Fertility and Cosmology

These concepts can still be seen in the spiritual practices of contemporary Maya, who continue to follow traditions that were witnessed by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century, and which were recorded earlier by Maya artists in inscriptions and paintings. Through covenants with deities and ancestors, rulers were given divine authority to bring agricultural fertility to their people and to mediate with supernatural forces on their behalf. Many important buildings and ritual caches recreated a four-part universe with a center point from which life arose. Through both public and private acts, rulers symbolically placed themselves at this center point to assert their role in re-creating and preserving cosmic forces.

Exhibits 34 and 36-41 at the Copan Sculpture Museum display sculptures that exemplify the abundant symbolism of fertility and cosmology that the ancient Maya of Copan found meaningful (Exhibit 35 was not yet installed at the time of this writing). Two exhibits come from the Copan ballcourt, which was a ritualistic reenactment of the Maya creation myth to give rebirth to the sun and the maize crop. The ballcourt was not part of the Acropolis proper but was linked to the rituals carried out there and in the Great Plaza. It epitomizes the way Maya public art and architecture defined sacred spaces in which rituals were performed. Exhibit 34 is the reconstructed facade of Ballcourt III, the last of three phases of ballcourt construction at Copan, and Exhibit 36 is a replica of a giant bird carved in stucco from the earlier Ballcourts I and II. Sculptures that once decorated Temple 11 (Exhibits 37 and 38) emphasize water symbolism and astronomical phenomena. Finally, the temple atop Structure 22 (Exhibits 39-41) embodied the sacred mountain where maize first germinated and featured symbols of the Maya creation story.

Exhibit 34: Ballcourt III Façade

Copan's ballcourt is famous for its elegant form and corbelled arches, but it is also unique because its two parallel structures, Structures 9 and 10, were richly decorated with cosmic imagery. With its display of supernatural macaws and companion architectural sculptures, it illustrated the cosmological symbolism inherent in the game in a way no other known ballcourt in Mesoamerica did. The descending birds acted as messengers from the supernatural world as they alit on the façades, which were envisioned as their homes.

The embellishment of the Copan ballcourt signals the importance the game and its associated rituals held for Waxaklajun Ubaah K'awiil, Ruler 13, who commissioned the ballcourt in its final form. He was possibly a ball player himself, and some scholars have even hypothesized that his capture and sacrifice at Quirigua resulted from the loss of a ball game.

The game itself has been interpreted as a ritual reenactment of the sun's battle for survival and rebirth on its daily and annual journeys through the heavens and the underworld. A successful reenactment helped ensure fertility and the survival of humankind and life on earth. On the Copan ballcourt, the macaw was a messenger representing the sun and its link to the vital maize crop in the yearly agricultural cycle.

Ball-game iconography from many sources informs us that human sacrifices were associated with the ball game. At some Maya archaeological sites, such as Yaxchilan, the sacrificial victim is depicted rolled into a ball and thrown down a stepped false-ballcourt toward a defending player, usually a ruler. The sacrifices were part of the ritual deemed necessary to promote agricultural fertility and ensure the resurrection of the sun and the maize plan$1. $2his symbolism mirrors the concern with the agricultural and solar cycles also expressed on Structure 16, with its emphasis on Tlaloc and on K'inich Yax K'uk' Mo' as the sun (exhibits 1 and 4-7).

Throughout Mesoamerica, the macaw's bright plumage, regarded as the sun's costume, together with its power of flight, made it a logical substitute for the sun.In the Popol Vuh, the supernatural macaw Vucub Caquix (Seven Macaw) is portrayed as the sun's impersonator.Barbara Tedlock and Dennis Tedlock report that among the K'iche Maya, Vucub Caquix is said to be the constellation we know as the Big Dipper.He is eventually killed by the Hero Twins, but not before he has ripped off the arm of Hunahpu, one of the twins.Bishop Diego de Landa reported in the sixteenth century that the name of a prominent Yucatec Maya deity, K'inich K'ak' Mo', meant "Sun-face Fire Macaw." According to Landa, a temple at the town of Izamal was dedicated to K'inich K'ak' Mo', and it is still called by that name today.Maya codices portray macaws carrying torches, a probable symbol for drought brought on by the sun.

