Mayan Social Organization & Urban Living

1. Mayan Social Organization & Urban Living Social Complexity Archaeology of Urban Sites Examples: Palenque, Copan & Yaxchilan

2. Social Complexity • Psychological Effects • Cultural complexity has impacted how people see themselves and the world. • People no longer see themselves in family relationships, but they see their unlimited wants and limited means. • Hunter-gatherers have little means, so few wants. • Richard Lee who studied the !kung bushmen once gave them a 1200 pound ox for a feast, but everyone in the group complained about how scrawny the animal was and how poor the gift. They did this to retain equanimity in the group.

3. People in complex societies see themselves as replaceable • Earliest records indicate people were fed up with poverty, taxes, oppressive rulers, government harassment. • Often utopian movements to return to a simpler life (communism). • People in “civilized” societies see those in “uncivilized” societies as not fully developed.

4. Maya: Chiefdom or State? • Chiefdoms • regionally organized societies. • hereditary inequality • differences in prestige, wealth and power. • early Hawaiian societies. • States/Empires • stratified, complex systems. • control of many people, distinct hierarchy. • empires have tremendous size and influences a large area (Mesopotamia, Inca, Aztec).

5. Neither: City-State • Neither during the Classic period nor at any other time does there seem to have been any political unification of the area as a whole. • Rather, political organization seems to have been described by a series of small, city-state-like polities, each characterized by its own internal differentiation of status and power. • While much earlier literature refers to professional rulers and priests, the present view is that the higher-status individuals were more probably heads of patrilineages, and that much of the religious complex was centered on ancestor worship rather than on universal gods.

6. Civic Centers • These civic centers were numerous, including Copán in Honduras, El Mirador, Piedras Negras, Tikal, and Uaxactún in the N central Petén region of Guatemala, and Palenque and Uxmal in Mexico.

7. Origins of Cultural Complexity • Irrigation Agriculture • Warfare/Population Growth • Craft Specialization • Ideology • Multi-faceted Explanations

8. HydraulicHypothesis • Suggested that irrigation works and water distribution required the growth of a bureaucracy • Julian Steward: Bureaucracies were developed due to an increase in intensive agriculture and the need to develop systems of waterways. • Karl Wittfogel: pointed out (as Steward did) that early civilizations appeared in regions where large-scale irrigation agriculture was practiced.

9. Craft Specialization • Trade and Exchange • organization to produce trade items required administration. • V. Gordon Childe: suggested that civilization resulted from increasing specialization which was made possible by technological innovations which allowed for increased production and the accumulation of surplus • specialization of labor began with itinerant experts • if single village could not produce enough surplus to sustain a craftsman, he would take advantage of the resources of several • cites evidence of wandering smiths in Bronze Age • specialists left kinship groups and had to form new institutions, which society changed to accomodate • urbanism "rescued" craftsmen from nomadism and guaranteed them security in a new social organization

10. Ideology • Geoff Conrad and Arthur Demarest, among others: Integrative power of great art styles or religions (Willey 1962) • Association of myth of solar struggle with Huitzilopochtli gave state a divine sanction • state cult of accelerated warfare and mass sacrifice was a timely ideological adaptation to the political environment of 15th century Mexico • fell within the bounds of traditional Mesoamerican religious thinking • state cult was also economically adaptive • central Mexican city-states relied heavily on tribute from military victories • sacrificial cosmology gave them the competitive edge of fanaticism in these conquests

11. Warfare • Population growth in an area where land is scarce leads to warfare over land rights and states developed as a way to organize war. • Robert Carneiro: theory grows out of hypotheses which emphasize the importance of population growth and population pressure • hypothesis is based on general regularity about the environmental settings of early civilizations throughout the world • they are areas of circumscribed agricultural land • each area is bounded by mountains, seas, or deserts, which sharply delimited the area that simple farming people could have occupied

12. Warfare con’d • Expanding population could not accommodate itself by colonizing new lands • instead, it had to intensify production on lands already being used • military conflicts between groups became more frequent • losers were not able to flee to new farmlands • were assimilated into the winner's society as a lower class • successful militarists were rewarded by economic wealth, increasing amounts of land, and a conquered class of workers • Adaptive advantages of organizing and controlling a successful military operation quickly lead to institutionalization in the form of an early state • state then grows in size as a result of external conquests

13. Multi-faceted Theories • Robert McAdams: considered causation and structure of civilization from a multifaceted perspective • stated that the evidence supports the position that "the transformation at the core of the Urban Revolution lay in the realm of social organization... For the most part, changes in social institutions precipitated changes in technology, subsistence, and other aspects of the wider cultural realm, rather than vice versa." • Urban Revolution implied focus on ordered, systematic processes of change that can be described in terms of a functionally related core of institutions that interacted and evolved • attempts to avoid the term civilization by investigating the complex core of social institutions that interacted to form early state society • model does not favor single-factor explanations, but emphasizes complexity and systemic relationships • three major transformations: first two led to urban centers that were controlled by a religious elite and the third resulted in growth of secular state authority

14. Archaeology of Complex Societies • Architecture • Mortuary Evidence • Settlement Patterns

15. Architecture • Monumental architecture • Public structures • Formal classes of architecture • temples, palaces, ball courts, raised roads (saches), and reservoirs, marketplaces, stelae, fortifications. • temples on elevated terraces, little space inside, elaborate caches of exotic materials. • palaces refers to multiple room, multiple story buildings some were for elite living quarters, others for administration. • ball courts in most cities, but rules varied from place to place. • saches were elevated roads that connected building groups (15 feet high and 60 feet wide). • reservoirs needed because drainage in the area a problem, so underground storage containers (chultuns) were dug. • marketplaces where trade took place, regional market systems. • stelae are carved stone shafts associated with temples, historical monuments.

