Sacred Mountain at Copan - Temple 22

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THE SACRED MOUNTAIN IN SOCIAL CONTEXT. SYMBOLISM AND HISTORYIN MAYA ARCHITECTURE: TEMPLE 22 AT COPAN, HONDURAS

Jennifer von Schwerin

Ancient Mesoamerica / Volume 22 / Issue 02 / September 2011, pp 271 - 300DOI: 10.1017/S0956536111000319, Published online: 30 December 2011

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0956536111000319

How to cite this article:Jennifer von Schwerin (2011). THE SACRED MOUNTAIN IN SOCIAL CONTEXT. SYMBOLISM AND HISTORY IN MAYAARCHITECTURE: TEMPLE 22 AT COPAN, HONDURAS. Ancient Mesoamerica, 22, pp 271-300 doi:10.1017/S0956536111000319

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THE SACRED MOUNTAIN IN SOCIAL CONTEXT.SYMBOLISM AND HISTORY IN MAYAARCHITECTURE: TEMPLE 22 AT COPAN, HONDURAS

Jennifer von SchwerinDepartment of Art and Art History, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131

Abstract

Did Mesoamerican temples really symbolize sacred mountains? If so, what accounts for their varying forms across space and time?Through a socio-historical and iconographic approach, it is now becoming possible to explain the social and historical factors for whydesign in ancient Maya temples varied. Using these methods, this paper reconstructs and reinterprets one famous “sacred mountain” in theMaya region: Temple 22, at Copan, Honduras, dedicated by king Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil in a.d. 715. Since 1998, the author has leda project to conserve, document, analyze, and hypothetically reconstruct thousands of sculptures from the building’s collapsed façades. Indesign and symbolism, the building probably represented not just a mountain, but the Maya universe. In its more specific historicalcontext, Temple 22 was designed as royal rhetoric to affirm order at a disorderly moment, and used both traditional and innovative forms toassert Copan’s leading role on the boundary of the Maya world.

Humans often express their relationship to the natural world throughthe forms and symbolism of religious architecture. Scholars agreethat temples in ancient Mesoamerica often were designed as meta-phors for sacred mountains and served as stages for rulers to placethemselves within the natural order of things. The relationshipbetween landscape and architecture, one of the more prominenttopics in Mesoamerican studies in the last half-century, hasallowed scholars insight into ancient Mesoamerican worldviewsand state religions.1

Although there is evidence that Mesoamerican peoples con-ceived of their temples as sacred mountains at specific momentsand sites in history—Mound C at La Venta, circa 600 b.c. (Reilly1999), the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan circa a.d. 100(Heyden 1981), or the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan circa a.d.

1400 (Broda et al. 1987; Schele and Kappelman 2001)—this isprobably not true for all temples in Mesoamerica. Their formsand meanings varied through time and space, due to a range offactors such as available materials, the existing natural and builtlandscape, aesthetics, and local socio-political concerns. Theselatter two factors are extremely hard to recover archaeologically.

Ancient Maya architecture is ideal for a socio-historical study oftemple variation, because it is the best-preserved architectural tra-dition in Mesoamerica and because archaeologists have uncoveredartifacts and deciphered texts that span almost two millennia. Inthe 1970s, before Maya hieroglyphic texts could be read in anygreat detail, scholars approached variation in Maya architecture by

charting regional styles, but these so-called regional styles nowneed to be reconsidered. For example, they defined the “SouthernLowland” regional style in part by its high-relief architectural sculp-ture and cited the ancient city of Copan in Western Honduras as theclassic example (e.g., Gendrop 1974; Kubler 1962a; Pollock 1965)(Figures 1 and 2). However, recent excavations indicate that façadesin northern Yucatan also had high-relief architectural sculpture(Figure 3). A revised comparative study of Maya architecturaldesign is in order and since the 1990s scholars have been callingfor “an art historical analysis of stylistic interaction between sites”(Culbert 1991:345). They also have suggested that although scho-lars have identified temples, sweat baths, and ball courts, “additionalwork needs to be done to determine when and where such buildingsappear and what their local attributes might be… the ways in which[they use] a vocabulary that was both universally Maya and simul-taneously local” (Houston 1998:520). The challenge is not only tobetter date and describe regional schools of architecture to under-stand how their appearance varied over time and space, but alsoto understand the reasons for these changes (Miller 1999:6–7).Fortunately, it now is becoming feasible to examine the “whys”behind variation in temple design. Now that Maya hieroglyphscan be deciphered, and archaeological data is expanding, scholarsare beginning to synthesize histories of the art and architecture ofindividual Maya kingdoms (W. Fash 2001, 2004; Fash and Stuart1991; Harrison 1998; Looper 2003; Martin and Grube 2000;Schele and Freidel 1990; Stuart and Stuart 2008; Tate 1992). It isslowly becoming possible to engage in closer analyses of thedesign, function, and meanings of certain buildings within theirmicro-historical contexts—that is, plus or minus just a few decades.

The micro-historical study of Maya architectural design hasalready been underway at the ancient city of Copan (Figure 4).Over 160 years of investigations have resulted in texts and archae-ological data spanning five centuries and the dynasties of sixteenkings, and archaeologists now are able to date change in ceramics

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E-mail: correspondence to: [email protected] Andrews 1975; Bassie-Sweet 1991, 1996; Benson 1985; Bernal-Garcia

1994; Brady and Ashmore 1999; Broda et al. 1987; Coe 2003; B. Fash 1992,2005; Freidel et al. 1993; Girard 1969; Heyden 1981; Koontz et al. 2001;M. Miller 1986, 1999; Pasztory 1992; Reilly 1999; Schele 1998; Scheleand Freidel 1991; Schele and Kappelman 2001; Schele and Mathews1998; Schele and Miller 1986; Staller 2005; Stuart 1987, 1997; Tate 1992;Taube 1986, 2002; Townsend 1979, 1992; Vogt 1960, 1969, 1981.

Ancient Mesoamerica, 22 (2011), 271–300Copyright © Cambridge University Press, 2011doi:10.1017/S0956536111000319

and architecture to within a few decades (for the most recent over-view of research at Copan see Andrews and Fash [2004]). Relevantto the study of architecture, the Copan Mosaics Project (CMP), theCopan Acropolis Archaeological Project (PAAC), its sub-operations, and other projects have shown that architectural sculp-ture programs at Copan can be reconstructed and interpretedwithin a micro-historical context.2 For example, the Popol Na orCouncil House at Copan has been interpreted to have been builtby the sixteenth ruler of Copan in response to a challenging politicalsituation (Fash et al. 1992), while the House of the Bacabs has beeninterpreted to be the home of a scribe of one of the rising lineagesthat threatened the power of this very ruler (Webster 1989). Butwhat about the temple-like structures—buildings that scholarsrefer to as “sacred mountains?” What evidence is there for such“sacred mountains” in the Maya region, and can they be placedwithin a socio-historical context?

The building at Copan that scholars recognize as representing theYax Hal Witz (“First True Mountain” or Creation Mountain) ofMaya mythology (Freidel et al. 1993:149) is located high on theEast Court of the acropolis of Copan. Called Structure 10L-22, orsimply, Temple 22 (Figures 4–6), it was dedicated in a.d. 715 bythe thirteenth king of Copan, Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil(known in earlier literature as 18 Rabbit) (Figure 7). Temple 22

Figure 1. Copan and other Maya kingdoms mentioned in the text. Map by Heather Richards-Rissetto.

Figure 2. One of twenty Maize God sculptures from Temple 22, Copan (©The Trustees of the British Museum).

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Copan Mosaics Project (see, for example Fash 1991a, 1991b, 1992,2011); Copan Acropolis Archaeological Project (see, for example, Agurcia1996; Agurcia and Fash 2005; Andrews and Fash 1992; Fash 1998, 2001;Fash and Fash 1990; Fash et al. 1992; Schele and Freidel 1990; Shareret al. 1999; Stuart 1992, 1997); other projects (see Webster 1989).

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has been lauded as the “single most beautifully executed” of allextant Copan structures (Miller 1988:153). Relatively small astemples in the Maya area go (with a floor plan 25.5 × 11.5 m), itis perhaps best known for the detailed sculpture that frames thestructure’s interior doorway (Figure 8). This represents theCosmic Monster (Milbrath 1999:275–283, Figure 7.5d; Schele1992b:135–136; Stone 1985) or starry-deer-crocodile (Stuart2005) with deer, serpent, and crocodile attributes. This symbolizesthe sky—or perhaps more specifically, the Milky Way (Milbrath

1999:277–280; Schele 1992b:135–136)—that is held up byPahuatuns or sky-bearers who hold up the four corners of theearth. Like this sculptural tour-de-force, the exterior façade borean equally ornate sculptural program with almost 4,000 piecesand fragments of mosaic, stone sculpture that have led scholars toconsider Temple 22 a masterpiece of Maya architecture (Freidelet al. 1990:147). Although Temple 22’s façades are now collapsedand the sculpture is in collections around the world, the pieces are ingood condition and the building has excellent archaeological and

Figure 4. Reconstruction of the Principal Group of Copan with surrounding structures, as the architecture appeared in a.d. 820,viewed from the northeast. Sketch Up Model by Heather Richards-Rissetto.

Figure 3. Detail from stucco façade at Ek Balam, Yucatan. Photo by author.

Symbolism and History in Maya Architecture: Temple 22 at Copan, Honduras 273

Figure 6. Temple 22 in its consolidated state today. Only the structure’s platform and bearing walls of the first story remain. Photo byauthor (2008).

Figure 5. Plan of Temple 22 and the East Court. Graphic by Heather Richards-Rissetto (after Hohmann and Vogrin 1982).

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historical context. Since the 1980s, scholars have used Temple 22 toargue that Maya temples were symbolic mountains because its firststory bears masks with the witz (hill) and tuun (stone) glyphs (Fash1992; Schele 1987; Stuart 1987:17–23, 1997:15) (Figure 9), anthro-pomorphized maize figures (see Figure 2) (Spinden 1913:90), andan exterior doorway in the form of a fanged mouth, symbolizing acave within the mountain (Figure 10) (Freidel et al. 1993:146–155; Schele 1987; Schele and Freidel 1990:146–155; Scheleand Miller 1986; Stuart 1987, 1997). There has been ongoingdebate, however, as to whether the building actually was a temple.Hypotheses vary from temple (Fash 1991a; 1992, 2005; Morales1997; Plank 2003:261; Schele and Kappelman 2001; Schele andMiller 1986; Spinden 1913; Taube 1994, 2002) to observatory forVenus and the Sun (Aveni 1977; Closs et. al 1984; Morley 1920:277–282; Šprajc 1987), to royal residence (Baudez 1989; Miller1999:52; Sanders 1989) (for a more detailed survey of previousinterpretations see Ahlfeldt [2004b:29–71]). This disagreement ispartly because these studies had to rely on archaeological dataand reconstruction drawings that employed less than one percentof the sculpture sample.