Number symbolism revolving around fertility is also evident on the structures that make up the ballcourt. The macaws that dominate their façades are repeated eight times on each structure, to represent the cardinal and intercardinal directions on each building. The number eight is associated with the maize deity in Maya belief, and its divisor four is associated with the sun and the four-sided milpa, or agricultural field. The imagery reinforces the interpretation that the agricultural cycle and journey of the sun gave meaning to the game played out on the court.

It was at the ballcourt that the Copan Mosaics Project in 1985 initiated its attempts to reconstruct the fallen sculptures in the Principal Group of Copan. Pieces of ballcourt carvings were strewn about in five surface piles (139).After several years of motif analysis at the site, a hypothetical reconstruction of a flying macaw mosaic was temporarily restored as a test on the west façade of Structure 10, the easternmost of the two ballcourt buildings (140). Later, IHAH replaced it with a cast, which remains there for visitors to see. The original sculptures were transported to storage at the Centro Regional de Investigaciones Arqueológicas (CRIA) until four of the best-reassembled groups could be reconstructed in the museum.

In the 1940s, Tatiana Proskouriakoff painted a reconstruction of the Copan ballcourt showing eight macaws adorning the upper register of each of the two buildings flanking the playing alley (see 137). As we worked on reconstructing the actual sculptures, we found that she was right about the number of birds, but new information led us to alter her hypothetical placement of the macaws. Whereas Proskouriakoff depicted all the macaws on the frontal planes of the façades, we discovered that four of the eight birds on each building were originally on its corners. We determined this from the wedge shaped tenons on the birds' collarpieces. When fitted together in the back, the wedge-shaped stones caused the front carved faces to form rounded corners rather than 90-degree angles (141). Our proposed composition, displayed in exhibit 34, has outstretched wings flanking a beaded jade collar beneath the macaw's unmistakable head. The wings and an upright tail both signal that the bird is in flight but in the process of alighting on the building (142).

The wings of the ballcourt macaws are composed of stylized serpents' heads with short feathers flaring from the tops, forming a variant of the common Maya "serpent-wing" motif. Birds with such wings are identified as divine beings having either celestial or underworld associations. The model for the Copan macaw sculptures was the royal macaw (Ara macao), a bird once common in the subtropical forests of the region. Although macaws no longer live in the wild around Copan, today visitors can see protected birds at the entrance to the ruins. On the ballcourt sculptures, a pattern of raised bead shapes encircles the macaws' eyes, representing the white, wrinkled skin around an actual macaw's eye.

Several other motifs reconstructed on the ballcourt façade associate the sun-impersonating macaw with maize and with the sun's nightly journey through the underworld. We found components of maize configurations, which during reconstruction were set along the upper molding between the birds (143). Another maize-like element seems to be part of the macaws' tails (144), along with an ak'bal sign (145), a sign associated with darkness, caves, and the earth's interior. The maize plant sprouting from this ak'bal sign may refer to the rebirth of maize from the earth's interior. It was natural to pair these motifs with the macaws because they also occurred in groups of sixteen.

A symbol that sculptors carved along the ballcourt's cornice was the k'an cross, which is often found at other Maya sites in bands depicting sacred liquid. An example can be seen on the sanctuary of the Temple of the Foliated Cross at Palenque (146). The k'an cross seems to represent the precious essence of the yellow maize kernel as it was created in a mountain cave from an underground pool of water. From there it rose to the surface of the earth, sprouting as the maize plant. Maize foliage designs that split apart along the cornice alternate with the k'an crosses. We reconstructed these directly beneath the vertical ajaw roof ornaments (147). I like to interpret these humorous faces, with their open ("shouting") mouths, as the souls of the budding maize seeds, the mature kernels of which were ground into dough by the Maya deities to form humans. They might visually represent the sound of the messages carried by the bird deities. Roof ornaments throughout Copan tend to provide clues to the supernatural essences embodied in structures, in this case the sacred relationships among the sun, the earth, maize, and humans.

