AP World History

 Audio: Collapse - The Maya

Mayan Visual Primary Sources: Click each image to enlarge

#1) 

The ancient Maya world,” writes a major scholar of the region, "was a world of Maya art.', In magnificent architecture, carvings, pottery, ceramic figures, wall paintings,. and illustrated books, Maya culture was suffused by a distinctive style of artistic expression, more complex, subtle, extensive, and innovative than any other in the Americas. Commissioned by Maya rulers, that art centered on life at court, depicting kings, nobles, warriors, and wealthy merchants together with the women, musicians, and artists who served them as well as the many deities who populated the Maya universe. Far more than in China, India, or Europe, historians rely on art and archaeology for their insights into Maya civilization. While the Maya had writing, their literature was less extensive than that of classical-era Eurasian cultures and much of it was tragically destroyed during the early decades of Spanish rule. The images that follow provide a window into the life of the Maya elite during its classical era.

Visual Source #1 shows a royal couple from the Maya city of Yaxchilan in the year 724 C.E. with the king Shield Jaguar, on the left, and his primary wife, Lady Xok (pronounced 'Shoke'), on the right. In helping him dress for a war-related ceremony or sacrifice, Lady Xok offers her husband his helmet, the head of a jaguar, an animal that was widely associated with strength, bravery, aggression, warfare, and high social status. The T-shaped frame at the center top, which contains a number of Maya glyphs (written symbols), indicates a doorway and thus sets the action in an ,interior space. The king is wearing cotton body armor and carrying a knife, while his wife is clad in a huipil, a blouse similar to those still worn by Maya women in southern Mexico.

#2) 

Warfare was frequent among Maya cities and thus a common theme in their court art. Fought with spear throwers, lances, clubs, axes, swords, and shields, Maya wars were depicted as chaotic affairs aimed at the capture of individual prisoners, who were destined for sacrifice or slavery. Those prisoners were often named in the glyphs that accompanied the portrayal of battles along with the inscription "He is seized/roped."

Visual Source #2, a reconstructed in1age, comes from a Maya archeological site in southern Mexico called Bonampak, well known for its vivid murals. Depicting events that took place in 792 C.E., this mural shows King Chan Muwan of Bonampak (in the center) holding a staff and receiving nine prisoners of war from his victorious noble warriors. To the king's right are two allies from the nearby city of Yaxchilan, followed by the king's wife, his mother, and a servant-musician playing a conch. To the king's left are six more high-ranking warriors from Bonampak, while lower-level warriors guard each side of the door at the bottom.

The prisoners hold center stage in the mural. Notice in particular the dead captive sprawling below the king's staff as a severed head lies on a bed of  leaves below him. The four small images at the top indicate constellations, showing the favorable position of the sky for this occasion. The turtle on the far right, for example, depicts the constellation Gemini, while the three stars on its back represent what we know as Orion's belt. .What can you infer about Maya warfare and court practice from this
mural?

The bleeding and ultimately the sacrifice of the captives in Visual Source #2 was only part of a more pervasive practice of bloodletting that permeated Maya religious and court life. Significant occasions-giving birth, getting married, dying, planting crops, dedicating buildings, and many more-were sanctified with human blood, the most valued and holy substance in the world. Behind this practice lay the Maya belief in the mutual relationship of humans and their gods. Two of the major scholars in this field explain: "The earth and its creatures were created through a sacrificial act of the gods, and human beings, in turn, were required to strengthen and nourish the gods. The means of doing so was blood. The massive loss of blood often triggered a trancelike state that the Maya experienced as mystical union with their gods or ancestors. The lancets used to draw blood-usually from the tongue in women and often from the penis in men-were invested with sacred power.

#3) 

Kings and their wives were central to this bloodletting ritual, as Visual Source #3 so vividly shows.  Ritualized bloodletting was typically performed by elites, settlement leaders, and religious figures and often  visible to the public. The rituals were enacted on the summits of pyramids or on elevated platforms that were usually associated with broad and open plazas  or courtyards (where the masses could congregate and view the bloodletting). This was done so as to demonstrate the connection the person performing the auto-sacrifice had with the sacred sphere and, as such, a method used to maintain political power by legitimizing their prominent social, political, and/or ideological position. 

While usually carried out by a ruling male, prominent females are also known to have performed the act. Here we meet again Shield Jaguar and Lady Xok, depicted also in #1. The date of this carving is October 28, 709 C.E. The king is holding a large torch, suggesting that the ritual occurs at night, while his kneeling wife draws a thorn-studded rope through her perforated tongue. The rope falls into a basket of bloody paper, which will later be burned with the resulting smoke nourishing the gods and to prove her royal lineage.  Shield Jaguar too will soon let his own blood flow, for the glyphs accompanying this carving declare that "he is letting blood" and "she is letting blood."  Royals would often use needles from sea urchin and sting rays for these rituals. It was said that the gods used their own blood to create humanity, so humans had to make the same bloody sacrifice in return. 

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