Was Maya Administration Bureaucratic?

To understand if the Classic Maya political administration was bureaucratic or not, we can examine if it had the characteristics of the early modern to modern bureaucracies described above: hierarchical organization, payment of officials through salaries, strong monitoring systems and/or strong sanctions against disobedience, recruitment based on merit, public administration, and an impersonal ethos.

Epigraphy and art has enabled us to understand that the Classic administration was both civil and ecclesiastical and that it was hierarchical. The hierarchy consists of the following political titles, from the highest to the lowest: k’uhul ajaw (the divine lord), ti’sakhuun (highest priest and speaker of the ruler), ajk’uhuun (royal priest, scribe, teacher), yajawk’ahk’ (fire’s lord, warrior, and fire priest), sajal (governor of secondary center), and lakam (collector of tribute and of military contingents in towns and/or cities) (see Figure 5.1). But is this administration bureaucratic according to the definitions of Weber and Kiser and Cai?

First, I consider the recruitment methods Classic Maya polities used. Ideally, bureaucracies will select officials based on merit only. But because the hieroglyphic titles for Maya subsidiary administrative positions name elites (Houston and Stuart 2001; Sharer and Golden 2004; Zender 2004), it is clear that recruitment was patrimonial rather than based on merit. This does not mean that merit could not enter into the decision process; rather, it means that individuals had to be chosen among candidates within a particular elite rank, if not of a particular elite lineage or house. This type of administration was likely hard to control and it would have been difficult to centralize power because the officials (whether they were secular—for example, sajals—or ecclesiastical, for example, ajk’uhuuns) are lords (for example, Aj Sul and Chak Suutz’) who had a great deal of power based on their social status and economic wealth (Foias 2007; Foias and Emery 2012). For one thing, they didn’t have to obey their overlord unless it was in their interest to do so or unless heavy negative sanctions existed to ensure that the k’uhul ajaw was not disobeyed.

This does not deny that merit also played a role in the selection of ancient Maya administrators because, for example, the accession to the position of yajawk’ahk’ was closely tied to the capture of one or more opponents on the battlefield. However, eligibility for the higher ecclesiastical offices (ajk’uhuun and ti’sakhuun) was not explicitly tied to merit, and favoritism seems just as likely. The archaeological and epigraphic evidence from Palenque and Copan speaks to long traditions of priests from the same elite families beginning in the Middle Classic and continuing to the end of the Classic period, which weighs in favor of the importance of inherited status in recruitment (Zender 2004). But nepotism did not rule recruitment completely either, because officials such as sajals were generally not selected from the ruler’s direct family. This is suggested by the findings of Munson and Macri’s (2009) network analysis of Late Classic Maya political relationships: “Lineage-based relations are significantly inversely correlated with subordinate statements” (433). However, once an individual was named to a particular political position, that office remained with his or her lineage for a long time, as suggested by a shell plaque whose owner exalted himself as the 19th sajal of a small subsidiary site somewhere in the region of the Usumacinta River and the Lacandon rain forest (Miller and Martin 2004, 191-92, Plate 107).

Another feature of bureaucracies as defined by Weber and Kiser and Cai is a powerful form of monitoring and strong sanctions for wrongdoing or disobedience. The ability of rulers to control their bureaucracies increases with better monitoring technology, and strong sanctions discourage wrongdoing among members of bureaucracies. Without modern communication technologies such as surveillance cameras, radios, television, and satellites, monitoring among the Classic Maya was low. Obedience could be checked through the frequent visits of the kings to their secondary centers or by frequent communication between the capital and secondary centers. We have some evidence for royal visitations of administrative centers, including the celebrations of rituals at close intervals at Dos Pilas, Aguateca, and Seibal by the Late Classic rulers of Dos Pilas in the Petexbatun region. The establishment of twin capitals in the Petexbatun region (first Tamarindito and Arroyo de Piedra in the Early Classic and then Dos Pilas and Aguateca in the Late Classic) may have served the similar purpose of increasing the ability of the ruler to monitor the doings of the members of the state administration (Houston 1993). However, we don’t have evidence that visits or written communication between the k’uhul ajaws and his sa-jals and other lower administrators were frequent. It is possible that such communication did take place but was written on materials that would not survive the tropical climate of the Maya lowlands. Unless such paper documents existed, the Classic Maya kings did not put much emphasis on monitoring.

