The site of Guiengola is an example of one of the settlements built by the Zapotecs during their fourteenth- to fifteenth-century migration to the Southern Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Although Guiengola is well known in the ethnohistorical record as being the place where the Mexica armies were defeated by Zapotec forces during the late fifteenth century, the full extension of the site was previously unknown. Despite evidence of a dense population at the site, it has been mistakenly characterized as a fortress for housing soldiers and troops from the nearby town of Tehuantepec. Here, I present the research of the Guiengola Archeological Project, which conducted a lidar scan and archaeological surveys between 2018 and 2023. In this article, I share a comprehensive map of Guiengola, a Postclassic Mesoamerican city. My analysis identifies a large settlement that covered 360 ha and included a walled system of fortifications, an internal road network, and a hierarchically organized city. The findings of this project expand our understanding of the variations and social divisions in the city's internal urban organization, which in turn, allow us to deepen our comprehension of the transition to the Early Colonial barrio organization of Tehuantepec.

People are often assumed to expand existing mechanisms—kinship in particular—to include others when they form communities. These models (con)fuse similarity with sameness, as we argue based on Husserl's concept of empathy. People recognize others without overlooking differences. They form community by negotiating belonging. We ask how individuals materialize community, how they create unity in a political process, and how they employ bordering and bonding social interactions. Our case study is Dos Ceibas, a Late Preclassic (350 b.c. to a.d. 250) Maya hamlet in the Petexbatun region. The North Plaza originated as a residential group—possibly of the hamlet's founder—and was transformed over multiple construction episodes into a public and ceremonial place. By a.d. 250, Dos Ceibas consisted of a small pyramid overlooking a plaza and two likely residential buildings. Its growth pattern sets the North Plaza apart from nearby Group MP16 and magnified internal differences. At the same time, Dos Ceibas's pyramid and plaza were likely communal constructions that project a shared community identity. The comparison with contemporary settlements nearby identifies distinct settlement layouts and suggests localized community identities.

Many questions remain about the hieroglyphic stair dedicated in a.d. 642 by K'an II, the great king of Caracol. Constituent panels have been found at Caracol, Ucanal, Naranjo, and Xunantunich—archaeological sites spread between Guatemala and Belize. The most recently discovered Panels 3 and 4 at Xunantunich shed light on the tumultuous decades of the seventh century. Panel 4, which opened the hieroglyphic stair, makes a surprising statement from the outset, clarifying that Kanu'l political authority was irrevocably established at Calakmul. This bold statement serves as a synoptic précis for the entire narrative and explains why the deeds of K'an II are related, but only to the extent that these could be interwoven with the history of the Kanu'l. This makes the hieroglyphic stair such an important source, because it tracks the rulers of the Kanu'l dynasty from the vantage of a close ally. These monuments attest to the fissioning of the Kanu'l dynasty and its eventual restoration at Calakmul, from whence Classic Maya politics would be overseen for the remainder of the seventh century. In this article, we build on earlier studies and add our most recent observations and new readings based on renewed inspections of the existing panels.

The story of the Classic Maya “Snake” kingdom is truly a tale of two cities, with a capital that evidently switched from Dzibanche to Calakmul in the seventh century a.d. This article explores the era of transition between them in search of an elusive sequence of kings, while asking why the transfer came about and who played principal roles in it. Although grounded in finds at Calakmul, any attempt to answer complex questions of this nature must draw on a wider body of materials, both epigraphic and archaeological, from across the southern Maya Lowlands. Whatever portrait of the serpent kingdom is now possible, it is one that can only arise from close collaboration and the fusion of many scattered sources and clues.