16. Mortuary Evidence • Variability of mortuary customs, that is informative. • types of burials. • burial goods.

17. Settlement Patterns • Settlement Size and Configuration • Placements of Settlement • settlements of towns and villages that exchange goods and services tend to form a pattern of interlocking hexagons. • provides insights into social, political and economic changes.

18. Example: PALENQUE • Location • foot of northernmost hills of Chiapas • Sierra de Palenque • rainfall close to 3000 mm • southwestern periphery of Maya area

19. Dynastic sequence at Palenque • Pacal (Shield) • born in 603, acceded in 615 at the age of 12, ruled for 68 years (615-683) • began construction of Temple ca. 675, died in 683 at the age of 80 • Chan Bahlum or Can Balam (Snake Jaguar) II • acceded to the throne when he was 48, 132 days after the death of his father, on January 10, 684 • responsible for finishing father's temple

20. Pacal’s Tomb • Discovered in the Temple of the Inscriptions. • It was on June 15, 1952, that AIfred Ruz and his excavation crew looked upon a tomb that had been hidden away for over twelve centuries.

21. Stairway to Tomb http://www.usu.edu/anthro/origins_of_writing/pacal/optimized/11.jpg

22. Tomb Lid of Sarcophagus http://www.delange.org/PalenqueTomb/PalenqueTomb.htm

23. Jade Funeral Mask of Pacal Reproduction of tomb http://www.delange.org/PalenqueTomb/PalenqueTomb.htm

24. Buildings and monuments • Temple of the Inscriptions • Cross Group (Temple of the Cross) • Temple of the Foliated Cross • Ball Court

26. Palace and the Temple of Inscriptions http://www.delange.org/PalenqueRuins/PalenqueRuins.htm

27. Palace: West Steps http://www.delange.org/PalenqueRuins/PalenqueRuins.htm

28. Palace Stucco Relief L - Pacal, R - ZacKuk, His MotherOr His Wife, Ahpo-Hel. http://www.delange.org/PalenqueRuins/PalenqueRuins.htm

29. Cross Group http://www.delange.org/PalenqueRuins/PalenqueRuins.htm

30. Temple of the Foliated CrossA.D. 692 http://www.delange.org/PalenqueRuins/PalenqueRuins.htm

31. Ballcourt A.D. 500 http://www.delange.org/PalenqueRuins/PalenqueRuins.htm

32. Copan’s Dynasty • Yax Kuk Mo' • lineage founder • death or burial 9.0.2.0.0 (AD 437) • Cu Ix-no other info • Waterlily Jaguar-no other info • Moon Jaguar • tomb found in 1992 • Butz Chan • Accedes: 9.7.5.0.8 (AD 578), death 9.9.14.16.9 (AD 628) • Smoke Imix • 18 Rabbit: accedes 9.13.3.6.8 (AD 695) • Smoke Monkey: accession 9.15.6.16.5, 39 days after 18 Rabbit's death • Smoke Shell: accession 9.15.17.13.10 (AD 749), dedication of hieroglyphic stairway 9.15.17.13.10 (AD 749). • Yax Pac • also known as "Sun-at-Horizon" or "Madrugada" • 16th and last known ruler • dedication of Altar Q 9.17.5.0.0 (AD 775) • U Cit Tok: attempted accession 9.19.11.14.5 (AD 822)

33. Copan Hieroglyphic Stairway http://www.delange.org/Copan1/Copan1.htm

34. Copan Ball Court http://www.delange.org/Copan1/Copan1.htm

35. Altar Q Shows the 16 Kings Of Copan Passing Baton Of RuleDown Through The Generations http://www.delange.org/Copan1/Copan1.htm

36. Yaxchilan • Yaxchilan was inhabited between 200AD and 800AD. • It can only be accessed by river or by air. http://www.thresholds.net/yaxchilan/yaxchilan0.html

37. Yaxchilan: Dynastic sequence • Nearly complete dynastic record on monuments • Early Classic • Penis-Jaguar: lineage founder • Shield-Jaguar I • Bird-Jaguar I • Yax-Antler-Skull:5th ruler • Tah-Skull I • Moon-Skull I • Bird-Jaguar II • Knot-Eye Jaguar • Tah-Skull II

38. Yaxchilan: Dynastic sequence • Late Classic rulers • 6-Tun-Bird-Jaguar: accedes ca. 630 • wife is Lady Pacal, mother of Shield Jaguar • Shield-Jaguar • must have been named as heir at an early date • mention at Palenque that a brother of Shield Jaguar participated in a war event led by Pacal • accedes to power on October 23, 681, at same time as Chan Bahlum, rules for about 50 years • Bird-Jaguar III • succeeds father in 752 • ten year period before he accedes, entered office at age 32 • Shield-Jaguar II • Tah-Skull III, marital connections with Bonampak and El Peru • Defeated by Dos Pilas http://www.travelchiapas.com/arc/site-3b.php

39. Yaxchilan, Chiapas, Mexico

40. Yaxchilan: Main plaza Angus McIntyre 2001 http://www.raingod.com/angus/Gallery/Photos/NorthAmerica/Mexico/Chiapas/Yaxchilan.html

41. Yaxchilan: Building 33 Angus McIntyre 2001 http://www.raingod.com/angus/Gallery/Photos/NorthAmerica/Mexico/Chiapas/Yaxchilan.html

42. Stone and Lintel Carvings at Yaxchilan The majority of lintel and stele carvings commemorate the important historical events occurring during the reign of King Jaguar Shield, his famous wives Lady Xoc and Lady Eveningstar, and his son Bird Jaguar who ruled here in the 8th century. http://www.mayasites.com/yaxch.html