Spatial Orders in Maya Civic Plans (Wendy Ashmore and Jeremy A. Sabloff) (2002)

SPATIAL ORDERS IN MAYA CIVIC PLANS

Wendy Ashmore and Jeremy A Sabloff

Allciellt civic cellters nlillerialize ideas ofproper spatial organiZillioll amollg the Maya as ill other societies We argue that the position and arrangement of ancielll Maya buildillgs alld arenas emphatically express statements about comlOlogy and politishycal order At the same lime the clarity (foriginal spatial expression is (lften blurred in the sites we observe archaeologically Factors responsible lJT such blurring include multiple other inluellces 011 plannillg and spatial order pmmineltly the politishycall(fe history (Ira civic cellTer Specifically we argue here that cellters with relatively short and simple political histories are relatively easy to interpret spatially Those wilh longer development but relatively little upheaval numtest more elaborate but relatively robust and intemally consistent plans Sites with longer and more turbulellt political histories however materialize a more complex cumulative mix ofstrategies and plausibly therefore (f varying planning principles invoked by sequent ancient builders We examine evidence for these assertions by reference to civic layouts at Copan Xunalllunich Sayil Seibal and Tikal

Ell los antiguos celllros civieos Ie materialiwn ideas aeerca de la organizacion espacial adeeuada talllO entre los mayas como entre otras sociedades En este estudiose propane que la ubicacioll y la disposici()n de alltiguos edificios y espacios abiertos mayas expresan elfliticamellle ideas respecto a la cosmologia y el orden politico AI mismo tiempo la claridad de la expresidn espllcial origillala melludo es ditusa en los sitios arqueolOgicos debido a muchas otras influencias en la pllneacion y el ordell espaciales sabre todo la historia de la vida politico de eada celllm clvico Especffjcamellte propollemos que los eentros que timen historias politjcas corlllS y simples son relativamentefliciles de interprerar espllcialmente mientras que aquelos COIl dellIrrolos mas proshyIOllgados aUllque COIl agitaeilJll poitjea limiada preselllan ulla plalleacitill imerna mas elaborada y relativamellte fuerte Sill embargo en los llselltamienros COli hisarias politicas largas y mas turbulelltas se materializa ulla mezcla mas compleja de estrateshygias y presumiblemellte ell collseeuencia quienes los construyeroll se basaroll ell ula ampia variedad de principios de plalle(lcion En este estudio exploTllmo~ las evidellcias parafulldamenrar estas propuestas refiriellda a la disposicio1l civica de Copan XUllllnshytunieh Sayil Seibal y Tikal

R ecognizing and interpreting spatial order has a long and rich history with inquiries from varied perspectives and many disciplines

(eg Eliade 1959 Lawrence and Low 1990 Rapoport 1982 Rykwert 1988 Ucko et al 1972 Wheatley 1971 Willey 1956) Like our colleagues in other disciplines archaeologists the world over are paying increased attention to symbol and meaning in the landscape and the built environment to the range of meanings inscribed on architecture and space and to the means available for inferring those meanings (eg Ashmore 2()(x) Ashmore and Knapp 1999 Bender 1993 1998 Bradley 1993 2()(x) Fritz 19781986 Houston 1998 Kowalski 1999 Lekson 1999 Townsend 1992) Such meanings are freshyquently identified as cosmological or political or both as inferred from local analogy or from more general cross-cultural and theoretical treatises (eg

Bradley 2000 Emerson 1997 Hegmon 1989 Whalen and Minnis 200 I) Local history and social memory mold the perpetuation or alteration of any particular place and its meanings (eg Ashmore 2000 Barrett 1999 Basso 1984 1996 Bradley 1993) The factors identified as shaping civic plans specifically are similarly complex and likewise freshyquently highlight ideational sources (eg Benson 1980 Carl et al 2000 Steinhardt 1986)

For the ancient Maya as for many other peoples it is increasingly clear that maps of civic centers evince considerable planning and meaningful arrangement in the placement of buildings monushyments and open spaces Because the arrangement we perceive was often the result of centuries of growth and changing spatial design structure in the cumulative whole is less immediately clear than it appears in the orderly grid of Teotihuacan whose

