Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens: Deciphering the Dynasties of the Ancient Maya

241 Pages·2008·36.588 MB·English

by  Simon Martin, Nikolai Grube

CHRONICLE OFTHE

Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube
CHRONICLE OF THE
KINGS QUEENS
AND
D EC IPHERING THE DY N AS TIE S
O F THE A N C IENT MAYA
SECOND ED ITI ON
with 366 illustrations. 86 in color
.f~ Thames Hudson
&
In memory of Linda ScIJeJe
CONTENTS
(1942-1998)
pages 6-7
Preface:
Discovering the Maya Past
pages 8-23
Introduction:
pp. 8-9 Maya History - The Major Periods
On the cOI'cr (front and back): llntcl24 p. 10 Map
from Temple 13, shoWIn!; [tzamnaal pp. 11-13 Maya Writing and Calendars
Bahlam III and his will' Lady K'ahal
pp. 14-16 The Royal Culture of the Maya
Xook. The Trustees of the British
Museum. pp. 17-21 Classic Maya Politics
pp. 22-23 Comparative Tirnelincs
24-53
(Half·tille) This J'OrlTalt of onc of the
Tlkal kings called Chak Tok 1ch'aak is TlKAL
inCised mto the lid of a ceramic plate.
HIS elaborate headdress is a hieroglyphic The great crucible of Maya civi/izat ion, TikaJ's immense rn,'nsro/1oI!
spelhng 01 his name.
an BOO-year dynastic history that Tan the gamut from regional
(FronU5piece) Ceramu; hgurlne depicting ascendaIlcy to abject defeat
an archetypal Maya kmg, here wearing
the headdress of the MeXican War
54-67
Serpent. Jam;r.lsbnd, 11.0600-800, Musco
NatIonal de Anuopologia. Mexico City, PILAS
Founded by the nkal exile Bailm Chlln K'awiil,the [D:~O;;S:'~~;',~::~
Cl WOO and 2008 Thames & Hudson Lld, rook the Ilame of its mother city nkal and fought a r
London
wars against it
All R1r,bls Reserved. No pari of thIS
pubhul10n may be reproduced or 68-83
transmitted In any form or by any
me.ms, electrOnic or mechamcal. NARANJO
mdudmg photocopy, recordmg or any
other mforrnauon swragc and re!T]eva) A kingdom rarely free from foreign attack, Naran;o en;oy"';:d~:t;!::
5y~tem, WLthout pnor permLssion In success under the 'warrior queen' Lady Six Sky and her {
writing from the publIsher.
son K"ahk' Tiliw Chan Chaak
Flts! pubhshtd In '2.000 In the
Untied States of AmenCll by
84-99
Thames & Hud50n Inc, 500 Fifth
Avenue, N"w York, New York 10110
thamcsandhud!;Qnuu .cOln
t~;:,:~:~;E,:,~~:~~:J;';;'~;~;;:'::';~~~
Playing a significant part in
$(,oond ~d,tlOn 2008 6th century AD, the Cameol dynasty control1ed
LLbrary of Congru5 Catalog Card
100-115
Number '2.oo790SS34
'm'"
ISBN 978-0.500.'2.8726.'2.
EnJoying a 'golden age' of over 130 years, the kingdom of the
Pnnted and bound In Slovema by eclIpsed its arch.rival Tikal to create the most important poJiOl<iII
MKT J'nnt d.d
hegemony coverillg a great swathe of the Maya realm
pages 116-137
YAXCIIILAN
A brief but sparkling florescence dUring the 8th century /law Itzamnaa,
Bahlam III and his son Bird faguar IV reshape the physical proMe
of their clly
pages 138-153
PlEDHAS N EGHAS
Monuments here provided the clues that unlocked Mayo history, and
Piedras Negras kings were the first to emerge/ram a thousand
years 0/ obscurity
pages 154-175
PALENQUE
Home to the spectacular tomb 01 fanaab Pakal, Palenque combmes
artistic splendour with recurring dynastic failure
pages 176-189
TONINA
The images 0/ bound captives that dominate Tonina's hillside capital
are testament to the militaristic ambitions 0/ warrior kmgs such as
Baakna/ Choak
pages 190--213
COPAN
Remarkable discoveries in recent years have contributed to a new
historical understanding of this artistic innovator ac the edge of the
Mllya world
pages 214-225
QUIRIGUA
In a story of rebellion and transformation, Quirigua /reed itself from
domination by neighbouring Copan and went on to cre(lte
monumental art of unprecedented scale
pages 226-230
Epilogue: Fall of the Sacred Kings
pages 231-236
Notes and Bibliography
page 237
Acknowledgments and U1usuation CreditS
pages 238-240
Index
6 r REfACE.
