The painted ceramic cylinders made by the Maya during the Late
Classic (A.D.700-900) form a special category highly appreciated by
archaeologists, art historians, artists and connoisseurs alike.
Many of these polychrome masterpieces have been excavated intact from
the tombs and palaces of the elite, and are recognized as among the finest
expressions of Maya artistic genius. Indeed,
their presence is often an indicator of Classic “Maya-ness” (Reents
Budet 1994) Their
function and significance have been topics of debate, and the meaning of the
painted scenes has been the subject of widely divergent arguments.
In this paper, I examine the fascinating anomaly of the subcategory
known as Chamá polychrome ceramics, equally admired but rather more
enigmatic.
Chamá Polychromes are
named for the type site in southern Guatemala,
which lies in a fertile valley in the Alta Verapáz,
Guatemala’s hilly middle country,
situated between the great Classic Era cities of the Petén in the
Lowlands, and the more sparsely populated highlands to the west and south
(figure 1). 
The region lies on one of the major Precolumbian trade routes, but is
peripheral to the prominent lowland Maya cities, and its architectural
remains are not spectacular. That,
and the political unrest of the past twenty years have contributed to the
long archaeological hiatus in the region.
Thus pottery, always a significant element of the material record in
any archaeological investigation of Maya civilization,
is of paramount importance when attempting to understand cultural
development and change in the geographically marginal Chamá region, where
no archaeologists have worked for the past 80 years.
Such vessels are almost all we have from which to infer a history of
the region and to open avenues of inquiry into questions of trade,
politics, craft specialization, and iconography.
Chamá-style cylindrical vases
have distinctive black-and-white chevron motif bands painted around the rim
and base, with a bright white, and strong red-and-black palette, applied to
a distinctive yellow to yellow-orange background. The preferred decorative template is either a
static scene or individual repeated on each half of the vessel surface, or a continuous scene wrapped around the cylinder, such as on the well-known Ratinlixul Vase (figure 2). (Click on the link and use your browser back button to return)
Where hieroglyphs are present,
they are usually short phrases, personal names,
or calendrical day names. Because
highland ceramics used fewer and frequently more sketchily drawn glyphs than
those used on the well known lowland ceramics, modern epigraphers at first
believed they were merely decorative motifs, or else imitative pseudoglyphs
placed there by illiterate artists. This is no longer a credible theory, although many of the
inscriptions remain poorly understood.
One of the reasons for the interest in these ceramics is the
unorthodox sudden appearance of this sophisticated style in the equivalent
of the Maya boondocks. The Chamá
style emerged suddenly, flowered briefly and, with equal rapidity,
ceased abruptly, as the potters turned back to their local
traditions. Although generally ascribed to the Late Classic,
Reents-Budet suggests an even tighter temporal frame:
“Based on the scant archaeological data available for Chama-style
vessels, they probably date from the late seventh or early eighth centuries
A.D” (Reents Budet 1994) She
estimates that no more than two or three generations of potters, working in
an extremely circumscribed geographical area of Guatemala’s Hilly Middle
Country, far from the great Classic centers of the Maya lowlands, were
responsible for all of this pottery.
There are dozens--
indeed, hundreds-- of unprovenienced Chamá-style vessels
in museums and in
private collections. They are burdened with the recognized problems for
scholars of lack of contextual data, problematic reconstruction, creative
overpainting and potential forgery. The University of Pennsylvania Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology has the only known Museum collection of Chamá
polychrome cylinders with provenience: only eight vessels meet the narrow criteria of painted figural scenes, cylindrical shape, and distinctive
chevron borders.
Elsewhere, I have argued that
the Chamá style was introduced by colonists from the lowlands (Danien
1998). Now, through an
examination of the Chamá Vase from the Penn Museum collection, I can
give a name to two of their rulers.
The scene on the vessel (figure
3) (Click on the link and use your browser back button to
return) shows two groups of figures facing each other
across a kneeling figure flanked
by two black painted individuals.
The interwoven mat design on
the arms and legs of the kneeling figure is a symbol of royalty and
identifies him as a member of the elite, perhaps a ruler of a small polity,
although he wears nothing to announce such an exalted position.
