From the Mouth of the Dark Cave: Commemorative Sculpture of the Late Classic Maya - Hardcover

Bassie-Sweet, Karen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0806123230 ISBN 13: 9780806123233

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991

Synopsis

Argues that scenes found on late classic sculpture represent cave rituals performed by the Mayan elite and discusses the Mayan world view and the role caves played in it

About this title

Synopsis:

The southern lowlands of the Maya region are honeycombed with caves formed by the erosive action of underground rivers. These caves, with their dramatic dripwater formations, winding tunnels, and huge caverns, played a major role in the ideology and world view of the Classic Maya. Considered to be the home of ancestors and of deities associated with the sun, moon, rain, wind, and corn, caves were a portal between the tangible human world and the invisible world of the gods. It was at this portal that the Maya performed their most sacred rituals. Bassie-Sweet argues that it is these cave rituals that are most often illustrated on Late Classic Maya sculpture. Scenes found on the sculpture frequently comprise both a hieroglyphic text and an image of an action. In discussing the relationship between text and image, this groundbreaking study defines a Late Classic framing convention used to indicate which of many events described in the text is illustrated in the image. It is demonstrated that the traditional interpretation of some of these scenes as accession events is incorrect, and that they in fact represent preaccession and Period Ending rituals.

Bassie-Sweet further argues that some of the motifs found in the image, such as cauac monsters, sky bands, and serpents, symbolize the cave openings and tunnels where these rituals took place. According to the author, the texts indicate that members of the elite undertook a ritual circuit to several caves in the vicinity of their community much like that made by the modern highland Maya. The primary function of the sculptures is seen to be the public commemoration of private or semiprivate cave rituals performed by these Classic Maya. Seventy-eight line drawings and photographs of Late Classic Maya wall panels and stelae illustrate the text. "From the Mouth of the Dark Cave", with its reconsideration of Maya art and, by implication, the entire field of Maya studies should be of interest to archaeologists, anthropologists, art historians, iconographers and epigraphers, and all readers interested in Mesoamerican studies.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0806123230
• ISBN 13: 9780806123233
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304