When monitoring technology is weak, bureaucratic obedience is generally reinforced by heavy sanctions or punishments, as was described for the Qin Empire. However, in the case of the Maya, we have no evidence for heavy sanctions (such as the death penalty for disobedience or loss of socioeconomic status through imprisonment), at least in the hieroglyphic texts that survived. Heavy negative sanctions are closely tied to coercive means of control and they often turn out to be double-edged swords that cause unrest, disenchantment, and possibly rebellion (as it happened in the case of the Qin; see Kiser and Cai 2003). It seems unlikely that they would have been very common among the Classic Maya because we have no evidence for prison facilities, major groups of slaves, or individuals with major loss of socioeconomic status.

We know little about the type of payment Maya officials received. Scholars even argue whether the Classic Maya used a type of currency. During the Postclassic, Yucatecan Maya may have used cacao beans or marine shell pieces or beads as money. A more bulky form of currency (and hence less useful) could have been a particular length of cloth. Bundles of cacao beans or cloth are depicted or named as tribute payments in the Bonam-pak murals (Miller 1999, 172) and on polychrome vases (Stuart 1995; Foias 2002); these may represent Classic period forms of currency. However, it is difficult to extend these hints about the currencies used in the tribute/ tax system to the manner of payment of Maya administrators. There is no statement in the hieroglyphs of salary payments to any of the subsidiary officials. Taschek and Ball’s (2003) interpretation of the minor center of Nohoch Ek as a lord’s manor suggests that land grants rather than salaries may have been used. Additional research is needed, especially in view of the fact that elaborate elite plaza groups such as Nohoch Ek were common across the Maya lowlands.

A third feature of modern bureaucracy is its hierarchical organization. The hierarchical distribution of Maya settlement has already been mentioned as the first hint that political organization during the Classic period was hierarchical (see Chapter 4). For example, the settlement patterns in the Motul de San Jose polity exhibit a ring of minor centers at two to five kilometers away from the capital, suggesting that they functioned as secondary administrative centers that reported directly to the Motul rulers. Although this is not a very developed hierarchy, Motul itself is only a small center in Central Peten and may have not needed an extensive hierarchy to administer its small territory.

When we shift our focus to larger centers, such as Palenque, the complexity of the political hierarchy, as reconstructed from hieroglyphic inscriptions, is distinct. Here, we have significant epigraphic evidence to help us. The Palenque texts refer to at least four levels in the political hierarchy. Below the divine lord, or k’uhul ajaw (level 1) is the ti’sakhuun (level 2), who has jurisdiction over several sajals (level 3), who in turn have several ajk’uhuuns (level 4) (Zender 2004). Zender’s deciphering of these ecclesiastical titles is key to reassessments of the Classic Maya political-ecclesiastical administration, which now appears to have been more hierarchical than was previously thought.

The fourth characteristic of a modern bureaucracy is the presence of public administration. This is difficult to discern in the Classic period. Here, I can only make an impressionistic evaluation and point to assessment of this issue as a future research goal. One way to gauge whether or not an administration is public is the presence and scale of storage facilities in central state locations. We see such central storage facilities in the sacred precincts of fourth-millennium Sumerian city-states, in the Inca provincial capitals, and at Cuzco itself. But in spite of decades of scientific archaeological excavations in the Maya lowlands, no large facility has been found at a Classic center (Triadan 2000). Rather, storage is small scale and occurs at the level of the household, both large and small. This suggests that administration, or at least the intake of tribute, was integrated with the affairs of the ruler’s household.

