Structure II

Like many other important Preclassic Maya temples. Structure II is a triadic construction (Figure 9.4a). The structure, measuring 140 meters to a side and

Rising to a height of 55 meters, is one of the largest buildings in Mesoamerica extensively occupied during the Classic period. Early Classic modifications to the building did little to change its fundamental appearance. But beginning in the middle of the eighth century, an important building program forever altered the original Late Preclassic triadic pattern of the temple-pyramid. At this time, the Early Classic masks of Structure II were buried, a large central staircase was raised, and Structures II-B, II-C, and II-D were built on the northern edge of the platform. The construction of these superstructures, which served as a palace complex, altered the basic function of Structure II. Somewhat later, a series of crude rooms were built on the facade of Structure II. Thus, in the late eighth and ninth centuries, Structure II was both a sacred temple and a secular residence.

Structure II-B originally consisted of three vaulted, parallel rooms. During the Terminal Classic period, the inner space was divided, creating a total of nine rooms (Figure 9.4b). The building once supported a stuccoed and painted roof comb. The front two rows of rooms (Rooms 1-6) in Structure II-B were used for food preparation, cooking, and sleeping. Each room contained two or more hearths and at least one trough-shaped metate fragment (Folan, Marcus, Pincemin et al. 1995: 317). More metates and hearths were found outside Structure II-B and on the platform associated with the center stairway. A few hearths were found in the darker recesses of Rooms 7-9, but no evidence for food preparation was found, presumably because these rooms are farthest from light and ventilation. Sleeping benches with niches were discovered in Rooms 1 and 6, Room 8 contained what may be a ceremonial altar with Rfo Bec-style niches, and Room 7 was a sweat bath. A small stone slab found in situ in this room was used to seal the restricted entrance (Folan et al. 1989, Folan, Marcus, Pincemin et al. 1995: 317-318).

A Terminal Classic burial was found beneath the floor along the south side of Room 5. It contained an adult male in supine position oriented with his head toward the east. All the bones were articulated, but his tibiae and femora had been removed (Coyoc Ramirez 1989a, 1989b; Folan, Marcus, Pincemin et al. 1995; Pincemin 1999, 1994; Tiesler Bios et al. 1999). Burial goods included a metate fragment covering the cranium, a bone needle and imitation stingray spine, and a small stone. Two vessels, a tecomate placed inside a dish, also were recovered. The dish is of Fine Orange ware and is similar to the Terminal Classic type Provincia Piano-Relief (Ball 1977a: 101; Forsyth 1983: Figure 32gg; 1989: 124, Figure 50g; Smith 1971: Figure 9d). The tecomate, assigned to the type Tinaja Red, contained a cord covered in red pigment and a small cloth bag enclosing bone fragments and ash (Folan, Marcus, Pincemin et al. 1995: 318-319; Pincemin 1989).

A series of small, crudely built masonry rooms were added to the north facade of Structure II at the end of the Late Classic and in the Terminal Postclassic period (Figure 9.4b). Activities such as preparing nixtamal, cooking, serving and consuming food, weaving, stone knapping, and shell working are demonstrated by the stone tool kits, ceramics, faunal remains, and lithic and shell debitage recovered as in situ floor assemblages (Dominguez Carrasco et al. 1996, 1998a, 1998b; Folan et al. 2001). These assemblages have allowed the identification of activity areas.'* A concentration of Spondylus debitage in Facade Room 7 is evidence that shells were worked somewhere near this midden. Facade Rooms 9, 42, 43, and 53-58 contained hearths, cooking vessels, and metates. For this reason, we have identified them as food preparation areas. Large storage vessels found in open patios were used for storage and perhaps for the collection of water. Facade Rooms 36-42 tentatively have been identified as sleeping quarters. Fine stone tools, including obsidian instruments, encountered in situ in Facade Rooms 50-51 and 59-62, suggest that detailed precision work was carried out by the occupants of these rooms. Spindle whorls and obsidian blades found together in sets in Facade Rooms 34 and 58 indicate that these spaces may have been places where textiles were produced. Rooms 25-26 contained large quantities of partially worked bone and shell beads as well as fine stone tools. Numerous resharpening flakes from chert bifaces had accumulated in Rooms 59 and 62, consistent with their use as lithic production loci or temporary disposal sites. Similarly, 7,000 chert waste flakes were recovered from a floor context in Room 61. Finally, crude lithic instruments, deer antler billets, and discarded cores were found in association with animal bones on the floors of Facade Rooms 44, 65, and on the lower patio. During this final occupation, tons of ash containing domestic and household production waste were deposited at the base of Structure II, further demonstrating the daily use of a structure that had once served a purely sacred function.

Importantly, the floor assemblages from the Structure II rooms demonstrate production activities traditionally associated with both men and women. We therefore suggest that the building was occupied by one or more extended families. It is difficult to imagine that so much garbage would have been stored for long periods in occupied rooms. Hence the debris, particularly lithic debitage and other dangerous waste material, is indicative of the final use of the structure shortly before its abandonment in the tenth century (cf Clark 1991).

The rooms on the north facade of Structure II stand in stark contrast to the structures surmounting the pyramid. With the exception of food preparation in the front of the Structure II-B elite residence and to the sides of Structure II-A, there are few indications of production activities on top of the platform. Despite significant functional changes to other parts of the building, Structure II-A served as a temple throughout the Late Classic and Terminal Classic periods. Most of the ceramics associated with Structure II-A were polychrome serving vessels; no cooking vessels were found in the temple. Significant quantities of elite serving wares also were present in Structure II-B, but as predicted by the numerous hearths and metates in this building, utilitarian ceramics were more numerous. The rows of rooms constructed on the north facade of Structure II, on the other hand, contained very few imported finewares. We therefore interpret these lower rooms as places where artisans, servants, and less important elite lived and conducted everyday activities during the Terminal Classic period. In contrast. Structures II-B, II-C, and II-D constituted a palace compound. Structure II-A, at the summit of the pyramid, continued to serve as an important temple, with access limited to those elite living in the palace compound.

At the time of abandonment in the tenth century. Structure II was still undergoing renovation. In particular, the stair leading to Structure II-B was being rebuilt, as was the upper stair leading to Structure II-A. The inner floor of the temple was being replastered, and several plaster-covered earthen additions at the rear and west side of Structure II-B were under construction. These ongoing construction projects, the accumulated debris in occupied rooms, the deliberate placement of metates in inverted positions, and the careful storing of obsidian blades, cores, and projectile points in niches, all suggest to us that the final abandonment of Structure II was sudden but orderly, and that the Terminal Classic occupants planned to return.