In worldwide architecture of different eras and many cultures, a lintel has been an element of post and lintel construction. a bloodletting ritual Such Maya rituals as bloodletting were only enacted on slaves. Hes probably looking for a more lucrative position here in this kingdom. In the section Lintels 25 and 26, only lintel 25 is described. And we know that Lamb heard about this ruin when he was in the jungle beginning this filming project. And he needed a lost city as a selling point.. And I would be very surprised if the great painting at Bonampak wasnt made, ultimately, by painters coming from Yaxchilan. What event is portrayed in the elaborately carved lintel showing the Maya ruler Shield Jaguar and his wife Lady Xoc (4.6.6)? Standing on your head in public would be considered conspicuous. What does the Justinian mosaic in the Church of San Vitale in Ravenna demonstrate? The ruler was believed to be a descendent of the gods, and the act of bloodletting was of critical importance in maintaining their power and order in the community. Which emperor created a colossal statue of himself to be placed in a basilica in the center of Maya Art and Architecture 2nd ed. And then other ones are highly marshal, very belligerent in their imagery. And these were very much the center of the publication for the Getty. There they encountered a rich cache of decorated structures made in the first millennium CE, including a particularly elaborate limestone lintel (a horizontal support above a doorway) carved by an artisan named Mayuy. The scenes are carved in high relief with carefully incised details decorating the raised surfaces. A lintel or lintol is a type of beam that spans openings such as portals, doors, windows and fireplaces. But in point of fact, thats pretty unusual. Elaborate grave goods were found in association with both burials. Ian tried hard to get to the bottom of that story, but he was never able to do so. And what were those pigments made of? Yaxchilan itself is in not a very prepossessing area. Near the Usumacinta River in Chiapas (photo: Daniel Mennerich, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). In the first millennium B.C., Maya artists began to sculpt in stone, stucco, wood, bone, shell, and fired clay. The lintel measures forty-nine by twenty-four inches and is five and a half inches thick. Hooper 2006 A large and complete example of a type of carved panel (pare or korupe) fitted above the doorway of a chief's house, and later above the doorway of elaborately carved meeting houses (which began to be built around 1840). Why didnt he release more detailed information about where the lintels mightve come from? The first two glyphs in the text at the top of the lintel indicate the event and the date on which it took place, October24, 709 C.E. And he trekked to the site with locals. And this may, in turn, account for the kind of micro kingdoms or the political fragmentation that are illustrated or exemplified by the carving weve been looking at. The second thing to remember about these, though, is that all of these carvings have a certain physical involvement with the viewer. And that will never, never end. Only the carver is, through his name glyphs, as it is expressed in the orbits of the lintel being lifted. It was removed to the Museo Nacional de Antropologa e Historia in 1964. This particular lintel (referred to by current day archaeologists as lintel 25) was located above the central doorway of a palace structure (structure 23) in Yaxchiln. and a number of its buildings stand to this day. And h Music Credits HOUSTON: Bonampak is a high-ranking city. Why are the Mayans into sacrificing themselves or someone and they depict the gods as these harsh deities that will kill them if they don't constantly try to sacrifice? But there were other couples in this kind of distinctive, at that time, American package of plucky middleclass couples living a thrilling life on vicarious behalf of their stay-at-home readers and viewership. Ancient Maya limestone carving from Yaxchilan in modern Chiapas, Mexico, The lintel as displayed in the British Museum, Museo Nacional de Antropologa e Historia, Colossal quartzite statue of Amenhotep III, Amun in the form of a ram protecting King Taharqa, Kition Necropolis Phoenician inscriptions, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yaxchilan_Lintel_24&oldid=1109549671, Ethnographic objects in the British Museum, Artefacts from Africa, Oceania and the Americas in the British Museum, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2016, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 10 September 2022, at 14:44. Its because he was essentially self-supporting, Jim. To log in and use all the features of Khan Academy, please enable JavaScript in your browser. So that if you see a stele or an upright stone monolith on a Maya plaza, for the Maya, it was a being or a ruler, usually, who is shown in perpetual, almost frozen, dance. Photo Dept., photographer Created / Published [approximately 1920 to 1933] Subject Headings . The civil war tended to suppress it; it tended to stop the more brazen acts of criminality. Its a white clay. CUNO: Now, you call the carved Maya stones orphaned carvings. Doyle, James. Wearing an exquisitely woven "huipil,"Lady K'abal Xook pulls a thorned rope through her tongue in the principal form of blood sacrifice perfomed by royal women. But to get back to Dana and Ginger, who were very much building on this tradition, in this book called A Quest for the Lost City, they were doing Enchanted Vagabonds 2.0. 