Another way to assess the presence of public administration is by looking at the degree of separation between the state administration and the king’s household. Webster (2001), Houston and Stuart (2001), and Prudence Rice (2009) view the royal household as the core of the political administration, suggesting that there was little to no separation between the public arena of state administration and the private arena of the ruler’s family. But a final clue suggests that some aspects of Maya administration were public. Tribute payments (or gifts?) are associated with the priestly offices of ti’sakhuun and ajk’uhuun (who may or may not have been members of the ruler’s direct family) in carved or painted images on stone monuments and pottery vases. This suggests that tribute collection was at least in part a public event that was witnessed by individuals outside the ruler’s household. All in all, the evidence here, meager as it is, is quite mixed.

My comparison of Classic Maya administrators with early to modern bureaucracies shows few similarities, although more research is clearly needed. Unlike modern bureaucracies, recruitment among the Classic Maya was mostly based on descent, and positions were awarded to aristocrats (with the possible exception of the lakams). As we saw at Palenque, titles remained within the same noble families for generations. However, like modern bureaucracies (and many nonbureaucratic political administrations), the Classic Maya administration had a hierarchical organization. It is unclear, however, how well developed this hierarchy was. We recognize four levels at Palenque but only two (or possibly three) at Motul de San Jose (see further discussion for this site below). Unfortunately, we have very little or mixed evidence about the other features of modern bureaucracies (types of payment; monitoring and sanctioning; public versus private administration), so these characteristics may have been undeveloped or underdeveloped in Classic period administration.

New evidence about two central features of Classic Maya administration provides support for the argument that it was nonbureaucratic. First, it was a political-ecclesiastical administration in which priestly titles were interwoven with political positions. As described above, several sajals at Palenque became yajawk’ahk’s in AD 610 under the sponsorship of their superior, the ti’sakhuun K’ab’is Aj Sik’ab (Zender 2004, 307). Second, the relationship between officials and their superior patron was very personal and extended beyond the death of the patron. Both of these characteristics contradict arguments that Classic Maya administration was bureaucratic.

Was Bureaucratization a Strategy of the Classic Maya?

Although the evidence presented above suggests that the Classic Maya political administration was not bureaucratic, bureaucratization could be seen as a process rather than as a fait-accompli. Bureaucratization could have been a strategy used by political actors (elites and less likely nonelites) to promote their interests and power. Kiser and Cai (2003) note that bureaucracy (once developed) is “partly a strategy for rulers to increase their power in their ongoing struggle with aristocrats” (517; see also Eisen-stadt 1993).

Here, I define the process of bureaucratization as the creation of new political offices to administer and maintain control over state affairs. By placing non-elite or low-elite individuals in these new positions instead of older or more established aristocrats, the ruler creates for himself a new group of followers, clients, and supporters. This strategy is found among other ancient states and empires (Eisenstadt 1993), such as in the shift in ancient Egyptian bureaucracy from the exclusive arena of the elite class to commoners. Another example comes from the Roman emperor Augustus, who began to rely on equestrians (lower elites) rather than senators (high elites) for his officials (Doyle 1986; Garnsey and Saller 1987).

LeCount (2004, 2005) has argued that we can see such a strategy archaeologically in Actuncan in Belize. There, large plaza groups, presumably the residences of members of dominant elite lineages or houses, declined at the same time that new courtyards were established and flourished. This happened at the time of the evolution of Maya kings in the Protoclassic period during the first two centuries AD. The owners of the new households probably flourished because they were given political power by the rising kings, presumably as his officials.

