Authority (2013)

I have chosen to examine how power relationships are conveyed through art, specifically Classic Maya sculpture. While several different power relationships were conveyed through Maya sculpture, I shall examine the relationships of Maya kings both to their ancestors and the gods as these relationships were of central importance in Maya society.

AJA, 2006

American Anthropologist, 1988

This paper explores instances in the Classic Maya visual record involving the use of iconographic appropriation and glyphic imitation to define, reconfigure, or assert control over group identities. The theoretical perspective of mimesis provides insight into such cases. It is suggested that Maya rulers imitatively appropriated the symbolism of a distinct other, thus contributing to a reconfiguration of social identity. This reconfiguration affirmed the power and sovereign authority of Maya rulers. Particular emphasis is placed on evidence related to the identities of the individuals involved in the much disputed Teotihuacán arrival at Tikal in A.D. 378 known as the entrada. Through a manipulation of symbolic representations by means of mimetic association with the prestige of Teotihuacán, the new order rulers of Tikal metaphorically transformed the symbolic power of a historical event into a new social reality.

Tiempo detenido, tiempo suficiente: Ensayos y narraciones mesoamericanistas en homenaje a Alfonso Lacadena García-Gallo, edited by Harri Kettunen, Verónica Amellali Vázquez López, Felix Kupprat, Cristina Vidal Lorenzo, Gaspar Muñoz Cosme and María Josefa Iglesias Ponce de León, 2018

Abstract: The socio-political structures of the Classic Maya have received considerable attention, especially given the sudden advances made in epigraphy. Textual evidence has shed light on titles, offices and interaction among royal and—to some extent—non-royal elites, creating a differentiated panorama of basic mechanisms of social cohesion and distinction. As important as the contents of text and image are for the historical approach, comparably little attention has been paid to their context, i.e. their social function and use as media of communication. For some time, sculpted monuments have been considered as devices of political propaganda, through which the ruling elites legitimised their status. However, it has frequently been ignored who were the addressees of written and depicted messages and how people received and interacted with hieroglyphs and imagery. The spatial environments of monuments are extremely diverse, ranging from closed and sacred spaces to open plazas, so that we cannot assume that the messages they conveyed were meant for the same group of people. The reception of Maya media occurred not only in diverse spatial contexts, but also in specific social situations. In this article, we explore the relationship between the strategic use of visual media and social differentiation. Certain social actors were consciously included or excluded from the active and passive participation in the monumental discourse. When it comes to non-royal social units, we can distinguish various degrees of integration, dictated by the courtly authority, which reflect different political settings and strategies throughout the Maya area.

Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2022

Open Access Download: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-archaeological-journal/article/cultures-of-creativity-hieroglyphic-innovation-in-the-classic-maya-lowlands/6A472712F99E49898AB9B69232F1B3CF Classic Maya hieroglyphic writing displays a coherence across time and space that points to intensive, sustained communication among scribes about what they were writing and how. Yet we know little about what scribal transmission looked like on the ground or what knowledge scribes were conveying among themselves. This article examines the monumental hieroglyphic corpora from two communities, at Copan in western Honduras and at Palenque in Chiapas, Mexico, to illustrate local processes of innovation and exchange that shaped participation in regional transmission. I argue that distinct ‘cultures of creativity’ developed at Copan and Palenque from local elites’ varying understanding of their position in the Maya world and the nature of hieroglyphic inventions. These case studies attest to the multi-faceted nature of scribal production and exchange within a hieroglyphic tradition that remained largely coherent despite never being centrally administered. In addition, the study's palaeographic methods suggest possibilities for tracing dynamics of cultural innovation and transmission in the ancient past at multiple scales of society.

The Maya and their Sacred Narratives: Text and Context in Maya Mythologies, edited by Geneviève Le Fort, Raphaël Gardiol, Sebastian Matteo & Christophe Helmke, pp. 177-195. Acta Mesoamericana, Vol. 20. Verlag Anton Saurwein, Markt Schwaben, 2009