Wendy Ashmore - Department of Anthropology University of California Riverside CA 92521-0418 Jeremy A Sabloff- University of Pennsylvania Museum 33rd amp Spruce Streets Philadelphia PA 19104-6324

Latin American Antiquity 13(2)2002 pp 201-215 Copyrightcopy 2002 by the Society for American Archaeology

201

202 LATIN AMERICAN ANTIQUITY [Vol 13 No2 20021

master plan was laid down at the outset in the citys history Even for Teotihuacan however the sources of the initially discernible order and its meaning are proving ever more complex as investigation proshyceeds (eg Cowgill 2000 Sugiyama 1993) In this paper we describe two such sources for Maya spashytial patterning

Our most fundamental guiding assumption is that the position and arrangement of civic construction was anything but random From that base we assert that the spatial expressions of Maya cosmology and of Maya politics constituted the most prominent ideational foundations for planning and acknowlshyedge that many factors have affected the clarity with which such foundations may be discerned today from archaeological site plans Prominent among these factors are the length and turbulence of local politishycal histories which exemplify the critical roles ofhis shytory and social memory in shaping the archaeological record we observe To illustrate these points we disshycuss evidence from Copan Xunantunich Sayil Seibal and Tikal (Figure 1)1

Two further points are crucial in considering our assertions First our intent is programmatic and our conclusions provisional That is our argument is less about the details of site-specific inferences and more about urging increased field inquiry into ideational models for ancient urban planning Second we readshyily acknowledge that ideational factors do not account for all patterning evident in Maya civic plans Again our contention is that more research is needed to establish the mix of ideational social environmental economic engineering historical and other sources in observed architectural forms and arrangements

Sources of Ancient Maya Civic Spatial Order

Ancient cognition figures prominently in many intershypretations of ancient Maya architecture Orientation of individual buildings is often linked to astronomshyical phenomena for example and these may be tied in tum to hierophanies or other manipulations of light shadow and monumentality to constitute politshyical celebrations of figures such as Bird Jaguar III of Yaxchillin or Pacal the Great of Palenque (Schele 1977 Tate 1985 compare Brady and Ashmore 1999) Taking a different analytical perspective Peter Harrison (1994) has argued that at Palenque and in the Central Acropolis of Tikal particular geometric relationships account for the position and orientation

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of successive constructions Vogrin (1989) makes somewhat similar arguments for other sites includshying Copan and Quirigua

Here our focus is the layout of aggregates ofbuildshyings civic precincts and indeed whole sites We identify two potent sources of spatial patterning at these scales Maya concepts of directionality and political affiliation through emulation of civic archishytecture at more revered or powerful places

Studies ofdirectional position and orientation recshyognize the pervasive and enduring Maya organizashytion of space according to cardinal directions often including a center point and sometimes using intershycardinal positions as well (eg Hanks 1991 Vogt 1969) Clemency Coggins (1980) details the politishycal significance of four-part designs in Mesoamershyica and cites twin-pyramid groups at Tikal as quintessential architectural exemplars (compare Guillemin 1968 on twin-pyramid groups) (Figure 2)

These latter architectural assemblages are particshyularly important here because of Cogginss comshypelling argument that they map horizontally the daily vertical path of the sun That is whereas the east and west pyramids of these groups indicate the rise and setting points of the sun the north and south posishytions mark moments between sunrise and sunset

REPORTS 203

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Figure 2 Map of central Tikal Guatemala Twin-pyramid groups are labeled TPG Redrawn after Martin 2000

(Brotherston 1976) in this case metaphorically the heavens and the underworld rather than what we take to be north and south The implication of this interpretation is that rulers whose portrait stelae occupy the northern enclosures of these groups are themselves metaphorically transported to the heavshyens where they join royal ancestors and the midday sun as emblems of strength and authority (Ashmore 1989)