Four archaeological projects over the last century have recoveredclose to 4,000 pieces of sculpture now attributed to Temple 22 andthis unanalyzed material (as well as recent advances in archaeologyand epigraphy at Copan and throughout the Maya area) demands areinterpretation of the building’s form and meanings. The mostrecent project, the PAAC, directed by William L. Fash of HarvardUniversity (Fash 1989, 1998), contributed vastly to this corpusand the CMP, directed by Barbara Fash, catalogued the sculptureto conserve and analyze it (Fash et al. 1992; Fash 2011). In 1998they invited me to continue the sculpture analysis and I havesince directed the Temple 22 Façade Sculpture Analysis Project asa subproject of the CMP. I followed CMPmethods to hypotheticallyreconstruct the building’s façade sculpture, and to synthesize

interdisciplinary data to determine the structure’s significance(Ahlfeldt 2004a, 2004b) and began to explore the advantages of adigital reconstruction (Remondino et al. 2009; von Schwerin et al.2010, 2011).3 In preliminary publications I also employed formal,stylistic, and construction analyses, and phenomenological and per-formance theory to locate this structure within the social and archi-tectural history of Copan (Ahlfeldt 2004a, 2004b). A forthcomingexcavation report by the PAAC project on the excavations ofTemple 22 will include a more detailed report of the Temple 22Façade Sculpture Analysis Project than can be presented here.

This paper summarizes what we have learned to date about thesculptural program of Temple 22 and analyzes it within the socio-historical context of eighth-century Copan—offering a case-studyfor how and why royal elites employed sacred mountain imageryin ancient Maya architecture. I show that during his reign (a.d.695–738), king Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil was struggling tohold the kingdom together and that he commissioned Temple 22as a response to his situation. This paper concludes that Temple22 represented not only the sacred mountain of creation, but morebroadly the fertile, ordered Maya universe—or kaan kab’ (sky-earth)—peopled with the ruler, ancestors, and patron deities. Ishow how the building employed both ancient and innovativeforms with a clarity intended both for Maya and non-Maya audi-ences, visually explaining the historical, mythical, and cosmicbasis for Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s reign to his eighth-centurysubjects as he sought to maintain Copan’s power base on the south-eastern Maya frontier. More broadly, this paper offers insights notonly into Maya kingship and state religion at Copan in the earlyeighth century, but also moves the study of Mesoamerican templedesign beyond structural interpretations as sacred mountains toshow how and why this metaphor was used in one specific historicalcontext. The reconstruction and interpretation of the Maya templepresented here offers a specific instance of how Mesoamericanelites used architecture as media to express their political agendas,and also how humanity’s relationship to nature was conceived ofand expressed at one moment in Mesoamerican history.

A SOCIAL HISTORY OF MAYA TEMPLE DESIGN

By “social history” I refer to that branch of art history influenced bythe Marxist approach that examines circumscribed moments in thehistory of art, focusing on historical relations between artists, art-works, and institutions (for example, T.J. Clark’s [1973] TheAbsolute Bourgeois: Artists and Politics in France between1848–1851) (Hatt and Klonk 2006). This is different fromAppadurai’s anthropological concept of the social history ofobjects (1986) in which an object goes through various states, atone time or another ending up as a commodity. WhileAppadurai’s is a diachronic approach—looking at the change inmeaning of a single object over time—in the discipline of arthistory, a social history of an object is a synchronic study thatlocates the object’s significance within a particular socio-historicalmoment and context. This approach emphasizes that art (or architec-ture) does not simply reflect society, but can change society. Asocio-historical inquiry of an object asks: “How is the object’sdesign a product—and even agent—of the social, political, andeconomic conditions in which it was made?”

Figure 7. Stela B, Great Plaza, Copan. This stela is believed to be a portraitof Ruler Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil. Photo by author.

3

Note that my previous publications on this subject were publishedunder my maiden name, Jennifer Ahlfeldt.


The relationship between historical context and architecturaldesign has long engaged historians of Gothic cathedrals andGreek temples (e.g., Marconi 2007; Murray 1989), and in the lastdecade, studies of elite architecture of the New World also havebegun to take the social historical approach—although they havenot named it as such. Edited volumes of studies of palace architec-ture, for example, have sought to identify palace forms and then tocombine ethnohistoric, epigraphic, and archaeological data to inferways that the forms and spaces of elite architecture express royalrhetoric (Christie 2003; Christie and Sarro 2006; Evans and

Pillsbury 2004; Inomata and Houston 2001). It has been shown,for example, that palace forms at different kingdoms and citiesranged widely in both Inka and Maya civilizations and that this vari-ation in form reflected differing regional political strategies(Demarest 2006; Morris 2004). As to the details of these politicalstrategies, the recent developments in Maya archaeology, epigraphy,and archaeometric technologies now make a social history of Mayaarchitectural design at individual cities a viable endeavor. See forexample, the studies of royal architectural programs at Quirigua(Ashmore 2007; Looper 2003) or Copan (W. Fash 1991a, 2004;Freidel et al. 1993).

While most other socio-historical studies of Mesoamerican orMaya architecture focus on how building programs are built tosend messages to people within the city or kingdom in question,I take a slightly different approach here in that I conceive of“context” more broadly—to explore the role Temple 22 playedin Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s, and Copan’s, relationship tothe broader southeastern Mesoamerican region—in particularthe city’s trading partners. I also build upon the results from a dia-chronic approach I took in a previous publication (von Schwerin2011), in which I examine the building as one “event” (Kubler1962b), within a longer tradition of similar architectural eventsat Copan. This assists me in highlighting the temple’s traditionaland innovative aspects that in turn shed more light on the temple’ssignificance to its eighth-century viewers. Finally, I seek to breakdown the static concept of Maya “pyramid-temples” by rethink-ing them in a socio-historical context, to consider how theirdesign was part of a grander tradition with variation that mightbe explained by local factors. I am interested in the variationbetween royal temples specifically, but even the word “temple”needs to be defined and reconsidered (Ahlfeldt 2004b). Alongthese lines, Lisa Lucero (2007) has suggested that more researchneeds to be made into the relationship between royal and commu-nity temples. To avoid entering this discussion here, I limit myfocus here to a structure type that scholars believe often

Figure 9. View of 3D model of witz masks in the Copan Sculpture Museumthat once decorated the corners of the bearing walls of the first story ofTemple 22. Range data and 3D model realized by the 3D Optical Metrologyresearch unit of FBK Trento, Italy.

Figure 8. Reconstruction drawing of sculpture surrounding the doorway to the north room of Temple 22, based on the original sculp-ture now in the Copan Sculpture Museum. Drawing by Edgar Zelaya under the direction of the author.

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represented sacred mountains and caves—those with “zoo-morphic portals” or “dragon-mouth entrances” (Gendrop 1985;Schávelzon 1980) (see Figure 2).

Among the buildings of this “serpent-mouth doorway” type inthe Maya region, Temple 22 is one of the few that can be confi-dently designated as a royal structure, because its inscription,symbolism, location, and quality of construction indicate that itwas linked to the royal dynasty. The building’s inscription indi-cates that king Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil dedicated it on thekatun (20-year) anniversary of his accession (Stuart 1986,1989). Scholars have thus interpreted the structure as a symbolicgateway to the underworld that bore symbols related to ruleraccession, where the ruler performed bloodletting rites(M. Miller 1986, 1988:170–171; Schele 1976; Schele andMiller 1986; Stuart 1988:204), perhaps related to cycles ofmaize agriculture and appearances of Venus (Aveni 1977; Closset al.1984; Fash 2011; Morales 1997; Šprajc 1987). Abrams(1994) showed that Temple 22 required more energy to buildthan any other structure he examined at Copan, further supportingthe royal status of the building.

Here I examine specifically how this particular sacred mountainfunctioned as part of the kingdom’s “ideological apparatus”(Patterson and Gailey 1987). I am able to do this because researchat Copan over the last few decades has provided a wealth of infor-mation to reframe Temple 22 and its patron’s building campaignand political agenda within a micro-historical context. I use ideol-ogy here as other Maya researchers have used it, to indicate theset of doctrines the ruling elite project regarding the economic, pol-itical, religious, and social order of the world (Demarest 1992). It isclear that king Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil had an ideologicalprogram to convey, for when he ascended to the throne on July 6,a.d. 695 (9.13.3.6.8), he began to renovate Copan’s urban centerand was a prolific patron during the remainder of his forty-threeyear reign (Fash 1991a). His most famous monuments are thestelae in Copan’s Great Plaza (Newsome 2001). Excepting one(Stela C), none of these stelae were erected until the third decadeof his reign. Rather, Temple 22 was dedicated at the end of thesecond decade of his reign on 9.14.3.6.8. (as were the East Court,and the other structures he dedicated—probably Structures 20 and

21 (Fash 1991a:124)—and clearly laid out his agenda for a rangeof audiences.

COPAN (a.d. 715) AND THE KING’S AGENDA

The synthesis of published interdisciplinary data on early eighth-century Copan, and the broader Maya realm, that follows below indi-cates that when Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil dedicated Temple 22in a.d. 715, Copan had reached the apex of its political and culturalexpansion. I argue that as Copan’s hegemony and the ideology ofrulership was becoming more pronounced and yet increasingly pro-blematic, the king was struggling to hold the city together and to stayabreast of current developments in Maya religion and aesthetics. Thecombination of both traditional and innovative forms found onTemple 22 is a clear response to these challenges.

When Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil acceded to power in a.d.

695, twelve successive Maya rulers had reigned at Copan foralmost three centuries. Copan was an ancient city—a “city with apedigree” (Miller 1999:9)—established as the center of a Mayakingdom in the fifth century (Sharer 2003). As the thirteenthruler, he inherited the legacy and prosperity of his father, Ruler12, K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil—the longest ruling king inCopan’s history—who had expanded Copan’s territory in the south-eastern Maya area (Canuto and Bell 2008; Fash 1991a; Looper2003; Schele and Mathews 1998; Stuart 1992). His father’s influ-ence as far north as southern Belize is seen at Pusilha, wherekings adopted the names of K’ahk’ Uti’ Ha’ K’awiil and his prede-cessor (Prager 2002), or at Nim Li Punit where the kings wear theCopan turban headdress, and a ruler is named after a place nameat Copan (Martin and Grube 2000; Schele and Mathews 1998). Ina.d. 695, Copan’s population levels (estimates range between8,000 and 15,000 people at this time [Webster et al. 2000;Webster and Freter 1990]) and socio-political complexity indicateit was a state-level society that had deep and powerful ties withthe Maya region to the northwest, and that it controlled the south-eastern Maya region (Andrews and Fash 2005; Fash 1991a:112).

Despite this long period of control, Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiilhad the misfortune of taking the throne during a period of rapidgrowth, political reorganization, and consolidation throughout the

Figure 10. Hypothetical reconstruction of Temple 22 by Tatiana Proskouriakoff (2002:43), highlighting the serpent mouth doorway,corner masks, and maize god niches. Her reconstruction shows only one story.


Maya area (Fash 1991a; Sabloff and Henderson 1992), and his build-ing program indicates his concern with the situation. In a.d. 695, inwhat has been called the “turning point in the history of the entirelowlands,” the twenty-sixth ruler of Tikal defeated his rival city ofCalakmul, thus shifting the balance of power throughout the Mayaregion (Martin and Grube 2000; Grube 2001:168). This volatileperiod continued throughout Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s reign,to the final capture of the king of Calakmul in a.d. 736 and thedefeat of his dynasty. His building program must have respondedto these changes—one example of this self-consciousness is StelaA, which Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil dedicated in a.d. 731. Itstext cites four cities: Tikal, Calakmul, Palenque and Copan, thusasserting Copan’s foundational place in lowland Maya civilization(Marcus 1973:912–913, 1993:150).

Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil continued Copan’s hegemonyover the site of Quirigua and the lower Montagua valley by instal-ling the Quirigua king K’ak Tiliw Chan Yoaat in a.d. 724(Martin and Grube 2000:203). One reason for Copan’s interest inthis region seems to have been economic—Copan likely benefitedfrom the increased demand, production, and trade in preciousgoods that served the expanding elite class (McAnany 1993;M. Miller 1993). Copan’s reign at Quirigua may have been estab-lished in the fifth century to control trade in jade from sourcesalong the Motagua river (Fash 1991a), the feather trade from thehighlands (Coggins 1987:98–109), as well as in Ixtepeque obsidianfrom the Guatemala highlands. The trading patterns of Ixtepequeobsidian have been traced along the Motagua River to theCaribbean, up the Belize coast, and then around the Yucatan penin-sula, reaching as far away as the Chenes region (Aoyama 1999;Gonzalez de la Mata and Andrews 1998). These trading routeswere also conduits for architectural ideas and religious ideologiesand may explain similarities between Copan and Chenes-style archi-tecture to the north (Proskouriakoff 1963), and to sculptural styles inthe Guatemalan highlands (B. Fash 2004). Copan was interactingwith Maya polities to the northwest and so we can conclude thatWaxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil commissioned Temple 22 in part toassert Copan’s central identity within the Maya region.

Copan was a frontier kingdom, however, and during WaxaklajuunUb’aah K’awiil’s reign, Copan was janus-faced, looking to objectsand ideas from the Maya lowlands and exporting these to non-Mayaareas towards the southeast. Copan was a distribution center, agateway city (Fash 1983, 1991a; Fash and Stuart 1991). By thetime Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil took power, Copan was peakingin its control of the southeastern Maya region, and had shifted econ-omic and political relations to the non-Maya areas of interiorHonduras, western El Salvador, and the middle Montagua basin.Cultural interaction with these areas peaks around a.d. 700 and isvisible in ceramic trade (Demarest 1988; Fash 1991a; Longyear1952; Viel 1993), architecture and site planning (Ashmore 1987,2007; Canuto and Bell 2008; Schortman et al. 2001:315; vonSchwerin 2010), in the adoption of stone stelae at several sites inHonduras (Nakamura et al. 1991), and in the appearance of Mayamotifs on local polychrome ceramics (Beaudry 1983; Beaudry et al.1993; Hirth 1998:297; Joyce 1993). A non-Maya audience made upmuch of Copan, for household artifacts show little connection toMaya culture, and are like those found in Comayagua and the LakeYojoa regions of Honduras (Fash 1983:236–240; Leventhal et al.1987). These collections also include trade items from El Salvador(Demarest 1988:355), and objects common to the Lenca peoplewho had lived in the Copan valley for centuries (Gerstle 1988). Infact, when a sixteenth-century visitor inquired of Copan’s inhabitants

as to who had built the ancient structures, they replied, “a great lordfrom the Yucatan came, built these monuments, and then left”(Maudslay 1889–1902:5–8). Archaeology and oral history both indi-cate that the eighth-century Maya ruling elite were ethnically differentfrom their subjects and Newsome (2001) argues that both Copan sub-jects and the non-Maya peoples to the east and south were the primaryaudience for Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s building campaign.Copan’s multi-ethnic nature was rather unusual among Maya king-doms in the eighth century, and scholars have proposed modelswhere ruling vassals from sites in Honduras and El Salvador cameto Copan to witness the Mayan king perform period-ending rites ordedicate monuments such as Temple 22 (Demarest 1998; Newsome2001; Schele and Freidel 1990).

Having vassals affirm his power was more important than ever,for during Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s reign, Copan was on theverge of decline, never to return to its former glory (Fash et al.2004). The increasing population density at Copan suggests thatits carrying capacity on a regional level might have been surpassedin the eighth century (Fash 1983). Decreased economic productionmay also explain why fine-ware ceramic diversity at Copan peakedat this time and declines thereafter, whereas the diversity of utilitar-ian wares had been declining since a.d. 650 (Bill 1997:521–523).His power must have been weakening, as he struggled to holdCopan’s power together by leading military campaigns againstQuirigua’s subsidiary centers (Canuto and Bell 2008; Martin andGrube 2000:203; Nakamura 2003), and he ultimately perished ina battle with Quirigua in a.d. 738 (Marcus 1976; Fash et al.2004). Wendy Ashmore (personal communication 2010) hasnoted the rapidity with which “new” non-Maya polities emergedin the wake of the king’s assassination (Ashmore 2007; Canutoand Bell 2008; Schortman and Nakamura 1991), and has pointedout that the restiveness that can be inferred from such rapid politicaltransformation surely would have been a factor in the king’s aware-ness that public action was needed.

Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil was not alone in his struggles, formartial themes increased in frequency and explicitness at Copan andin the Maya region through the eighth century (Fash 1992; Fash andFash 1996). As competition amplified throughout the Maya region,rulers asserted their power through intensified building campaigns(M. Miller 1993, 1999)—campaigns of which WaxaklajuunUb’aah K’awiil was well aware. These public constructionsserved as locales for the performance of state ritual and expandedthe vocabulary of religious iconography to enhance state powerand identity. This paralleled an increase in the complexity ofwritten texts (Houston and Stuart 1998:95). Finally, at this timethere was an increasing emphasis on the body of the ruler as theembodiment of state, for imagery of rulers appears on buildingsthat previously only displayed deity masks (A. Miller 1986).Proskouriakoff (1950) made many of these observations 60 yearsago, calling this period the “Ornate phase” of Maya art, whichshe dated to a.d. 692–751. In this style there is great intricacy anddetail in what is represented, but compositions are ordered andrestrained (in contrast to the later Dynamic phase, no action or nar-rative is shown) and thus very legible. These changes may wellreflect a shift in the nature of Maya kingship and state religion.

Temple 22 must be considered, therefore, within the context ofthe increasing reliance of Copan on the non-Maya regions to main-tain a prominent position in the Maya world, the demographic andresource challenges it faced, challenges to the office of divine king-ship, and perhaps a shift in the cosmology and aesthetics of earlyeighth-century Maya religion. Until now, scholars have said that

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Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s agenda was to assert his central role(Schele and Freidel 1990:316), and to expand state ritual in order tomaintain influence over diverse ethnic communities (Newsome1991:49, 2001). I would add a third intention—a desire to be com-petitive with the architectural campaigns of other Maya rulers. Asthis paper will demonstrate, the evidence for this tri-partite agendacan be found in patterns recoverable from Temple 22’s socio-historical context, but are more directly apparent in the design andsymbolism of the building itself.

TEMPLE 22 FAÇADE SCULPTURE CONSERVATIONAND ANALYSIS PROJECT

Previous Research (1885–1998)

The effort to determine the original appearance and significance ofTemple 22 may be traced back to the beginnings of Maya archaeol-ogy. Discovery and initial excavation of Temple 22 occurred in thenineteenth century when, like the Parthenon, explorers treated it as aquarry for museum collections. The building’s façade sculpture is incollections of the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History,as well as the British Museum, Harvard’s Peabody Museum, theAmerican Museum of Natural History, the National Gallery inWashington, DC, and Tulane University. The British Museumpieces are in London due to Alfred Maudslay, the first person toexcavate and document Temple 22 (Maudslay 1889–1902:10–13,17–29). Although Stephens and Catherwood had been to Copandecades earlier to record its monuments, they did not discoverTemple 22. Rather, it was Maudslay who in 1885 encountered thecollapsed building with only load-bearing walls remaining, with acentral southern entrance and four vaulted rooms, one in each car-dinal direction (Figure 5). He found that the entrance to the northchamber is marked by a sculpted doorframe and hieroglyphicinscription (Figure 8). Maudslay also encountered four sculpturemotifs in the rubble around the collapsed building: the MaizeGod sculptures (Figure 2), corner masks (Figure 9), other masks,and human figures (Figure 11), but did not document their originallocations.

A decade later, G.B. Gordon from Harvard’s Peabody Museumexcavated around the structure and concluded that Temple 22 hada second level: “without a doubt the fragments in the [Peabody]collection are pieces of an elaborate fallen façade from the northernwall of temple no. 22 and I believe that by diligent search, the remain-ing pieces can be recovered, or a sufficient number of them to indicatethe design” (Gordon 1894–1898:17–18). Unfortunately, he onlyvaguely recorded the sculpture’s provenience, and neither he nor hispredecessor published all of the pieces, nor attempted a reconstruction.

After a 1934 earthquake sent three East Court buildings topplinginto the Copan River, the Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW)excavated and consolidated three-fourths of Temple 22 between1935–1937 (Trik 1939). The archaeologists did not publish the thou-sands of pieces of sculptures they encountered, but rather left them inpiles around the structure roughly according to the side of the buildingthat they were found (Fash 1992). The excavation report includes areconstruction drawing by Proskouriakoff that identifies the monster-mouth framing the central doorway, and revised it a decade later toinclude the Maize God motif (Proskouriakoff 2002) (Figure 10). Inboth drawings she represents the structure with only one story andincludes only a few pieces from the sculpture corpus.

Attention finally turned to the unanalyzed sculpture samplewhen between 1986 and 1994, the PAAC carried out final exca-vations and conservation of the building and catalogued the sculp-ture piles left by the CIW (Fash 1989). One goal was to locate theremaining fallen sculpture with the hope of finding a fall patternthat would serve as a template for a reconstruction. The PAAC dis-covered and catalogued thousands of stone mosaic fragments, manyof which helped to recontextualize sculpture from earlier exca-vations and re-identify sculptures now mixed in piles with thosefrom other buildings. The project expanded the sculpture motifcount from four to twenty (Barbara Fash, personal communication1998; see also Ahlfeldt [2004:Figure 31] for an unpublished recon-struction by Fash), restored several corner masks onto the building(Fash 1989, 1992, 2011:124–129; Freidel et al. 1993; Schele 1987),and determined the stratigraphy of surrounding structures, support-ing Stuart’s dating of Temple 22 based upon the inscription (Larioset al. 1994). Meanwhile, as part of the PAAC, the Early Copan

Figure 11. Sculpture from Temple 22, Copan, Honduras. Photograph by Alfred Maudslay, taken in 1890–1891 after his excavationsaround the temple (© The Trustees of the British Museum).


Acropolis Project (ECAP) tunneled underneath Temple 22, unco-vering earlier façade sculpture and seven antecedents to the building(Morales 1997; Sharer et al. 1992, 1999). Overall these projects todate have resulted in a half-restored building and a corpus offaçade sculpture from the building in collections around the world.

Current Research (1998–2011)

Since 1998 I have directed the Temple 22 Façade SculptureConservation and Analysis Project under the aegis of the PAACproject and the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History.We developed a database of Temple 22 sculpture, conserved andrestored individual sculptures, and attributed or confirmed attribu-tion of 3,713 pieces to the building (based on location excavated,sculptural style and motif, and on the refitting of excavated piecesto unprovenienced sculpture). Many of these sculptures were thenrefitted together to form motifs containing up to 25 or morepieces of mosaic sculpture.

