Late Classic Maya

1. Late Classic Maya AD 600-900 Peak of Greatness

2. Ceremonial obsidian knife from burial cache at Copan. Intricate chipping to produce portrait knife.

3. Mayan Lowlands and Highlands • Major Classic sites remain powerful • Smaller sites of significance: Rio Bec, Bonampak, Dos Pilas and Copan, • Reemergence to prominence: Monte Alban (in Oaxaca) and Caracol • Chichen itza expands. Uxmal becomes one of the great cities.

4. Elsewhere • Valley of Mexico: Decline of Teotihuacan and abandonment. Population splinters into small groups throughout the region. • West and North Mexico: Rise of small petty kingdoms that would later become the mighty Toltec, Aztec, and Tarascan States. • Central Highlands: Tula

5. Evidence informing us about the period • Inscriptions of king lists, accounts of battles, murals, inscriptions of legends, archaeological remains. • King lists in particular provide a chronology of wars between cities and who the protagonists were.

6. Late Classic Maya • A period of great achievements but also tremendous conflict between rival cities. • Civilization continues to be based on agriculture, milpa (slash and burn) farming and irrigation farming. • Important shift from city life centered on gods to focus on rulers and elite society.

7. Power • Expressed through temple construction, display of captives, monuments, increased scale in ritual sacrifice. • Stelae and inscriptions: boasts of power • “Star Wars”: war timed by astrology.

8. Everyday life for non-elite unchanged since the Formative Period

9. New Architectural Styles • Puuc mosaic embellishment seen at Chichen itza, Uxmal, Coba (and others) • Puuc replaces the carved and inscribed face stones with a mosaic approach to iconography. Individual pieces transform the buildings from facades to complete figures themselves.

10. Puuc refers both to a region and an architectural style Major sites with Puuc style highlighted in color circles

13. Puuc style facade

18. 1936 Sylvanus Morely at Uxmal excavations as pictured in national Geographic Magazine.

19. Chichen itza

20. Rio Bec

24. Ruins at Rio Bec

25. Rio Bec Towers. Façade had large figures in Puuc style.

27. Bonampak • SE Mexico, Chiapas, near Guatemala • Small city but important for its frescos--murals painted in plaster. • Scenes of war, ritual, music, magic

28. Restoration • Computer enhancement and color replenishment.

30. Bonampak

31. Chamber of the murals

33. Restored mural

36. Mayan War

37. Multiple sources of evidence • War gods • Stelae with inscriptions of warrior kings • Painted and carved images of war, captives being tortured or sacrifices • Archaeologically recovered weapons

38. War served many purposes: to assert authority; for kings to gain status; to obtain captives for slaves and sacrifice; for resource control; to please the war gods...

39. We are informed by inscriptions that the heliacal rising of the “dawn star” (Venus) was a portent of evil and a pretext for war. • Specific lunar cycles are also associated with war. • Scribes were a specific target of war. • One war between Uaxactun and Tikal is recorded in scripts at both sites. Tikal was led by Great Jaguar Paw and Uaxactun by Fire is Born.

40. Warrior, Highland Guatemala

41. Flint spear heads. Crude but effective.

42. Decorative war mace Warrior, Piedras Negras

43. Drinking vessel or vase. Warrior jaguar cloak and with mace displays his captive

44. Various weapons and tales depicted on vases.

45. Noble preparing for war.

46. Warriors in canoe. Links real events with mythical.

48. Military parade.

49. Close-up of headdress