. Heizer, and Robert J. Squier 1959 Excavations at La Venta Tabasco, 1955. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 170. Washington, DC.
Edmonson, Munro S. 1971 The Book of Counsel: The Popol Vuh of the Quice Maya of Guatemala. Middle American Research Institute, Publication 35. Tulane University, New Orleans.
Estrada-Belli, Francisco 2000 Archaeological Investigations at Holmul, Guatemala. Report of the first field season, May–June 2000. Report submitted to National Geographic Society and Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. (FAMSI). Available online at: http://www.famsi.org/reports/98010/index.html.
Estrada-Belli, Francisco 2001 Proyecto Holmul, 2001. Resultados de la segunda temporada de investigaciones. Paper presented at the XV Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala. Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología, July 20–24.
Estrada-Belli, Francisco 2002 Anatomía de una ciudad Maya: Holmul. Resultados de Investigaciones arqueológicas en 2000 y 2001. Mexicon XXIV(5):107–112.Google Scholar
Estrada-Belli, Francisco 2003a Anatomia de Holmul: Su ciudad y territorio. In XVI Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, edited by Juan Pedro Laporte, Barbara Arroyo, Hector Escobedo, and Hector Mejía, pp. 265–274. Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología, Guatemala City.
Estrada-Belli, Francisco 2003b The Power of GIS and Remote Sensing: Multi Scalar Spatial Analysis of Settlement Data in Southeastern Pacific Coastal Guatemala and the Southern Maya Lowlands. In The Reconstruction of Archaeological Landscapes through Digital Technologies, edited by Maurizio Forte and Patrick R. Williams, pp. 49–58. British Archaeological Reports International Series 1151. Archaeopress, Oxford.
Estrada-Belli, Francisco 2005 Cival, La Sufricaya and Holmul: Long History of Maya Political Power in the Holmul region. In Archaeological Investigations in the Eastern Maya Lowlands: Papers of the 2004 Belize Archaeology Symposium, Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology, vol. 2, edited by Jaime Ave, John Morris, Sherilyne Jones, and Christopher Helmke, pp. 193–209. Institute of Archaeology, National Institute of Culture and History, Belmopan, Belize.
Estrada-Belli, Francisco, Jeremy R. Bauer, Molly Morgan, and Angel Chavez 2003 Symbols of Early Maya Kingship at Cival, Peten, Guatemala. Antiquity 77(298). Available online at: http://antiquity.ac.uk/ProjGall/estrada_belli/index.html.Google Scholar
Estrada-Belli, Francisco, Nikolai Grube, Marc Wolf, Kristen Gardella, and Claudio Guerra-Librero 2003 Preclassic Maya Monuments and Temples at Cival, Peten, Guatemala. Antiquity 77(296). Available online at: http://antiquity.ac.uk/ProjGall/belli/belli.html.Google Scholar
Fewkes, J. Walter 1894 A Study of Certain Figures in a Maya Codex. American Anthropologist 7:260–274.Google Scholar
Fields, Virginia M., and Dorie Reents-Budet 2005 Lords of Creation: The Origins of Sacred Maya Kingship. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles.
Freidel, David A. 1986 The Monumental Architecture. In Archaeology at Cerros, Belize. Central America, Volume I: An Interim Report, edited by Roy Robertson and David A. Freidel, pp. 1–22. Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas.
Freidel, David A., and Linda Schele 1988 Symbol and Power: A History of the Lowland Maya Cosmogram. In Maya Iconography, edited by Elizabeth P. Benson and Gillett G. Griffin, pp. 44–93. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Freidel, David A., Kathryn Reese-Taylor, and David Mora-Marín 2002 The Origins of Maya Civilization: The Old Shell Game, Commodity, Treasure and Kingship. In Ancient Maya Political Economies, edited by Marilyn Masson and David A. Freidel, pp. 41–46. Altamira Press, New York.
Freidel, David A., Linda Schele, and Joy Parker 1993 Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand Years on the Shaman's Path. William Morrow, New York.
Girard, Rafael 1979 Esotericism of the Popol Vuh. Theosophical University Press, Pasadena, CA.
Graham, Ian 1975 Naranjo: Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 2, Part 1. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
Guernsey, Julia, and Michael Love 2005 Late Preclassic Expressions of Authority on the Pacific Slope. In Lords of Creation: The Origins of Sacred Maya Kingship, edited by Virigina M. Fields and Dorie Reents-Budet, pp. 37–43. Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Scale Publishers, London.
Guernsey Kappelman, Julia, and F. Kent Reilly 2001 Paths to Heaven, Ropes to Earth: Birds, Jaguars and Cosmic Cords in Formative Mesoamerica. Ancient America 2:1–52.Google Scholar
Hammond, Norman 1991 Cuello: An Early Maya Community in Belize. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Hammond, Norman 1992 Preclassic Maya Civilization. In New Theories on the Ancient Maya, edited by Elin C. Danien and Robert J. Sharer, pp. 137–144. University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
Hansen, Richard D. 1990 Excavations in the Tigre Complex, El Mirador, Peten, Guatemala. Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation No. 62. Brigham Young University, Provo, UT.