The most significant evidence for bureaucratization comes from the subsidiary titles that concentrate in the Late Classic (the apogee of Maya civilization in the southern lowlands). The variety of such titles suggests that rulers were creating new offices, perhaps in an attempt to garner a loyal following (Houston 1993; Houston and Stuart 2001; Foias 2007; Houston and Inomata 2009, Figure 6.5; Munson and Macri 2009). Alternatively, Houston and Inomata (2009, 172) posit that we find concentrations of subsidiary titles in the Late Classic because subsidiary lords had acquired sufficient power and wealth by the Late Classic to give them the right to immortalize themselves in texts and art. The rarity of such titles at Tikal and Calakmul may be because “sumptuary codes and their enforcement were particularly strong” in these cities (ibid.).

Lacadena (2008) has suggested that the rare Late Classic title of lakam may refer to new political positions, and possibly positions for non-elites, and may also signify the beginning of a process of bureaucratization during the Late Classic. However, there are not many occurrences of this title, although interestingly enough, one of them refers to the Motul de San Jose ruler Tayal/Tayel Chan K’inich (ruled ca. 720-740), who is depicted with three lakams on vessel K4996 (Tokovinine and Zender 2012; Lacadena 2008) (see Figure 5.4).

I have argued elsewhere that the florescence of artistry in the Late Classic that is seen in elaborate polychrome vases, carved stone monuments, and other carved, incised, or painted artifacts was partly because of the rulers’ attempts to gain more power by sponsoring artists from loyal lineages to create more of the accoutrements needed to sustain power or to give as gifts at political events (Foias 2007; Halperin and Foias 2010). From the perspective of the newly appointed artists and officials, their status increased because of the masterpieces they created or the positions that they held. But these positions or titles also tied them to or made them dependent on the political system. In other words, the new officials and artists gained more political influence and status by accepting the new posts. The ruler also created future competitors for himself with these new appointments, a process that could have led to increasing competition, conflict, and political fragmentation. These are precisely the processes that were responsible for the Classic Maya collapse in the southern lowlands (Fash 1991; Houston and Stuart 2001; Demarest 2006).

Adanez and colleagues (2009, 2011) have proposed that Maya states may have moved toward bureaucratization during the Late Classic because this is when we see architecture dedicated only to administrative functions (called basal platform groups) for the first time. These basal platform groups consist of small to quite large platforms on top of which one or a few non-religious structures are built. These groups involved additional labor investment because they sit on platforms. Also, these platforms do not include many structures, which may suggest that most of the area on the basal platform was reserved for political rituals or for perishable structures (possibly for storage of tribute).7 Adanez and colleagues associate basal platform groups with the newly deciphered title of lakam because that title may have referred to low-level officials of districts or neighborhoods. Using Tikal as the example, Adanez et al. (2009) contrast basal platform groups with plaza groups that include shrines, generally on the east side (called Plaza Plan 2). As these shrines are usually dedicated to the burials of important ancestors, possibly lineage founders, the authors argue that the second type (Plaza Plan 2) were the residences of the heads of lineages, clans, or houses, the basic social units of Maya society. Ninety-six of these Plaza Plan 2 groups were found in the nine-kilometer-square area of central

Tikal. In contrast, Adanez and colleagues identified only 28 basal platform groups, which they feel were solely administrative in function. The distribution of the basal platform groups shows that their possible area of influence (or control) encompasses between three and six Plaza Plan 2 groups, using the Thiessen Polygon approach (Adanez et al. 2009, 15). The area of influence of each basal platform group may represent a small neighborhood or district within Tikal.

Surprisingly, no basal platform groups have been excavated at Tikal, but outside Tikal six examples have been explored at Chau Hiix in Belize. They appear to have been occupied by middle-status groups that were involved in crafting activities, not administrative functions (Cook 1997; Adanez et al. 2009). Thus, these groups do not support the hypothesis of Adanez et al.

Supporting evidence comes from minor sites in the Belize Valley: X-ual-canil, Nohoch Ek, the Plantain Group at Chaa Creek (lannone 2003; Connell 2003, 2010), and Group Atayala at Baking Pot (Conlon and Moore 2003; Adanez et al. 2009), all of which can be considered basal platform groups.