Judging from the combination of jaguar skin cape, elaborate jewelry,
and fierce expression, the black-painted man holding the spear is the most
important figure in the scene.
It had been generally accepted that the glyphs stood for the
names of the actors, but they defied interpretation or sense in any of the
highland idioms. However, in
Eastern Cholan, the family of languages spoken in the Maya lowlands, they
become clear. Thanks to the
invaluable work of linguist Judith Storniolo of the University of
Pennsylvania, a tentative interpretation of the inscription provides names
for the figures, and conveys political and social information, including a
previously unknown title for a religious
office (Storniolo 2000: personal communication).
Reading the scene from left to
right, the first two figures, K’an Chubi, Yellow, or Precious
Turkey, and Holtab Balam, Forehead or Headband Jaguar, have no
central role in the proceedings.
The name of the third figure is Bas Ch’am,
which can be read as “Wrapper of the Harvest.”
The black painted figure next to Bas Ch’am is K’an
ti Pop: Lord Fer de Lance.
The glyphs
accompanying the kneeling figure have a more enigmatic meaning.
Ch’o Tz’apah Ah Waxak Haab Sus can be understood as
“Lord Puma, he who has ruled for eight years, set him or it in place, ”
with the final glyph meaning blood,
or purifying.
The glyphs before the
commanding figure of the black-painted man holding the spear are read
Ochma Kab Pop Muwan....Lord Owl, or Lord Muwan,
entered the earth. The final figure is
K’an Moo Ch’ok Ajaw, Young Lord Yellow Macaw.
This vessel has been the
object of differing interpretations, with its actors identified variously as
supernaturals, underworld figures, and merchants. I argue that it
commemorates a real event, and carries cultural information of importance in
our understanding of the time, the place and the people.
The important event being
commemorated is the funeral, or the entering the earth, of Lord Muwan.
His heir, the young lord, is behind him, on the viewer’s right,
observing the ceremonies. The phrase ch’ok ahaw, literally, young sprout, is
frequently used to identify the heir apparent. Similar scenes with both the dead king and the
living heir are known from Palenque, where the dead ruler Pacal and his
living successor, Chan Bahlum face each other.
Among the attendants on the
vase is the person who dresses the dead, Bas Ch’am, the “Wrapper
of the Harvest.” Such a
description of his function reinforces the argument made by Marshall Becker
(1992), that interment of the dead for the Lowland Maya was not burial, but
rather, an offering to the Earth Lord.
K’an ti P’op, Lord Fer de Lance, is a central participant in the
ceremonies surrounding this offering.
The kneeling figure, Lord Puma is about to be sacrificed as part of
the purification ritual in connection with Lord Muwan’s funerary
ceremonies. The
‘sacrificial’ paper earrings he wears, his lack of other ornament, his
position under the blade, all point to
his imminent sacrifice (Schele and Miller 1986).
The mat design on his thigh and arm identify him as a member of the
elite class. When captives are
shown on Lowland monuments, they are usually identified by their name glyphs
on their bodies (figure 4a,b).
(Figure 4. a. Captive at Tonia. b. Captives at Yaxchilán)
The scene on the Chamá Vase, coupled
with its use of a lowland language and current archaeological data
from other sites, contributes
to a picture of the political changes of the Late Classic in this little
known region.
By about A.D. 650, shifting alliances and wars among a variety
of Maya independent polities were becoming more widespread and more
destructive than ever. Among
the mechanisms designed to avoid internal conflicts among the growing number
of elite was a “hiving
off,” whereby cadet groups of the ruling families would leave their native
city and go off, to either
found a new city, or take over a weak, existing polity.
As part of the trading network that spread from highlands to
lowlands, Chamá was known to those who lived in the lowland cities along
the Pasión and the upper Usumacinta River regions.