A motif is a symbol that can be identified; for instance, a mask, ahuman figure, a bird, or a volute (Kubler 1969). When I began thisstudy, just six motifs from Temple 22 had been published: the MaizeGod and the tuun witz masks (Maudslay 1889–1902; Miller 1988:172–175; Spinden 1913), the mouth doorway (Freidel et al. 1993:149–151; Trik 1939), the corner witz masks (Trik 1939), the rulerfigures (Fash 1992) and the interior doorway (Freidel et al. 1993;Maudslay 1889–1902). I analyzed and revised these sculpturemotifs, as well as unpublished ones identified by the PAAC, and dis-covered 18 additional motifs. The information on the sculpturerecovered by previous excavations varies in utility for reconstructingTemple 22’s façades. Notes from the earliest excavations statesimply: “west side Temple 22,” or “north side,” or “Mound 22.”The CIW left no records on the sculpture, but if a piece is locatedin Pile 22, for example, we can deduce that the piece was prob-ably—but not positively—gathered or excavated near the areawhere Pile 22 once stood—southeast of Temple 22. Fortunately,coordinates and maps exist for the pieces excavated by the PAAC.These pieces act as a control sample to indicate which motifs weredefinitely from Temple 22 and on which side of the building apiece fell when the building collapsed. Fortunately, there are manyfactors other than provenance that make a reconstruction possible:stone size, tenon angle, relief depth, as well as iconographic patternsin the art of Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s reign and throughout theMaya area. Once individual motifs have been reconstructed, they aretested in the sandbox, and then reconstructed digitally. In total, 36mosaic sculpture motifs repeated around the building’s façadesbetween four and twenty times (Table 1).

These repetitions are determined by a minimum number of indi-vidual (MNI) count that I collected for each motif (Ahlfeldt 2004b:449–596). For example, I have identified 20 Maize God busts and19 Maize God heads, suggesting that the motif repeated 20 times(Figure 12). The number of motif repetitions probably oftencarried symbolic meaning. How this motif was arranged on thefaçade is determined by examining various factors such as locationfound; the length, size, shape and angle of the tenon; the height ofstone coursing; the depth of relief; the weight and size of individualstones, the number of repetitions of the motif; the size of the motif,and patterns of design and iconography on Waxaklajuun Ub’aahK’awiil’s other monuments.

For example, some scholars have suggested that the Maize Godfigures might have been set on earth masks within niches (Miller1988:172–173; Proskouriakoff 1963). An MNI count reveals 20

tuun witz mask groups with maize vegetation and 20 Maize Gods,indicating that the motifs could have been paired (Figure 13).Moreover, the tenons of the tuun witz masks are 80 cm long witha level surface that could have served as a platform for the busts(the Maize Gods must have been intended to be busts, as I havenot located matching legs). Long, heavy tenons are used in Mayaarchitecture at the medial molding to support the sculpture friezeabove. Moreover, human-like figures in niches at Copan tend to beplaced on the entablature (upper portion of building between

Table 1. Sculpture Motifs found in previous excavations around Temple 22that were likely originally on its façade

Motifclass Motif Name

# of Repetitions(MNI)

Definitely on First Story1 Mouth Doorway 12 Corner Witz (Earth) Masks 8 (perhaps more)

Likely on First Story3 Yax Kan streams TBD (to be

determined)4 Maize Deity 205 Tuun Witz Masks (maize deity emerges

from)20

6 Other Tuun Symbols TBD7 Bird (Principal Bird Deity?) 4 or 58 Volutas or Flower Imagery 199 Skeletal head -yax/ajaw border TBD9 K’ul glyph 7

Likely from Second Level or Roofcomb10 Ruler Figure 811 Ahau with teeth/Flowers? TBD12 Chaak/Pax Figures 9–1113 Flower Mountain/“Bearded Serpent”

Mask4

14 Large Figure 115 Ik Glyph 716 Yax Kan Ajaw border TBD17 PBD Heads (from Ruler headdress?) 818 Border with ball and star sign TBD19 Knots/Pop band TBD20 Starry-Deer Crocodile with Pawahtun 121 G1 waterbird Mask 522 God C profile face 7

Likely façade location still unclear23 Elongated wavy Ajaw 1024 Smaller Tzuk Face 325 Curves and curved borders with beads TBD26 Ajaw with tenons 1027 Feathers (various types) TBD28 Vegetation TBD29 Architectural features (moldings, drains,

etc)TBD

30 Death mask in Copan sculpture museum 131 Loincloths TBD32 Serpents TBD33 Border with jester god and serpent scrolls TBD34 Large grotesque faces TBD

Likely from T22 (not found inexcavations but rather in Carnegiesculpture piles)

35 Waterlily serpent 236 Skeletal Mask 3

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medial and cornice molding corresponding to the vault that rests onthe load-bearing walls). This motif was therefore probably on theentablature. CIW excavations recovered ten masks from the southside, concluding that they came from the south façade (Trik 1939:101). These masks would not have fit on the south side unlessthey were stacked vertically, as is seen in Campeche and the northernYucatan. But this probably was not the arrangement on Temple 22,since the Maize Gods were emerging from them. More probably, thebuilding’s vaults collapsed towards the south, sending sculptures onthe South, East and West façades towards the south. BecauseMaudslay encountered three maize gods on the west side, I recon-struct the motif distribution as follows: six on the south side of thebuilding (three flanking each side of the doorway), three on theeast and west sides, and eight along the north side (Figure 13).

This multi-faceted analysis—requiring knowledge of individualstones, Maya iconography, stone masonry technology, and thebuilding’s collapse and excavation history—must be carried out

for each of the 36 motifs. Although the project is ongoing, I sum-marize the most important motifs here as well as their likelyarrangement.

DESIGN AND SYMBOLISM OF TEMPLE 22

The results of the façade reconstruction project indicate that Temple22’s façades bore over 36 sculptural motifs that repeated in a hier-archical display of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures andswirling vegetation (Figure 14 and Table 1). The structure’sfaçades represented a fertile mountain with flowers, maize andflowing water. Upon this mountain sat statues of the ruler andthese were surrounded by pan-Maya deities, local patron deitiesand probably an arching sky-serpent. An iconographic analysis ofthese motifs indicates that together this sculptural symbolism andthe building’s design represented a three-dimensional diagram ofthe Maya universe, articulating its horizontal quadripartite and

Figure 12. (a) Maize God busts in the warehouse at the Copan Regional Center for Archaeological Investigations, Honduras (11 out ofthe 20 total Maize Gods on the building); (b) The Maize God as it appeared 20 times on Temple 22, each time seated on top of a tuunwitz mask (Drawing by Edgar Zelaya). The tuun witz mask was originally found and illustrated by Maudslay, although he did not recog-nize it as such.

Figure 13. Test of Maize God and tuun witz mask on entablature of Temple 22. Uncompleted scale 3D reconstruction of Temple 22 in3D Studio Max. Rendering by architect Laura Ackley and the author.


vertical tripartite spatial divisions as well as the temporal divisionsof cosmic and human time. In many ways it mirrors the imageryfound on the interior doorway of the building (Figure 8) but is farmore elaborate and detailed.

Creation Mountain, Sacred Time/Space, and the Birthof Humanity

The first story—that is, the first level—of the structure representedthe sacred cave of Creation Mountain as previously hypothesized(Freidel et al. 1993), as well as Flower Mountain as Taube (2004)suspected. Moreover it bears directional symbolism of quadriparti-tioning, as well as sacrifice and creation mountain imagery, thuscontinuing pan-Maya creation imagery that is associated withruler accession in the murals at San Bartolo, Guatemala (150 b.c.)almost one thousand years earlier (Saturno et al. 2005; Taubeet al. 2010).

Each of the four corners of the building’s first story bore two(and perhaps three) masks that marked the building as a stone moun-tain. The main doorway as a gaping mouth with teeth and fangsrecalls a cave entrance rimmed with stalactites and stalagmites(Figure 15). This metaphor is prevalent in Mesoamerican art asfar back as 700 b.c. at Chalcatzingo. Caves are considered to beunderworld, womb-like emergent spaces, and sources of waterwhere maize was first found. They are the abode of ancestors andpowerful forces and contemporary Maya still make sacrificial offer-ings in caves (e.g., Bassie-Sweet 1991, 1996; Brady 1988, 1996;Brady and Prufer 2005; Brady and Veni 1992; Heyden 1981; LeFort et al. 2009; Saturno et. al. 2005; Schávelzon 1980; Schele1998; Stone 1995; Townsend 1992).

Emerging from either sides of this doorway are streams that rep-resent water (Freidel et al.1993; Thompson 1960:275) or blood(Stuart 1988). My research indicates that streams of liquid withglyphs for yax (first, green) and k’an (yellow, ripe, preciousness)also probably framed the doorway (Figure 16a). Such signs occuron Maya stelae on period endings or accession anniversaries inthe fluid scattered by rulers, or emerging from cosmic serpents(Stuart 2004:138–139) or the starry-deer crocodile (Stuart 2005:70–71). This fluid represents the ruler’s blood—offered as asource of life, fertility, and abundance (Stuart 1988:212–213), aswell as ch’ulel, the inner spirit that resides in the blood (Freidelet al. 1993:201–202). Together they indicate k’ul/ch’uh (“sacred-ness”) which is also a symbol for blood sacrifice offerings (Stuart1988:202–203). The glyph for ch’uh repeated seven times some-where on the building (Figure 16b), seven being a sacred numberfor the modern Chorti Maya (Girard 1969). Additional sculpturepieces that made up the doorway require further analysis, but it isclear that this doorway was similar to other zoomorphic doorwaysin the Maya region and alluded to themes of sacrifice, transform-ation, and birth.

Project results also confirm Miller’s hypothesis (M. Miller 1988)that the Maize God statues represented corn growing on this fertilemountain, however my research indicates that there were 20“Foliated Maize Gods” (Taube 1985) on the first-story entablaturethat sprouted from 20 earth masks with flowers growing out oftheir foreheads (Figure 12). That this motif appears in 20 iterationsmay refer to the 20 agricultural cycles over which WaxaklajuunUb’aah K’awiil presided during his first katun (20 years) ofoffice—since the temple was erected on the twentieth anniversaryof his coronation. This number may allude to the Maize God inthe Popol Vuh, who planted five seeds in each corner of his maize

Figure 14. Hypothetical reconstruction of selected motifs from Temple 22. Drawing by Nancy Allen under the direction of the author(2007).

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field—20 in all. That the Maize Gods are related to cycles of timecan be further supported by the fact that modern Maya day-keeperstraditionally used maize seeds to count the 20 days of the Tzolkinritual calendar (Bassie-Sweet 2002). Finally, Erik Boot (personalcommunication 2008) reminded me that the word for human alsomeans “twenty” in Maya languages. In sum, the imagery on thefirst story supports Taube’s theory that Temple 22 refers to the cre-ation of maize and the emergence of humanity from FlowerMountain (Taube 2004). Additional motifs confirming that Temple22 was Copan’s “Flower Mountain” include serpents and four ik’symbols—symbols for breath and wind (Taube 2002), as well astuun (stone) symbols, and vegetation (Figure 17). Four pairs ofbird talons—most likely belonging to the Principal Bird Deity—probably graced the top corners of the first story (Barbara Fash, per-sonal communication 2008; Fash 1991b) (Figure 17).