To bring into relief the likely administrative role of X-ual-canil, lannone (2003) compares it with Zubin, another nearby middle-level site. Zubin was a typical minor center with several temple-pyramids (including an eastern ancestor shrine with as many as 10 graves) arranged around two large open plazas and a smaller and more private residential palace with several lower multi-room elite buildings (which Mayanists call range buildings). In contrast, X-ual-canil’s center consisted exclusively of low buildings, some residential and some possibly administrative, but no temple-pyramids. However, X-ual-canil had a ball court and a causeway with an attached terminus complex, where politico-ritual activities or performances would have taken place. As lannone points out, these are “features more commonly associated with upper-level settlements” (16-19). The causeway terminus complex includes “a relatively small performative platform (15C) fronted by both a stela (Stela 1) and an altar (Altar 1)” (19). Iannone underscores the architectural distinctions between Zubin and X-ual-canil:

Zubin’s emphasis on rituals associated with an eastern ancestor shrine therefore allies it with many other social groups that were striving to initiate and maintain ties to lineage land holdings [during the Late Classic]____In contrast, the failure to exhibit an eastern shrine struc

Ture [at X-ual-canil] . . . implies that ancestor-related ritual activity was not imperative to X-ual-canil’s claim to land. Rather, the absence of these features and activities suggests that the inhabitants of X-ual-canil were sanctioned by another, more firmly established political unit. (Ibid.)

The inhabitants of X-ual-canil drew their power over land not from ancestors who had lived in the same area before them but from the rulers of a nearby polity (presumably Cahal Pech, according to Iannone). X-ual-canil’s residents would thus function as attached personnel or low-level officials for the ruler of the primary polity. This scenario is supported by the fact that the architecture of X-ual-canil is surprisingly massive considering the sparse supporting population around the core. This suggests that labor was extracted from beyond X-ual-canil and supports the theory that the role of this site was administrative (25).

Iannone argues that X-ual-canil had several administrative structures in its core, Structures 1A and 4A on the Main Plaza (20). For example, Structure 4A has a broad frontal staircase and two small interior rooms (one anterior and one posterior) with large “throne-like” benches. In contrast, Zubin may have only one such building (A3) that is located in a structurally similar position as X-ual-canil’s 4A. However, the administrative function of these structures is still questioned as only two features suggest it: the extremely small size of the interior rooms and the broad exterior staircases.

The residential groups in the core of X-ual-canil and Zubin also show contrasts. In X-ual-canil’s south palace group, only one structure had features that would indicate that it functioned as a residence, while the other three lacked internal divisions, artifacts, or benches and may have had played an administrative role. (Iannone postulates that these may have been storage facilities, but the absence of artifacts speaks against such a hypothesis [19]). In contrast, Zubin’s residential structures (Structures A4 and B8) lie at the north end of its core and frame the eastern shrine. The major difference between the residential “palaces” of these two sites is that X-ual-canil’s are completely separate from the public spaces of the core, while at Zubin they are tightly connected to the public spaces. Iannone concludes that X-ual-canil exhibits “a distinction between the institutions of kinship (residential) and kingship (administration, processions, and the ball game)” (20).

The differences in the functions of the two sites are reflected in their divergent artifact assemblages. X-ual-canil has a “significantly smaller number of artifacts” than Zubin, evidence of less intense, shorter, and more restricted activities at the former site (21). In addition, Zubin has both caches and burials, while X-ual-canil does not. The offerings found in the caches and burials at Zubin suggest a sub-elite status for its inhabitants, while the absence of such deposits at X-ual-canil supports the interpretation that its residents drew their power not from kinship but from their position in the political administration. Iannone comments that “although. . . great effort [was made] to create the stage for large processions and ceremonies at X-ual-canil, the normal practice of conducting dedicatory and termination rituals to sanctify this sacred space does not appear to have been required” (ibid.).

