Temporal controls

When undertaking an analysis such as this there needs to be awareness that temporally and spatially disparate

Figure 2.7. Examples of Maya Archetypal Building Groups in Accordance with Andrews (1975). Drawing of Palenque Palace by Merle Greene Robertson (1985b, fig. 1), reproduced with the permission of Merle Greene Robertson. Drawing of the Principal Group Copan modified after Fash (1991: fig. 8).

Sculpture cannot be compared indiscriminately. The gradual accumulation of sculpture over time, including extension and renewal of building groups, affects the capacity of sculpture and associated architecture to provide information about relationships. It was for this reason that measures were taken to provide some temporal control over the investigation to assure that any correlation made among sculpture, architecture, and associated spaces was both appropriate and meaningful.

Structures and associated sculpture were sorted to reigns of kings to confine the periods investigated whilst providing a way of inferring the intention of different rulers in the placement of certain sculpture within specific spatial contexts. Graham Fairclough (1992), in a study of Edlingham Castle, Northumberland, broke a continuous sequence of architectural development into three main periods. Applying access analysis, the objective of Fairclough’s study was to understand the effects of “warfare on Anglo Scottish marches and the development of the northern tower house and related traditions” (Fairclough 1992: 357). Similarly, the Palace at Palenque (as it appears today) was the result of a sequence of architectural development implemented over the reigns of consecutive rulers at Palenque. More specifically, the structures occupying the second terrace of the Palace alone represent approximately 180 years of architectural and sculptural development beginning during the reign of K’inich Janab’ Pakal I (a. d. 615-683) and ending during that of Wak Kimi Janab’ Pakal III (a. d. 799-?) (see Chapter 4, Architectural and Sculptural Programs of the Palenque Palace Group).

Arguments concerning intent in the architectural design of the Palace are based primarily on the interpretation of monumental art and the conscious choices made by rulers as to the context of its placement. As has been noted for Tikal, Uaxactun, and Copan, “many of the architectural patterns... documented at [Maya sites]... can shed light on the issue of the ideological and political strategies put to work by different dynasties and rulers in their respective dynastic building programs” (Fash 1998: 224-225) - a view that I hold for Palenque. General questions of interest are as follows: (1) What motivated the positioning of informative sculpture at various levels of common and elite accessibility? and (2) What are the differences between the information being transmitted within these different spatial contexts? With these objectives stated, it is acknowledged that it remains difficult, when analysing the iconographic content of monumental art from different periods, to discern elements that may represent changes in the artist and those that represent changes in the subject of the art. The advantage of an intrasite study of motifs, however, is that “variables of time are controlled, making more reliable the discovered regularities, continuities, and changes. Furthermore, comparisons of different forms manifested in the same contexts lead to the discoveries of equivalencies and oppositions which... may be used for the construction of a lexicon of images, whose value is provisionally restricted to the site under study” (Baudez 1986: 17-18).