Death, Dismemberment & Taxes: The Mayas' Golden Era
A History of Mankind (354)
The cultures of South America and North America were traditionally separated by the near-impassable Darien Gap in southern Panama and northern Colombia, although a small degree of contact is evident across the centuries.
In northern Colombia, Arawakan speakers came in contact with speakers of Chibchan languages, a series of ethnic groups that live in the Colombian Caribbean, its northern highlands and the Panama Isthmus region. The Chibchan, jungle peoples given to small-scale cultivation, hunting and fishing were also dominant in modern Costa Rica and in the area around Lake Nicaragua. To the north, smaller ethnicities like the Miskito and Misumalpan were dominant in the thickly forested regions bordering with Maya lands.
The Maya region always was distinct from these tribal areas. Following the fall of Tikal in the late 4th century, the largest Maya cities remained under the influence of the powerful rulers of Teotihuacan in the Valley of Mexico for much of the 5th century. However, they had largely regained their independence by the turn of the 6th century, given the logistical difficulties involved in maintaining any sort of Mexican rule in a distant land across mountains and forests for cultures that – since they lacked draft animals – used no wheeled vehicles and struggled to maintain long-range communications.
Tikal itself, ruled by descendants of the powerful Teotiahuacano ruler Spearthrower Owl like the aptly named First Crocodile, again became a Maya power center over the 5th century; a “kaloomte” or emperor, named Foliated Jaguar and possibly hailing from Tikal, spread his power – or at least a jade plaque bearing his name, which testified to his influence – all the way to distant Costa Rica1.
Eventually, Tikal came into conflict with its old, smaller enemy Calakmul in a series of wars involving allies of both cities forming hostile blocs. Tikal’s King Jaguar Paw Skull (r. 485-508) was killed outside of Tikal, in the nearby city of Tonina; in 511, his seven-year-old daughter, named by archeologists Lady of Tikal, acceded to the throne at least on a temporary basis, and she managed to hold on to power until at least 5272.
The first large-scale war among the two sides started soon after the dark years of 535-536 that triggered a series of damaging droughts – and just as Yuwen Tai won the Battle of Shayuan that finally set China’s reunification in motion, and the Ostrogoths clashed with Belisarius in the long siege that resulted in the destruction of much of the ancient city of Rome.
Even as distant Teotihuacan seems to have been gravely affected by the droughts, and hit by famine, the great Maya conflict lasted for about two decades. Throughout that time, the armies of the two leading cities, and their allies, fought over the control of a specific, strategic part of Yucatan less than 200 kilometers of diameter, where both Tikal and Calakmul were located.
By 562, buoyed by the defection of powerful Tikal allies like the city of Caracol, Calakmul won a victory that left Tikal again as a declining regional power. Same as after the city’s conquest by Teotihuacan, a new dynasty, likely from Calakmul, took control of the city. Not a single monument in Tikal – or even a potential fragment of one – has been identified for the next 130 years, dominated by internal disarray. News from Tikal over the period are scarce; in fact, they remain so until the city was again occupied by Calakmul troops in 657.
Calakmul, meanwhile, went on imposing its rule over distant polities. King Scroll Serpent, who took over in 579, led successful expeditions against distant Palenque, three hundred kilometers to the southwest, which was then ruled by Lady Heart of the Wind Place, crowned in 583 as one of the very few women of the era to carry full royal titles. These long-range operations, true feats of military organization and endurance given the tropical weather, rugged terrain and absence of pack animals, marked the height of Calakmul’s power.
Such campaigns are also evidence that, despite its victories, a city-state like Calakmul couldn’t really maintain an empire expanding much further beyond the Petén Basin with the available technology and communications: Palenque was located on the other side of the powerful Usumacinta River, the largest in Central America and one that flows from Petén into the Gulf of Mexico, a formidable natural barrier that often overflows with seasonal rains and is not easily navigable because of treacherous rapids.
Protected from regular assault from Petén, Palenque soon recovered its full independence and embarked into an accelerated building program after Calakmul’s depredations. An entire central compound with massive towers was added to the city, displaying a peculiarity of Palenque’s style: a near absence of monolithic stelae so popular elsewhere, there replaced by elegant architectural sculpture either carved in fine-grained limestone or modelled in stucco plaster.
During the reign of King Radiant Shield (r. 615-683, also known as “Pakal the Great”), the longest-ruling monarch in the history of the Americas and perhaps the person with the best dental hygiene ever3, Palenque gained control of the surrounding Tabasco plain.
This successful period is commemorated in the spectacular ruins of El Olvidado temple and, in particular, the Palace of Palenque, a colorful – red, green, yellow and blue – and compact maze of galleries, chambers, courtyards, stairways and tunnels with six latrines and two sweat baths that is well-proportioned and elegant even by exacting Classic Greek standards.