Moving beyond iconography, the design of this mountainanchored it in sacred space and time. Its plan expresses a cosmologi-cal order in that its four rooms are oriented to the cardinal directions,and the only sculpture on the load-bearing walls of the first story arelocated at five points: on the four corners (witzmasks) and the center(interior doorway and mouth doorway) (Figure 18). These pointsform a quincunx pattern that symbolizes the sun’s yearly pathbetween the solstice points and zenith—this pattern is used in

Figure 15. (a) Side view of doorway as it appears today; (b) Hypothetical reconstruction of the mouth doorway. Drawing by NancyAllen in collaboration with the author (2007).

Figure 16. (a) Two types of Yax and K’an borders from Temple 22. Theseprobably once framed the building’s mouth doorway; (b) Sculpture of K’ulor ch’uh glyph. Drawings by author.


Maya ritual practice in both the past and present to bind and conse-crate a sacred space (Hanks 1990; Maca 2002; Mathews andGarber 2004). Oriented to the cardinal directions and to solar time,Temple 22 was a fertile landscape in stone—a model of cosmicorder that provided a sacred space for ritual. These rituals probablyhad to dowith the themes of human origins, creation, ingestion, trans-formation, and rebirth that are alluded to in the building’s sculpturalsymbolism.

King of the Mountain

Arranged probably on the middle level of the building were imagesof Maya rulers seated between four zoomorphic mountains. I have

reconstructed these zoomorphic mountains—over three meterswide—that probably anchored each corner (Figure 19). The samefigures are found on contemporaneous vessels from the Maya low-lands (Figure 20), with zoomorphic snouts, drooping eyelashes,tuun glyphs, ear flares, and sacred water dripping out of themouth. The serpents emerging from the ear flares are ‘breath ser-pents exhaled from witzmasks [that] pass through ear spools, denot-ing mountains as places of conjuring and celestial ascent’ (Taube2002:435). In the Temple 22 sculpture corpus, these serpents andother features appear in sets of four, thus the MNI of four for theearth masks. Like the vessel masks that are rendered in profile,these stone masks likely appeared in profile on the corners (seealso Tikal Lintel 3 in Stuart [1988:Figure 5.40]). Often their

Figure 18. Locations of sculpture on load-bearing walls of first story of Temple 22, forming a quincunx, representing cosmologicalorder and the stations of the sun in the year. Adapted by the author from Hohmann and Vogrin (1982).

Figure 17. Additional motifs that were likely on the first story: (a) feet from Principal Bird Deity motif, (b) skeletal head, (c) serpents, (d)flowers, (e) ik (breath, wind) glyphs, and (f) tuun (stone) glyphs. Drawings by Edgar Zelaya.

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prominent nose has the tzuk (“partition”) on it (Nikolai Grube, per-sonal communication, 2008) (see also K1370 in Kerr’s Maya Vasedatabase) (Figure 21). Other kinds of tzuk faces appeared on thebuilding and so it seems that there is an interest in expressing par-titions, or spaces of the universe. Perhaps these four corner masks

alluded to the mountains at the corners of the Maya world, or thepartitions made by the sun as it stops in its yearly path along the sky.

Arranged among these mountains were eight, greater-than-life-size statues of rulers that—in style and iconography—confirm thedate of the building and support existing hypotheses about the

Figure 20. Zoomorphic flower mountains from Maya vessels. Detail drawings by author (after (a) Red Background polychrome vessel,Northern Peten Robicsek and Hales 1983:Figure 30); and (b) detail from vessel featured in Robicsek and Hales 1983:Figure 18).

Figure 19. Hypothetical reconstruction of one of four large Flower Mountain masks that probably graced the corners of the buildingon the upper level(s). Each mask was at least 4.5 m wide. (a) Frontal view; (b) side view; and, (c) line drawing. Photos and drawing byauthor.


rituals that occurred here (Figure 22). Previously called “guardianfigures” (Fash 1992, 2011), I call them “ruler figures” for theywear the ajaw (“lord”) belt, ajaw breastplate, and sit on a cushionthrone in a posture of royal ease (Fash 1992). This cushion hasflower motifs similar to that which Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’scontemporary, king Hasaw Chan K’awiil sits upon in Lintel 3 atTikal (a.d. 700). Another detail from these ruler statues that datesto the proposed dedication date of the building is the feathered “flap-staff headdress.” This appears in the costume of Maya rulers after9.13.0.0.0 (Tate 1992:84) and is related to warfare (Looper 2003:46). At the top of the headdress is the Hu’unal “jester goddiadem” that represents a sprouting plant, perhaps maize (Fields1989, 1991). (I thank Elizabeth Wagner [personal communication2008] for pointing out that this sculpture piece belongs to theruler’s headdress). The relationship between warfare and fertility inthe headdress is also alluded to in the items that the statues hold intheir hands: blood letters in their left hands at their groin, and centi-pede lances in their right hands (also seen at the Temple of the Sun atPalenque, ca. a.d. 692, on which is incised the etz’nab glyph forobsidian, or sharp stone). These two instruments allude to auto-sacrifice and captive sacrifice respectively (Baudez 2004:71–74)—two activities that likely took place in this building. One of theseruler statues was different in that it also bore a crocodile pectoral(alluding to creation) and held in its right hand a k’awiil figure (aninfant-like creature with a snake for one leg—like a baby with

umbilical cord). The k’awiil figure symbolized rulership andpower and is associated with transformations (such as birth, acces-sion, or death) that occur through blood sacrifice (Freidel et al.1993:193–207; Miller and Taube 1993:110). It is held by rulers inaccession scenes and indicates that accession ritual or commemora-tions thereof may have occurred at Temple 22. Additional sculpturesthat emphasize the royal nature of the building and need to be ana-lyzed further include: ajaw faces, pop (mat) bands, and eight smallmasks (Figure 23). Overall, the statues likely representedWaxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil and his contemporaries or ancestors,and were placed on all four sides of the building, asserting theruler’s control over the partitions of the world, the earth and its fer-tility, and his city.

The Celestial House/Sky-Cave and its Residents

The highest level of the building represented the sky with ances-tors or patron deities. I have identified at least seven small sculp-tures of twisting and spreading limbs (Figure 24), and these aresimilar to the nine small figures that cavort in the body of thecosmic serpent in Temple 22’s interior doorway. Stuart (1988:203) identified these as ancestral deities and I have identifiedthem as Chaaks and K’awiils (Ahlfeldt 2004b:148). The sevenfigures, with bulging eyes, flattened nose, and missing lowerjaw, are a notable contrast to the idealized beauty of the Maize

Figure 21. Nose of large earth (“flower mountain”) mask. Note Tzuk face. Drawing by Edgar Zelaya.

Figure 22. One of eight ruler figures (over 2 m high) from the upper façade of Temple 22: (a) Drawing by author; (b-c) Sandbox recon-struction of actual sculpture elements. Photos by author.

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Gods and Ruler figures. Naked except for a loincloth and pectoral,they wear the same leaf-shaped diadem that Waxaklajuun Ub’aahK’awiil wears on Stela B. This has been identified as relating toChaak—the rain god (Newsome 2001; Schele and Mathews1998), or a representation of a tobacco leaf (Nikolai Grube, per-sonal communication 2008), or a cacao pod (McNeil et al.2006); and the missing lower jaw suggests the god of the monthPax (Karl Taube, personal communication 2002). The pectoralson these figures vary, suggesting they are different beings. Thismotif requires further research and so I simply call it “patrondeities.” As for the serpent in which they probably cavorted onthe top of the building, there are a range of large serpent headsand potential body parts that have been catalogued but have yetto be analyzed. One particular serpent head is large enough thatit may be a candidate for one of the heads of the celestialserpent (Figure 25).

Another celestial motif that likely came from the upper level ofthe building is a mask from which an egret or heron emerges,holding a fish in its beak. Five such heads were cataloged fromPile 5 (Figure 26a), and fragments of the fishing birds that emanatedfrom these heads were found in excavations confirming that thesecame from Temple 22 (Figure 26b). These fragmented sculpturesresemble those birds excavated beneath Structure 26 at Copan(Fash 2011; Fash and Fash 1996) (Figure 26c). Justin Kerr wasthe first to point out their similarities with images on Mayavessels (Figure 27) (Barbara Fash, personal communication2001). Stuart identifies this figure as God GI (Stuart 2005)—aproto-sun, perhaps from the watery underworld. And indeed, theGI sculpture from Temple 22 has star symbols on it suggestingthat it relates to a celestial object (see also Krempel andDavletshin 2011:27). Both the heads from Temple 22 and thosefound under Structure 26 were accompanied by forms of fallingwater—perhaps representing a celestial body such as Venus thataccompanies the onset of the rainy season.

Additional water imagery on the upper façades probablyincluded a single drain in the form of a serpent (Figure 28b) thatI attribute to Temple 22 based on stylistic features and that itwas found in excavations around Temple 22.4 This was probablyplaced on the roof so that water fell in streams over the façades,likened by William Fash (personal communication 1997) to water-falls falling over the sacred mountain. Two large “water serpent”heads with a water lily blossom headdress were found on pilesright next to the building and probably appeared on Temple 22as well (Figure 28a). This symbol of streaming water—deity of

rain and aquatic spirit—appears at Copan in the context of period-ending rituals and also is part of K’ahk’ Uti’Witz’ K’awiil’s name(Stuart 2007). Its appearance on the façade probably alluded to allof these meanings, but the abundance of imagery and icons ofsacred water also supports Williams-Beck’s (1987) associationof zoomorphic portals in the Maya area with water. Overall, themotifs that represent the sky, celestial bodies, and patron deitieswere probably on the upper levels of the building, so that the

Figure 23. From Temple 22: (a-b) Ajaw signs; (c) small masks; and, (d) pop bands.

Figure 24. Reconstruction of Chaak figure motif or “patron deity” motifon Temple 22. Drawing by Edgar Zelaya. Compare this diadem with thatworn by Ruler 13 on Stela B at Copan (see Figure 7).

Figure 25. Reconstruction of portion of a serpent head possibly fromupper level of Temple 22.

4

This is a skeletal serpent according to Schele’s analysis of similarimages at Palenque (see Milbrath 1999:264–266). Millbrath(1999:Figure 3.6c) suggested a connection with the scorpion constellationbased on the fact that Stela A has a snake with a segmented body and apincer tail—but this may be a centipede, as Taube suggests.


water imagery symbolized rain coursing down from the sky ontoFlower Mountain.

A Multi-Story Cosmogram

Together these motifs were arrayed on what was probably a three-level façade that may have been at least 17 m tall. One storywould not have held all the sculpture attributed to the buildingand the vaulted chambers of the first story and its unusually thickload-bearing walls suggest that a great deal of weight was plannedfor the upper levels. The upper levels probably did not containinterior rooms, however, because there is no evidence for an interior

or exterior stairway as occurs on other buildings at Copan withsecond story rooms (see Structure 10L-11 and Structure 10L-20[Hohmann and Vogrin 1982:Figures 176 and 178]). Rather, thebuilding was probably comprised of a first story and a two-levelroof crest.