lhe monuments themselves, ~'Wntling lIS they do
Of the mora I eI f cc ol .
Ill/he de pl hs oI a "' Ollieal forest. silent and. solemnI . stranhg e In design,
''re rich in ornament. dIfferent rom t e works of
PREFACE: exce 11 em It! scu Ip ... . .
'heir uses arId purposes and whole hIstory so entirely
/lnyot he r peap Ie , _ .
DISCOVERING THE "h hi'eroglyphics explammg all but perfectly
1111 k nOW1I, WJ .
, ll' bl, I ,hall not prctend to convey any ldell.
MAYAPAST umme 19l •
Those art: the words of John Lloyd Stephens, the A!~lerican ~iplomat,
, I' , ,nd "ploler who in 1839, together with English artist
lQUena IS...' .
Frcderick Catherwood, was one of the first outSiders to penetrate the
rainforests of Central America. What the pai.r had encountered were the
remains of ancient Maya civilization, which had lain smothered by
vegetation, derelict and abandoned for almost a thousand years. Built by
the ancestors of the modern Maya ~ who live today where they did in
ancient times, in the area now covered by Guatemala, Belize, the
eastern portion of Mexico and the western extremities of Honduras and
El Salvador _ no other culture in the New World has aroused such
In thIS ~!mospheric. but also highly Intense interest or posed so many puzzles.
accur~te lithogr~ph by Fredenck
Initially, scholars preferred to attribute Maya wonders to
Catherwood. we s« Copan S!cI~ D and
its accompanying 'zoomorphie' altar. Phoenicians, Israelites or Atlanteans, but even after their indigenous
Both were commissioned by the kmg
origins had been established, ideas almost as fanciful took their place.
WUlklajuun Uhuh K'3wiil In N) 736.
The ancient Maya were now a people without precedent,
unworldly pacifists who worshipped time itself. Their great ruins
were not cities but empty 'ceremonial centres', simply stages
where priest·astrologers performed awe-inspiring rituals for a
peasantry scattered in the forest. The monuments carried ponraits
of priests and their gods; the hieroglyphs - less a form of writing
than a clumsy aide m/!moire - encoded only numerology, star-lore
and incantations. All these misconceptions were shattered in the
early 1960s. Propcr mapping revealed that, far from being empty,
the ruins were the cores of dispersed cities with populations that
could run into tens of thousands. More decisively still, in a few
key articles Tatiana Proskouriakoff demonstrated that the carved
figures were actually kings and queens and that the inscriptions
included biographies of their lives and names of the captives they
had seized. At a stroke, the Maya had become an historical people.
Recent dccades have seen an ongoing revolution in our
understanding of the Maya, as archaeological research has
burgeoned throughout the region and tremendous progress has
been made in deciphering the writing system. The 'breaking' of the
Maya code, though still incomplete, has offered unique insights
into Maya thought and society, ranging from grand visions of the
cosmos to the pragmatic structure of government. Although the
challenges arc considerable - monuments and their inscriptions
have often been shattered by tree-fall or eroded by centuries of
tropica) downpour - the reward is the chance to peer into an
otherWise lost anna) of Precolumbian America.
DI~COVE.RINC: THE. MAYA PAH 7
--------------------------------~
The Maya were never politically unified and dunng the heIght of the
Classic period lAD 250-9091 were divided into a patchwork of more than
60 kingdoms. Each mled by a 'holy lord', they were locked 10 a constant
struggle to preserve their autonomy or achieve dominance over their
neighbours. Especially successful rulers might establish themselves as
'overkings' operating far.flung networks of political patronage - but Ull!