The king was buried in a colossal sarcophagus inside a sealed tomb, the most famous in Maya archeology, within the largest of Palenque’s stepped pyramid structures, now known as the Temple of the Inscriptions. By itself, the large carved stone sarcophagus lid, with Radiant Shield depicted between fine adornments including cosmological signs, is a unique piece of Maya art that caused some controversy when 1960s and 1970s counter-cultural writers claimed that the king was pictured in the position of an astronaut being launched inside a capsule4.
Radiant Shield’s son and successor Radiant Snake Jaguar (r. 684-702), already forty-eight at accession, earned his own claim to fame with his detailed facial portraits, the most elaborate, realistic and distinct of any Maya king, made in a style that resembles that of the Akhenaten era in Egypt.
Also a patron of the arts, Radiant Snake Jaguar did much to complete works started during his father’s era and added his own group of temples to Palenque’s already brilliant architectural heritage. In addition, he had the Temple of the Cross, the largest of those he built, filled with ceramic effigy incense burners, a particular innovation of his reign.
The Usumacinta River also worked as a natural barrier for Tonina, located on a pine-covered hillside 65 kilometers south of Palenque, as well as Piedras Negras and its mortal enemy Yaxchilan. These two were smallish city-states just across the waters from Petén, some 175 and 100 kilometers southwest of Tikal, respectively. Yaxchilan, supported by its satellite town of Bonampak5, would emerge as a local power in the 7th century, following the passing of Lady Shield – a long-reigning consort queen who died in 705 when at least 98 years of age6.
A similar degree of isolation meant that the city of Copán in modern Honduras, in the south of the Maya realm well over 300 kilometers away from Calakmul, grew undisturbed as sixteen consecutive kings built a man-made hill at its center, now called Acropolis. Showing some Teotiahuacano influence that indicates it may have started off as a very distant Mexican colony, Copán rarely had a clear impact on the history of other Maya city-states, outside its closest neighbors7 – possibly because it thrived on trade due to its control of the highland-lowland Motagua River route, where jade and obsidian sources are found8.
Copán functioned as a metropolis for smaller Maya settlements down in modern El Salvador, particularly San Andres and its nearby satellite Joya de Ceren – buried under ash, Pompeii-style, by an eruption of the Volcan de San Salvador around 650 – which were both influenced by Copán culture and customs. In turn, these relative primitive southern towns may have provided the Maya world and much of the Americas with an extremely popular local delicacy, the cassava (also called manioc and, very commonly, yucca): the oldest pollen evidence of cassava comes from San Andres, and that of cultivation from the ash-preserved ruins of Joya de Ceren9.
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
It’s remarkable that Maya culture and society, which would take a turn towards decline and depopulation from around 700, reached its peak10 during an era of seemingly constant warfare and worsened climate conditions. The Ilopango Volcano that blew up with spectacular effects possibly in the early 6th century, leaving Eurasian observers puzzled by the smoke and dust covering the sun, is located a mere 400 kilometers south of Tikal.
By this time, Maya cities had achieved a fairly homogenous degree of technological advancement, to the point that most served as capitals for statelets in control of the surrounding area, some of which – like Tikal and Calakmul when they started their war – were independent and some of which were subordinated to others.
These cities functioned on a series of shared political traits, including absolute royal power with patrilineal succession falling on the eldest heir. Displays of military prowess and the conduction of human sacrifices in person was necessary, perhaps mandatory, for Maya kings and noblemen. Bouts of captive-taking often preceded elevation to office; and the names of such prisoners were sometimes incorporated into the kings’ name phrase, in the formula “Master/Guardian of so-and-so.11” The Maya god of Lightning, Kawiil, was invoked when Maya kings acceded to the throne, with the formula “he took the Kawiil.”
Kings were called “Ajaw” and had all political and religious control of the realm, since no figures are identified as priests in Maya inscriptions12. Paramount rulers with vassal kings described themselves as a “Holy Kings”; some especially powerful rulers like Foliated Jaguar described themselves as “kaloomte” and even “Western emperors,” claiming authority derived from the great Mexican city of Teotihuacan13 in a way similar to that used by medieval European rulers who wanted to associate themselves with Roman power.
Maya society was extremely unequal to the point that the Maya ruling class was much taller than the commoners14, perhaps a sign of closely controlled access to meat, often scarce in the Americas15. Great efforts were made to reassure the Maya populace about the legitimacy of their rulers, so that the tillers of the soil would keep providing tribute.
Piedras Negras’ tradition held that its first king had reigned from 4691 BC; Palenque’s had the year 3114 BC for the first human king, 3309 BC for the first god king. In Naranjo – a city that may have risen above the level of small town only about 200 BC – local records claimed the first local king had been enthroned some 896,000 years before16; they were perhaps inspired by the unique longevity of their King Aj Wosal, enthroned in 546 at the age of twelve, who would go on to reign for an impressive span of at least 69 years, partly because of his good relations (or vassalage agreement) with Calakmul.
