Lords of Creation, Origins of the Sacred Maya Kingship

Among the ancient Maya, kings had sacred powers, which they used to intervene with ancestors and other deities to ensure abundant harvests. In the last twenty years archaeologists and anthropologists have dug deeper and uncovered new clues about how sacred kingship developed in Maya society two thousand years ago. Their work forms the center of an exhibition opening in September at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "We are finally getting a better handle on the beginnings of civilized life and the significance of divine kingship among the Maya," explains Virginia M. Fields, cocurator of "Lords of Creation: The Origins of Sacred Maya Kingship."
Because of the way the Maya built their cities--new structures on top of old--most knowledge about the Maya has been centered on the latest period, or the peak of their civilization between 550 and 850 CE. But since the 1980s archaeologists have peeled back new layers in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. "Maya science is finally going below the surface," says Fields, "helping us better understand how the Maya defined their kings and how their kings defined themselves."
In the exhibition 152 works of art and artifacts created during the Maya Late Preclassic to Early Classic periods (400 BCE-550 CE) express the theme of sacred power. When Maya kings dressed as gods and other spiritual beings during ritual performances, they assumed the identities of these supernatural beings and wielded divine powers. The Maya believed that some deities, such as the Maize God, played a critical role during the creation of the cosmos. A video in the exhibition shows the tradition's endurance. In it, a contemporary religious dance in Guatemala uses maize symbolism to recreate the world.
"In cultures around the world, divine kingship often emerged as societies became settled agriculturalists versus nomadic hunters and gatherers," Fields says. For the Maya, the maize plant served as the foundation of the economy--it was the essence of life--giving the plant a central role in Maya cosmology. The role of the leader "was to act as an intermediary between the human community and the supernatural realm to ensure the abundance of the maize harvests and manage the wealth for the well-being of society," says Fields.
In her 1989 doctoral dissertation, Fields linked the iconography of Maya kingship to the older Olmec civilization in Mesoamerica. The Olmecs were the earliest complex civilization in Mesoamerica, flourishing along the Gulf Coast lowlands of what is now Mexico from 1200 to 400 BCE and building a society dominated by an elite group employing a system of governance known as divine kingship. On display in the exhibition is a replica of a 100 CE mural discovered last year in San Bartolo, Guatemala, which links the Maya to the Olmec. The mural shows a beautiful young man appearing as the Maize God with a face painted in the style of the Olmec civilization that existed a thousand years before.
Fields sees further connections. The word ajaw, or ruler, a title found on Maya architectural facades, appears in Olmec art, as well. Cruciform-shaped or quincunx-patterned caches making sacred spaces appear in both Olmec and Maya sites. They signify the king's capacity to center the cosmos, says Fields.
A third similarity is the trefoil crown. In Olmec and Maya societies, the trefoil crown symbolized maize leaves, identifying rulers with the Maize God and drawing a parallel between the authority of the earthly ruler and the sacred power of the deity. Often these crowns were decorated with jadeite and other greenstones, which, along with shells and cacao, were used as precious commodities for trade and gifts.
For the Maya, jade and shell were especially important because they were linked to the cosmic power flowing through the rulers, according to David Freidel of the Department of Anthropology at Southern Methodist University, who is one of the exhibition's catalog contributors.