En la Mesa Redonda de Palenque de 2004 Erik Velásquez propuso que los gobernantes mayas que portaban el glifo emblema de Kaanuˀl pudieron haber residido durante el Clásico Temprano en Dzibanché, pues no existen referencias que los vinculen con Calakmul antes de 631 d.C. Aquí revisamos los datos sobre su presencia en Dzibanché y otros asentamientos de la región. Argumentos de distinta naturaleza que apoyan este escenario se publicaron desde 2005 hasta 2016, incluyendo los hallazgos de Xunantunich (Helmke y Awe 2016a, 2016b), que permiten conjeturar que una facción disidente de la dinastía se separó de Dzibanché y fundó en 635 d.C. una sede alternativa en Calakmul. Ello produjo el panorama que proponemos en el Clásico Tardío, donde había mandatarios simultáneos de la dinastía Kaanuˀl en el sur de Campeche y en el sur de Quintana Roo, toda vez que en Dzibanché seguían residiendo gobernantes Kaanuˀl al menos hasta el siglo VII.

This article presents some preliminary results of the first field season of 3D documentation of buildings, monuments, and portable artifacts from the archaeological site of Dzibanche in Quintana Roo, Mexico. Documentation took place at Dzibanche, in the INAH regional research center in Chetumal, and in the Maya Museum of Cancun. Part of the resultant corpus of imagery and inscriptions has not been previously disseminated in academic literature. The analysis of published texts and iconography has benefited from higher resolution and visualization tools made possible by 3D digitization. The presentation proposes several updates to the published interpretations of Dzibanche monuments, and it highlights how new additions to the corpus expand our understanding of Dzibanche's political history and ideology.

The ancient Maya political landscape was permeated by regional systems of political asymmetry. These hegemonic networks fluctuated through time, but the steady presence of a few especially dominant polities shows that they were a persistent feature with very real sociopolitical effects. Based on research carried out at the sites of La Corona and Achiotal, and epigraphic studies in many other sites in the Maya Central Lowlands, we offer a general interpretation of the historical and sociopolitical development of one of these hegemonic polities: the Kaanul dynasty. Combining epigraphic and archaeological data, we discuss the Early Classic political landscape in the northern Peten region (“Chatahn” Winik, Suutz', and Sak Wahyis), as well as the development and maintenance of political relations with the Kaanul dynasty for over two centuries. These data allow us to suggest that the northwestern Peten was not only a strategic point for the initial expansion of the Kaanul dynasty in the sixth century a.d., but also an important lynchpin for the maintenance of its hegemonic control in the seventh and eighth centuries a.d. We suggest that epigraphic and archaeological data of the northern Peten from the Classic period help to illuminate how a unique regional hegemony over the Maya Lowlands was achieved and maintained.

The Kaanuˀl dynasty ruled a hegemonic state with political influence over much of the Classic Maya Lowlands between a.d. 520 and 751. The present article introduces the subject for a special section of the journal, which refocuses attention on the archaeological zone of Dzibanche in southern Quintana Roo, Mexico, where new data are emerging about the origins of the Kaanuˀl dynasty, its urban organization, and its connections to neighboring centers. In this article, we present new data from a recent lidar survey as well as from previous work by Enrique Nalda's Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) project to reevaluate Dzibanche's characteristics vis-à-vis its rise as a kingdom with far-reaching political influence. We complement these archaeological data with epigraphic information from new monuments and reanalysis of existing ones based on 3D scanning to update the list of Dzibanche rulers. We then revisit the chronology of Dzibanche's royal burials proposing correlations with known Early Classic Kaanuˀl rulers. Overall, the contributions to this special section present new perspectives on the Kaanuˀl's rise to power and its relationship with distant vassals in the crucial period of expansion into northern Peten, leading to the defeat of Tikal and eventually to its transition to a new dynastic seat at Calakmul in the a.d. 630s.

Classic Maya history was rife with shifting political coalitions and disputes with the key antagonists, Tikal and the Kaan regime, at the center. Understanding how power dynamics and political shifts were experienced among subordinate polities is best viewed from multiple perspectives. We employ elements of Graeber and Sahlins' (2017) stranger-king model, focusing on exogamous marriage practices in relation to two Snake Queens ruling at Waka’. They served as direct links between the Kaan regime and the subordinate Wak polity. We focus on the political and diplomatic nature of their roles in crafting Waka's place in the overarching narratives of alliance and conquest during the sixth through the early part of the eighth centuries. The pairing of archaeological and textual data surrounding Ix Ikoom in the sixth century and Lady K'abel during the seventh century permit interrogation of women's prominence with respect to Kaan regime-building strategies during these centuries.