Such long reigns were unusual, given the constant warfare and border-shifting, partly the result of the complex local geography. Thickly forested and filled with swamps, lakes and rivers, the Maya heartland is not only larger than it seems – the Yucatan Peninsula alone is 50% larger in surface that all of modern Greece, and almost 10 times as big as the Peloponnese – but also very hard to traverse in the best of conditions.
For example, the so-called castle of Xunantunich in modern Belize, a good example of Mayan pyramid, is only 40 kilometers east of Tikal as the crow flies but the modern road linking the two sites sneaks around geographic obstacles and forests for a total of 105 kilometers that, even in a modern sports utility vehicle, can rarely be traveled in less than two hours.
Same as in many other cultures, Maya kings wore elaborate headgear that limited movement while making the subject appear majestic, and were subjected to complex, lifelong ritual rules to limit the ruler’s ability to constantly influence events and make changes to long-standing practice or tradition. Kings were polygamous – another time-tested way to keep them away from scrutinizing the inner works of their administrations too closely – which didn’t stop influential consort and dowager queens, on occasion, from exerting significant power.
Artists and artisans occupied prominent positions, because of their fundamental role in displaying a city-state’s splendor and advanced technologies, and their importance when it came to creating flashy propaganda in favor of their patron rulers. They signed their names in short glyphic sequences next to the steles, statues and carvings they worked on, with up to eight signatures on a single monument. Some of these were traveling specialists, in great demand, who worked in various cities.
Musicians and dwarves enlivened royal courts. Dance-and-singing rituals redolent of those common across Eurasia in the 2nd and 1st millennium BC were a regular occurrence, sometimes involving kings who had to actually dance, as were the consumption of hallucinogenic drinks and enemas – although these were more of a Maya specialty than something usual elsewhere. Fermented cocoa beans, a local delicacy, were the basis of a popular drink at court.
Maya rituals, even those involving aristocrats and royalty, were rather unique too. A broken panel in the city of Dos Pilas, some 150 kilometers south of Tikal, depicts the ritual blood-letting of a young boy17, referred to as “Prince of Dos Pilas.” At the center of the scene, there’s a richly attired youth whose penis has been perforated by a kneeling lord, probably a ritual specialist, while six figures – including the king and the queen – look on18. Blood was also typically drawn from the ears or by drawing a thorn-studded cord through the tongue19.
A stela in Piedras Negras presents a similarly blood-centered image of an elevated royal seat reached by a ladder; and this ladder was draped with a cloth marked by the king’s bloody footprints, the contribution of a sacrificial victim slain at its base. In the same city, another stela shows a ruler scattering blood into a vent leading to a sub-plaza tomb, in a typically Maya combination of gore and technology20.
Hearts were removed during sacrifices and victims were often beheaded. Sometimes that was for the best: at Chichen Itza, in order to obtain rain, victims – frequently young boys – were hurled into a deep natural well (“cenote”) together with copper, gold and jade offerings21, and some may have survived for days at the bottom, before exhaling. Some of the boys were twins, perhaps in a reflection of the trials of the Hero Twins, key figures in Maya cosmology.
Cranial deformation, not unheard of elsewhere, was also more usual among the Maya, including the deliberate flattening of skulls to produce a sloping forehead associated with the powerful maize god, K’awiil. Inlays of jade and pyrite have also been found in the front teeth of occupants of royal tombs, which hints at, hopefully, advanced dentistry techniques and the use of anesthetic drugs.
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Foliated Jaguar may have reigned before the Teotihuacano invasion, though.
Martin & Grube, Op. Cit., p. 39.
The comparatively minor degree of dental wear in Radiant Shield’s mouth at first suggested the owner’s age as decades younger than his 80 years-old reported age when he died. After considerable debate following his tomb’s sensational discovery in 1949, various analysis found the skeleton and its teeth consistent with the textual evidence rather than the younger age estimates of early researchers. Scholars have pointed to the king’s elevated status, which would have allowed him access to a softer, less abrasive diet than the average Maya person.
This interpretation, originally put forward by Erich Von Daniken in 1968, was often repeated in books in various languages and TV shows about spiritual and UFO subjects well into the 1980s and 1990s. The fact that Radiant Shield was unusually tall added to the ET mystique.
Now in Chiapas, Mexico, smallish Bonampak became a favorite tourist destination because of the Temple of the Murals, displaying hieratic, polychrome figures painted on walls that look very much like a Maya version of Egyptian pharaonic art.