Exhibit 36: Stucco Bird Replica from Ballcourts I and II

Earlier versions of the Copan ballcourt have been known since the time of the Carnegie excavations, but it was not until the Proyecto Arqueológico Acrópolis Copán (PAAC) in the late 1980s that the façade designs of these versions were discovered. The first structure, Ballcourt I, was originally situated somewhat south of the court's final location some 300 years before Structure 26 and the Hieroglyphic Stairway took their ultimate forms. When Rudy Larios was repairing the first terrace of Structure 26, masons discovered fragments of stucco designs underneath the terrace. The restoration work was halted, and PAAC excavators uncovered the exciting find: a partially preserved stucco macaw sculpture from the earlier ballcourt (148). The bird was modeled directly onto the court's substructure, rather than sculpted on the building façade as in the final court, and it was once painted a vibrant red (149) .Refurbishments kept it an active component of the façade throughout the Ballcourt II phase. It was eventually covered over with the stone façade of Ballcourt III.

In time, the position of another stucco bird on Ballcourts I and II was discovered during continuing tunnel excavations. Little of the bird's body was preserved, but it did have an intact head. Together the birds provided enough information to enable us to make a composite reconstruction of the entire design for display in the museum. I drew the design out, and Marcelino Valdés, Jacinto Ramírez, and their assistants replicated it the same way they re-created Rosalila (150). The original stucco design was reburied because of its extreme fragility.

Exhibits 37 & 38: Sculptures from Temple 11

Temple 11 dominates the public plaza of the Principal Group at Copan, looming large at its southern end atop the artificial mass of the Acropolis. Built by Yax Pasaj Chan Yopaat, the last ruler in Copan's royal dynasty, the temple was a grand building scheme and a fitting political message designed to marshal support for a dynasty whose end was drawing near. From the doorways of the temple, visitors today find their best view of the Great Plaza and the surrounding hills (151). A refreshing breeze always seems to blow on the summit, no matter how stifling the day, and one's imagination easily begins to create scenes from the ancient past on the plazas stretching out below. At the top, two massive ceiba trees crown the east and west ends of the ruined temple. Their roots have dislodged walls and sculptures over the years, but now they actually help to hold the structure together (152).They have become as much a part of the ruined city as any stone monument.

Images of two giant pawahtun have fallen from the lofty façade of Temple 11. Four pawahtun and four bacab were believed to crouch at the corners of the world, supporting the earth and the sky, respectively. These are generic Yucatecan Mayan names for these deities. Their water lily headdresses celebrated the alliance of Yax Pasaj Chan Yopaat with the forces of nature and the Maya cosmos. Water lily headdresses can also be seen on the mirror images of the ruler on Stela N, which still stands at the base of the staircase to Temple 11 (see 60). This headdress seems to have reached its height of popularity during the reign of Yax Pasaj Chan Yopaat, and it was found throughout the Maya area in the Late Classic period. I believe that as part of royal attire, it designated the wearer as a powerful water manager, someone who carried out civic and ritual duties related to water. The patron of water managers was God N, representing the scribal role of the pawahtun. The extensive reservoir and drainage systems at Copan and other Maya cities were engineering feats that began with the cities' first layouts. By the Late Classic period (AD 600-900), population increases had forced Maya engineers to be ever more adept at managing water resources for their cities. At a time when the management of resources was crucial for the well-being of the burgeoning populace, the ruler on Stela N was appropriately dressed as God N to associate himself with fertility, the sacred waters of creation, and control over water.

The old bacab or pawahtun head displayed in exhibit 37, a hallmark of Copan known since the earliest expeditions, graced the platform on the northeast side of Temple 11, looking east, until it was transferred to the museum (153). A replica now takes its place at the site, for the absence of the head, which is as familiar as the ceiba trees, would create a strange void. A twin head, much more battered from its fall off the temple, sits at the northwestern base of the staircase. Both heads were adorned with tied water lily headdresses, shown with scalloped edges and a crosshatched interior representing the water lily pad. Its stem wraps around the wearer's head, holding the pad in place by a knot in front. Usually, a fish was depicted nibbling on the flower's edge, but here a scar is seen where one has broken off and been lost.