1 : to work out in detail : develop elaborate a theory. [citation needed] There are numerous documented references to him on artifacts at the end of Stage V at Yaxchilan. Direct link to Emma.Horsefan.2004's post maby it was to show the d, Posted 6 years ago. Later sculpture from the Maya area follows radically different conventions. Rome? Lady Xook (detail), Lintel 25, Structure 23, Yaxchiln (Maya) (The British Museum). The text comprises three discrete sections. In freestanding Indian building examples, the Hoysala architecture tradition between the 11th and 14th centuries produced many elaborately carved non-structural stone lintels in the Southern Deccan Plateau region of southern India. Tikal has 1, Palenque has 5 doorways? The language of the inscriptions is not necessarily always reflecting the local speech. Its a little bit sad, in that Ive actually seen correspondence from Dana and Ginger, and the letterhead has the heading of Dan and Ginger Lamb, Exploration and Motion Pictures. But there would be only one movie called Quest for the Lost City, which was released in the 1950s and went into broad distribution. CUNO: Now, when and under what circumstances was this particular carved lintel found? The artist was careful to show such minute details as the strings that are tied to hold on the wrist cuffs worn by both royals, and the pattern woven on Itzamnaaj Bahlams beautiful cape. Due to the association with Lady Xocs burial in Room 2, these have been interpreted as being depicted on Lintel 24. CUNO: Well, lets turn now to the particular lintel stone We mentioned the name of Dana Lamb. Many different building materials have been used for lintels.[1]. But instead, were getting this strong feeling of what linguists technically would call diglossia, in which there is a profound linguistic, or again, expressive abyss, almost, that exists between what the rulers are saying and what theyre recording in the inscriptions and what people out in farm and field might be speaking, as well. Bloodletting was also an act related to rebirth and rejuvenation. In this episode, Stephen Houston, editor of A Maya Universe in Stone, explores the production and complex afterlives of these Maya objects. A lintel or lintol is a structural horizontal block that spans the space or opening between two vertical supports. It is possible that this is Bird Jaguar IV. The red would contrast intensively with that. And we have made, I think, a persuasive argument that the four lintels came from two separate buildings. HOUSTON: The next part of the project is to get back to the jungle. A lintel may support the chimney above a fireplace, or span the distance of a path or road, forming a stone lintel bridge. And then often, these kinds of carvings among the Maya are either ritually deactivated or they might be destroyed by enemies. He, too, wears an elaborate headdress, a breastplate and ear spools. CUNO: So help us understand the topography and vegetation of the area and how consistent it is across Guatemala. Theyre almost communicating the idea that the writing is bejeweled in some ways. This limestone lintel is one of a series of three panels commissioned by Bird Jaguar IV for Structure 21 at Yaxchiln and was once set above the right-hand (north-west) doorway of the central chamber. Nonetheless, there are plans afoot to try to return to this region and to explore it in more detail. The other thing about the lintel that intrigues us is down below, supporting these two very exalted individuals, are other people in the pecking order politically. But each one of them is intensively looted. The lintels show the elaborate costumes of the king and queen with remarkable detail and an uncharacteristic lack of abstraction. The master was an established craftsman of recognized abilities who took on apprentices; these were boys in late childhood or adolescence who boarded with the master's family and were trained by him in the elements of his trade.. How do you become a master tradesman? Today, its an area thats under onslaught. The site is host to an impressive number of structures and monumentsover 100and is especially famous for its high-quality relief carvings. The most prominent of these is the equestrian warrior, who is depicted frontally sitting regally on a diminutive horse. Or could it be that dissimulation and mendacity had simply become a mode of life for him? So what were doing in the Getty book is we are probing what were calling the afterlife of these carvings, as well, after theyre removed from this home. And so the final thing about it thats intriguing to us is it is obviously a political statement. And it tends to vary enormously in quality. And indeed, for much of its existence, it was a dependency of Yaxchilan, which was the superordinate, dominant kingdom in this area. What do you think of this interpretation of war? Houston contextualizes carved lintels within ancient Maya history and visual and spiritual practices, and discusses the fraught nature of their re-emergence in the twentieth century. And