In
turbulent landscape no kingdom achieved a permanent hold on power.
In Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens we examme I I of the
most influential and best-known kingdoms, and the dynasties that did
most to shape the highpoint of Maya civilization. Behind the vast ruing
of Tikal and Calakmul lie the stories of two of the most important,
implacable rivals whose competition had an influence on the whole
region. But much smaller sites such as Dos Pilas have fascinating tales
of their own. Created by the Tikal exile Bajlaj Chan K'awlIl,
L[
represented a 'splinter statt:' traitorously in league with Calakmul. HIS
daughter Lady Six Sky, onc of very few ruling queens, went on to
establish a new dynasty at distant Naranjo, securing her realm with a
determined series of conquests. One of the more dramatic changes of
fortune too~ place in the far east. Copan's Waxaklajuun Ubaah K'awiil
presided over his city's grcatest flowering of art and cuhure, but met hiS
end in decapitation at the hands of a former vassal, the king of little
Quirigua. Great rivals for supremacy in the west, Tonina and Palenque
This example of Early ClassIc
produced rulers of contrasting style. The former's Baaknal Ch3ak is
poruaiture depkts one of the Tihl kings
called Chak Tok lch'aak, identified by now best known for his relentless warring, the latter's Janaab Pakal for
the hieroglyph painted in his headdress. the unparallelcd grandcur of his burial.
YCI, for all its vigour, splendour and high culture, the world of the
divine kings ended in a spectacular fall. By the early 10th century AD the
royal dynasties were gone, populations had slumped dramatically and
the greatest cities were 3bandoned to the forest. Our survey concludes
with a look ,It the latest evidence about this enigmatic episode and the
shadowy Postclassic era that followed it.
Carved jade stones, such as this fine
example found at Nebaj, were highly
pri~ed by the Maya nobility. Here wc see
an enthroned ruler gestunng towards a
COUrt dwarf.
I~TROOUfi,~-r~I~O~NC- -=============~--------------------------------~::::~~:-'"
8 ____________
The chronology of Mesoamerican civilization - following on from an
Archaic period of hunter-gatherers - is traditionally divided into three
INTRODUCTION: eras: the Preclassic, Classic ~md Postclassic.
MAYA HISTORY
2000 250
THE PRECLASSrc: BC AD
THEMA10R
The Preclassic lor Formative) covers the emergence of complex societies
PERIODS
and is itself divided into three major sub-periods: the Early (2000-1000
se), Middle 11000-400 BC) and Late (400 BC-AD 250). The first great civi
lization, the Olmec, developed in the Early Pn:classic along the Swampy
estuaries of the Mexican Gulf Coast. Regarded by many as the 'mother
culture' of Mcsoamerica, Oimec concepts and art-styles spread far
The first ponralts of Maya rulers
emerged dunng the Late Prec!assic. beyond their homeland and were a major influence on emerging Maya
KaminaJiIlYu Slcla 11 shows one
societies. The Olmec were the likely inventors of writing in the New
wcaring the mask of the sky god
il::.:lmnnj, Itself topped by the leaf· World, but the idea was to achieve full expression in separate hiero.
cro ...., ncd 'Iester God', a royal patron with
glyphic traditions developed by the Epi-Olmec, inheritors of the Olmec
Olmec ongms.
heartland, the Zapotec of the mountainous Oaxaca region, and the Maya.
By as early as 500 BC, the Maya of the Central Area were establishing
their first major cities, raising at their cores great red-painted temple
platforms decorated with ornate Stucco god masks. Nakbe was among
the first, but was ultimately superseded by El Mirador, which grew to be
the largest concentration of monumental architecture ever built by the
Maya. The smaller centre of San Bartolo has recently produced spectacu
lar murals demonstrating that Maya mythology and writing were in
place by around 300 BC, and concepts of kingship by at least lOO BC. The
Southern Area of highlands and coastal piedmont were also home to a
range of precocious Maya societies, centred on important cities such as
Kaminaljuyu and Izapa.