The Temple 11 bacab heads were parts of two enormous figures that once supported an immense crocodile, the body of which spanned the north façade. Downslope on the north side of the temple, one of their huge hands is embedded among the blocks of fallen wall. Proskouriakoff, in her 1938 field notes, was the first to recognize that enormous carved claws and blocks with beaded scales amid the jumble composed the body of a colossal saurian creature. (A possible head for the creature lies in the West Court, although it looks more serpentlike than crocodilian.) It is well known that the Maya likened the earth's surface to the back of a crocodile, which four strong pawahtun supported at each of the cardinal points. In Copan's days of grandeur, these two giant pawahtun were visible from great distances supporting the earth crocodile atop Temple 11.

In its layout, Temple 11 takes the form of an asymmetrical cross with four doorways, one opening to each of the cardinal directions. Framing the doorways perpendicularly at one time were eight tall hieroglyphic mosaic panels paired facing each other. The carving style on the panels is shallow, and the larger-than-average glyphs often span the surfaces of several blocks. The panel displayed as exhibit 38 in the Copan Sculpture Museum was rescued from the gnarled ceiba roots engulfing the eastern doorway (154, 155). In the late 1930s, the opposite-facing panel was transported to the Copan Regional Museum of Archaeology out of similar preservation concerns. At the site, the Carnegie Institution almost fully restored all but the two eastern panels. Epigraphers Berthold Reise, Linda Schele, and David Stuart, working independently over the years on the remainder of the inscriptions, replaced as many of the outstanding blocks as possible in their original panel locations.

The doorway texts contain astronomical data, including the timing of the Venus cycle, or 819-day count, in relation to dedicatory and fire rituals performed by Yax Pasaj Chan Yopaat for the temple. Schele also deciphered records of Yax Pasaj Chan Yopaat's accession date, two appearances of Venus as the evening star, a solar eclipse in A.D. 771. An unusual feature for any Maya site is that the glyph panel on the right in each pair is carved in mirror image to the one on the left and is read "backward," from right to left. That is the case with the panel displayed in the sculpture museum.

Alfred Maudslay was the first to excavate the interior of Temple 11, in the nineteenth century. He cleared out its four corridors and found a staircase leading to what was probably a second story. An interior chamber, the doorways of which were accessible from the north and south corridors and were framed by stylized, open-mouthed serpents, contained a deep shaft. A bone with Yax Pasaj Chan Yopaat's name and image carved on it was one of the many artifacts collected from this feature; it is displayed in the Copan Regional Museum of Archaeology. The doorway serpents' heads form an underworld maw, a portal to the realm of the ancestors. These are common features in the architecture of Copan, seen also in the interior niche of Temple 16 and the lower register of Structure 9N-82. Whereas the sculpture on the exterior façade of Temple 11 emphasizes the sixteenth ruler's role in the fertility and sustenance of the polity, the interior sculpture situates him within the larger cosmological realm.

Exhibits 39-41: The Temple on Structure 22

In 1886, when Maudslay first excavated the temple atop the pyramid he numbered Structure 22, some of its statues were still in place, as was its beautiful sculptured doorway (156). But restoration was not part of his program, and after his departure, parts of the newly uncovered building gave way to the elements and tumbled further into disarray. A few years later, members of the Peabody expedition stacked the fallen sculpture on the stairways of the surrounding platforms as they cleared more of Structure 22. Again, no restoration was carried out. When the Carnegie expedition arrived in 1936, its archaeologists discovered that the doorway of the structure had collapsed, and the room needed to be re-excavated before restoration could begin. The restoration of Structure 22, which visitors can see today, was overseen by Aubrey Trik as part of the Carnegie Institution project (157).