Hansen, Richard D. 1992 Proyecto Regional de Investigaciones Arqueológicas del Norte de Peten, Guatemala: Temporada 1990. In II Simposio de Investigaciones de Arqueología Guatemalteca. Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología, Julio 1990, edited by Juan Pedro Laporte, Hector Escobedo, and Sandra Villagran de Brady, pp. 1–36. Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes, Instituto de Antropología e Historia, Asociación Tikal, Guatemala City.
Hansen, Richard D. 1998 Continuity and Disjunction: The Preclassic Antecedents of Classic Maya Architecture. In Function and Meaning in Classic Maya Architecture, edited by Stephen Houston, pp. 49–122. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC.
Hellmuth, Nicholas M. 1978 Maya Archaeology: Tikal, Copan, Travel Guide. Foundation for Latin American Anthropological Research, St. Louis.
Hruby, Zachary X., Helios J. Hernandez, and Brian Clark 2005 Preliminary Analysis of Lithic Artifacts from Holmul, Cival, and La Sufricaya, Guatemala. In Archaeological Investigations in the Holmul Region, Peten, Guatemala: Report of the 2005 Season, edited by Francisco Estrada-Belli. Vanderbilt University, Nashville. Available online at: http://www.vanderbil.edu/holmul.
Kaufman, Terence, and John Justeson 2003 A Preliminary Mayan Etymological Dictionary. Report submitted to FAMSI. Available online at: http://www.famsi.org/reports/01051/index.html.
Joralemon, Peter D. 1971 A Study of Olmec Iconography. Studies in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology 7. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.
Lowe, Gareth W. 1981 Olmec Horizons Defined in Mound 20, San Isidro, Chiapas. In The Olmec and Their Neighbors: Essays in Memory of Matthew W. Stirling, edited by Elizabeth Benson, pp. 231–255. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC.
Matheny, Ray T. 1986 Investigations at El Mirador, Peten, Guatemala. National Geographic Research 2:332–353.Google Scholar
Merwin, Raymond E., and George Vaillant 1932 The Ruins of Holmul. Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 3, No. 2. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
Milbrath, Susan 1988 Astronomical Images and Orientation in the Architecture of Chichen Itzá. In New Directions in American Archaeoastronomy: Proceedings of the 46th Congress of Americanists, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1988, edited by Anthony F. Aveni, pp. 57–80. BAR International Series 454. British Archaeological Reports, Oxford.
Neivens, Niña D., and Francisco Estrada-Belli 2004 Back to Square One: Re-examining the Protoclassic Maya in Building B, Group II, Holmul. Paper presented at the 69th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Montreal, April 4.
Norman, Garth V. 1973 Izapa Sculpture, Part I: Album. Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation 30. Brigham Young University, Provo, UT.
Nykl, Alois R. 1926 The Quinary-Vigesimal System of Counting in Europe, Asia, and America. Language 2(3):165–173.Google Scholar
Ortiz, Ponciano, and Maria C. Rodríguez 2000 The Sacred Hill of El Manatí: A Preliminary Discussion of the Site's Ritual Paraphernalia. In Olmec Art and Archaeology in Mesoamerica, edited by John E. Clark and Mary E. Pye, pp. 75–93. Yale University Press, New Heaven, CT.
Parsons, Lee A. 1986 The Origins of Maya Art: Monumental Sculpture of Kaminaljuyú, Guatemala and the Southern Pacific Coast. Studies in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology No. 22. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collections, Washington, DC.
Porter, James B. 1992 Estelas celtiformes: Un nuevo tipo de escultura olmeca y sus implicaciones para los epigrafistas. Arqueología 8:3–24.Google Scholar
Porter, James B. 1996 Celtiform Stelae: A New Olmec Sculpture Type and Its Implications for Epigraphers. In Beyond Indigenous Voices: LAILA/ALILA 11th Intenational Symposium on Latin American Indian Literatures (1994), edited by Mary Preus, pp. 65–72. Labyrinthos, Lancaster.
Reese-Taylor, Kathryn, and Debra S. Walker 2002 The Passage of the Late Preclassic into the Early Classic. In Ancient Maya Political Economies, edited by Marilyn Masson and David A. Freidel, pp. 87–122. Altamira Press, Walnut Creek, CA.
Reilly III, F. Kent 1991 Olmec Iconographic Influences on the Symbols of Maya Rulership: An Examination of Possible Sources. In Sixth Palenque Round Table, 1986, edited by Merle Greene Robertson and Virginia Fields, pp. 151–166. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Reilly III, F. Kent 1994 Visions to Another World: Art, Shamanism, and Political Power in Middle Formative Mesoamerica. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Art and Art History, University of Texas, Austin.