Multi-level structures with no interior stairways but rather roof-crests have precedent at Copan. The sixth-century “Rosalila” struc-ture is a good model for the likely form and dimensions of Temple22, as it was discovered buried intact with an initial story and two-level roof crest, making three levels in all (Agurcia and Fash 2005)(Figure 29). The building’s roof comb had a room with doorways tothe outside, but with no stairway and so it is probable that this space

Figure 27. Vessel with G1 (K 6181 © Justin Kerr). See also Kerr vessels K3536, 6438, K6167, K6438, K8538, and K8651. Compare withFigure 26a and 26c above.

Figure 26. (a) One of six GI heads with star symbol from Structure 22—note the protrusion at the top for the egret’s neck. Drawingby author; (b) Egret and fish fragments. Photo by author; (c) Similar sculpture found by PAAC cached in the Hijole structure (underTemple 26), now in Copan Sculpture Museum. Drawing by Edgar Zelaya.

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was not a room but rather served to lighten the load of the roof combupon the structure (Agurcia 1996). I reconstruct Temple 22 accord-ing to these proportions, so that including its platform, Temple 22was over 17 m tall.

Additional evidence that Temple 22 might have had a two-levelroof crest is the similar imagery on both structures. Agurcia andFash (2005:232) describe the iconography of Rosalila as a “giganticcosmogram with a solar god, scenes of creation, the heavens, the

Figure 28. (a) One of two Water Serpent heads (author drawing); (b) Serpent drain in Peabody Museum, excavated in 1895 from slopeof Temple 21. 117 cm long. Drawing by Nancy Allen (after Spinden 1913:Figure 152).

Figure 29. (a) Elevation drawing of Rosalila structure, Copan, circa sixth century. Drawing by Barbara Fash (from Agurcia and Fash2005); (b) Cross section of the Copan Acropolis on the central axis of Structure 10L-16. Reconstruction drawing by Barbara Fash,after the original Proyecto Arqueologíco Acropolis Copán (PAAC) drawing by Rudy Larios and Fernando López (Agurcia and Fash2005:Figure 6.1).


sacred mountain and death, intertwined with the instruments thatroyal mortals used to try to control these forces—sacrificialbundles, incense burners, vision serpents, and bicephalic serpentbars.” They note that like Temple 22, Rosalila has mountainimagery with maize marking the building as a sacred mountain,as well as an arching sky-serpent (Agurcia and Fash 2005:117–232, 228), suggesting a design of the Maya cosmos with itsthree domains of sky, earthly world and otherworld. Indeed theynote that it is a forerunner to Structures such as 22, 11, and 16that contain world “cosmograms.” There are also allusions to thefirst king of Copan on the façade imagery, through icons thatrelate to his name.

Like Rosalila, Temple 22 represented not only a sacred mountainas previous interpretations have suggested, but more the ordered,fertile, universe—what the Maya call the kaan kab’ (sky-earth). Itcould also be the “sky-cave” (chan ch’e’n), a phrase “oftenrelated to the center of Classic sites, that may refer to royal tombsas both underworld chambers and paths of celestial ascent intothe heavens” (Taube 2002:433; see also Stuart 2000). DavidStuart (personal communication in Taube 2002:435) noted thattwo of the carved bones from Burial 116 at Tikal describe the con-juring of a war serpent or Waxaklajuun Ub’aah Chan at FlowerMountain. Taube also notes that in Mesoamerican mythology, thedead may enter the path of the dawning sun at Flower Mountain(Taube 2002:425–427). Finally, Linda Schele observed that thecentral doorway of Temple 22 was illuminated on the winter sol-stice, thus suggesting that Temple 22 was intended to mark themoment/place where the sun literally dawns, emerging from thewatery underworld (Freidel et al. 1993). Given that serpents are

seen as creatures of conduit, passing, and transformation (Taube2002) and the abundance of serpent imagery on the building, it islikely that Temple 22 was such a place to access the path of thesun through transformation rituals of various kinds (sacrifice,death, rebirth/accession).

This solar cosmological symbolism also extended to the EastCourt whose design is a diagram of Maya directional cosmology(Ahlfeldt 2004b; Fash 1998:250; Miller 1988). It was renovatedunder Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s reign along with Temple22 (Sharer et al. 1992). The East Court is oriented to the cardinaldirections (Figure 5) and the stairway sculpture refers to the move-ments of the sun: the setting sun is represented by the symbolic“Jaguar God of the Underworld” sculpture on the west stairway,while the rising sun may be represented by the naturalistic sculp-ture of a crouched jaguar, known as the “jaguar altar” (seeRobicsek 1972:Plate 182), that sat on the east stairway so thatthe sun rises and falls through this symbolic landscape.Emphasizing this point are the ballcourt markers on the north-southaxis of the court rendering it a symbolic ballcourt (Fitle 2006;Miller 1988). These may have been placed there by a later ruler,however, and so the concept of the East Court as a ballcourtmay not have yet been the case during Waxaklajuun Ub’aahK’awiil’s reign. Overall, though, it is clear that the East Courtitself is a bounded, sacred location that ordered Temple 22within cosmic space-time.

In sum, Temple 22’s design is elegant in its symmetry and lavishin its sculptural style, with organic, zoomorphic, and anthropo-morphic forms that animate the building, all organized within athree-dimensional diagram of the quadripartite and tripartite

Figure 30. Counter-clockwise route for a possible ritual circuit from West court to East Court to arrive at Temple 22. Graphic byHeather Richards-Rissetto.

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universe. Why was such an overt diagram necessary? Why at thistime and place?

DISCUSSION: TEMPLE 22 AS AN AGENTOF RULER 13’SAGENDA

We have seen that Temple 22 was built at the peak of Copan’s poweras the kingdom was beginning to feel economic, environmental, andpolitical stress, and that the temple’s audience included both Mayaand non-Maya inhabitants of Copan, vassal polities, and other king-doms. Temple 22 served Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s agenda ofmaintaining power and competitiveness by addressing this range ofaudiences. To do so it bore different levels of signs through itslocation, design, iconography, and carving style—some overt,some more subtle, some traditional, and some more innovative.

Tradition

One of Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s concerns was to assertCopan’s role as a foundational Maya kingdom—and himself as itscenter. In location, access, and spatial design, Temple 22 uses apan-Maya spatial vocabulary to create an urban experience thatwould have been familiar to those who had visited other Mayacities. For example, as the seat for the highest civic-religious auth-ority at Copan, Temple 22 was one of the most elevated buildingsat the city. High on the acropolis, it could be seen from most direc-tions in the Copan pocket of the Copan River valley (see Figure 4).The ruler’s statues on all sides expressed his all-seeing gaze. This useof elevation is a traditional feature of Maya state architecture. Toaccess the temple, one had to move through the city, climb at least30 m to the top of the Acropolis and be channeled through corridorsbefore arriving in the East Court. Based on what remains of the archi-tecture today, it appears that this path followed a counterclockwisedirection (Figure 30), the typical direction of ritual performance inMaya culture (Hanks 1990). The quadripartitioning and verticallayering of Temple 22 and its courtyard are also ancient signs forsacred space, the ordered universe, and the place of creation(Christie 2003; Houston 1998; Mathews and Garber 2004; Schele1998; Schele and Miller 1986). The courtyard’s forms and acousticswere designed for people to gather and to view performances aroundTemple 22 (Fash and Fash 1996), and probably only members of theruler’s court, captives about to be sacrificed, and visiting elites wereinvited to climb up to the temple or to circumambulate its platform tosurvey the valley below and mountains beyond. The phenomenolo-gical experiences of height, gaze, and ordered space that Temple 22and its court offered were typical of Maya cities andMaya state ritualfor millennia.

Not only would visiting elites have found the physical experi-ence of visiting the temple familiar, but they would also have recog-nized its themes: the mythology of sacrifice and cyclicalregeneration, the cave of creation and the birth of maize, cosmicorder, and ruler accession. These are associated with the narrativeof divine kingship—the role of the ruler in providing abundantfood and water and carrying out the kingly duties of sacrifice andself-sacrifice—that appeared in Maya art and architecture a thou-sand years earlier, in the San Bartolo murals mentioned earlier.These themes also were present on structures at Copan at least acentury before the construction of Temple 22, which was the lastin a sequence of structures built on the north end of the EastCourt that had similar form and imagery (Agurcia and Fash 2005;von Schwerin 2011). Directly below Temple 22, “Chachalaca”

had corner masks like those of Temple 22 (Morales 1997:Figure 14). This dates to K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil’s reign(Freidel et al. 1993; Sharer et al. 1999) and thus Temple 22 assertsits place (and by extension the ruler’s) in the dynastic lineage ofCopan. Interestingly, as we have seen, this sacred mountain, ruleraccession, and sky imagery first appeared at Copan in the axis ofbuildings underneath Rosalila. With the reign of the twelfth ruler,this axis moved north to the East Court, culminating with Temple22. The reasons for this shift in location have yet to be understood,but as Ellen Bell notes (personal communication 2011), it is interest-ing to think that the iconographic reorganization followed somewhaton the heels of shifting the early residential groups from the northto the south (the Cementerio Group) (see Sharer et al. 1992). Inany case, Temple 22 manifests organizing frameworks, or “culturalor ideational structures” (Johnson and Gonlin 1998:144–145)common to Maya sacred architecture and participates in a traditionof Maya architectural design that alludes to the entire universe(Agurcia and Fash 2005; von Schwerin 2011). This may haveoccurred on a larger urban scale in Maya cities (e.g., Ashmore1991; Maca 2002, 2006), or on the domestic level as well, forVogt (1976:52–58) describes modern Maya practices in which thehouse is conceived as a microcosm. Moreover, as Bell has shown(2007), Early Classic ritual deposits within the Copan acropolisalso show precise three-dimensional cosmograms. These includecaches that themselves have three levels and quadripartite layering,but also buildings marked in this way. The fifth-century structureMargarita, for example, had mercury deposits marking the fourcorners and center of the building (Bell 2007:341–345).

These deep structures of Maya-style monumental architecturewere important to Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s expression ofhis and Copan’s pivotal role in the Maya world and so they wereovertly expressed in the temple’s forms. The theme of the sacredlandscape in ancient Mesoamerican architecture appears in Mayaarchitecture at Copan’s Temple 22 not only in the form of thesacred mountain, but as an entire Maya universe—the sky-cave(chan ch’e’n) (Stuart and Vogt 2005) or kaan kab’ (world).Self-conscious and in many ways highly traditional, Temple 22thus placed the ruler’s symbolic and physical body in historical,mythological, and cosmological space/time.

The fact that Temple 22 employs highly traditional creationimagery suggests that its themes were still relevant, and perhapsto some extent, still necessary. As has been shown, the iconographicdetail and carving style supports the dating of the building given byarchaeological and epigraphic data to around a.d. 715. Although theevidence that Copan was facing deforestation and depleted agricul-tural resources at this time (Rice 1993) is now disputed (McNeilet al. 2010), Copan in the early eighth century was facing other sig-nificant challenges due to an increased population, reliance on bothMaya and non-Maya subjects, and expanding architectural and mili-tary campaigns of other Maya kingdoms. Lisa Lucero has suggestedthat Maya kings may have maintained their power in part by provid-ing water during annual droughts, by maintaining water systems, byproviding food when crops were lost and by “sponsoring publicevents…that highlighted their special abilities in reaching godsand ancestors” (Lucero 2004:37). Perhaps Waxaklajuun Ub’aahK’awiil responded to looming threats by sponsoring the publicevent of the construction of Temple 22 to draw upon the ancient cre-ation myth on the anniversary of his accession, to remind his sub-jects of the ideological relationship between Maya kingship andfertility, and of the agricultural abundance the ruler provided inthe first katun of his reign. Temple 22 highlights the traditional


roles of the divine ruler, projecting his central role in eighth-centuryMaya history, myth, and cosmology, and serving as a physical andconceptual extension of his royal body.