From this interpretation one can extrapolate the broadly ideational and specifically political import of the two cardinal axes Their intersection defines a local Maya axis mundi (eg Eliade 1959 Tuan 1977 Wheatley 1971) More recently David Freishydel Linda Schele and Joy Parker (1993) have argued that for the Maya the two axes represent the suns path and the Milky Way and that tracing them-via architectural space ritual movement or otherwiseshysymbolically re-enacts the creation of the universe and endows the spaces so traced with immense sacral power Long ago Coggins (1967) observed that Classhysic cities of northeast Peten had dominant civic axes oriented north-south Ashmore (1995) suggested that the pronounced shift in axial dominance from eastshywest in the Preclassic to north-south in Classic times

reflects changes in Maya conceptualization of politshyical authority from orientation representing primary omnipotence of the sun and his celestial associates to one representing the increasing prominence ofthe king and dynasties (eg Freidel and Schele 1988a 1988b Taube 1998) In some places the shift began as early as the last century Bc (Freidel and Schele 1988a47-18) We see the foregoing arguments as mutually complementary not contradictory and as fruitful lines for further examination Taken together the arguments reinforce strongly the notion ofinvestishyture of Maya civic space with knowable ritual and political meaning likely of varied sorts and sources

Another important means of enhancing the politshyical aura of a place is by constructing it to resemble locales of established stature If a place looks like a recognized seat of authority people behave there accordingly (eg Ashmore 1986 Hall 1966 Rapoport 1982) Colonial architecture in the Amershyicas for example re-created capitals of the immeshydiate and distant European past often by imperial decree At the same time the new construction replaced the razed central buildings of indigenous civilizations and thereby prospectively their authorshyity as in the spatial and symbolic relation between

204 LATIN AMERICAN ANTIQUITY [Vol 13 No2 2002]

the Mexican National Cathedral and the Templo Mayor of the Aztecs (eg Low 1995 2000) Speshycific resemblance among pre-Columbian cities is likely due in part to emulation ofarchitectural styles and spatial arrangements linked to established censhyters Examples include talud-tablero style and the NI5degE orientation for Teotihuacan (Cowgill 2000 Laporte 1987 Millon 1973) niches and other disshytinctive features of Inka architecture (Niles ]987) orarchitectural replications in the Mississippian and Casas Grandes worlds (eg Emerson 1997 Whalen and Minnis 200 I )

Indeed Teotihuacan may have reinforced the aforementioned orientation shift in Maya centers The layout of that Central Mexican city was domishynated by a north-south axis from at least the first censhytury AD and scholars recognize with increasing clarity the citys impact on political economic and social structures ofmany parts ofMesoamerica parshyticularly in and after the fourth century (eg CarshyraiCO et al 2000) Maya texts attest to the direct effective and lasting intervention of high-ranking Teotihuacanos in lowland Maya governance and political succession beginning in AD 378 (Coggins 1979 Stuart 2000) Although Maya kings and archishytects did not adopt the specific and distinctive N 15degE alignment of Teotihuacan architecture Teotihuacan put an undeniably strong stamp on diverse forms of Maya material culture particularly of Maya royalty and nobility from the fourth century on (eg Fash and Fash 2000 Kidder et aI 1946) The potential impact of such an influential polity on civic plans is certainly plausible (compare Coggins 1979 1980)

Within the Maya region more proximate models for emulation have been identified in particular cases For example Agrinier (1983) and de Montmollin (1989 1995) suggest that the Chiapan site ofTenam Rosario derives from and mimics Yaxchilan and numerous archaeologists have likened the layout of Quiriguas core to that of its larger more powerful and revered neighbor Copan (eg Ashmore 1984 Fash and Stuart 1991 Morley 1935 Sharer 1978)

Even accepting the foregoing two principlesshycosmological directionality and political emulashytion-as significant influences in civic architectural design we must still keep actively in mind that any one site and its layout are the products of numerous localized decisions often over many generations An architectural lexicon is available with which to convey messages of political or other ideational import but the choice ofspecific components varies

from place to place and through time Continuity and change in governance affect choices about whether existing spatial order is maintained or altered (eg Barrett 1999 Chapman 1994 Sharer et al 1999 Steinhardt 1986) The resultant architectural palimpsest available to archaeologists in any given site must therefore be examined with appropriate attention to developmental and other site-formation factors There were no static formulae for urban planshyning but there were many alternatives for materially asserting the place ofones civic center in the larger political and ritual universe We suggest that the decishysions of ancient urban planners are decipherable and that the legibility of a given citys layout relates directly to the length and complexity of its political history (see Tourtellot and Sabloff 199491)

