[Aztlan] Maya E Groups comments

[Mike Reed]

Dave, in response to your inquiry about the
possibility of finding an E Group, I would think you
might take into account the distance from the western
structure to the enlongated, north/south trending
eastern structures to which it is aligned.  Wouldn't
the compass bearing be directly related to the
distance from the observation point to the structure
over which the sun might rise on a solstice or
equinox?  The closer the structures are to each other
would affect the degrees of the structural alignment.

Also, have you done any excavations to determine the
approximate time period associated with the
construction of the structures and any substructures
within them?  

Immersing myself in an interest in Preclassic sites
for the past seven years, I have come across a lot of
information about the importance of E Groups, but much
of it is vague and restricted to their astronomical
importance as early ritual structures.  As an amateur
and non-scholarly researcher, I only wish I had
greater access to some of the journals that contain
much more information, but there is an amazing amount
of good articles on the net, and information I get out
of my friendships with archaeologists who work at
Preclassic sites.  

Here are some comments I would like to add about E
Groups.  I may be off base on some of it, in which
case, it is from lacking better access to what is
being published about E Groups out there, and I
apologize for any outright errors you might find here.
 However, it seems that in this field, the human
connection is where a lot of great ideas are bounced
around, and it is from these researchers and my own
experiences and investigations that these comments are
made.

It is my undersanding that whereas, many E Groups were
maintained into the Classic Period, they are almost
exclusively Preclassic in their origin.  In fact, E
Groups are a hallmark of the Middle and Late
Preclassic, and said to be among the earliest
standardized forms of Maya monumental architecture. 
Although the examples of E Groups at some sites, like
Tikal and Uaxactun are major Late Preclassic focuses
of ritual activity at those sites, the numerous E
Groups in Mirador Basin sites are all, or mostly
Middle Preclassic in origin.

Richard Hansen suggests that Nakbe's structures 47 and
51, located in the site's East Group is one of the
earliest E Groups yet found, dating to the later part
of the Middle Preclassic, a period that is understood
to have ended between 400 and 350 BC.  Nakbe's E Group
is linked to the city's larger West Group by the Kan
Causeway, perhaps the ealiest example of internal
sacbes that linked ritual groups within Maya sites.  

Hansen found some of the earliest examples of massive
platform construction, and structures in Nakbe's East
Group (beginning with mud-floor platforms by 1000 BC).
 The earliest large pyramidal complex located there is
the E Group.   Interestingly, an adjacent ball court,
which Juan Luis Valesquez dated to 500 -- 400 BC,
continues to be the oldest dated ballcourt in the Maya
Lowlands (not including the Pacific 
Coastal Lowlands), and possibly linked - by its close
proximity - to the E Group.  Stela 1, Nakbe's
spectacular Middle to Late Preclassic elaborately
carved stela, found at the foot of Structure 51 might
show the importance of E Groups to ritual activities
of very early powerful rulers (kings?), by the period
of political transition in the lowlands that marks the
end of the Middle Preclassic and beginning of the Late
Preclassic periods.  

Clearly E Groups had a very ancient and special
siginificance for the Maya during the period of time
now recognized as associated with the rise of complex
states and possibly kingship in the Maya lowlands. 
Some scholars are not convinced that these early
rulers were more than the leaders of complex
chiefdoms, but the appearance of E Groups in the later
part of the Middle Preclasic, and their continued
central ceremonial importance for the centuries
following the Late Preclassic, which is now generally
agreed to be a time when the Mirador Basin sites were
ruled by kings, shows their central role in the
development of divine kingship, whether or not one
might consider Middle Preclassic rulers to be true
"kings."  When you encounter these enormous E Group
complexes all over the Mirador Basin, their central
location and size speak to their great importance in
the development of complex Maya society in the Maya
Lowlands.

What I found a bit unusual in your identification of a
possible E Group in Yucatan Dave, is that the points
over which the solstices and equinoxes were visible
were on separate mounds, rather then the elongated
structure on a north/south axis containing the three
structures generally associated with E Groups.  I
can't recall reading of sites where E Groups do not
include the elongated structure.  Perhaps it is a
different style of E Group more characteristic of a
certain part of the lowlands.

E Groups are among the dominating and earliest
structures at many, if not all Preclassic Mirador
Basin sites including El Mirador, Tintal, Wakna, and
Xulnal.  The E Group at Wakna is clearly the early
central focus of ritual activity at this Middle to
Late Preclassic city.  Its comprises the two largest
structures on the main plaza of the site.  