Innovation

Although seemingly timeless in design, the temple’s use of thisancient imagery also manifests the worldly concerns of its patron.Contemporary viewers versed in Maya sacred architectural designwould have noticed, however, some truly innovative features ofthe structure’s design, symbolism, and style. These suggest thatWaxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil was concerned with being “up todate” with contemporary developments in Maya politics, religion,and even aesthetics and philosophy.

As a physical and conceptual extension of the royal body, Temple22 emphasized the ruler’s physical, historical person, the morehuman side of the god-like king, as well as his territorial controland martial power. Although divine kingship among the Maya hadexisted for almost a millennium, by a.d. 715 a clear shift hadtaken place in the Maya area as artistic programs on public architec-ture began to focus on the humanity and historicity of individualrulers—rather than their office. Throughout the Classic period, theruler had always been shown on stelae. However, while earlier ico-nographic programs on temples such as Rosalila only displayedmonumental masks of deities or name glyphs of rulers, slowly thefull body of kings began to appear on buildings (Miller 1986).The figure of the ruler seated on top of the mountain that we seeat Temple 22 is a development in Maya art that appeared as earlyas a.d. 550 on Structure 1 at Okolhuitz (Gendrop 1983:Figure 15c), and really expands in the Maya area in the eighthcentury; it is a pan-Mesoamerican visual metaphor for rulership(Bernal-Garcia 1994; Stuart 1997; Taylor 1978), indicating asettled, civilized place. Indeed, altepetl (water mountain) in highlandMexico is the name for a town or city—and in the codices, a town isrepresented by a mountain (Fernández Christlieb and GarciaZambrano 2006; Noguez 2001). By placing the figure of a ruleron this mountain that is Temple 22, it is feasible that Temple 22was intended to symbolize the kingdom of Copan in a spatialsense, such that Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil is asserting Copanas a space ruled by the king.

What also is innovative about this building is that the king wasrepresented not as an abstract concept of a god-like king, as with theheraldic symbolism of Rosalila, but rather a particular historicalperson, with a very human body. Temple 22 is one of the earliestbuildings at Copan that had full-bodied images of a ruler on itsfaçades. By commissioning life-size images of himself on architec-tural sculpture at Copan, Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil asserted adifferent kind of kingship—one that focused less on the “ruler-likedeity,” and more on the “ruler-like human.” Perhaps this wasnecessary given demographic and political changes in thisperiod. It might have been more difficult at this time to convincethe non-Maya that a Maya ruler was a god, rather than a human.Moreover, the structure’s inscription mentions WaxaklajuunUb’aah K’awiil’s own accession, refers to his father, and iswritten in the first person—something extremely rare for Mayapublic inscriptions (Stuart 1986, 1989). All of these emphasizethe historical figure of the king in an unprecedented manner.

Along with the emphasis on owned territory and human body, aparticular feature of these figures that I have already mentionedabove is the more overt military imagery that emphasizes the roleof the ruler as warrior, captive taker, blood letter, and guardian of

the order of the city and of the natural cycles. The king as warrioris certainly a prominent theme in the architectural monuments ofthe Principal Group from the time of Waxaklajuun Ub’aahK’awiil onward. Barbara Fash has demonstrated that this is a nearobsession in Late Classic Acropolis architectural sculpture.Knives, Tlaloc imagery, and portraits of rulers as warriors arefound on Structures 10L-16, 10L-18, 10L-20, 10L-21, 10L-21A,10L-22, and 10L-26 (Fash 1992, 1997a, 1997b).

Finally, the abundant and ornate feather-work in the costume ofWaxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil is also new to ruler imagery at Copan.He is the first ruler to be represented wearing feathers in his head-dress and there is an abundant amount of feather imagery in hisstelae and in Temple 22. The reason for this sudden change atCopan is unclear. It may have some economic implications—perhaps alluding to his role in expanding the feather-trade atCopan, or it may simply be a connection to the feather work thatappears in rulers’ costumes throughout the Maya area at this time,indicating that he is within the fashion or rules of costume of hispeers. Or finally, because his name alludes to the Teotihuacan warserpent which is the feathered serpent, Guido Krempel (personalcommunication 2011) suggested that the feathers in his headdressmay allude to the identity of this ruler as the feathered serpent. Inany case, Temple 22’s sculpture conformed to contemporary icono-graphy and presented a more elaborate and human-centered visionof the divine king.

The building indicates a desire not only to place the ruler as ahistorical figure in a historical moment, but also within whatmight be new developments in Maya religion. Temple 22 shows adramatic increase in the number and complexity of figures on thefaçades compared to what came before on architectural sculptureat Copan—this suggests an increase in the complexity of Maya reli-gious ideology. There is an emphasis on patron deities of Copan,both in the structure’s inscription and exterior façade. The claritywith which this is all rendered is innovative as well. Although thesacred mountain and ordered universe are ancient themes, the expli-cit rendering of a zoomorphic portal or cave does not appear onexterior façades of structures at Copan (or anywhere else in theMaya region to my knowledge) before Temple 22 (the Chenestemples have not yet been more securely dated other than“coeval” with Temple 22 [Gendrop 1983, 1985]). The full-blownrepresentation of Creation Mountain with cave appears at Copanfor the first time with Temple 22.

Temple 22 participates in a period at Copan that initiates a newartistic style that also is evident in the Great Plaza Stelae dedicatedby Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil. I would argue that this style maybe characterized by three features: (1) great intricacy, (2) naturalism,and, (3) anthropomorphization. This intricacy in art at Copan firstappears with the stelae of Ruler 12 and is part of a general“Ornate Phase” of art and architecture throughout the Maya worldthat Proskouriakoff (1950) identified. This style was brought to itshighest level of expression on architecture at Copan with Temple22. Its façades were not only ornate, but they were in a naturalisticstyle with serpentine lines that animated the building. The mosaicsculpture often was carved in three dimensions and extended outin varying depths, so that the surface moved in and out of theviewer’s space. Heads and limbs of figures occasionally areturned so that the bodies seemed to be in motion, although specificactions other than “sitting,” “emerging,” “seeing,” or “flying” arenot alluded to. What is important is that the sense of “–ing,” (thatis, “being,” or animation) is expressed very clearly. The templeimagery also participates in a Maya-wide shift in religious

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imagery towards more animism that culminated in Proskouriakoff’s(1950) “Dynamic Phase” of Maya art. Finally, there is a new interestin anthropomorphization. Where maize on Rosalila is rendered askernels emerging out of the mountain, maize appears as half-human(the “Maize God”) on Temple 22. Many other objects and figuresare anthropomorphized (e.g., the blood letters held by the rulerfigures) or zoomorphized, and suggest an interest in indicating thech’ul, or life essence, and animism, in all things. This heightenedanimism in Maya art and architecture in this period may haverelated to changes in the aesthetics or tenets of Maya state religion.What exactly these ideas were is difficult to say, except that Temple22’s sculptors were participating in a pan-Maya phenomenon in thepublic art of the early eighth century that asserted the animatednature of the Maya universe. By showing that Copan was up todate with the latest trends and styles in Maya politics, philosophyand aesthetics, Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil used Temple 22 todeclare Copan’s leading position in the competitive political land-scape of the early eighth-century Maya world.

Finally, the focus on a cosmic diagram, on the partitioning ofspace and directions, is emphasized to a greater degree duringWaxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s reign than in previous reigns.Temple 22 is a cosmic diagram, as were many sacred Maya build-ings, but with Temple 22 there is a particular concern to indicateorder. For example, although the interior sculpted doorway has aprecedent at Copan in that the starry-eyed deer crocodile is foundon the earlier Margarita structure (von Schwerin 2011), this is thefirst appearance of Pawahtuuns (sky corner bearers). There is alsoa concern for partitioning seen by the presence of many tzuk facesin the temples façades, as well as the marking of the four cornersand center of the building through prominently placed sculpture.All this seems to allude to the king’s power to order the worldand control its partitions.

In sum, by using innovative forms relating to history, myth, andcosmology, Temple 22 expressed an ideological message of universalorder and abundance to which Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil was per-sonally connected. Temple 22 articulates the tenets of early eighth-century Maya kingship and religion with detail and clarity for theboth the Maya and non-Maya populations upon whose allegiancethe kingdom’s power relied. An increasing emphasis on maize andwater in a time of a shortage of resources is certainly understandable,as is the focus on the historical figure of the king, his territory, and hisprerogatives in a period of increased warfare and competition.

The Temple’s Legacy

This overemphasis on the singular power of the human king ulti-mately may have led to his defeat. Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiilwas killed a few decades later in battle on 29 April 738(9.15.6.14.6) by the ruler of Quirigua (David Stuart [1998], citedin Fash et al. [2004:263]). No matter how impressive the templewas, it did not succeed in its goals of solidifying power for the thir-teenth ruler. Copan then began a slow decline ending in the collapseof the Copan dynasty in a.d. 820 (Fash et al. 2004). AfterWaxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s reign, many subsidiary sites inwestern Honduras began to represent figures of rulers on mountains,suggesting that these sites were newly independent and thus allowedto indicate their sovereignty (von Schwerin 2010).

However, Copan’s eighth- and ninth-century occupants recog-nized Temple 22 as a significant architectural event in the historyof their city. Not only did the three subsequent rulers of Copan con-tinue to care for Temple 22—opting not to raze and build over the

structure as was common practice—but they also allowed it to playan enduring role in the life of the city for over a century. EventuallyTemple 22 fell into disuse after the end of the dynasty in the ninthcentury—for pilfered sculpture from the temple appears at othersites in Copan that date between a.d. 950 and 1050 (Manahan2004). But before this, three subsequent structures all erectedunder Copan’s last king, Yax Pasaj (Structure 11, Structure 18,and Structure 10L-32), show enough influence in design and icono-graphy that they may be considered direct progeny of Temple 22(Ahlfeldt 2004b; Morales 1997; Plank 2003; Schele and Freidel1990:322–327; Schele and Miller 1986). If buildings are consideredworks of art, it is because they continue to have relevance for sub-sequent generations. Temple 22, a masterpiece of Maya templedesign, persisted in asserting a particular perspective of history,myth, and cosmology for Copan’s population for at least acentury after its construction.

CONCLUSIONS

Not since the Temple of the Warriors at Chichen Itza, Mexico andthe House of the Governor at Uxmal, Mexico were reconstructedin the 1920s and 1930s (Morris 1931; Kowalski 1987) has Mayaarchaeology had such a large sample of preserved sculpture fromwhich to reconstruct a collapsed, highly-complex, temple façade.Temple 22 at Copan, Honduras offers not only an abundance offaçade sculpture and therefore greater insight into eighth-centuryMaya temple design, kingship, and religion, but—thanks to thearchaeologists, epigraphers, and conservators who have worked atCopan and other ancient Maya archaeological sites over the lastcentury—its façade now can be analyzed within a rich historicalcontext. Certainly, Maya temple architecture was a tradition withthousands of years of history. Temple builders did not departeasily from its forms and themes—including the concepts of thesacred landscape, sacred mountain, and ordered universe. Yetfiner features of these buildings did vary due to local factors and his-torical events, and it is this richness of meaning that I have exploredwith regard to Temple 22. Specifically, this paper’s goals were tounderstand the intended meaning of the building’s form and itssculptural program, and then to infer the commissioning king’sintentions in the socio-political context of his reign. Briefly put,to grasp not only the “what” and “when,” but also the “why” ofMaya temple design in the early eighth century.