Copan

Much of the discussion about ideational bases of civic planning involves observations ofexisting maps and other archaeological iconographic or ethnoshyhistoric data Precisely because of the breadth of choices available for materializing directional symshybolism or emulation testing anyone proposed ideational model through fieldwork is decidedly challenging In 1988-89 Ashmore applied to Copan the directional model derived from Cogginss (1980) analyses of twin-pyramid groups To that point Ashshymore had argued that cosmologically based direcshytional plans underlay civic layouts for Tikal at large as well as elsewhere including Quirigua Cerros Palenque and non-Maya Gualjoquito and Cerro Palenque (Ashmore 1987 1989 ]992)

Taking the implications of this directional model she proposed that Groups 8L-1 0 and 8L-12 marked conceptual north or metaphorically the heavens for metropolitan Copan (Figure 3) Extrapolating from TikaJs twin-pyramid-group plan she then suggested more specifically that excavations in Copans North Group should yield evidence linking the compounds to royalty especially one or more royal ancestors and to rituals celebrating same

Even with such generalized predictions the proposition received strong support (Ashmore 199]) among other finds excavations yielded fragments of a glyphic frieze on Str 8L-74 of Group 8L- 10 The text included the name of ] 8 Rabbit (or XVIII Jog UaxacIahun Ubac Kawil) and a Calendar-Round date of 8 Lamat 6 Tzec that-on archaeological grounds-must have been carved at a time when 18 Rabbit was already deceased and presumably conshy

REPORTS 205

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sidered a royal ancestor Ritual activities at the same building were indicated by non-glyphic frieze eleshyments including an effigy stingray-spine bloodletshyter and a depiction of what is probably the Principal Bird Deity perhaps equivalent to Vucub Caquix of the Popol Yuh Moreover ritual deposits elsewhere in Group 8L-I 0 have been interpreted as symbolic allusions to 18 Rabbits decapitation death and subshysequent metaphorical resurrection perhaps but not necessarily foreshadowing portions ofthe later Popol Yuh (Ashmore 1991213) What is most important here is that conclusions from this research involve not only inferences about urban planning and politshyical strategies of Copans rulers and their heirs but also strong encouragement for pursuit ofsuch proposhysitions and their concerted testing elsewhere

Other Applications

Although few Maya sites can match Copans comshybination ofelaborate material symbolism and history

of accomplished research we believe strongly that examination of other sites suggests parallel invocashytion of ideational urban planning principles and that it likewise invites field testing of these ideas along specifiable lines (eg Dunning et al 1999 Houk 1996) We illustrate with examples from our experishyence at Xunantunich Seibal and Sayil

Xunantunich

Xunantunich is a compact civic center perched atop a ridge overlooking the Mopan River in modem Belize (Figure 4) Investigations directed by Richard Leventhal and Wendy Ashmore in the 1990s docushymented the growth and development ofthe center and adjacent settlement (eg Ashmore et al 2002 leCount et al 2002 Leventhal and Ashmore 2(02) The center itself was founded late in the Classic period and its eighth- and ninth-century florescence coincides with the decline ofother larger centers and polities to the west and north especially Naranjo

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LATIN AMERICAN ANTIQUITY [Vol 13 No2 2002]

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Figure 4 Map of Xunantunich Belile Courtesy Xunanmiddot tunicb Archaeological Project

and Tikal Texts are abundant at the latter two sites but almost nonexistent at Xunantunich however the short largely illegible text of Stela 8 does seem to include a Naranjo emblem glyph (eg Graham 1978 Houston et aI 1992 Martin and Grube 2000) Ashshymore and Leventhal (1993) noted thatXunantunich s core layout resembled Group B at Naranjo (Figure 5) and that both share a particular set of building types in recognizably similar arrangement as well as the pronounced north-south axis arguably linked to royal authority and continuity