The site of Bonampak, twenty-one kilometers from Yaxchilan and by the 8th century a vassal of its larger neighbor, is home to a contemporary mural narrative that is the finest to survive from Precolumbian America. Each of its three rooms is covered with colorful, vivid pageants, apparently depicting scenes related to a forest battle. The first room shows courtly scenes with music and dance, the second focuses on the ferocious battle itself, including an aftermath in which miserable prisoners, tortured and bleeding, squat on a steps while the victors pose above them. In the third room, palace scenes are displayed, with a group of royal ladies piercing their own tongues to draw sacrificial blood.
Its ruins are among the most prominent in Maya archeology, however, because the Acropolis allows for easy digging, particularly since the Copan River has cut a swathe from its eastern edge, opening a ridge that exposes 400 years of evolution.
Estrada-Belli, Op. Cit. The Motagua River runs from Guatemala’s Western Highlands all the way to the Gulf of Honduras, for almost 500 kilometers, and already attracted the attention of Olmec traders by around 2000 BC.
In “The secret…” (Op. Cit.) Henrich makes a compelling case for the revolutionary importance of cassava, a starch-rich tuber that allows dense settlement of drought-prone environments. However, cassava can contain high levels of cyanogenic glucosides, which release toxic hydrogen cyanide when the plant is eaten. If eaten unprocessed, cassava can cause both acute and chronic cyanide poisoning. This is by design: so-called “bitter” manioc varieties remain highly productive even in infertile soils and ecologically marginal environments, in part due to their cyanogenic defenses against insects and other pests. It was likely in El Salvador that Maya or Maya-adjacent peoples came up with ways to avoid such aftereffects, possibly using techniques like those Colombia’s Tukanoans still rely upon: a multistep, multiday processing technique that involves scraping, grating, and finally washing the roots in order to separate the fiber, starch, and liquid. Once separated, the liquid is boiled into a beverage, but the fiber and starch must then sit for two more days, when they can then be baked and eaten (similar processes were used by Northern American natives to eat the poisonous tubers of the “four corner potato” growing wild in Utah). Henrich uses cassava’s example, to great effect, to explain the importance of acquired cultural techniques that are often transmitted even if nobody quite knows the reason why, and must be followed exactly to be successful: when the cassava was exported by the Portuguese to Africa at the beginning of the 17th century, age-old indigenous processing protocols or the underlying commitment to using those techniques didn’t make the trip: “Because it is easy to plant and provides high yields in infertile or drought-prone areas, manioc spread rapidly across Africa and became a staple food for many populations. The processing techniques, however, were not readily or consistently regenerated. Even after hundreds of years, chronic cyanide poisoning remains a serious health problem in Africa. Detailed studies of local preparation techniques show that high levels of cyanide often remain and that many individuals carry low levels of cyanide in their blood or urine, which haven’t yet manifested in symptoms. In some places, there’s no processing at all, or sometimes the processing actually increases the cyanogenic content. On the positive side, some African groups have in fact culturally evolved effective processing techniques, but these techniques are spreading only slowly.”
This peak is typically dated to the 6th and 7th centuries, the period in between what specialists call the “Early Classic Period” started around 250, and the “Late Classic Period.”
Martin & Grube, Op. Cit., p. 14.
Kuiper, Op. Cit., p. 70. A later misconception that the Maya were theocratic is due to conditions in 16th-century Yucatán, where the priesthood was hereditary, and it is reported that younger sons of lords often took on that vocation. As Kuiper, explains: “Quite probably such a class was also to be found among the Late Classic Maya, but neither for the Maya nor for any other Classic civilization of Mesoamerica can the term theocracy be justified.”
Martin & Grube, Op. Cit., p. 17.
Kuiper, Op. Cit., p. 70.
Cit. “The Maya Lowlands: Pioneer Farmers to Merchant Princes” by Norman Hammond, in “The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas,” Vol II: Mesoamerica, Part I. Ed. By Richard E. W. Adams and Murdo J. MacLeod (Cambridge UP, 2008), p. 224: “The bulk of Maya animal protein intake came from mammals, however, with white-tailed deer {Odocoileus virginianus) providing more than half the total where quantitative studies have been made. The preponderance of venison in the diet suggests that deer may have been looseherded, or kept around communities without attempting domestication. Other forest mammals such as peccary, agouti, and armadillo are much less frequently found in middens. One protein source that was certainly domesticated was the dog: those at Cuello were killed toward the end of their first year of life, having eaten a maize-rich diet close to that of the Maya themselves. Control of such diverse protein sources as dogs and fish would have enabled the Maya to offset the low protein content of root crops.”
Martin & Grube, Op. Cit., pp. 140, 159 & 70.
An ordeal used as a claim to rightful inheritance.
Martin & Grube, Op. Cit., pp. 60-61.
Kuiper, Op. Cit., p. 63.
As Martin & Grube note (Op. Cit., p. 148), it’s possible that the ruler is scattering incense instead of blood.
Kuiper, Op. Cit., p. 68.
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