The Temple 22 Façade Sculpture Analysis Project has shown thatthe temple’s exterior had at least 36 repeating sculptural motifs (ratherthan the six that have been previously published), that it was probablythree stories tall, and in design, construction, and carving style was themost sophisticated stone mosaic façade at Copan yet discovered. Thisstudy of the temple’s full corpus of sculpture shows that Temple 22’sbuilders designed it not simply to represent a symbolic mountain, butto diagram the Maya universe. The building represented an animateand fertile “sky-earth,” populated by human and heavenly bodies.The lower level represented the origin mountain of Mesoamericancreation mythology and the source of maize, water, wind, and birthplace of the sun. The upper levels, meanwhile, portrayed the rulerwho presides over this land and its partitions and above, the skywith ancestors, patron gods and abundant water. The building’sdesign and imagery expressed myths of emergence, sacrifice, regen-eration, and ruler accession, and placed the ruler within historical, reli-gious/mythic, and cosmic frameworks.

There are many sculptural motifs from this temple that stillrequire analysis and publication and so the project continues.


Surely insight into the identities of many zoomorphic figures willemerge in future years, as will a clearer understanding of thedesign of the mouth doorway, the uppermost levels of the building,and the abundant serpent imagery that covered the structure. Furtherresearch into the early eighth century no doubt also will alter the his-torical narrative related here. The three-dimensional ordered uni-verse (with flower mountain and celestial imagery) and the centralrole of the sun, the ruler, and sacrifice in Maya religion are rep-resented not only on Temple 22, but on temple architecture atCopan as early as the sixth century (Agurcia and Fash 2005; vonSchwerin 2011), and throughout the high cultures of Mesoamericaover millennia. Three-dimensional cosmograms also are prominentin a range of media throughout Copan’s history—additionalinstances of these, and the reasons for this emphasis at Copanwould be worth further investigation.

This research also has shown that Temple 22 contains inno-vations on these ancient themes that manifest king WaxaklajuunUb’aah K’awiil’s concerns that are particular to his kingdom’srole in the early eighth-century Maya (and non-Maya) world. Asurvey of the specific historical moment of Temple 22 indicatesthat the building should be considered within the context of increas-ing population and declining resources at Copan, within Copan’sneed to reinvent itself in a shifting political climate, and in lightof new developments in Maya religion and aesthetics. Of the inno-vations seen on Temple 22, what most stands out is the detail andclarity with which the temple presents the cosmic diagram and thecentral tenets of Maya state religion. Certainly this clarity hasmuch to do with the non-Maya audiences at Copan. Further inves-tigations of how Copan’s non-Maya population affected artistic pro-duction at Copan are certain to be revealing. In any case, it isfortunate for posterity in that the temple tells us so clearly aboutthe themes and aesthetics of Maya state religion at Copan in theearly eighth century. It also is striking that the structure’s imageryis so closely linked to contemporary developments in Maya dynasticart at other cities such as Tikal, Palenque, and Yaxchilan—surelythe artists at these cities were traveling between cities and sharingthe same pattern books. Research into the similarities and differ-ences in the architectural programs of Waxaklajuun Ub’aahK’awiil’s contemporaries will provide even greater insight intoTemple 22’s significance for Copan in a.d. 715.

Although this paper has sought to summarize the range ofimagery and meanings that Temple 22’s façades expressed, there

has not been space to address the variety of use-functions that thebuilding likely had. I will conclude with one observation in thisregard—although the façade imagery is three-dimensional and ani-mated, it is not narrative. The human and deity figures on the build-ing do not appear in action scenes—rather, they are iconic figuresplaced in a hierarchy. Important stories must have been narratedthrough performances, therein supporting previous scholars’hypotheses that Temple 22 was a stage for ritual. Throughoutworld architecture, performance spaces that are designed as cosmo-logical diagrams—such as in Temple 22 and its East Court—tend toappear in sacred structures such as temples (Carlson 1981).Metaphors of the sky-earth appear in other temples at Copan andthe Maya area and acted as microcosms of the universe that wereideationally associated with the ruler’s body. Elsewhere I havesuggested that this is a fundamental aspect of Maya temple designthat always had its local variations. Temple 22 was a temple, per-formance space, and dwelling place—although probably not thepersonal residence—of king Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil(Ahlfeldt 2004b). It was probably the temple-as-throne-roomwhere the ruler-as-deity sat within his larger palace (indeed wemight want to think of the entire Principal Group as the palacecomplex) and received visitors and tribute, and where certainritual ceremonies occurred. The building functioned as a frameand extension of the ruler’s body, and asserted social order duringstate ritual, such as commemorations of royal accession. Temple22’s design, imagery and history as presented in this papersupport a temple-like function for this structure.

I have sought to go beyond a description of a building and itssculpture program, to an analysis of the building’s role in thereign of Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil. Overall, this is a study notonly of Temple 22 of Copan, but also of the importance of architec-ture in establishing and supporting the power of Maya kings. Thispaper thus contributes to understanding levels of meaning in elitearchitecture throughout Mesoamerica. It provides new comparativedata for examining temporal and regional change in temple designby offering an example of how rulers in ancient Mesoamericaused elite architecture and the concept of the sacred landscape(and in the case of the Maya, flower mountain and the “sky-earth”)to convey ideological messages in specific historical contexts. Morefundamentally, this paper provides an example of how an art histori-cal approach may be used to examine the ways in which humansboth express and effect change through architecture.

RESUMEN

Tradicionalmente los templos de la Mesoamérica precolombina han sidointerpretados como montañas sagradas, definición estructuralmente estáticaque no tiene en cuenta el contexto histórico y social en que estos edificiosse sitúan y en el que adquieren su pleno significado. El propósito del presenteartículo es reexaminar críticamente esta interpretación a través de unarevisión de la forma, las funciones y los significados del Templo 22 en laciudad maya de Copan (Honduras), y mostrar cómo las imágenes queacompañan a estas montañas sagradas fueron empleadas en un contextohistórico específico.

El Templo 22, ó estructura 10L-22, se encuentra en la Plaza Oriental deCopan. Este templo fue dedicado en el año 715 n.e. por el treceavo gober-nante de Copan, Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil, para conmemorar suprimer katún (20 años) de gobierno. Varios investigadores lo identificaroncomo una Montaña Sagrada. Actualmente, sólo se conserva parte unaparte de la fachada del templo.

En el presente trabajo, la autora sugiere una reconstrucción de la fachaday demuestra que el Templo 22 no sólo representa la Montaña Sagrada, sino elUniverso con sus tres niveles verticales, cuatro sectores horizontales y laparte central. Estas conclusiones se basan en el análisis de miles de fragmen-tos de esculturas, provenientes de las partes colapsadas del templo.

De los tres niveles del Universo en la fachada del Templo 22, la partemás baja representa la fértil Montaña Florida, de donde procede el maíz yel agua. En el nivel intermedio se encuentra el gobernante con sussímbolos de poder y, finalmente, la parte superior está ocupada por losancestros, las deidades patronas y abundantes símbolos de agua. LaMontaña Florida podría ser un símbolo para el reino de Copan, por loque, al colocar al gobernante sobre ésta, probablemente se trate de unametáfora del rey sobre sus dominios.

El diseño del templo contiene varios elementos innovadores. En particu-lar, es una de las primeras ocasiones en Copan cuando el gobernante aparece

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en su cualidad humana, representado de cuerpo completo en la fachada de unedificio. Su atavío de guerrero y sus ornamentos de plumas también sonnovedosos. Además, el gran detalle y el naturalismo de los relieves se distin-guen de los trabajos anteriores.

El estudio del contexto social e histórico del periodo de la construcciónpermite concluir a la autora que el diseño arquitectónico del Templo 22,sofisticado e innovador, pretende afirmar el poder de Copan en la frontera

de la región maya, el papel de la ciudad como centro importante en eldesarrollo religioso y estético de los Mayas y la conexión personal deWaxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil con el orden y la abundancia universales.La claridad con la cual el cosmograma Maya está plasmado en lafachada del templo probablemente se debe al deseo del gobernante decomunicarlo a los habitantes no Mayas de Copan y sus territoriossubyugados.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks are extended to the Honduran Institute of Anthropology andHistory (IHAH) and to the directors and staff for their support and per-mission to work at Copan, particularly Ricardo Agurcia Fasquelle, OscarCruz, Darío Euraque, Carmen Julia Fajardo, Olga Joya, and EvaMartínez. Sincere thanks and gratitude go to William and Barbara Fashof Harvard University for their invitation to join the Copan MosaicsProject, and their generousness with the unpublished data from thePAAC excavations and their ideas from their twelve years of working onsculpture reconstructions on Temple 22. Their model and commitment tosculpture conservation is exemplary. Project funding was provided bythe Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies (FAMSI),the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University,the Whiting Foundation, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and theOffice of the Vice President for Research at the University of NewMexico (UNM). A post-doctoral fellowship from the Alexander vonHumboldt Foundation provided me with time to write up this researchwhile a resident scholar at both the Commission for the Archaeology ofNon-European Cultures of the German Archaeological Institute, Bonn,and the Department of Cultural Anthropology in the Americas at theUniversity of Bonn. This project was also inspired and influenced byEsther Pasztory and Stephen Murray at Columbia University.

In Honduras, masons Santos Vasquez Rosa and Francisco Canan helpedwith the movement of the sculpture, and UNM and Harvard field schoolstudents assisted with the sculpture study. Laura Flores, Reyna Flores,Rufino Membreño, helped with archives, photographs, and sculpture res-toration, respectively. Edgar Zelaya created the outstanding sculpture draw-ings and Nancy Allen prepared the reconstruction drawing of the temple.Heather Richards-Rissetto generously provided maps and reconstructionviews of the acropolis. E. Wyllys Andrews, Ellen Bell, Cassandra Bill,Erik Boot, Marcello Canuto, Christine Carrelli, Julia A. Hendon, AdamHerring, Cameron McNeil, Alfonso Morales, Christian Prager, RobertJ. Sharer, David Stuart, Carolyn Tate, Karl Taube, Loa Traxler, ElisabethWagner, and many others also shared information on this topic or other-wise contributed to this research. Karla Ramirez-Rosas and Pablo Garcíaprepared the Spanish summary. Particular thanks go to Wendy Ashmore,Peter Biro, Robert Bradley, Barbara Fash, Nikolai Grube, GuidoKrempel, Dana Leibsohn, Susan Milbrath, Allan Maca, Sarah Newman,Elisabeth Olton, Markus Reindel, and an anonymous reviewer whose sug-gestions significantly improved earlier drafts of this article and gave shapeto its present state. This project has benefited greatly from the ideas andknowledge of all of these people and yet I take responsibility for anyerrors in this paper.

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