Taken together with the relative chronologies of the two sites the site-plan and epigraphic data sug-

Redrawn after Graham and von Euw 1975

gested emulation of the established but declining center ofNaranjo by the builders at Xunanturuch In 1995 Geoffrey Braswell drew our attention to the core plan ofCalakmul (Figure 6) because ofCalakshymuIs precocious and sustained developmental hisshytory and its pervasive importance in lowland Maya politics (eg Folan 1992 Folan et aI 1995 Marcus 1987 Martin and Grube 1995 2000) Ashmore (19951998) subsequently suggested that perhaps the core of that early and powerful site was the source for emulation at both Naranjo and Xunantunich

The key inference here is that builders in the latshyter two capitals perceived political benefits in conshystructing their capitals to resemble one that was far longer established and more widely revered We proshypose that the rulers at the younger cities drew on both

REPORTS 207

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Figure 6 Map or central Calakmul Campeche Mexico Redrawn after Ruppert and Denison 1943

directional and emulation strategies to enfold their nascent civic and ritual centers in a mantle of longshystanding authority The test implications of this proshyposal include ambitious but ultimately feasible pleas for among other things comparable excavation proshygrams in the three sites to provide construction hisshytories and alignable sequences of specific forms

Savil

Like Xunantunich Sayil was founded toward the end of the Classic period with peak florescence in the ninth century AD Its civic layout provides instructive parallels and contrasts with Xunantunich (Figure

Sayil is situated in a north-south trending valley in the hilly Puuc zone approximately 7 km south of Kabah and 5 km west of Labna Three phases of research the first two under the direction of Jeremy Sabloff and Gair Tourtellot in the 1980s and the third

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under the direction of Michael Smyth and Christoshypher Dore in the 1990s have provided a detailed view of Sayils settlement and have revealed that the bulk of the sites occupation occurred between AD 750 and 900 (eg Sabloff and Tourtellot 1991 Smyth and Dore 1992 Tourtellot and Sabloff 1994 Tourtellot et al 1992)


The civic center of Sayil follows the orientation of the valley within which it is located and has a north-south axis A large three-story palace which apparently was a residence is situated at the northshyern end of the valley A causeway links this palace with a stela platfonn and then a ball court almost 1 km to the south A two-story palace which does not appear to have been residential is found near the southern causeway terminus A temple group and a possible marketplace are located just north of the midpoint of the causeway It has been inferred that the North Palace was the residence of the ruling famshyily of Sayil and that it was significantly enlarged overtime

The smaller city of Labmi nearby to the east appears to have copied its larger neighbor directly in its basic civic plan (Figure 8) The Labna causeway is only 150 m long but like its one-kill-long counshyterpart at Sayil it connects a single northern palace with a set of compounds plausibly comparable with the nonresidential southern palace complex at Sayi Orientations of the principal buildings at each end of the causeway are similar at the two centers and except for the lack of a ballcourt at Labmi the observed buildings and spaces are broadly parallel in form and array Indeed although specifics of Labnas architectural growth sequence are less fully documented than are those of Sayil Labnas civic buildings and core civic plan seem miniature replishycations of Sayil (Gallareta et aI 1995) We join othshyers who suggest that Labnas political history was yoked closely to that of Sayil and we suggest that comparison of spatial order in the two places yields clues to political dynamics of founding order and hierarchical relations (eg Kowalski 1998 413-416)

In our view the civic plans of both Sayil and Labna resemble those ofmajor Classic centers ofthe Southern Lowlands Sayil apparently served as a model for planning at Labna But if Sayils builders had any other particular city in mind as a model such specific emulation is not now evident Instead they seem to have drawn on principles of cosmological directionality emphasizing the north-south axis inferred to represent dynastic continuity

Seibal

The Southern Lowland city of Seibal in the Guatemalan Peten is significantly different from all of the foregoing in urban plan and in our view proshy