Reilly III, F. Kent 1995 Art, Ritual and Rulership in the Olmec World. In The Olmec World: Ritual and Rulership, edited by Elizabeth Benson, pp. 27–46. Art Museum, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.
Reilly III, F. Kent 1996 The Lazy-S: A Formative Period Iconographic Loan to Maya Hieroglyphic Writing. In Eighth Palenque Round Table, 1993, edited by Merle Greene Robertson, Martha Macri, and Jan McHargue, pp. 413–425. Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute, San Francisco.
Rodríguez, Maria C., and Ponciano Ortiz 2000 A Massive Offering of Axes at La Merced Hidalgotitlan, Veracruz, Mexico. In Olmec Art and Archaeology in Mesoamerica, edited by John E. Clark and Mary E. Pye, pp. 155–168. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.
Saturno, William A., Karl A. Taube, and David Stuart 2005 The Murals of San Bartolo, El Peten, Guatemala, Part 1: The North Wall. Ancient America 7:1–56.Google Scholar
Schele, Linda, and David A. Freidel 1990 A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya. William Morrow, New York.
Schele, Linda, and Mary E. Miller 1986 The Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art. George Braziller, New York.
Schellhas, Paul 1904 Representation of Deities in the Maya Manuscripts. Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 4, No. 1. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
Seler, Eduard 1963 Comentarios al Codice Borgia, translated by Mariana Frenk. Fondo de Cultura Economica, Mexico D.F.
Sharer, Robert J. 1992 The Preclassic Origins of Lowland Maya States. In New Theories on the Ancient Maya, edited by Elin E. Danien and Robert J. Sharer, pp. 131–136. University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
Smith, Ledyard A. 1982 Major Architecture and Caches. In Excavations at Seibal, edited by Gordon R. Willey. Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 15, No. 1. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
Stone, Andrea 1996 The Cleveland Plaque: Cloudy Places of the Maya Realm. In Eighth Palenque Round Table, 1993, edited by Merle Greene-Robertson, Martha Macri, and Jan McHargue, pp. 403–412. Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute, San Francisco.
Stuart, David 1996 Kings of Stone: A Consideration of Stelae in Ancient Maya Ritual and Representation. Res 29–30:148–171.Google Scholar
Tate, Carolyn E. 2001 The Poetics of Power and Knowledge at La Venta. In Landscape and Power in Ancient Mesoamerica, edited by Rex Koontz, Kathryn Reese-Taylor, and Annabeth Headrick, pp. 137–169. Westview Press, Boulder, CO.
Taube, Karl A. 1992 The Major Gods of Ancient Yucatan. Studies in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology No. 31. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collections, Washington, DC.
Taube, Karl A. 1995 The Rainmakers: The Olmec and Their Contribution to Mesoamerican Belief and Ritual. In The Olmec World: Ritual and Rulership, edited by Elizabeth Benson, pp. 83–103. Art Museum, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.
Taube, Karl A. 1996 The Olmec Maize God: The Face of Corn in Formative Mesoamerica. Res 29–30:39–81.Google Scholar
Taube, Karl A. 2000 Lightning Celts and Corn Fetishes: The Formative and the Development of Maize Symbolism in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. In Olmec Art and Archaeology in Mesoamerica, edited by John E. Clark and Mary E. Pye, pp. 297–338. Studies in the History of Art No. 58. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
Taube, Karl A. 2003 Ancient and Contemporary Maya Conceptions about Field and Forest. In The Lowland Maya: Three Millennia at the Human–Wildland Interface, edited by Arturo Gómez-Pompa, Michael F. Allen, Scott L. Fedick, and Juan J. Jimenez-Osornio, pp. 461–492. Haworth Press, New York.
Taube, Karl A., Zachary X. Hruby, and Luis Romero 2004 Ancient Jade Workshops: Archaeological Reconnaissance in the Upper Rio El Tambor, Guatemala. Report submitted to FAMSI. Available online at: http://www.famsi.org/reports/03023/index.html.
Taube, Karl A., William A. Saturno, and David Stuart 2004 Identificación mitológica de los personajes en el muro norte de la piramide de Las Pinturas sub-1, San Bartolo, Peten. In XVII Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueologicas en Guatemala, edited by Juan Pedro Laporte, Barbara Arroyo, Hector Escobedo, and Hector E. Mejia, pp. 871–880. Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología, Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes, Asociación Tikal, Guatemala City.
Tedlock, Dennis 1996 Popol Vuh: The Maya Book of the Dawn of Life. Simon and Schuster, New York.
Thompson, J. Eric S. 1970 Maya History and Religion. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Tourtellot, Gair, Marc Wolf, Francisco Estrada-Belli, and Norman Hammond 2000 Discovery of Two Predicted Ancient Maya Sites in Belize. Antiquity 74:481–482.Google Scholar
Winfield Capitaine, Fernando 1990 La Estela 1 de La Mojarra. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City.