Four species of monkeys may have lived in the Maya region in pre-Columbian times: two howler monkey species, the spider monkey, and possibly the capuchin. Simians also played an important role in Maya creation myth and cosmology, and are frequently represented on Maya pottery and in glyphic texts. Scholars disagree, however, on which monkeys are depicted. Here we provide an analysis of 142 monkey images on 97 pots, focusing especially on Classic-period lowland polychromes. Multiple physical characteristics of the primates are considered, along with cultural traits, to provide appropriate biological and cultural contexts and artistic conventions necessary to their interpretation. Besides the well-known scribal roles (attributed to howlers and “Monkey-Men”), we conclude that monkeys commonly take on pictorial and non-pictorial roles that involve carrying or bringing goods such as tribute or cacao. In contexts of liminality, these creatures are often charged with transcending natural and social realms.
Processus d'animation de figurines et rituels domestiques dans un ancien village mixtèque Procesos de animación de figurillas y rituales domésticos en un antiguo pueblo mixteco
This volume on the earliest lowland Maya pottery began without a name and remained nameless until it was nearly completely written. Like the pre-Mamom era itself, even now a better moniker eludes us, and the reader will note that, while the participating authors agree there is something called pre-Mamom, we cannot yet reach consensus on exactly how to define it, set parameters on it, or place it precisely in absolute or relative time. In fact, we are not yet certain whether we have one pre-Mamom component or multiple, sequential pre-Mamoms, nor are we clear about exactly how many ceramic spheres we have encountered in our collective surveys and excavations. There is, however, substantial agreement among the authors on one point: the first potters in the Maya lowlands may not have been recognizably Maya when they started firing ceramics about 1000 BC, but they were by the time the pre-Mamom period ended around 600 BC. This evolution is evident in the ensuing Mamom ceramic sphere (600-300 BC), which constituted a broadly recognizable tradition in the Maya lowlands, materialized in the collective acceptance of waxy ware ceramic technology, monochrome slips, common vessel forms, and inferred similar functionality that undergirded
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