1 N

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Figure 8 Map of Labrui Yucatan Mexico Redrawn after Pollock 1980

vides further clues to ancient Maya civic design (Figshyure 9)

Seibal is located on a ridge overlooking the Rio Pasion and its two principal architectural groups are

REPORTS 209

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Figure 9 Map of Seibal Guatemala Redrawn after Smith 1982

situated on the high points of the ridge Extensive surveys and excavations ofthe site undertaken in the mid-1960s by a Peabody Museum Harvard Unishyversity project directed by Gordon R Willey and A Ledyard Smith have shown that Seibal was occushypied from the Middle Prec1assic (beginning around 900 Bc) to the Terminal Classic (ending around AD 900) with a minimum occupation during the Early Classic and a major florescence in its last censhytury of cultural activity (eg Sabloff 1975 Smith 1982 Tourtellot 1988 Willey et al 1975)

The core of Seibals urban zone is laid out along an east-west axis with a causeway the latter built late in the citys occupation linking the two high points of the city and thereby its two main civic groups At the mid-point of the causeway an extension leads

south to a large round platform Str 79 and gives the causeway system a form like a capital 1 The older Classic center of the city is located in Group D at the east end of the causeway while the final Termishynal Classic architectural burst at Seibal is found at the west and slightly higher end in Group A

Significantly however the earliest documented occupation within the Seibal civic core underlies what is now Group A (Smith 1982) We suggest these Middle Preclassic and slightly later features in both Groups A and D defined an east-west axis consisshytent with urban plans at precocious Middle Prec1asshysic cities like El Mirador and Nakbe (Figure 10) Like the latter cities Middle and Late Prec1assic Calakrnul was dominated by one or more large pyrashymids (Folan et al 1995) but the full plan in that era


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Figure 10 Map of EI Mirador Guatemala Redrawn after Matheny 1986

is less clear This is because unlike its peers to the south it continued to thrive throughout the Classic period and neither construction history within the city nor its consequent city-planning history is yet fully known

In part because of its contrasting axial emphasis Seibal is unlike the contemporaneous cities already discussed Late and Terminal Classic Sayil and Xunantunich and it lacks immediately obvious modshyels or counterparts for the layout of its Classic urban core While topography was doubtless a strong influshyence in placement ofcivic precincts we reiterate our view that the cumulative city plan is significantly a product of its longer and more complex history

That is we suggest the builders of Sayil and Xunantunich drew on ties to more established and powerful neighbors in respectively the southern Puucnorthern Chenes region and northeast Peten and Calakmul Whether emulating specific models or simply broader spatial principles the civic plans of these two cities derived from canons well defined in Classic lowland urban design Seibals plan reflects its Middle Preclassic founding and history within the greater Central Lowlands By the Late Classic Seibal was itself an old city with its own accumulated authority and prestige Subscribing to the ideology underlying Central Lowland Classic civic design likely held more advantage for the upstart founders and planners ofXunantunich and

Sayil than it did for the established leaders of Late Classic Seibal or their powerful neighbors first in the Petexbatun region or later at Ucanal (see Schele and Mathews 1998Chapter 5)

Discussion

To bring the discussion to a broader plane we return to Tikal where we began Although Tikals twinshypyramid groups provide the clearest template for spatial manifestation of cosmological order the site as a whole is a complicated assemblage of many city-planning principles Without attempting detailed review of architectural sequences suffice it here to call attention to the two principal known assemblages of architectural elaboration in Tikal in what became the Great PlazaNorth Acropolis area and in the Mundo Perdido (Str 5C-54) complex to the southshywest (eg Coe 1990 Laporte and Fialko 1995) Their earliest manifestations defined an east-west solar axis for the Preclassic civic core As the censhyturies passed the pair evinced very different specific forms and roles within the ritual and political life of the city a city in which the north-south dynastic axis came to supersede its earlier solar one Multiple authors have ascribed changes in architectural and spatial form function and meaning to shifts in politshyical fortunes over many generations of dynastic rule at Tikal (eg Ashmore 1989 Coggins 1975 Jones 1991 Laporte and Fialko 19901995)

