Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T07:41:54.606Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A new look at Maya statecraft from Copan, Honduras

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

William L. Fash Jr
William L. Fash Jr*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The revelations in the study of the Ancient Maya made possible by the revolution in hieroglyphic decipherment have not occurred in isolation. Archaeological investigations within the last three decades have produced a much broader vision of Maya society during the Classic Period than previously possible. Particularly, the study of settlement patterns in conjunction with environmental studies has opened new vistas onto the size and organization of the populations which supported the rulers in their civic-ceremonial centres (Ashmore 1981; Culbert & Rice n.d.). The challenge for the present, and future, is to combine the archaeological record with the studies of inscriptions and politico-religious symbolism, to build a more complete and incisive reconstruction of the past. Where the two records are particularly clear and abundant, we may also aspire to explaining the past.

Type
Special section: the archaeology of Maya decipherment
Information
Antiquity , Volume 62 , Issue 234 , March 1988 , pp. 157 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ashmore, W. (ed.). 1981. Lowland Maya settlement patterns. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Baudez, C. 1983. Introduccion a la arqueologia de Copan. Tegucigalpa: Instituto Hondureno de Antropologia e Historia.Google Scholar
Baudez, C. 1986. Iconography and history at Copan, in Urban, & Schortman, : 17–26.Google Scholar
Baudez, C. & Mathews, P.. 1978. Capture and sacrifice at Palenque, in Greene Robertson, M. (ed.), Tercera mesa redonda de Palengue. Austin, University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Chang, K. C. 1980. Shang civilization. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Cheek, C. 1983. Las Excavaciones en la Plaza Principal, resumen y conclusiones, in Baudez, 1983, 2: 319–48.Google Scholar
Cowgill, G. 1979. Teotihuacan, internal militaristic competition, and the fall of the Classic Maya, in Hammond, N. (ed.), Social process in Maya prehistory: studies in honour of Sir Eric Thompson. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Culbert, T.P. (ed.). n.d. Elite interaction in Classic Maya civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Culbert, T.P. & Rice, D. (ed.), n.d. Lowland Maya demography. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Demarest, A. 1978. Interregional conflict and ‘Situational Ethics’ in Classic Maya warfare, in Codex Wauchope: a tribute roll: 101–11. New Orleans: Human Mosaic. Volume 12.Google Scholar
Fash, W. 1983a. Deducing social organization from Classic Maya settlement patterns: a case study from the Copan Valley, in Leventhal, R. & Kolata, A. (ed.), Civilization in the ancient Americas: essays in honor of Gordon R. Willey: 261–87. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico and Peabody Museum Press.Google Scholar
Fash, W. 1983b. Implicaciones teoricas de ocupaciones anteriores al Clasico Tardio en el Grupo 9N-8, Las Sepulturas. Yaxkin 6: 112–29.Google Scholar
Fash, W. 1983c. Maya state formation: a case study and its implications. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms.Google Scholar
Fash, W. 1986a. Settlement history in the Copan Valley and some comparisons with Quirigua, in Urban, & Schortman, 1986: 72–93.Google Scholar
Fash, W. 1986b. La fachada esculpida de la estructura 9N-82: contenido, forma, iconografia, in Sanders, W. (ed.), Excavaciones en el Area Urbana de Copan: 319–82. Tegucigalpa: Instituto Hondureno de Antropologia e Historia.Google Scholar
Fash, W. & Lane, S.. 1983. El juego de Pelota B, in Baudez, 1983, 2: 501–62.Google Scholar
Fash, W. & Stuart, D., n.d. Elite interaction and historical process in Copan, in Culbert n.d.Google Scholar
Freidel, D. 1986. Maya warfare: an example of peer polity interaction, in Renfrew, C. & Cherry, J.F. (ed.), Peer polity interaction and the development of socio-political complexity: 93–108. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gordon, G. 1898. Caverns of Copan, Honduras: report on explorations by the Museum, in Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, 1: 137–48. Cambridge (MA): Peabody Museum Press.Google Scholar
Gordon, G. 1902. The Hieroglyphic Stairway, ruins of Copan, in Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, 1 (4): 153–86 Cambridge (MA): Peabody Museum Press.Google Scholar
Hammond, N. 1982. Ancient Maya civilization. Rutgers: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Leventhal, R. 1981. Settlement patterns in the Southeast Maya area, in Ashmore, 1981: 187–209.Google Scholar
Marcus, J. 1976 Emblem and state in the Classic Maya Lowlands. Washington (DC): Dumbarton Oaks.Google Scholar
Miller, A. 1986. Maya rulers of time: a study of architectural sculpture at Tikal, Guatemala. Philadelphia: University Museum Press.Google Scholar
Morley, S. 1920. The inscriptions at Copan. Washington (DC): Carnegie Institution of Washington. Publication 219.Google Scholar
Pasztory, E. 1974. The iconography of the Teotihuacan Tlaloc. Washington (DC): Dumbarton Oaks. Studies in Precolumbian Art and Archaeology 15.Google Scholar
Proskouriakoff, I. 1973. The hand-grasping-fish and associated glyphs on Classic Maya monuments, in Benson, E. (ed.), Mesoamerican writing systems: 165–78. Washington (DC): Dumbarton Oaks.Google Scholar
Riese, B. 1983. Esculturas de las estructuras lOL-2 y -4, in Baudez, 1983, 2: 143–90 (con contribucion de C. Baudez).Google Scholar
Riese, B. 1986. Late Classic relationships between Copan and Quirigua: some epigraphic evidence, in Urban, P. & Schortman, E. (ed.), The Southeast Maya periphery: problems and prospects: 94–101. Austin: University of Texas Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanders, W. 1986. In Sanders, W. (ed.), Excavaciones en el area urbana de Copan 1: 11–25. Tegucigalpa: Instituto Hondureno de Antropologia e Historia.Google Scholar
Sharer, R. 1978. Archaeology and history at Quirigua, Guatemala, Journal of Field Archaeology 5: 51–70.Google Scholar
Sharer, R. n.d. From prehistoric to historic perspective: the meaning of our concept of Maya civilization, in Culbert, n.d.Google Scholar
Stromsvik, G. 1952. The ball courts at Copan, with notes on courts at La Union, Quirigua, San Pedro Pinula and Ascencion Mita, in Contributions to American anthropology and history. Washington (DC): Carnegie Institution of Washington. Publication 596.Google Scholar
Stuart, D. 1987. New data on the Copan dynasty. Paper presented at the Fourth Seminar on Honduran Archaeology, La Ceiba, Honduras, 23 June 1987.Google Scholar
Stuart, D. & Schele, L., n.d. Copan Note 17, preliminary results of the decipherment of the Hieroglyphic Stairway inscription. Manuscript on file at the Centro Regional de Investigaciones Arqueologicas, Copan, Honduras.Google Scholar
Urban, P. & Schortman, E. (ed.). 1986. The Southeast Maya periphery: problems and prospects: Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Webster, D. 1977. Warfare and the evolution of Maya civilization, in Adams, R. (ed.), The origins of Maya civilization: 335–72. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Webster, D. & Freter, A., n.d. The demography of Late Classic Copan, in Culbert, & Rice, n.d.Google Scholar
Willey, G. & Leventhal, R.. 1979. Prehistoric settlement at Copan, in Hammond, N. & Willey, G.R. (ed.) Maya archaeology and ethnohistory: 75–102. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Willey, G., Leventhal, R. & Fash, W.. 1978. Maya settlements in the Copan Valley, Archaeology 34: 32–43.Google Scholar