The article presents the results of the last decade of archaeological and epigraphic research, which clarified the history of the polities of the ancient Maya sites of Holmul and Naranjo during the expansion of the Dzibanche royal dynasty in the eastern area of the Department of Peten, Guatemala, from the second half of the sixth century through the first half of the seventh century a.d. The discussion centers on the textual and material indicators of the geopolitical contacts of the royal families of Sak Chuwen of Naranjo and Chak Tok Wayaab of Holmul, including changes in polychrome pottery and hieroglyphic inscriptions, in particular, rhetoric of good governance and political loyalty. In the case of Holmul, the transformation affects the urban landscape of the site. New data clarify the relationship between Holmul and Naranjo during the initial period of their subordination to the kings of Dzibanche. The emerging picture of these secondary alliances and hierarchies within the Kaanu'l domain is essential for a better understanding of Classic Maya political systems at local and regional levels.

Late Postclassic lowland Maya civic-ceremonial masonry architecture appears in two main configurations—temple assemblages and basic ceremonial groups—first identified at Mayapan. Around the Peten lakes, these two architectural complexes have been tied to northern immigrant Kowojs and Itzas, respectively, and their distributions map the varying control over the lakes by these two ethnopolities. Temple assemblages exhibit considerable variation in their structural components and arrangements throughout the lowlands, but they have not been studied comparatively. Here, we examine 14 temple assemblages at 12 lowland sites. We consider one of the two assemblages at Zacpeten (Sak Peten), Group A, to have been built by Kowojs, who asserted their identity and earlier (Late/Terminal Classic) ties to the site by reusing carved monuments. “Blended” assemblage Group C is more difficult to parse, but reflects cosmo-calendrical principles of statecraft and the builders’ and users’ broader ties to Mayapan and Topoxte.

Classic Teotihuacan's mural tradition evidences a Great Goddess and a Storm God in a cult of rain and fertility, yet their identity and relationship is problematic. This article reads the mural iconography as a myth of passage where the Great Goddess transited through portals uniting the planes of the cosmos at the boundary between the dry and rainy seasons to transform into the Storm God. Slate and pyrite mirrors and murals are analyzed as sacred artifacts with agency to invoke passage. The species of animals and plants symbolizing portals are identified to decode their symbolism of passage as symbolic transformations.

The Great Goddess transited from the underworld to the sea, entered mountain caves, and transformed her head-summit into a primordial cloud. The goddess created the axis mundi through her sacrifice, integrating the plants used for the manufacture of the Mesoamerican rubber olli. Mediated by the metamorphic powers of butterflies and olli, the goddess transformed greenstone into sacred water to become the Storm God. He commanded his helpers from his cave dwelling to produce rain and fertility clouds. Ruler-priests and warriors used mirrors to access the axis mundi and to transform into Storm God avatars with powers over rain and fertility.

The Maya used dress to help them structure social interaction. Taking a behavioral chain and practice approach, I define dress elements of male courtiers and how they were combined into outfits during the daily practices of dressing and attending court. I identify two groups of headgear, Standard and Special, among courtiers on vases showing historical interaction among humans. Each vase is considered commemorative and must communicate to an audience. I identified six Standard hat types that were widespread in the Maya Lowlands. The distribution implies a basic set of recognizable roles that provided the political-religious structure of the typical Maya court, perhaps as early as the Late Preclassic period. Four of the hat types are connected to glyphic titles. Each titleholder's position in the vase's visual space implies a hierarchy of roles. The results support my hypothesis that dress does identify social roles in the Maya court.

This article examines the word histories of 12 nouns (eight zoonyms, two other lifeform names, and two toponyms) in Mixtec, a shallow or emergent language family of Mesoamerica. It argues that these nouns—now morphologically opaque—are fused compounds that arose from the Mixtec vocabulary of the mantic count of 260 days, a temporal organization that was part of the common cultural heritage of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican peoples. With the European colonization and persecution of Mesoamerican religious practices, the use of the mantic count was abandoned. It was at this time that the compounds would have been demotivated; that is, the internal morphological structure would have become inaccessible to speakers who could no longer relate it to the mantic cycle. This then enriched the lexicon, creating etymological pairs for the same, or similar, referents. It is suggested that the survival of the eight zoonyms may have to do with their use in the context of omens.

