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Florida Museum-Led Study Counters Ideas About Maya Elite Craftworks

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Florida Museum-Led Study Counters Ideas About Maya Elite Craftworks Florida Museum-led Study Counters Ideas About Maya Elite Craftworks By DeLene Beeland Aguateca is a Classic (250-900 AD) Maya archaeological site located in the southwestern Petén region of Guatemala. Since 1996, Dr. Takeshi Inomata of the University of Arizona Figurine has been directing the Aguateca Archaeological Project. from the South Addition. Through extensive archaeological investigations at Aguateca, archaeologists are seeking to gain a better understanding of household organization and A structure known as the Governor’s Palace. The foundation of an elite residence. Known as the Barranca Escondida, a deep domestic activities during the Classic period. Aguateca presents archaeologists with a chasm is located along the edge of the Palace continued from page 4 Group. Upon excavating this chasm, excavators unique opportunity to study these important aspects of Classic Maya civilization because uncovered a corpus of carved stelae. All of the it was attacked by enemies, burned, and subsequently abandoned at the beginning of paintbrush holders, bone hooks and cumulative contextual evidence points stelae date to a time earlier than the structures the 9th century AD. Due to this pattern of rapid abandonment, many of the inhabitants grinders. to crafts being produced at every level in the Palace Group. Because of this fact, left their belongings behind them as they fled the site. The site was excavated between of the elite class. Even the king’s family Inomata believes that these stelae could have 1989 and 1996 by the Aguateca was working on final-stage production been dedicated by the rulers of Tamarindito; he A new Florida Museum of Natural Archaeology Project, directed by Takeshi of things like shell adornments and suggests that Aguateca could have been the History study shows ancient Maya territory of Tamarindito before the peoples of Inomata and Daniela Triadan of the leatherworking.” political elites likely crafted their own Aguateca claimed this area for themselves. University of Arizona. Emery analyzed Excavation work at the site has bone and shell products for domestic use, the bone and shell items and their produced no evidence that other parts of which counters previously held beliefs distributions between 1991 and 2004, the city were attacked before its ultimate that the group depended on domestic in large part at the Florida Museum. abandonment. This was typical of Maya servants or lower classes for everyday Co-author Kazuo Aoyama of Ibaraki warfare tactics, Emery explained. household items such as sewing pins, University in Japan analyzed the stone “The ancient Maya saw cities as spatulas and shell bowls. Aguateca’s Ruler 5 depicted on Stela 19. tools, and all the artifacts were returned animate beings, and if you wanted to kill The study in the August 2007 edition to Guatemala. a city you went straight for its spirit, or of the journal Ancient Mesoamerica Petexbatún region. An invasion of the Emery’s prior research at Dos its leaders,” she said. “Once the leaders provides clues to ancient Maya society city in about 830 A.D. set in motion Pilas, an ancient Maya community near were dead, the political power of the and offers new insight into how elite Shell Necklace from the North Room. a series of events leading to its very Aguateca, produced detailed records city was defeated. They considered it status groups used and controlled animal them, but the unique preservation at this unusual preservation. Despite stone-wall of the stages of bone and shell craft unnecessary to kill the lower classes.” Enthroned on the palace wall, excavation bone and shell resources, says lead site provided us a rare break,” Emery reinforcements around the region where production, which she used to interpret The ancient Maya also considered director Takeshi Inomata contemplates a mystery: author Kitty Emery, an environmental said. “Because the city was abandoned the elite lived, the invasion was so the remains excavated in Aguateca. residences and buildings as animate Most of the rooms lie virtually empty. The one archaeologist at the Florida Museum exception is a sealed chamber containing sacred so rapidly we’ve been able to pinpoint, sudden that the powerful ruling class Co-author Aoyama’s prior studies of beings, and their spatial layouts often on the University of Florida campus. and ceremonial objects. Inomata believes that for the first time, exactly who was fled for their lives. In their haste, they tell-tale microwear patterns etched into symbolically reflected the left-right when the final attack seemed imminent, the royal “It is extremely difficult for doing what with bone and shell left belongings scattered in their homes. stone tools from repeated use (such as dichotomy of the human body. family hid some of their cherished belongings, archaeologists products among the upper classes “The invaders burned the homes cutting leather, skinning and butchering Modern ethnography indicates packed up everything else, and quietly slipped to establish and rulers of the Maya world.” and as the structures caved in and the animals, or shaping stone, bone or that past and modern Maya cultures away. Their loyal courtiers, who stayed behind to strong links defend Aguateca, fled at the last moment or were The study included extensive walls collapsed, they encapsulated a shell) also aided their interpretation. associate the left side of residences between the captured, leaving houses full of belongings – analysis of more than 20,000 bone and snapshot of the elite’s daily activities,” “Without this backdrop of with women and the right side with men. artifacts we a gift to history. Photo courtesy of Ramón Puga (NG). shell craft items and the stone tools used Emery said. “Conditions for preservation comparative evidence, and without Emery’s team consistently excavate and to make them. Scientists excavated the are normally poor in these lowlands, so linking Aoyama’s previous research with excavated certain craft activities in She currently is tracing pathways the specific artifacts from elite homes in the core this is unique. This is the first time we’ve mine, we wouldn’t have been able to right- and left-side auxiliary chambers of how animal products such as people who of Aguateca. been able to link a specific status group interpret the Aguateca elite activities in adjacent to a central room, leading her to meat, bone, and shell entered Maya made or used Aguateca was one of the most with the actual stone tools used to make such detail,” Emery said. “Critics may hypothesize that women were executing communities, how they were circulated Kitty F. Emery, Ph.D. politically important cities of the individual bone and shell products.” counter the elite could have had domestic the early stages of bone and shell crafting. and who controlled their production and Every one of the elite residences Based on glyphs in ancient Maya servants or independent artisans doing Evidence for final-stage crafting, such distribution. Answers to these questions excavated so far has included a writing and artistic scenes depicted on these activities, but the weight of the as nearly finished adornments, was will help Emery and other scientists workshop – a sign that Aguateca’s vases, most archaeologists accept that the found in chambers associated better gauge human impact to the sculptors, painters, ceramic Maya elite were likely involved at some with men, Emery said. lowland Maya environment, including artists, and scribes came level in luxury craftworks, such as body This study is one effects on animals from hunting. overwhelmingly from the ranks of nobility. A sampling of clay and clothing adornments. But Emery’s component of Emery’s study is the first to assert they also were more extensive research Source: From an original press release at figurines shows their range of http://insideuf.ufl.edu/2007/08/29/mayan-elite. inspiration: left to right, a ritual making everyday household bone and at Aguateca and other sites Visit the Aguateca Archaeological Project website clown performer, a warrior, a shell crafts for their own use – or that in Guatemala and Honduras at: www.ic.arizona.edu/ic/anth453/index.html. Top three photos from: www.visitaguateca.com young noblewoman holding a of the community, or their rulers – such detailing the courtly and fan, an old woman, a monstrous or www.pbase.com.The photos by Kenneth as awls, needles, pins, disks, plaques, humble lives of the ancient Garret and Ramón Puga are courtesy of National face, and a mysterious animal. Geographic at: http://magma.nationalgeographic.com. Some of them were also whistles carved-bone segments, tubes, rasps, Maya throughout the Also check out Dr. Emery’s website at: Photo courtesy of Kenneth Garrett (NG). and probably used in rituals. continued on page 5 The Aguateca team’s lab in Guatemala City. Classic Maya time period. www.environmental-archaeology.com.
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