The k’uhul ajaw of Piedras Negras built their city amid hills and canyons at the edge of the Usumacinta River, which flows northwest from the Guatemalan highlands to the Gulf Coast (W Coe 1959:3) (map P.1, plate 2). Other Maya polities, including Yaxchi-lan and Pomona, were also on the edges of this river, and even more kingdoms, known today as El Peru (or Waka’), Bonampak, Lacanha, Santa Elena, and La Florida, among others, were located on its tributaries and connecting river systems (map I.1). Hieroglyphic texts narrate interactions among these polities, including marriages, celebrations, and battles. The rivers functioned as communication routes for the population of the region, although some parts of the Usumacinta and other rivers in the region are not navigable and require portage (Aliphat 1994:55-56, 180; Canter 2009).
The Piedras Negras emblem glyph was Yokib, meaning “entrance”; correspondingly, a repeating title of the local kings was kuhul yokib ajaw, or “sacred entrance lord” (Houston et al. 1999:16; Stuart and Houston 1994:31) (fig. I.1). Emblem glyphs appeared in rulers’ titles and identified the names of their polities or dynasties. However, the place they inhabited could have a different name, and a Maya dynasty could change locations and inhabit various locations.1 Whereas Yokib was the name of the polity or dynasty at Piedras Negras, David Stuart (2004a) suggests the place may have been called “Paw-Stone.” Stuart observes that this place name was made visible through sculpture, for Altar 4, set in the East Group Plaza, has a tabletop in the shape of a jaguar paw with supports in the form of three-dimensional tuun (stone) symbols. The altar’s components thus form a three-dimensional glyph of the Paw-Stone toponym.
The buildings of Piedras Negras respond to the natural hills and canyons that constitute the landscape. Although many buildings are now fallen—some pried apart by tree roots and gravity and others dismantled by archaeologists—many of the site’s great pyramids still stand, with the tree-covered buildings and swaths of forest offering echoes of the once magnificent city. Nestled into this landscape are architectural forms and open spaces of diverse forms, sizes, and functions. The small buildings and secluded courtyards of the Acropolis would have held only small groups of the royal court or other elite members of the polity.2 In contrast, several expansive plazas could have held the kingdom’s entire population, which may have been around two to three thousand persons in the Late Classic (Houston et al. 2001:87; Houston, Escobedo, Child, et al. 2003:234). Causeways across the hilly topography link the plazas and architectural groups; they would have been used both for mundane travel and ceremonial processions.
Lofty pyramids grow out of the landscape’s natural hills. Some pyramids rise more than twenty meters above their stone-faced platforms, and the deep ravines that divide the architectural groups increase the structures’ apparent height and mass (Linton Satterthwaite, cited in Morley 1937-38, 3:9). On top of the pyramids are small shrines, the floors and walls of which bear traces of ceremonial fires burned within these rooms.
Epigraphic studies over the last fifty years have revealed the partial biographies of eleven rulers who reigned over the polity from the fifth to the ninth century (Houston 1983; Houston, Escobedo, and Webster 2008; Martin and Grube 2008:139-53;
Map I.1. The Usumacinta River region, showing the Usumacinta and other waterways. Courtesy Precolumbia Mesoweb Press.
Proskouriakoff 1960; Stuart 1998b) (fig. I.2). Some rulers’ Maya names have been deciphered, but others are known only by modern designations or nicknames.
The chronology and biographical details of the early rulers remain sketchy. The first three, the fifth-century Rulers A and B and the early sixth-century Yat Ahk I (nicknamed “Turtle Tooth” by some scholars), are known only from retrospective texts from Piedras Negras and its neighbor, Yaxchilan.3 Following Yat Ahk I was Ruler C. His name does not survive, but one of his monuments does: he was the patron of Panel 12, the site’s earliest extant sculpture. We have much more information for the other seven dynasts, now known as Rulers 1 through 7 or by the transliterations of their hieroglyphic names, most of which include the name ahk, or water turtle (Houston et al. 2001:69). Most are named as the child of an earlier ruler, for succession, as at other Classic period Maya sites, was hereditary, with some exceptions (see Webster 2000:86-87).
Each ruler had a personal name but took a regnal name upon accession (see Houston 2009). At Pie-dras Negras and other polities, it was common to repeat regnal names, although they usually skipped a generation. For instance, Ruler 1’s name was K’inich Yo’nal Ahk, and two of his successors, Rulers 3 and 5, took this name; today they are known as K’inich Yo’nal Ahk I, II, and III. Ruler 2’s name has been deciphered as Itzam K’an Ahk; he is known as Itzam K’an Ahk I, and his namesake, Ruler 4, is called Itzam K’an Ahk II (Houston 1983; Houston 2004:276; Houston, Escobedo, and Webster 2008; Martin and Grube 2008:139-53).4 This naming system broke down in the late eighth century, for Ruler 6, called Ha’ K’in Xook, did not use a dynastic name (Houston, Escobedo, and Webster 2008). He reigned only a short time and may have abdicated (see Houston, Escobedo, Child, et al. 2000:107; Stuart 2004a: 1). His successor, Ruler 7, or K’inich Yat Ahk II, reused the name of the early sixth-century ruler Yat Ahk I (Houston et al. 2001:70).
The Yokib rulers were lords of the sun. They were called k’in ajaw or used the k’inich (sun-faced) title; they celebrated solar-year anniversaries of their birthdays and accessions (Mary Miller, personal communication, 2010); and the cyclical repetition of time, stela
Figure I.2. Piedras Negras rulers and reign dates, adapted from Houston, Escobedo, and Webster (2008); Martin and Grube (2008:142, 148); Teufel (2004:fig. 2.3.2-1). Drawings by Nikolai Grube. Courtesy of Nikolai Grube.
Erection, and commemoration of period endings followed the model of the cyclically renewing sun. Both their stelae and altars guided performances to honor living and deceased rulers and at the same time emulate solar movements. These performances included circumambulation, east-west movement that modeled the sun’s perceived daily journey, and the ascent of temples that re-created the sun’s rising at dawn.
World History
