Graham, E

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270ReviewsMaya CourtsRoyal Courts of the Ancient Maya, vol. 1: Theory,Comparison, and Synthesis, edited by TakeshiInomata & Stephen D. Houston. Colorado (CO):Westview Press, 2001; ISBN 0-8133-3640-6 paper-back, £18.50 & US$39, xix + 292 pp., 65 ills.Elizabeth GrahamRoyal  Courts  of  the  Ancient  Maya  is  a  two-volumepublication that brings information together from asession of the 1996 annual meeting of the AmericanAnthropological Association and a subsequent sym-posium held at Yale University in November 1998.Volume 1, reviewed here, presents comparative andtheoretical approaches to royal courts. Volume 2 as-sembles information on royal courts from specificsite centres and geographical areas.In their introduction to Volume 1, Inomata andHouston make it clear that their book’s focus is firmlyon the court as a group of people and their activitiesand not on the court as an architectural compound.In fact, what first attracted me to the volume was myinterest in gleaning information on court architec-ture, particularly owing to my present involvementin the excavation of a palace complex at the site ofLamanai, in Belize. Despite the many years of exca-vation in the Maya area, we know startlingly littleabout the functions of palace buildings from archaeo-logical remains. Nonetheless, the editors’ decision tofocus on courtly life — on people and their activities— is clearly the right priority. Left to our own de-vices, we archaeologists tend to neglect envisioningthe living because we become preoccupied with de-tail in describing the inert and the dead. I found thatmy perspective was substantially enriched from read-ing every chapter in this volume, even though I didnot necessarily agree with every conclusion. By forc-ing  me  to  put  emphasis  on  ‘seeing’  or  imaginingpeople  involved  in  activities  within  buildings  —buildings that the authors emphasize are not simplymaterial residues of behaviour (p. 3) but draw mean-ing and significance from their social use in courtlyCAJ 12:2, 270–74      © 2002 McDonald Institute for Archaeological ResearchDOI: 10.1017/S0959774302230140      Printed in the United Kingdom271Reviewslife — the book has enhanced my repertoire of ideasfor approaches to excavation. Although archaeologi-cal evidence confirming the functions of palace build-ings is likely to remain elusive, the papers in thisvolume arm archaeologists with a range of possibili-ties drawn from imagery, glyphic evidence, ethno-history,  ethnography,  and  architectural  inter-sitecomparisons. Such possibilities drive the creation ofhypotheses that provide a greater chance of infor-mation recovery through archaeology than wouldhave been the case had such information not beenavailable, or had the priority been given instead toarchitectural stratigraphy and sequences.No one would deny that understanding monu-mental architectural stratigraphy is essential to un-derstanding  the  court  as  a  group  of  functioningbuildings and spaces. But at this juncture, the focuson people and their activities is critical to discipli-nary growth. As Reents-Budet points out (p. 199),most pictorial narratives on polychromes depict pal-aces rather than other types of Maya buildings. Al-though  some  of  the  activities  pictured  may  nothave been meant for public viewing, the frequencyof depiction attests that such activities were be-lieved by those in power to be important to themaintenance of the body politic. Thus the domi-nance  of  the  palace  as  a  setting  critical  to  socialwell-being is a concept worth exploring archaeologi-cally. In my own work, for example, special atten-tion will be given to the multi-roomed buildings thatstraddle both the private space of the palace court-yard and the public space of the main plaza. Thehypothesis that rituals or ceremonies may have dif-fered  based  on  their  private  or  public  orientationcould  affect  interpretation  of  features  or  artefactsassociated with particular rooms and the directionsin which they face. Another idea comes from thedepiction  on  vases  of  the  payment  or  offering  oftribute in palace rooms, which suggests that theremight be a connection worth exploring between thepalace complex and the nearby lagoon that Lamanaiborders,  along  which  canoes  must  have  travelledfrequently on their way to and from the sea, bring-ing goods to and from the site.The Introduction goes on to outline the histori-cal background to the study of Maya courts. Per-haps,  as  Inomata  and  Houston  explain,  the  mostsignificant  fact  that  would  help  non-Mayanists  tounderstand why the question of the structure andcomposition of Maya courts is so late in being an-swered is that only 30 years have passed since Mayascholars came to the realization that it would evenbe possible to