Notes

1.  Pauketat (2003, 2007) argues against coercion as an explanation for the movement of ancient populations in what is now the southeastern United States, although he sees such relocations as significant components of the creation of new political entities. However, according to Emerson and Pauketat (2002), these same relocated communities (called the Richland complex) are also characterized by resistance.

2.  These titles are evidence against an interpretation of Maya warfare as purely ritualistic. If these wars were purely ritualistic for the purpose of obtaining captives for sacrifice, I would expect the title to be “he of X sacrifices.”

3.  The Classic Maya built landscape was not dominated by fortresses or by easily defensible sites, so it is unlikely that large-scale military action against population centers took place frequently. This changed during the Terminal Classic (Demarest 2006; Inomata 2007).

4.  Sanchez (2005) compares the content of ruler portraits in Maya stelae in public plazas to those on pillars or lintels in more private contexts in palaces or acropolis courtyards. The more public depictions of the ruler, those on monuments, portrayed him as surrounded by supernatural imagery and deities, emphasizing his role as the mediator between humans and supernaturals. Although the more private monuments also depicted the rulers in religious activities, they offered more details about the actors, acts, and paraphernalia involved (264).

5.  Pyburn (1997) groups small shrines together with temple-pyramids. This seems to muddy the waters, as small shrines reflect household-level investments rather than the labor investment of the whole community.

6.  Lucero (2003) points out that royal rituals were appropriated and expanded versions of household practices of dedicating new houses, venerating ancestors, and ritually terminating domestic sacred spaces.

7.  This scholarly interest in legitimacy is born out of the new perspective that states and any system of dominance are fragile and can be fractured by groups with different interests and goals than those of the dominant power. Therefore, what keeps states together or what provides social cohesion has become a central problem of archaeological studies of ancient states.

8.  This does not impede the dominated groups from resisting the elite, as Scott’s (1990) research has shown (71-107).

9.  The only exception would be rapid abandonment of a site, as we see at Aguateca, Guatemala (because of an enemy attack) and at Ceren, El Salvador (because of a volcanic eruption).

10.  Looper and colleagues (2009) place the vase, K791, in this category because it depicts the wayob (alter egos or animal spirits) of half a dozen k’uhul ajaws in contorted positions that are suggestive of dancing.

11.  Vessel K2573 may depict a wedding.

12.  Another vase (Miller and Martin 2004, 36, Plate 7) that was not included in Kerr and Kerr’s Maya Vase Book is also a complex tribute scene involving Tayel Chan K’inich (Tokovinine and Zender 2012), another eighth-century ruler of Motul de San Jose. In the scene on this vessel, he is receiving bundles and stacks of textiles and feathers from two nobles dressed in long capes. This vase is not painted in the Ik’ Polychrome Style.

13.  Other vases, not in Ik’ Style, depict tribute (or booty) together with the presentation of captives. Miller and Martin (2004) include a beautiful example in Plate 105 (187): a visiting war captain accompanied by three warriors and his palanquin are presenting two captives and tribute (two white bundles of cacao, possibly, and stacks of white shells and textiles) to a young ruler seated on a bench, while another lord who is seated slightly higher may be “the head courtier at work, the secretary who controlled access to the king and who organized courtly business” (ibid.).

14.  To better gauge the frequency of tribute scenes in Maya pottery art in general, I searched the entire Maya Vase Database (Www. mayavase. com) for images of “bundle, tribute, cache,” one of the iconographic elements encoded in the database. Although this category is broader than tribute alone, the search produced only 145 vessels in a database that has close to 10,000 vases.

15.  The k’uhul ajaw is not always the main figure in polychrome vessels. For example, K344 shows a scribe seated in the middle of a large throne, accompanied by a smaller individual.

16.  The flapstaff dance is named for the object held in the hands of the dancers, a staff with cloth flaps attached to it.

17.  The ancient Maya thought that dancing, like music and fragrant scents, brought an individual into contact with the supernatural realms. This activity enabled rulers to become the gods whose masks they wore (Looper 2009, 60; Houston and Stuart 1996).

18.  Archaeologists use the term “X-ray costumes” to refer to costumes in which the costume and the individual within the costume were simultaneously visible, similar to the way an X-ray machine reveals concealed things (see Markman and Markman 1989, 70-73).

19.  Looper, Reents-Budet, and Bishop (2009) identify this vessel as an Ik’ Style Polychrome.

20.  Looper, Reents-Budet, and Bishop (2009, 143) identify this ruler as Yajawte’ K’inich, but the absence of glyphs on this vessel make this identification preliminary.

21.  For example, vase K3054 portrays two ladies standing behind Yajawte’ K’inich. The text identifies the first as a royal lady from Tsam, so presumably she is the wife of Yajawte’; the second is identified only as a female ajk’uhuun (Tokovinine and Zender 2012).

22.  Miller and Martin (2004, 27) observe that attendants peeking behind the ruler’s throne were depicted in polychrome vessels so often that they must be bodyguards. Thus, it seems likely that the king was attended by a personal retinue of bodyguards.

23.  Plank (2004) suggests that Yax Pasaj, the final ruler of Copan, was the builder of Structure 10L-22A (140).

24.  A temple assemblage is defined as a temple framed by a colonnaded hall on its left and an oratory to its right and a small platform shrine placed in the middle of the plaza or courtyard facing the hall (Proskouriakoff 1962).

25.  These officials may also have been called ah kulels in other provinces (Ringle and Bey 2001, 270).

26.  Boot (2005) offers the alternative explanation that these murals may depict dignitaries and warriors who were the ancestors of the Chichen Itza paramount ruler and that they hold the God K scepters because they were the previous rulers of Chichen.

27.  Brumfiel notes that monumental art of the Aztec Empire presents females as sacrificial victims or as subordinate to and exploited by males. Thus, this art promotes a negative ideology of the female gender.

28.  There are more females than males in the anthropomorphic figurines at Motul de San Jose. The frequency of females is between 54 and 83 percent, depending on how gender categories are identified (Halperin 2007, Table 7.3). Halperin (ibid.) also identified two figurines representing adults with children, but the gender of the adult is unclear.

29.  I am referring here to elaborate polychromes. Simpler polychromes were found among commoner households also.

30.  The intense competition among the Classic Maya elite is also attested to by the frequent depiction of bodyguards in palace scenes on polychrome pottery (Miller and Martin 2004). Miller and Martin describe the situation: “The Maya court was a place of pomp and splendor, but it was also one of danger and threat. Those fortunate enough to sit on the jaguar cushion kept themselves there by remaining ever vigilant” (27).