The core characteristics of the following Classic civilization - the use
of the Long Count calendar, the carving of hieroglyphic inscriptions and
accompanying historical portraits - reflect the rise of a new political ide
ology and ideal of dynastic kingship (pp. 11- 13; 17). In the Maya region
these features first make their appearance in the Southern Area at El Baul
and Takalik Abaj between AD 37 and 126, although other regions, espe·
cially the precocious Central Area dominated by El Mhador, may yet
prove to be pan of this movement. For reasons as yet unclear societies in
both these regions experienced a dramatic decline between AD 150 and
200, and most of their largest cities were abandoned.
250-909
THE CLASSIC: AD
It was over the next six centuries or so _ predominantly in the Central
Area - that Maya civilization reached its greatest florescence, forging the
landscape of kingdoms examined in this volume. Surviving Preclassic
centres were ioined by a good number of new settlements, and a range of
social developments began to produce a distincti ve culture. Yet the Maya
were never isolated from developments in central Mexico, which by
MAYA HISTORY - THE MA[OR PUlIOOS 9
now was dominated by the vast melropolis of Teotlhua
can, housing alltS peak mOTt: than 125,000 people. Few If
any parts of Mesoamerica were to be unaffected by its
cultural, political and economic might; and LtS character
istic, rather angular style of art and architecture can be
found in all Maya regions. Contacts were at theLr mOSt
direct during the 4th century AD, when Kaminaliuyu was
revitalized under heavy Teotihuacan influence, and a
swathe of the lowlands came, if only bnefly, with m its
political ambit.
The year 600 marks the Iransition between the Early
and Late Classic periods Itoday mostly defined in terms
The huge eity of Teotihu;l.ean, high In of art style), roughly coinciding with the fall of TeotLhuacan. The Late
the Valley of Mexico, exerted a powerful
Classic saw Maya civilization reach its peak population, greatest social
influence over the Classic Maya. Among
its many cultural exports perh"ps the complexity and artistic and intellectual high point. Yet this success did
best known IS Ihe archlte<:tural slyle not endure and as early as 800 there are signs of significant distress:
called IlJlud-/Ilblero. Amply illustrated
dynasties begin to collapse and population levels suffer a precipitous
in this view of central Tcolihuacan,
platform fa~ades were m"dc up of decline (foT fuller treatment of these and later events see the Epilogue pp.
alternatmg levels of sloptng batter aod 226--7). This traumatic era, a sub-period known as the Terminal Classic,
projecting paoels, once brilltaody
ends with the last recorded date in the Long Count calendar in AO 909.
painted.
The crisis was not immediately reflected in the north, however, where
cities such as Chichen Itza and Uxmal show growth at this time.
THE 909-1697
POSTeLASSIC: AD
By the dawn of the Early Postclassic (909-1200) Maya popu\ations were
largely concentrated in the Northern and Southern Areas, with the old
Central heartland only sparsely inhabited. Chichen Itza continued as a
regional power in the north, now showing close tics with the new
masters of central Mexico, the Tollecs. The hybrid Maya-Mexiean archi
tecture of Chichen reflects its cosmopolitan make-up, while historical
sources tell of its wide political influence. The succeeding late Postclas
sic (1200-1697) witnessed Chichen ltza's decline and its ultimate
replacement by Mayapan. This lesser imitator held sway over at least
some of Chichen's former domain until internal discord caused its aban·
donment around 144\. In the Southern Area, the lalter stages of the
Classic had seen large-scale movements in population, with western
arrivals creating a new series of statclets. The most powerful of these
were the K'iche' (formerly Quichel, though by 1475 they were being over
taken by their former vassals, the Kaqchikel (Cakchiqucl).
The Postclassic came to an end in Mexico with the fall of the famed
Aztec Empire to Spanish invaders and their native allies in 1521. But
Maya resistance proved stubborn and it was only with difficulty that the
Spanish brought the southern communities to heel in 1527 and their
northern brethren largely by 1546. Maya kingdoms in the isolated forests
of the Central Area proved more dogged still, and held out unlll then
final conquest in 1697.