think in terms of the presence of rulersand courts in Classic Maya society. Although theconcept of hieroglyphics as dynastic history beganto be recognized in the 1960s through the work ofProskouriakoff,  the  editors  point  out  that  the  re-search based on this breakthrough did not come tofruition until the late 1970s and 1980s. This has led toa focus in the last decade on the nature of kingshipand the reconstruction of dynastic history, but thesearch for an understanding of the wider relation-ships that constituted Maya court life is first repre-sented by the chapters in this book. In addition to athorough discussion of the ways in which the eluci-dation  of  Maya  royal  courts  can  be  approached,Inomata and Houston include a comprehensive setof questions that will serve to guide research wellbeyond the book’s individual contributions.How do the volume’s contributors define theMaya court? The editors state in the first chapter thatthe studies of kingship, political organization, ad-ministrative  systems  and  social  stratification  areimportant themes, but do not cover important di-mensions of Maya courts. Therefore they have en-couraged contributors to employ other approachesin their analyses. The first is the question of howcourts should be defined. In this book, as the titlemakes clear, the focus is solely on the royal courtand the organization centred around the sovereign.Such a focus entails examining the royal court’s or-ganizational principles: Who is excluded? Were thedead as well as the living a part of the royal court?What role did court members — men, women, chil-dren, royals, nobles, scribes, musicians, servants —play?Inomata’s  contribution  examines  non-royalmembers of the Maya court, and in the process dem-onstrates the importance of court administrative func-tions. The information drawn from Chinese, Japanese,African and West Asian examples provides a muchneeded comparative perspective. Other examples thatmight also prove useful in a comparative sense arethe Mycenaean palace states, which share with theMaya a spatial focus on the palace as the functional,social, and economic centre of the community (e.g.Whitelaw 2001).Houston and Stuart explore the varied compo-sition of Maya courts, and they summarize informa-tion from glyphic decipherments to reveal what wenow know about non-royal court members, queens,consorts and royal children. They deal with the im-portant issue of the relationships between rulers andsecondary lords; the power — and numbers — of thelatter increased during the second half of the eighthcentury AD. In the process of examining these rela-tionships they tackle a range of important yet diffi-cult questions, such as our use of the term ‘élite’ to272Reviewsdifferentiate the higher ranks of Maya society. Ar-chaeologically,  we  generally  identify  élites  by  theelaborate  material  goods  with  which  they  are  in-terred. These material indicators may indeed havebeen used by the individual in life to distinguishhimself or herself from non-élites, but the types ofmaterial indicators also reflect a group cohesivenessand power that must be explained on another level.What sorts of élites do we envisage by the term?Houston and Stuart explore the rich sociological lit-erature  for  a  range  of  possibilities.  Mosca’s  view(1994 in Houston & Stuart, p. 58) is particularly in-teresting because it suggests, at least to me, that thebasis of élite power lies more with the inertia of non-élites  (élites  act  in  concert;  non-élites  don’t)  thanwith any particular élite strategy for success. Theauthors’ summary presents data that demonstratean association between the increasing references tonon-royal nobles and a massive increase in Late Clas-sic populations in the lowlands. Most interesting insome senses is not so much the bearing this informa-tion has on the Maya collapse, but its relevance inhelping to explain the birth of Postclassic society,which is characterized by the growing number ofsmall-scale polities and the rise of numerous newlineages vying for power.McAnany and Plank return to the theme of theroyal  court  as  an  expanded  version  of  the  Mayahousehold, but also emphasize that buildings them-selves in royal complexes acquired personalized his-tories and played special roles in the life of the court,and in ritual practice. They compare the royal courtand the household by examining the evidence thatexists — archaeological, epigraphic, and documen-tary — for positions of authority, administrative ac-tivities, and male- and female-gendered roles in boththe royal court and the non-royal household. Theyreturn to the theme of buildings with personalizedhistories by focusing on the royal court at Yaxchilan,where there are five structures dedicated in the hi-eroglyphic inscriptions as the houses of particularpersonages. Indeed, two of