The sculptures of Piedras Negras function together in several ways, including as tableaux and as series. An examination of sculptural groupings from other sites, how those sculptures worked together, and the ways people may have viewed or experienced them can shed light on how arrangements of stelae from different generations at Piedras Negras might have functioned.
The Classic Maya installed some sculptures in groups upon their creation. One example from Palenque is the assemblage of the Tablets of the Scribe and of the Orator, which were arranged in the palace flanking either side of a throne where the Tablet of the 96 Glyphs was set (Porter 1994) (fig. 3.7). Each tablet depicts a kneeling person who faces the other tablet and the living ruler enthroned between them. The man portrayed on the Tablet of the Scribe gestures toward the center, and the man on the Tablet of the Orator, identified as a captured Piedras Negras sajal, has a speech scroll emerging from his lips that connects to a second-person caption. The two figures thus communicate with each other and to the living, enthroned ruler (Houston, Escobedo, and Webster 2008, citing Guenter and Zender 1999; Houston and Stuart 1998:88; Houston, Stuart, and Taube 2006:74-77).
Figure 3.7. Palenque Tablets of the Orator and Scribe, limestone. Architectural reconstruction by Kevin Cain, INSIGHT, after Stephen D. Houston. Courtesy of Kevin Cain and Stephen D. Houston. Drawing of Tablets of the Orator and Scribe by Linda Schele, © David Schele, courtesy Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc., Www. famsi. org.
A live, enthroned ruler thus became part of the sculptural tableau and further activated the dialogue between the sculptures. Another person—perhaps an adviser, visitor, penitent, captive, or performer—also may have participated by reciting the inscribed caption aloud to the enthroned ruler, thereby sharing the deferential role of the depicted captive. Cues in the panels—including hand gestures and speech captions, in tandem with their positioning—guided the sculptures’ reception, and the participation of living people further activated these sculptures.
Figure 3.8. Yaxchilan lintels, a. Lintel 24. b. Lintel 25. c. Lintel 26. Lintel 24 photograph K2887 and Lintel 25 photograph K2888 ©Justin Kerr. Lintel 26 photograph by Thomas F. Aleto. Courtesy of Thomas F. Aleto. CONACULTA-INAH-MEX. Reproduction of Lintel 26 authorized by the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia.
This assemblage makes explicit the interactive nature of Maya monuments. As argued in the previous chapter, some—if not all—sculptures impelled people to move, circumambulate, or do something else to interact with them. The Palenque assemblage may be a useful model for considering Piedras Negras sculptures and their engagement with one another. In some arrangements, the Piedras Negras monuments look toward one another and thus are located within the y-ichnal—or field of view—of other sculptures. Although Houston and Stuart (1998:88) have suggested that sculptures’ fields of view were deactivated when their eyes were pecked out, the stelae’s physical arrangements suggest otherwise. The proximity and intervisibility of multiple stelae remained in the service of dialogue, witnessing, and validation, with the sculptures functioning as witnesses to other monuments within their y-ichnal. Moreover, the altered sculptures still were present for engagement with the people who, inspired by sculptures’ physical qualities and interactive properties, stood before them, approached them, or walked around them.
Another type of multi-sculptural arrangement evokes episodes of a narrative over time. The eighth-century Yaxchilan Lintels 24, 25, and 26, for example, installed in the front doorways of Structure 23, relate a story whose complexity is revealed only upon considering the three lintels together (fig. 3.8). The lintels convey multiple episodes of a connected narrative in which Lady K’abal Xook lets blood, conjures the War Serpent, and gives a jaguar headdress and shield to her husband, Itzamnaaj Bahlam III. Each scene portrays a moment in a ceremony, and together they produce a narrative that unfolds across the sculptures. These could have taken place in sequence, for bloodletting may conjure the War Serpent who presents warfare implements that Lady K’abal Xook gives to her husband. However, the temporality of this account is extended when the texts of all three are read and seen together, for they specify that the rites took place on three occasions over forty-five years (Tate 1992:204-208).
In contrast to the Palenque assemblage of the Tablets of the Scribe and of the Orator, the Yaxchilan lintels form not a tableau but a series. They can be seen individually, but the material and presentational aspects of the three lintels—including their comparable sizes and installation in adjacent doorways—guide the viewing of them together. When read together, a larger narrative unfolds, such that their stories become more complex and expand across time. They remind us how important narrative and storytelling—both through texts and images—were for the Classic period Maya. Indeed, scribes and sculptors at Yaxchilan and elsewhere experimented with narrative complexity in single images or texts, in series of images or texts, and at the intersection of text and image.
The Yaxchilan lintels were made for one building, but their mode of reception applies to sculptures that were made at different times but set in physical association with one another. Each new sculptural dedication changed the meaning of others before it. Regardless of when each was made, sculptures in physical arrangements gave people opportunities to read or perform them in multiples and expand their narratives and chronology.
The two models, tableau and series, involve different modes of sculptural operation and viewing. In the tableau, monuments interact with each other through their living qualities and imputed capacity to see, breathe, and act. They also are activated through the mediation of people who place themselves amid sculptures
And participate in witnessing and dialogue. A series, on the other hand, is less about sculptures communicating with each other than about the expansion of narrative. As multiple sculptures are viewed and read together, they invoke larger cycles of time and history. But the models are not mutually exclusive, for sculptures could be activated as both tableaux and series, as I suggest for those in the Piedras Negras South Group Court.
In sum, the history carved on Maya sculptures was intertwined with the monuments’ materiality, vitality, sacrality, ceremonial roles, and interaction with other monuments, the surroundings, and living people. As argued in chapter 2, circum-ambulation was an important type of engagement with individual sculptures. Movement was likewise crucial in the experience of multiple sculptures together. Whereas some connections across sculptures could be experienced through sight alone, others required people to move. As argued for single sculptures, moving among multiple monuments—including circumambulation around courts or processions up pyramids or between architectural groups—amounted to religious practice as well.
World History
