We divide the Yaxuna Terminal Classic into two phases, Yaxuna IVa (a. d. 730900) and IVb (a. d. 900-1250; see Suhler, Ardren, and Johnstone 1998; Suhler 1996). The difference between the two lies in the political affiliation and ceramic assemblage of each phase: Yaxuna IVa is the Puuc/Coba/Cehpech occupation while IVb is the Chichen Itza/Sotuta occupation. Yaxuna IVa represents the best-documented occupational phase at the site, with some evidence in almost every excavation undertaken. In addition to reutilized mound groups and structures, there are also new Yaxuna IVa constructions that span the structural range: singleroom, ground surface foundation braces; multistructure residential groups; multiroom, multistory palaces; and defensive works. Additionally, Yaxuna IVa architecture is the first to exhibit clearly Puuc characteristics: core-veneer masonry, decorative columns, decorated moldings, specialized “boot-shaped” stones for vaulting, modular cornices, mosaic stonework, as well as extensive use of flagstone flooring (Pollock 1980). To date we have mapped over 600 structures at the site. Analysis of surface ceramics collected during the course of our investigations shows that perhaps as many as 75 percent of the mapped structures had Yaxuna IVa occupations. Because the great majority of these structures are now rubble piles marked by wall lines, excavation is required to posit anything more than a rough chronological assessment that may or may not prove correct.
As previously mentioned, slate ware finishes and forms are known from at least the late Early Classic at Yaxuna and Ek Balam. It is not until Yaxuna IVa, however, that we see a quantitative and qualitative shift in the occurrence. The mechanisms for the en masse arrival of this new ceramic technology are not fully understood. However, we do know that our most robust samples of these earliest Yaxuna IVa types are found at North Acropolis Structure 6E-68 and Structure 6F-8. Here they are marked by western peninsula forms and surface finishes, exhibiting such early and western hallmarks as slippered, hollow feet and distinctive forms such as those illustrated in Robles and Andrews (1986: Figure 3.5). As time passed, these western traits began to drop out of the Yaxuna IVa inventory as the ceramics became more and more like those of Coba, eventually arriving at the point where large portions of the two sites’ inventories are virtually the same.
The transition from Late Classic Yaxuna III to Terminal Classic Yaxuna IVa was not peaceful and the violent disjunction between the two periods is apparent in the archaeological record. This is especially true in the North Acropolis, where our excavations have revealed hostile Yaxuna IVa activity centered on Yaxuna III monumental architecture. We now review the evidence for this transition, beginning with the buildings of the North Acropolis.
THE YAXUNA IVA TERMINAL CLASSIC The North Acropolis
We have not found evidence of a Yaxuna IVa-sponsored destruction event at Structure 6F-3/2nd at the end of Yaxuna III, even though we know the building continued to be used during the Yaxuna IVa occupation phase. We can only surmise that a fourteen-meter-tall building with a centuries-long tradition of political accessions (Suhler 1996) at the apical point of the monumental center continued to prove useful for such purposes. We surmise that the Yaxuna IVa lords would have crafted any destruction or ritual desecration at this locale with an eye toward transfer of power and continued use of the building. This is in marked contrast to the substantial destruction and desecration carried out at immediately adjacent and contemporary Structure 6F-4/2nd. There are several possible reasons for this differential treatment. Perhaps the small stone building constituting Structure 6F-4/2nd was elite residential, rather than ritual, space and was connected to the particular people who were being conquered in this event. Alternatively, the locus of 6F-4/2nd had been previously subjected to severe destruction when the gallery there had been trenched along the centerline. Thus, the people burning the small building may have wanted that side of 6F-4 to remain utterly ruined and abandoned because they were connected to the people who had carried out the original trenching. We return to 6F-4 below. Yaxuna IVa construction at Structure 6F-3 was limited to the building of a staircase (A) over the Yaxuna III Stair B (Structure 6F-3/lst). The Stair A side walls were formed of square (ca. 30-meter), well shaped, and pecked Puuc-style veneer facing stones, tying this construction to other Terminal Classic (Yaxuna IVa) building activity in the North Acropolis. Additionally, the ceramics from the Stair A fill were primarily Terminal Classic Coba types, again assigning construction of Stair A to this period. This staircase was never finished, leading us to believe it was begun late in the Yaxuna IVa phase.