the structures dedicatedbelong to royal women, and the authors’ detaileddiscussion of particular texts in their architecturalcontexts emphasizes the influential role of women atthe Yaxchilan royal court.Because physical proximity to the ruler is con-sidered by the editors to be critical, and although theemphasis is on people and activities rather than onarchitecture,  the  boundaries  of  the  studies  in  thebook are defined largely by the built environment.That is, the activities of interest are those associatedwith  palaces  and  palace  compounds  and  not,  forexample, temples or dance platforms or ball courts.Palaces can be defined architecturally as one-storey,multi-chambered  buildings,  usually  with  multipleentrances and internal benches, and supported bylong,  relatively  low  terraced  platforms.  Althoughpalace architecture itself is not a topic of discussion,Webster’s and Martin’s contributions deal with the‘mapping (of) court activities onto the built environ-ments of the Classic Maya’ (Webster, p. 130). Websterreviews the not inconsiderable problems in definingpalaces as royal residences. Indeed it remains diffi-cult archaeologically to document residential func-tions for palaces. With rare exceptions such as theMiddle Classic Structure A-8 (Pendergast 1979, 100–142)  and  the  Late-Terminal  Classic  Structure  E-7(Pendergast 1990, 72–122) at Altun Ha, middens, notsurprisingly,  do  not  generally  occur  piled  againstpalace  walls,  nor  are  kitchens  a  common  interiorfeature. Concerning this apparent problem, Webstermakes the excellent point that an insistence on do-mestic correlates overlooks a critical aspect of Mayaroyal households, which is that they were not spa-tially organized in the way lesser households were,mainly because they did not function only as domes-tic places (Webster, p. 134). He provides a neededdiscussion of the historical problems in identifyingroyal and élite palaces and suggests the term ‘courtcomplex’ to refer to the combination of royal courtfacilities as well as the architectural features that arebelieved to encompass the functions of the largerinstitution of rulership and its dimensions. He thendetails what is known about the court complexes atTikal and Copan both in terms of their architectural,spatial and organizational complexities, and the prob-lems that remain in determining building function.Perhaps the only jarring note in an otherwisehighly informative chapter is Webster’s reference toMaya urban centres as regal-ritual cities (see Sand-ers & Webster 1988). According to this model, Mayacities are merely gigantic royal households, and notadministrative or mercantile centres. Although thisidea is presented as a model, it keeps surfacing as anexplanation.  It  would  seem  to  me  that  on  logicalgrounds alone we cannot approach with an openmind the question of how Maya royal courts func-tioned (or whether a range of specialized facilitiesexisted as part of Maya centres) if we already as-sume, via the regal-ritual model, that Maya centreswere not truly urban because they were composedentirely  of  hierarchies  of  households  (Webster,  p.144).  There  are  other  ways  to  approach  Mayaurbanism that may be just as productive in envision-ing the nature of Maya royal courts, such as the ideathat the humid tropics generate complex, compositebuilt  environments  —  walled  and  roofed  space;273Reviewsroofed  and  unwalled  space;  unroofed  and  walledspace; unroofed, unwalled, paved and/or landscapedspaces; stone spaces; green spaces; and spaces cre-ated by perishable materials. Such environments areveritably absent from archaeological consciousness,let  alone  studied  for  their  functional  properties(Graham 1999). But even if we accept the premise ofthe governing body locus as a supra-household (e.g.the White House) it doesn’t follow that the governingbody is limited to supra-household functions.Martin,  like  Webster,  focuses  on  architectureand court settings, but his emphasis is on court or-ganization. He observes that court architecture andcourt  space  provide  the  setting  for  political  func-tions and decision-making, and they can thereforebe seen as signatures of how these activities are or-ganized. He compares lowland court complexes atfour sites, and in the discussion that follows, he con-siders data from architecture, pictorial representa-tion,  epigraphic  references  and  ethnohistoricalanalogy to explore the evidence for court complexesas settings for craft production, state offices, the ad-ministration of tribute, and residences for foreignnobles. His comparison among sites suggests that itis worth exploring whether there is a causal relationbetween court sizes and political success.Reents-Budet reviews pictorial imagery on Clas-sic Maya polychrome vases and the representations ofcourt