REPORTS 211

Other Mayanists have explored evidence of ancient planning principles and have found political dynamshyics at different social scales embodied in architectural arrangements For example several sites in northern Belize have civic plans that resemble the specific north-south arrangement Ashmore linked with Tikal and Copan (Dunning et al 1999 Houk 1996) Havshying taken site layout as one line of evidence for politshyical alliance Nicholas Dunning Bret Houk and others suggest that Late Classic disjunction in local occupashytion may relate to larger scale conflict) involving the super states of Tikal Calakmul and Caracol (Dunshyning et aI 1999657-658) Elsewhere in the Maya world drawingon what he sees as multiple planning templates in Late Classic sites of Chiapass Rosario vaHey Olivier de Montmollin (1995) has inferred political jockeying and at times succession among multiple perhaps ethnically and linguistically distinct populaces Even at the relatively politically stable censhyter of Copan Loa Traxler (200 I 67) calls attention to conflict and architectural materialization of its resoshylution in the dynastic founders positioning his fifthshycentury compound near but respectfully apart from those of the local groups he superseded in governing the Copan valley John W Fox (1994) views the layshyouts ofUtatlan and other Quiche Maya centers as spashytial mediation of factional conflict in the ranked positioning offaction-specific buildings And Edward Schortman and Seiichi Nakamura (1991) identify an array of political rebels to Copans eighth-century hegemony citing among other things the abrupt appearance of more than a dozen architecturally disshytinctive centers after Quiriguas revolt in AD 738

Across the Maya lowlands Ashmore (2002) has suggested that plan similarities to Tikal or Calakmul specifically signal participation in one of the two largest and mutually antagonistic alliance networks documented for Classic times The potential imporshytance of this assertion lies in the testable extension of political maps based on deciphered political hisshytory (especiaHy Martin and Grube 2(00) More theshyoretically it recognizes that centers like Xunantunich Sayil and Labna where texts are eroded or absent were nevertheless active particishypants in political dynamics of Maya antiquity Broadly analogous reasoning about architectural form has certainly yielded fruitful results in multishyple archaeological societies without texts (eg Emershyson 1997 Schortman and Nakamura 1991 Whalen and Minnis 2(01)

To summarize we suggest that the cases reviewed in this paper the civic layouts ofCopan Sayil Seibal and Xunantunich as well as Tikal manifest divershygent specific plans derived from similar planning processes and principles We further suggest that the differences among all these sites incorporate multishyple influences including topographic factors and the like but also and quite prominently including such ideological elements as cosmological directionality and political emulation

Those cities with relatively short and simple politshyical histories like Sayil and Xunantunich should be and are relatively easy to decipher spatially Those with longer political development but relatively litshytle upheaval like Copan offer more elaborate but relshyatively robust and internally consistent plans When one examines sites with long and more turbulent political histories however-places like Seibal and Tikal--one encounters a more complex mix ofstrateshygies and plausibly therefore of the principles invoked by sequent ancient builders Such a situashytion certainly does not preclude understanding urban planning in these cities Instead it behooves us to attend closely to linkages among construction develshyopment political history and ritual evolution and to incorporate an explicit search for evidence of urban planning in our evolving research designs

Acknowledgments An earlier version of this paper was preshysented at the Segunda Mesa Redonda on Maya Architecture and Ideology in 1997 and we thank Lic Silvia Trejo for invitshying us to participate in that very productive forum We grateshyfully acknowledge the opportunity to have worked on the multiple field projects that have provided the core of our insights here specifically at Copan and Xunantunich (Ashmore) and Seibal and Sayil (Sabloff) Fuller acknowledgshyment of the many institutions and individuals supporting that work are provided in publications cited herein for each of those projects We are grateful to Chelsea Blackmore for comshypleting the illustrations with skill and good humor We thank Joyce Marcus Thomas Patterson Katharina Schreiber and four anonymous reviewers for comments and Clemency Coggins and Gair Tourtellot for early stimulus

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bull

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Note I The Maya cultural periods on which we focus are the