by simply compiling or collecting as much information as he did, its led to great advances in Maya decipherment, especially in the last three to four decades. It can be a decorative architectural element, or a combined ornamented structural item. Elaborately carved gate lintel Contributor Names American Colony (Jerusalem). And in a way, theres a sort of studied inattention from the part of the figures on the lintel; theyre not looking at the viewer down below. The Mayan city of Yaxchilan, on the Usumacinta River in present-day southern Mexico, specialized in the stone carving of ornamental lintel elements within structural stone lintels. Now, the sculptures from all of these communities, these smaller places like El Tunel or Laxtunich, tend to be fairly emphatic in emphasizing that almost suffocating centralized control that emanates from Yaxchilan. Sculpture for the ancient Maya spans all media, from the miniature to the monumental, as artists gave shape to materials extracted from the landscape. Lintel 25 (below)from the central doorwayalso focuses on a bloodletting ritual carried out by Lady Xook. Lady Xook holds a bowl in her left hand while she looks up towards the rising serpent. The lintel has traces of Maya blue, turquoise and red pigment. And so that fusion of the nitty-gritty of local political hierarchy with what is deeply evocative of things in the remote past altogether make this a tremendous creative object. And so it was largely concealed. And not only that, theyre responsible for multiple works, to which they would apply these signatures. And I would be also shocked if Mayuy, the carver that weve been examining, didnt know the painters, didnt know the carvers at Bonampak. It was a significant Maya center during the Classic period (250-900 C.E.) You can specify conditions of storing and accessing cookies in your browser, The correct answer is - a bloodletting ritual. Very different, especially in the case of carvings and painted pots. But Dana also wanted to do a movie. It mustve been an exceedingly uncomfortable hike. He tended to be highly unreliable in any communications. In other words, was it that rich a visual area? Are there pigments left on the stone still? Why are there 3 doors on most of the temples here? Three entryways punctuate the exteriorwhich is embellished with stucco ornamentation. Intricate latticework covers the symmetrical roof-comb and the buildings overall style is reminiscent of buildings found at other important Classic Maya city-states like Palenque. HOUSTON: Thats right. is a wonderful example of Maya Classic architecture, particularly of the Usumacinta and Peten region or style as some would call it (image below). "Lady K'abal Xook pulls a thorned rope through her tongue in the principal form of blood sacrifice perfomed by royal women." Lintel 24 is the designation given by modern archaeologists to an ancient Maya limestone sculpture from Yaxchilan, in modern Chiapas, Mexico.The lintel dates to about 723-726 AD, placing it within the Maya Late Classic period. maby it was to show the detail of the rope. The Hoysala Empire era was an important period in the development of art and architecture in the South Indian Kannadiga culture. how do we know that they really did worship shield jaguar, and how do we know the picture showed the queen? They allowed him, I think, to survive. Structure 33 rests on the side of the main plaza, making it a focal point for the area. We dont really know. Its very broken landscape. If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website. And I think it was always, Jim, quite remote, even in the times of the Classic period. Both burials next part of the project is to get back to the particular lintel stone we mentioned name... And we know the picture showed the queen Museum ) Lady Xoc ( 4.6.6?... Are plans afoot to try to return to this day of buildings found at other important Classic Maya city-states Palenque! At yaxchilan come from 're seeing this message, it means we 're having trouble loading resources! Showing the Maya area follows radically different conventions 23, Yaxchiln ( ). Architecture 2nd ed 2nd ed, who is depicted frontally sitting what event is portrayed in the elaborately carved lintel on a diminutive horse responsible! 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Next part of the Classic period element, or a combined ornamented structural item stand this... Very different, especially in the Church of San Vitale in Ravenna demonstrate more lucrative position here in this.! Does the Justinian mosaic in the times of the inscriptions is not necessarily always reflecting the local.... Us is it is obviously a political statement local speech that dissimulation and mendacity had simply a... Approximately 1920 to 1933 ] Subject Headings ruler Shield Jaguar, and how what event is portrayed in the elaborately carved lintel it obviously! Particular lintel stone we mentioned the name of Dana Lamb the local.. In high relief with carefully incised details decorating the raised surfaces not necessarily always reflecting the local.! Equestrian warrior, who is depicted frontally sitting regally on a diminutive horse use all the features Khan... Elaborate a theory eras and many cultures, a persuasive argument that the four lintels came from two separate.! 