At structure 6F-4, as noted above, we found extensive evidence for hostile treatment of the building at the hands of the arriving Yaxuna IVa inhabitants. Like other violent times (Suhler 1996) in the history of antecedent Structure 6F-4 construction episodes, the Yaxuna IVa-sponsored destruction began by negating the existence and power of the previous structure.
The northern and western sides of Structure 6F-4 were subjected to a variety of terminating activities. In the Yaxuna III masonry room improvised from the western end of the late Early Classic vaulted gallery (Figure 20.6), the desecra-tors dug holes into the floors and burned fires inside. The intense heat blackened, spalled, cracked, and discolored the floors and subfloor fill and blew out large portions of wall stones, creating an oval, concave area.90 meter wide, 1.4 meters high, and.20 meter deep at its center. Following this burning, the vault was intentionally collapsed into the room.
The final construction atop Structure 6F-4 proper was a Yaxuna IVa masonry altar built against the southeast exterior comer of the Structure 6F-4/2nd Yaxuna III upper terrace bench and room. The construction technique was pure Puuc—the walls were two courses of Puuc-style veneer masonry blocks (Figure 20.7). The polished plaster surface had been blackened by repeated exposure to heat. Within the box we found a concentrated matrix of organic material, charcoal, small rocks, and sherds, all extensively burned. The constmction material surrounding this burned matrix did not, however, exhibit any evidence of the discoloration or spalling associated with burning. Therefore, some object com-
Posed of organic material, possibly in a ceramic container, was burned at an unknown location, placed in the box, covered with unbumed stones and smaller rocks and gravel to the top of the box, and capped by packed marl and polished plaster. This masonry box is a dedicatory feature, an altar built at the beginning of Yaxuna IVa to terminate the Yaxuna III occupation of the North Acropolis while heralding Yaxuna IVa.
The people of Yaxuna IVa also terminated the Yaxuna III Structure 6F-8, located a little over thirty meters to the south of Structure 6F-4. Our relatively small area of investigation revealed a hole dug through the floor on the building’s southern exposed wall prior to the collapsing of the vaults (Figure 20.8). We believe that evidence from Yaxuna and other Maya sites shows the cutting of floors to represent a desecratory act along the continuum of Maya ritual practice. To the almost immediate north of this hole, the Yaxuna IVa Maya left more concrete evidence of termination activity. A ten-centimeter-deep by eighty-centimeterwide ash deposit was laid against the interior northern wall. A tightly concentrated assemblage also lay against the wall: Artifacts included ceramic vessels (whole and fragments), faunal remains, obsidian blades, and a chert biface, all badly burned (Figure 20.9). In fact, the heat in the burned area was so intense that it discolored the ten-centimeter plaster floor from top to bottom, much like the terminations in Room 1 of Structure 6F-4.
1 meter
Face Tefroce Extension on Top of Terrace Level 5 Retaining Walk
South Face Masonry Box
20J 6F-4, Yaxuna IVa masonry box.
Believed coeval with the construction of the Yaxuna IVa Structure 6F-4 altar mentioned previously was Terminal Classic Structure 6F-68, built onto the southern end of Structure 6F-4. Excavations below and behind Structure 6F-68 revealed cut floors, truncated vertical surfaces, and then naked dry core fill, all
Interior North Wall 6F-8
Cut in Floor 1
20,8 Yaxuna IVa 6F-8 destruction.
Indicating the removal of extant architecture prior to construction of the Terminal Classic building. The building is a three-room vaulted structure built using a mixture of Yaxuna III cut stone, load-bearing interior masonry walls, and Yaxuna IVa Puuc-veneer construction on the exterior facade and interior vault. The superstructure itself sat atop a thirty-centimeter-high decorated building platform, or
Yaxuna, Op. 48 Termination Materials Against North Wall on Top of Floor 1
2 cm
20.9 6F-8 termination deposit materials.
Plinth. The decorations on this plinth indicate that it was a lineage house, or “popol na” (Suhler 1996), first defined at Copan (Fash et al, 1992).
Structure 6F-68 contained the great majority of our most truly western Puuc Cehpech ceramic types. That fact, along with the mixed architecture, suggests it is one of the earlier Yaxuna IVa buildings, built in the early to middle eighth century. It also shows that when the Puuc contingent arrived at Yaxuna, it comprised an organized presence, complete with the organs of council and rule.
World History