This article revisits ear ornament data from Tikal—both material and visual—to better understand the varied roles of ear ornamentation in ancient Maya society over time. The author discusses relevant terms and terminology, then emphasizes the social aspects of ear piercing and stretching as well as the place of ear ornaments in economic exchange. Ear ornamentation was a critical aspect of socialization for ancestral Mayas, but the extent of this practice was classed. Whereas the styles of nonelite ear ornaments were more resistant to change over time, the jade earflares of elites became more standardized in form while growing in complexity. With this standardization, jade earflares achieved a status close to currency, not just to be coveted or collected but also to be displayed on the body to the fullest extent possible. However, like many currencies, jade earflares were more complex than simple tokens of exchange. The symbolic dimensions that gave these objects meaning and economic value were integral to their power.

A partir de los conceptos de modo y sistema cerámico, analizamos el rango de variación estilística en las cerámicas de El Tintal, Guatemala, como indicadores de conexiones sociales, económicas y políticas a nivel regional. Nuestro estudio muestra que la población de El Tintal participó en sistemas cerámicos con una distribución geográfica extensa durante los períodos preclásico medio y tardío, clásico temprano y clásico tardío. Durante los períodos preclásico terminal y clásico terminal, sin embargo, El Tintal participó en sistemas de afiliación con cobertura espacial limitada, aunque entre estos circulan conjuntos de cerámicas particulares a larga distancia. Con base en los resultados del estudio proponemos aquí algunas explicaciones a estos patrones en términos de dinámicas de interacción sociocultural y económicas.

Relative to the centuries preceding and following it, the tenth century a.d. in Mesoamerica is poorly understood by scholars. Although there is some regional variation in the timing of these events, archaeologists commonly ascribe a pattern of political decline, dynastic collapse, or social reorganization to this period. Paradoxically, increasing interregional interactions and emergent market exchange networks are also characteristics of macroregional patterns during the tenth century. These contradictory phenomena contribute to confusion surrounding interpretations of this transitional time. This article contributes a comparative dataset from systematic archaeological investigations of El Coyote, a monumental center in the lower Cacaulapa valley, Department of Santa Barbara, Honduras. The late occupational phase contains evidence for Early Postclassic chronological markers, including Tohil Plumbate pottery; obsidian from Pachuca, Hidalgo; and copper metallurgy. Calibrated radiocarbon assays with a 2σ error place these contexts between a.d. 710 and 1040, with a clustering of intercepts circa a.d. 900. These results are consistent with a pattern described throughout Mesoamerica and demonstrate that despite variation in the use of cultural terminology—Epiclassic, Terminal Classic, or Early Postclassic—there is uniformity in the timing of this macroregional interaction.

Drawing upon iconological theory, this article argues that mirrors and blood were regarded as a conceptually linked pair within the imperial ideology of Teotihuacan, Mexico from the second century onward. The relationship between blood and mirrors is shown to have codified with the construction of the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent, Teotihuacan's third largest edifice. This monument's facade was adorned with hundreds of monumental sculptures of oracular mirrors, some number of which incorporated actual mirrors formed of obsidian. I demonstrate that the Teotihuacan mirror sign took obsidian, a form of black volcanic glass that was intensively worked in the city, as a key referent. This monument was also the site of a historically large human sacrifice of more than 200 individuals, an event argued here to have involved bloodletting with obsidian knives and blades. I note that Teotihuacan interest in the mirror icon increased in concert with the city's residents’ application of the reflective material of obsidian to warring and other blood-spilling behaviors. The mirror icon evoked both obsidian as a radiant material, as well as obsidian's potential for application to forceful martial actions. The article concludes that this icon in part signified imperial force, which was made real through the weaponization of the smoking glass.