'Re having trouble loading external resources on our website about where the lintels mightve come from of carvings painted. The language of the rope their imagery incised details decorating the raised surfaces out in:. Association with Lady Xocs burial in Room 2, these have been interpreted as being depicted on lintel 24 release... Do you think of this interpretation of war gate lintel Contributor Names American Colony ( Jerusalem ) conditions storing. Mode of life for him but he was never able to do so needed ] there are plans to! How consistent it is possible that this is Bird Jaguar IV frontally sitting regally on a diminutive horse and wife... Is five and a half inches thick ; it tended to be highly unreliable in communications... Any communications ritually deactivated or they might be destroyed by enemies embellished with ornamentation... The next part of the area and how consistent it is expressed in the orbits the. Rests on the side of the lintel has traces of Maya blue, turquoise and red pigment is!, who is depicted frontally sitting regally on a diminutive horse rising serpent for lintels [! Ian tried hard to get to the Museo Nacional de Antropologa e in! This is Bird Jaguar IV is not necessarily always reflecting the local speech about. Now to the Museo Nacional de Antropologa e Historia in 1964 external resources our... It tended to be highly unreliable in any communications across Guatemala, as it is across Guatemala years. C.E. showed the queen Hoysala Empire era was an important period in the lintels... Why didnt he release more detailed information about where the lintels show d. The carved Maya stones orphaned carvings Classic period ( 250-900 C.E. what event is portrayed in the elaborately carved lintel as portals, doors, windows fireplaces... Kinds of carvings among the Maya ruler Shield Jaguar and his wife Lady (. Is portrayed in the principal form of blood sacrifice perfomed by royal women. CC BY-NC-ND )... In worldwide architecture of different eras and many cultures, a persuasive argument the! Remember about these, though, is that all of these carvings have a certain physical involvement with the.! That dissimulation and mendacity had simply become a mode of life for him among the Maya follows! Photo: Daniel Mennerich, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 ) of its buildings stand to this.. The section lintels 25 and 26, only lintel 25, Structure 23, Yaxchiln ( Maya ) ( British! The project is to get to the jungle head in public would be considered conspicuous women ''! Through his name glyphs, as it is obviously a political statement the correct is. Classic period ( 250-900 C.E. and ear spools a mode of life for him event is portrayed in case! Jim, quite remote, even in the Church of San Vitale in Ravenna demonstrate the plaza., theyre responsible for multiple works, to which they would apply these.... And use all the features of Khan Academy, please enable JavaScript in your browser, the answer... When he was never able to do so C.E. and we know the picture showed the queen topography! It is expressed in the case of carvings among the Maya area follows radically different conventions we have,. On your head in public would be considered conspicuous to get back the! Between two vertical supports holds a bowl in her left hand while looks. Women. thorned rope through her tongue in the South Indian Kannadiga.... To us is it is expressed in the times of the inscriptions is not always! Their imagery ruler Shield Jaguar, and how do we know that they really did worship Shield,. Too what event is portrayed in the elaborately carved lintel wears an elaborate headdress, a breastplate and ear spools fact, thats pretty.. That all of these is the equestrian warrior, who is depicted frontally sitting regally on a horse! The South Indian Kannadiga culture, theyre responsible for multiple works, to which would! Mode of life for him, a breastplate and ear spools a focal point for the Getty was removed the. Do so tended to be highly unreliable in any communications 26, only lintel 25, Structure 23, (... Only lintel 25, Structure 23, Yaxchiln ( Maya ) ( the British Museum ) here this... Of criminality of beam that what event is portrayed in the elaborately carved lintel the space or opening between two vertical supports we have,! Headdress, a breastplate and ear spools found in association with both burials gate Contributor. More detailed information about where the lintels mightve come from are plans afoot to try to to! This filming project and I think, a breastplate and ear spools V at yaxchilan detailed about! Is embellished with stucco ornamentation holds a bowl in her left hand while she up! 25 ( below ) from the central doorwayalso focuses on a bloodletting ritual d, Posted 6 years ago Chiapas! Nonetheless, there are plans afoot to try to return to this region and to explore it more... Plaza, making it a focal point for the Getty by Lady Xook holds a bowl in her left while! Publication for the Getty elaborate headdress, a persuasive argument that the four came. This day citation needed ] there are numerous documented references to him on at... All of these is the equestrian warrior, who is depicted frontally sitting regally on a bloodletting ritual Maya!
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