The temple at the top of Structure 22 is often referred to as the "Temple of Meditation," a name given by Honduran poet Carlos Izaguirre, who was inspired by its exquisite inner sculptured doorway and its elevated position at the north end of the East Court. Other scholars have described it as a temple dedicated to Venus and maize. Today, it is believed to have been conceived as the primordial Yax Hal Witznal, which means "First True Mountain of Creation," or more generally as "Sustenance Mountain." Its inner doorway is believed to depict the night sky and a representation of the Milky Way, which in this instance is carved as the body of the Starry-Deer-Caiman with bloodletting associations. Iconographic elements that appear on the temple, including the witz monsters on the corners and the interior celestial doorway, fit with all the varied components of the Maya creation myth. The temple represented the sacred mountain where maize was born, and the East Court plaza below it was equated with the primordial sea.

Maya creation myths are typically set in a watery place, a cool, clear blue-green (yax) pool referred to as the primordial sea, in which floated a turtle that represented the land. The most sacred maize kernels were found beneath three stones in a cave in a sacred mountain, through which flowed the fertile waters of the primordial sea. When lightning struck the stones, the kernels germinated, and the earth split apart to allow the maize to sprout. In many carved and painted scenes, images of the cracked turtle carapace, Yohl ahk, with the maize god emerging from it, represent this story (158). The back of the turtle is often depicted as carrying three stones (159).

Simon Martin's research concludes that Maya ideology held the death and transformation of the maize god, representing the natural corn cycle, as a central metaphor for life and death in Maya religion. The sacrificial death of maize at harvest-time leads to burial as seeds in the mountain cave. Once the lightning bolt k'awiil strikes the mountain, penetrating the cave and germinating the maize, the maize rises triumphant from the journey through the fissure. While underground, the maize god body gives rise to fruit trees such as cacao. This union of maize and cacao suggests that ingesting drinks made from these fruits commemorated their resurrection and represented the continued sustenance of humanity.

It is possible that the temple atop Structure 22 was made to overlook a representation of the primordial sea. The plaza below it was enclosed on all sides by pyramids and stairways leading to the platforms on which the East Court structures were built. A partial corridor on the south side at plaza level provided for drainage and pedestrian access. A corbel-vaulted drain also led water away eastward toward the Copan River. These narrow channels could easily have been blocked to restrict the flow of water and create a shallow pool in the plaza. When allowed to fill, the plaza might have functioned something like the Southeast Asian thirta, a sacred pool used as a place of ablution or cleansing rituals (160).

Whether or not this surmise is correct, the temple on Structure 22 abounds with sculpture symbolizing the maize cycle, the sacred mountain and its cave, and the earth's fertility. Because this temple's façade, with its thousands of sculptured blocks, was one of the most ornate on the Copan Acropolis, the massive piles of sculpture stacked up around the building after the Peabody and Carnegie clearings have been a challenge to separate into motif groups and rearticulate. But among the sorted motifs we have identified maize deities (161, 162), huge guardian figures (163), friezes of ajaw faces and k'an crosses with vegetation, and witz masks representing the sacred mountain. The maize deities, positioned such that they are rising from the witz masks, are some of the most beautiful and expressive examples of Copan artistry, each with a slightly different, individualized countenance. The early excavation teams prized the finest examples of these maize deities, and some of them were shipped—with permission in those days-to institutions such as the Peabody Museum and the British Museum.

The flowers and vegetation motifs on the temple suggest the supernatural realm of the flowery paradise in the otherworld. The building's outer doorway was carved to represent the gaping mouth of the cave monster, from which issued the voice and messages of the deity the temple embodied. The uppermost step, leading into the monster's mouth, is actually formed of huge stone incisors.

An important contribution to understanding the meaning and function of the temple was made by archaeoastronomer Anthony Aveni. He proposed that the structure was built in alignment with the path of the planet Venus in the sky. The small windows in the temple facing east and west were used for sighting the planet's first risings as evening and morning star. Priests recorded this information for use in calendar cycle prognostications in their almanacs. Astronomical tables anticipating favorable cycles of Venus and its conjunction with the movement of the sun were important components of Maya codices, serving for the timing of ritual events and planting.

If Aveni is correct, then the cosmological symbolism expressed on the temple, especially on its interior doorway and bench, may place the sacred mountain of sustenance and the flowery paradise within a larger universe and tie the success of the agricultural cycle to celestial events.