As the only broad valley along the Chixoy River (figure 5), it
would have been attractive to such elite colonists, escaping from the
political and military unrest
of the lowlands. Because the inscriptions identified them, we know that
the artists who painted the beautiful polychrome vessels of the Late Classic
frequently were junior members of the ruling families (Reents-Budet 1996,
1998). Such artists among the
colonists would have taught the craftsmen of Chamá to imitate the vessel
form and painting styles common to the lowlands, and commissioned
illustrations that reflected the political and religious power of the new
regime. The
importance of these new overlords is reflected in the many sherds of Chamá vessels found in several of the polities along the Usumacinta River.
The style, despite its brief life, was sufficiently well known and
appreciated to be used by Maya artists as a decorative element on several
unprovenienced Chamá-style vessels!
Another polychrome
cylinder hints at the city from which these colonists may have come.
The Altár de Sacrificios Vase, from excavations at that site, has
been interpreted as commemorating the funeral of the personage in whose tomb
the vase was found (Adams 1971). Three of the figures on the vase are
identified as elites from three different sites.
Two of those sites are in the Lowlands, and one is still
unidentified.
The glyphs that identify the seated man with a deer headdress state that he is the way or spiritual co-essence of the bacab
or ruler of a site, whose
emblem glyph is still
unrecognized (Adams 1977). The suggestion has been made by Reents Budet and
Sharer, among others, that the site from which he comes is in the highlands.
Given the relatively large quantity of Chamá vessels at Altár, one
can assume trade and elite gifting relationships with
highland polities.
If the colonizing group that
took over Chamá came from this region, then their presence at an important
funeral would be appropriate, and the naming of the Chamá ruler as a bacab,
or ruler of a secondary site, perhaps with obligations to the ruler of Altár,
would be completely understandable within the Maya political structure.
Altár de Sacrificios is at the juncture of the Pasión and Chixoy
rivers, downstream from Chamá, at the point
where the two rivers join to form the all important Usumacinta River.
Thus, the Chamá Vase fills in a small piece of Late Classic Maya
history: The lowland intruders into Chamá introduced an art style and
ceremonies that were emulated for as long as the colonists were perceived as
powerful. Lord Muwan was
succeeded by his son, Young Lord Yellow Macaw. With the collapse of the great cities of the central Petén,
the wealth of the lowlands ceased to find its way into the highlands.
The colonizers were no longer considered as valuable and worthy of
imitation. They left, or were
absorbed into the local culture. As the older artists died, the new ones
took on the styles of the surrounding community.
The potters reverted to the old ways,
the brief florescence of Chama polychrome cylinders ended.
For the last time, Lord Muwan and his dynasty entered the earth.
References Cited
Adams, R.E.W.
1977 Comments on the Glyphic Texts of the “Altar Vase” In Social
Process in Maya Prehistory: Studies in Honor of Sir Eric Thompson,
Norman Hammond, editor. Pp 409- 420. Academic Press, London
1971 The Ceramics of Altar de Sacrificios. Papers of the Peabody
Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Becker, Marshall J.
1992 Burials as Caches, Caches as Burials: A New Interpretation of the
Meaning of Ritual Deposits Among the Classic Period Lowland Maya. In New
Theories on the Ancient Maya. E. C. Danien and R. Sharer, eds. Pp.
185-196. Philadelphia: The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania
Danien, Elin C.
1998 The Chama Polychrome Ceramic Cylinders in The University of
Pennsylvania MuseumUnpublished dissertation, University of Pennsylvania
Reents-Budet, Dorie
1998 Elite Maya Pottery and Artisans as Social Indicators. In Craft
and Social Identity, eds. Cathy Costin and Rita Wright, Anthropological
Papers of the American Anthropological Association No. 8, Washington, D.C.
1996 Classic Maya Pottery Vessels: Social Rituals and Cosmological Rites;
paper presented at the 14th Annual Maya Weekend, University Museum,
University of Pennsylvania, March 30-31
Reents-Budet, Dorie, with contributions by Joseph Ball, Ronald Bishop,
Virginia Fields, and Barbara McLeod
1994 Painting the Maya Universe: Royal Ceramics of the Classic Period.
Duke University Press, Durham and London
Schele Linda and Mary Ellen Miller
1986 The Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art. G.
Braziller and the Kimbell Art Museum, New York and Fort Worth