Middle Preclassic (ca 1000-400 BC) Late Preclassic (ca 400 BC-AD 250) and Classic (ca AD 250-1000) (Sharer 1994)

Submifed June 222001 accepted September 292001 revised December 28200]

bull

202 LATIN AMERICAN ANTIQUITY [Vol 13 No2 20021

master plan was laid down at the outset in the citys history Even for Teotihuacan however the sources of the initially discernible order and its meaning are proving ever more complex as investigation proshyceeds (eg Cowgill 2000 Sugiyama 1993) In this paper we describe two such sources for Maya spashytial patterning

Our most fundamental guiding assumption is that the position and arrangement of civic construction was anything but random From that base we assert that the spatial expressions of Maya cosmology and of Maya politics constituted the most prominent ideational foundations for planning and acknowlshyedge that many factors have affected the clarity with which such foundations may be discerned today from archaeological site plans Prominent among these factors are the length and turbulence of local politishycal histories which exemplify the critical roles ofhis shytory and social memory in shaping the archaeological record we observe To illustrate these points we disshycuss evidence from Copan Xunantunich Sayil Seibal and Tikal (Figure 1)1

Two further points are crucial in considering our assertions First our intent is programmatic and our conclusions provisional That is our argument is less about the details of site-specific inferences and more about urging increased field inquiry into ideational models for ancient urban planning Second we readshyily acknowledge that ideational factors do not account for all patterning evident in Maya civic plans Again our contention is that more research is needed to establish the mix of ideational social environmental economic engineering historical and other sources in observed architectural forms and arrangements

Sources of Ancient Maya Civic Spatial Order

Ancient cognition figures prominently in many intershypretations of ancient Maya architecture Orientation of individual buildings is often linked to astronomshyical phenomena for example and these may be tied in tum to hierophanies or other manipulations of light shadow and monumentality to constitute politshyical celebrations of figures such as Bird Jaguar III of Yaxchillin or Pacal the Great of Palenque (Schele 1977 Tate 1985 compare Brady and Ashmore 1999) Taking a different analytical perspective Peter Harrison (1994) has argued that at Palenque and in the Central Acropolis of Tikal particular geometric relationships account for the position and orientation

Gulf of Mexico Northern Lowlands

(jSayli

Labn6

-- -y ___ --I

EI-Mracfor middoti-Nakbfl~ r-j

l ar~~Jogt Tikal t____ txunantur~ ~ I~I nds

Southern Lo ~eibal

~

I

--( I

~~p~~~~ gtHighla -

Figure 1 Map of Maya area Redrawn after Sabloff and TourteUot 1991

of successive constructions Vogrin (1989) makes somewhat similar arguments for other sites includshying Copan and Quirigua

Here our focus is the layout of aggregates ofbuildshyings civic precincts and indeed whole sites We identify two potent sources of spatial patterning at these scales Maya concepts of directionality and political affiliation through emulation of civic archishytecture at more revered or powerful places

Studies ofdirectional position and orientation recshyognize the pervasive and enduring Maya organizashytion of space according to cardinal directions often including a center point and sometimes using intershycardinal positions as well (eg Hanks 1991 Vogt 1969) Clemency Coggins (1980) details the politishycal significance of four-part designs in Mesoamershyica and cites twin-pyramid groups at Tikal as quintessential architectural exemplars (compare Guillemin 1968 on twin-pyramid groups) (Figure 2)

These latter architectural assemblages are particshyularly important here because of Cogginss comshypelling argument that they map horizontally the daily vertical path of the sun That is whereas the east and west pyramids of these groups indicate the rise and setting points of the sun the north and south posishytions mark moments between sunrise and sunset

REPORTS 203

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206

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206

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N

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bull

206

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Discussion


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REPORTS 213



























Guillemin George






















































































REPORTS 215














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bull

REPORTS 211


























































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REPORTS 215














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Spatial Orders in Maya Civic Plans (Wendy Ashmore and Jeremy A. Sabloff) (2002)

Documents

Transcript of Spatial Orders in Maya Civic Plans (Wendy Ashmore and Jeremy A. Sabloff) (2002)