c. 400 BC – AD 100
Writing and kingship
By about 400 BC rulers in the Maya area raise stelae, carved stone shafts that show them and their deeds. A tomb at K'o near Holmul, from 350 – 300 BC, may hold the earliest known king of the lowlands.
San Bartolo, northeast of Tikal, has the earliest writing that is clearly Maya. A stone block with a short text dates to about 300 BC, and painted fragments from 300 – 200 BC give the day 7 Deer of the 260-day calendar. Murals painted around 100 BC in a room at the base of a pyramid show the maize god and scenes of the Maya creation myths. One scene shows the coronation of a king.
Replica of the west wall mural of San Bartolo, painted around 100 BC, in the Miraflores museum, Guatemala CityWikimedia Commons, Konjiki1, CC0 (Mural de San Bartolo.jpg)
In the highlands Kaminaljuyu, now under Guatemala City, is the greatest city of the southern Maya area, at its height between about 400 BC and AD 100. It trades obsidian across Mesoamerica and builds canals to water its fields. Its thrones and stelae show rulers with bound captives and carry hieroglyphic texts.
Monument 65 from Kaminaljuyu: three seated rulers, each between two bound captives, Late PreclassicWikimedia Commons, Jonathan Kaplan, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Monument 65.jpg)
Takalik Abaj on the Pacific slope grows into a city of over 4 km². Its Olmec-style sculpture gives way to Maya stelae of rulers with Long Count dates. Stela 5 there gives two dates, the later in AD 126. Izapa, near the Tacaná volcano in Chiapas, is at its height from 850 to 100 BC and raises carved stelae with scenes of gods and myths. Their style is found as far as Takalik Abaj and Kaminaljuyu.
Stela 5 at Takalik Abaj, with two rulers either side of a column of Long Count dates, the later in AD 126Wikimedia Commons, Simon Burchell, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Takalik Abaj Stela 5.JPG)
Sources
- William A. Saturno, David Stuart and Boris Beltrán, Early Maya Writing at San Bartolo, Guatemala, Science 311 (2006), pp. 1281 to 1283.
- Robert J. Sharer and Loa P. Traxler, The Ancient Maya (6th ed. 2006), pp. 182, 197, 232 to 248.
- Michael Love, Recent Research in the Southern Highlands and Pacific Coast of Mesoamerica, Journal of Archaeological Research 15 (2007), pp. 275 to 328.
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