Wakna's E Group itself, dates to the Late Middle
Preclassic.  In addition to a large and high
rectangular western pyramid, the elongated north/south
axis eastern structure, aligned with the western
pyramid to the solstices and equinoxes is 220 meters
long, according the Hansen - a staggering length for
an E Group observatory (Hansen's designation for the
structure), or indeed for any Maya structure.  I was
convinced it was a massive long palace structure when
I first visited Wakna, but later recognized it as an E
Group by its orientation to the rectangular tall
western pyramid, and the three mounds atop the
structure, that characterize the long eastern base
structures of E Groups.  They can easily be initially
misidentified as long palace groups when covered with
dense vegetation and completely unexcavated.

El Mirador has at least two major E Groups, the Leon
Complex in the huge West Group, and a slightly smaller
E Group located in the enormous Pava Plaza on the
lower platform that forms the base of the Danta
Complex.  I am not aware of dates for either sets of E
Groups at El Mirador, however, like the E Group at
Nakbe, the Pava Plaza E Group at Mirador likely
predates the massive pyramids behind them to the east,
as these later structures completely block access to
equinox and solstice viewing from the E Groups in the
much lower Pava Plaza.

Finally, at a recent trip to the little-visited
Mirador Basin site of Xulnal, we found that Xulnal's E
Group was one of the main ceremonial plazas of the
site, with its neatly planned layout of four major
structures around a large plaza.  Larger structures
lie to the east and south of Xulnal's E Group, but
these other large pyramidal complexes contain triadic
pyramid groupings, better associated with the Late
Preclassic Period construction.   

However there is a possibility at Xulnal that these
triad groups could possibly be late additions to
Middle Preclassic pyramids, or even very early
examples of triadic groups from the Late Middle
Preclassic.  No formal excavations have been carried
out at the site yet.  

Several Preclassic specialists joined me last month in
my brief look at Xulnal, and from our casual
observations of the lime mixtures found beneath the
summits of several major Xulnal structures, in some
old looter's trenches, the major structures appear to
be Middle Preclassic, with little evidence of later
overlying construction, making Xulnal a city where
major construction projects ended at a very early
period.  Interesting indeed!  This is only speculation
on my part, and does not represent any recorded
findings at the site, at least so far.

A couple of final observations, and one aleady pointed
out -- although some E Groups are aligned to the
rising sun during the solstices and equinoxes, this is
not the case at every known E Group.  

The understanding that E Groups are some of the
earliest structural complexes in the Maya lowlands, is
an indication of their great importance during the
Middle Preclassic phase of lowland societal
development, and a uniquely "Maya" structural feature,
at least in the layout of the structures themselves. 
Perhaps by the Late Preclassic Period, the alignment
of E Group structures took on a more symbolic ritual
importance for the Maya, as evidenced by some E Groups
out of direct alignment with the view of the solstace
and equinox rising sun.  

Another indication of this could be the later
construction of massive pyramid complexes - Strucure
59 at Nakbe, and the Danta Pyramid at El Mirador, that
are dated from a later period than both E Groups,
whose rising sun views they block.

One last comment: I have yet to read about this, but
observed for myself on New Year's Day, a few years
back -- from the summit of the Leon Pyramid in the
western E Group at El Mirador, I viewed the sun set
directly over the massive Tigre Pyramid, just a little
more than a week after the winter solstace.  In this
case, I couldn't help but wonder if any investigations
have been carried out that suggest any alignment of
western pyramids of E Groups to structures further
west over which the sun sets on the solstices and
equinoxes.  I had never encountered any mention of E
Groups having any connections to the setting sun on
solstices and equinoxes.

I find E Groups utterly fascinating, and think their
importance is yet to be fully appreciated as among the
earliest forms of massive ritual complexes in the Maya
Lowlands.  Their size alone, at Mirador Basin sites,
most of which were abandoned at the end of the Late
Preclassic, speaks to their great and early ritual
importance during the crucial period of development
that produced Maya kingship and urban ritual centers -
the initial models for the ritual layouts at the
coresites of later Maya kingdoms.  The decrease of
importance for E Groups during the Classic Period is
as yet, not understood, but stood venerated at some
major sites during much of that era, although I am not
aware of case in which E Groups were newly built at
the growing centers of Classic period power.

Mike Reed
Davis, CA















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