scenes, settings, paraphernalia, and iconography.She  points  out  that  the  visual  narratives  on  Classicpolychrome vases are rich sources of data on both theactual royal court and the Maya ideal of courtly life. Asnoted above, the most common building form depictedis that of the palace (also known as a range structure).The paintings are a source of information on the per-ishable materials that made up the Maya court, such ascurtains, mats, textiles, baskets and wall hangings. Butperhaps most interesting is the information on the dy-namics of interaction among nobles and courtiers: thesymbols  and  hierarchy  of  power,  but  especially  theiconography that reinforces the sacred and cosmic foun-dations of rulership.Reents-Budet’s familiarity with a vast numberof polychrome vases makes her well positioned tosynthesize their pictorial range of data on courtlylife. She is able to comment on palace interiors, andfurniture, but especially on the narratives of power.Unfortunately for archaeologists, despite the exist-ence of iconic signs adorning representations of struc-tures, these signs seem to relate to the ceremoniescarried out and not to any particular function associ-ated  with  a  particular  structure.  Court  buildingsclearly, and perhaps not surprisingly, were multi-functional. Nonetheless, the detailed discussion ofthe  range  of  iconic  signs  adorning  the  structuresprovides a basis on which to build our knowledge ofthe meaning and significance of key ceremonies andrituals: some iconic and pictorial images are refer-ences to historical events or myth, others are repre-sentations of important rituals in the lives of rulersand associated élites, such as accession or divinationor acceptance of tribute. None is devoid, however, ofcelestial or cosmic associations, and it is clear, as it isin depictions of European rulers and their personaland court paraphernalia, that one of the forces be-hind pictorial imagery is the representation of rulingélites — and indeed of the office of kingship itself —as divinely or cosmically sanctioned.Evans’ chapter describes Aztec palace life basedon the extensive native and Spanish accounts of pal-ace layouts, court functions, personnel, and the cus-toms and rituals of courtly life. For Mayanists, asEvans points out, these descriptions provide a criti-cal basis for inference about Classic Maya courtlylife. They help us to attune ourselves to activitiesthat are not readily suggested by the silence of ru-ined buildings or even the idealized brushwork por-traits of courtly scenes — activities such as gardening,landscaping, weaving and dyeing, feasting, sleep-ing, bathing, child-minding, praying, studying, plan-ning military manoeuvres, keeping archival records,or storing and keeping track of foodstuffs, textiles,armaments, books, maps and other records.Coe’s concluding remarks measure the distanceMayanists have come in order to be able to ‘speakconfidently’  of  Classic  Maya  courtly  life  (Coe,  p.274). He suggests avenues for future research, suchas the study of headdresses and body garments ascodified uniforms. The criticism, however, that theauthors of the volume ignore the importance of reli-gion among the ancient and modern Maya is mis-placed.  That  the  sacred  and  the  mundane  areinseparable in Maya life is an awareness that is com-municated unquestionably in the various contribu-tions, and is a unique strength of the book. In fact,the old academic view that ‘religion’ is a sphere ofactivity somehow treatable as a phenomenon on itsown may be anathema to an in-depth understandingof palace life.Elizabeth GrahamInstitute of ArchaeologyUniversity College London31–34 Gordon SquareLondonWC1H OPYUKEmail: e.graham@ucl.ac.uk274ReviewsReferencesGraham,  E.,  1999.  Stone  cities,  green  cities,  in  ComplexPolities in the Ancient Tropical World, eds. E.A. Bacus& L.J. Lucero. (Archaeological Papers of the Ameri-can Anthropological Association 9.) Arlington (VA):American Anthropological Association, 185–94.Pendergast,  D.M.,  1979.  Excavations  at  Altun  Ha,  Belize,1964–1970, vol. 1. (Royal Doulton Museum Archaeo-logical Monographs.) Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum.Pendergast,  D.M.,  1990.  Excavations  at  Altun  Ha,  Belize,1964–1970, vol. 3. (Royal Doulton Museum Archaeo-logical Monographs.) Toronto: Royal Ontario Mu-seum.Sanders,  W.T.  &  D.  Webster,  1988.  The  Mesoamericanurban tradition. American Anthropologist 90, 521–46.Whitelaw, T., 2001. Reading between the tablets: assess-ing Mycenaean palatial involvement in ceramic pro-duction and consumption, in Economy and Politics inthe  Mycenaean  Palace  States,  eds.  S.  Voutsaki  &  J.Killen. (Cambridge Philological Society, Supplemen-tary 27.) Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Soci-ety,  51–79.

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