Uaxactun After the Conquest by Teotihuacanos as Told by the Mural From Palace B-Xiii

Abstract

The present study deals with the mural of Structure B-XIII of the archaeological site of Uaxactun in Guatemala. Although this mural was found in 1937 and initially aroused much interest, it does not appear in recent works, given its destruction a few years after its discovery. Many new discoveries in the Maya area have been made and this old one has been burdened with interpretations that are far from the current state of the art. So, we have decided to reinitiate the investigation, digitally recreate the mural on the basis of photographs from the time of its discovery and reattempt to understand its meaning by analysing the image, hieroglyphic writing, and calendric record. We summarise the results and place these in a historical context that allows us to combine new mural data with those that we have obtained from the stone monuments of Uaxactun using modern technology. The results shed light on a critical period of Maya history shortly after the so-called Entrada associated with Teotihuacan.

Terminal Classic Conch-Shell Gorgets from the Maya Region and Central Mexico

“…In the Maya world, scenes of meetings among members of the elite hailing from different kingdoms are relatively rare in the Early Classic period, and probably the majority of these few are connected to the Teotihuacano entrada of the late fourth century and the new order it created (e.g., Estrada-Belli et al 2009; Hurst 2009:Figure 48; Kováč et al 2019; Stuart 2000; Tokovinine 2013:55). In the Late Classic, as new kingdoms proliferated and the ranks of the aristocracy grew, conferences and the giving of gifts or tribute began to be depicted more often.…”

Who Were the First Ceramic-Using Villagers in the Maya Lowlands?

“…Subsequent work at Uaxactun in the 1980s by the Proyecto Nacional Tikal was overseen by Juan Antonio Valdés, who investigated both the Preclassic center (Laporte and Valdés 1993) and the Classic era site core above it (Valdés 1999(Valdés , 2005. Ongoing research by the Proyecto Arqueológico SAHI-Uaxactun, overseen by Milan Kováč (Kováč et al 2010), has focused on the Terminal Preclassic Group H, expanding our understanding of how the two site cores related, including recognizing a clear 100-year hiatus between the Preclassic and Classic occupations (Kováč 2011).…”