A final feature of X-ual-canil also suggests that its role was administrative: a complex drainage system, consisting of reservoirs, check dams, and drainage channels used to accumulate water for irrigating agricultural land at the bottom of the hill on which the site sits. This system originates close to the ball court and the causeway terminus (23). Phosphate testing has confirmed that this zone was used for agriculture; it revealed high levels in the soils. Single housemounds are found in association with large water reservoirs that contained more water than the small resident population needed, so “it seems plausible that the mounds housed individuals specifically involved in the controlled collection and diversion of stored water” (24). The absence of extended family households (evidenced by very few plazuela groups with multiple housemounds) at X-ual-canil also suggests that this settlement had a distinct function. It is possible that the solitary housemounds are what is left of the homes of individuals brought to X-ual-canil for the express purpose of managing the water system built at this site as part of an attempt to control local agricultural production (24-25). Iannone and his team have documented agricultural terraces along the northwest base of the site hill, evidence that fits well with the theory that the water system was used for agricultural production (24).

To summarize, Zubin and X-ual-canil are very different sites. Zubin provides “a quintessential example of a residential corporate group. . . or heterogeneous household” that was mainly involved in agriculture. X-ual-canil was an administrative site “built to integrate an already extant farming population into a broader microregional alliance, possibly the one centered at Cahal Pech” (25). The integration of the population around X-ual-canil was done on two levels: on the political level through administrative personnel and on the ideological level through ritual. Iannone notes that “the two primary ritual features at the site, a stela/altar complex at the [causeway] termini and a ballcourt, are associated with the heads of two principal drainage channels. It seems plausible that fertility rituals were carried out in association with these features. . . [creating a] sacred landscape” (ibid.). Iannone contends that the upper elites from Cahal Pech (or whichever capital controlled X-ual-canil) visited the site frequently and that the permanent residents were sub-elite administrators (or managers): “It seems plausible that the inhabitants of X-ual-canil were full-time, or even part-time (rotating), site managers who were primarily responsible for the collection, storage, and redistribution of agricultural produce, and that the more courtly administrative and ritual tasks were conducted by [higher] elite authorities who did not inhabit the site” (ibid.).

The special features of X-ual-canil are very reminiscent of the causeway termini complexes around Caracol, which have also been described as administrative in purpose (A. Chase and D. Chase 1996, 2003; see also the discussion in Iannone 2003, 25). X-ual-canil is also similar to the Plantain Group at Chaa Creek, a minor center in Xunantunich’s periphery (Connell 2003, 2010). The basal platforms and elaborate architecture both at X-ual-canil and in the Plantain Group at Chaa Creek required substantial labor investment. They both lack pyramidal shrines where ancestor veneration could take place (see Connell 2003, 39). Connell argues that Nohoch Ek, another minor center a few kilometers west of Zubin and X-ual-canil, also functioned administratively.8 It was characterized by the same features: “collections of low structures, a few narrow-range buildings on raised platforms, a lack of pyramidal temples, and low densities of both ritual and domestic items” (ibid.). Another feature most (but not all) of these allegedly administrative groups shared is the presence of small rooms that are cell like and that have been called audiencias in the archaeological literature (39; see also Taschek and Ball 1999; Yaeger 2010).9 Yaeger (2010) also mentions such audiencias in the royal palace compound in Plaza A-III at Xunantunich. These archaeologists generally interpret these small rooms as storage spaces for goods that were received as tribute or were to be given as gifts (Connell 2003; Yaeger 2010), but they could have served other functions, such as offices for sajals or ajk’uhuuns.

Although more excavations of the basal platform groups need to be done, the evidence from these examples suggests that the Classic Maya had a specific type of architectural plaza that may have had administrative functions. These examples are all from the Late Classic, supporting an argument that the complexity of Maya administration was increasing over the course of the Classic period.