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Research Year:  2002
Culture:  Maya
Chronology:  Late Classic
Location:  Honduras
Site:  Copán

Table of Contents

Abstract
Introduction
Results of the 2002 Field Season
Sculpture Drawings
Continued Motif Analysis
Drawings of Interior Sculpted Doorway
Profile Views of Interior Proscenium
Summary
List of Figures
Sources Cited

Abstract

This report covers the 2002 Field Season of the Structure 22 Sculpture Reconstruction Project, an ongoing effort to reconstruct and reinterpret the eighth-century Maya building, Structure 22, at Copán, Honduras. The current reconstruction is preliminary; the first stage of a project to catalogue, conserve, restore, analyze, and digitally reconstruct the full corpus of stone façade sculpture recovered from excavations of this monument over the last century. The reinterpretation assembles recent archaeological, architectural, epigraphic, and ethnohistoric data for Copán and the Maya area to reframe the building within its eighth-century context and to consider its functions and meanings within the architectural campaign of its patron, Waxaklajun U’bah K’awil, the thirteenth ruler of Copán. As an historical inquiry, the study addresses Structure 22 as a significant event in the history of Maya architectural design. The study demonstrates the value of performance theory and semiotic and phenomenological analyses for understanding the contexts of the production and reception of the building, as well as its communicative modes.

While the report below discusses only the results of the 2002 Field Season, rather than the conclusions of the entire project (Ahlfeldt 2004), it is worth summarizing the research results here briefly. Research to date indicates that Structure 22 should be considered within the dual contexts of the construction of monarchy and the experiential aesthetics of eighth-century Maya religion. Structure 22 was designed as a performance space for asserting social order during state ritual, most likely commemorations of royal accession. Erected during a period of political consolidation throughout the Maya realm, the building was designed to be competitive and conversant with the architectural campaigns of contemporaneous Maya kingdoms. The builders of Structure 22 tested the limits of sculptural skill and engineering technology at Copán while masterfully expressing the complexity and animism of Maya state religion. In commissioning this structure, Waxaklajun U’bah K’awil presented an expanded vision of divine kingship–one that emphasized his persona, situating it within historical, mythic, and cosmic frameworks. All available data confirm Miller’s hypothesis (1999) that this monument functioned as the royal throne room of Copán. It was here that the ruler was transformed into, and subsequently dwelled as, a deity. As such, Structure 22 was both a physical and conceptual extension of the royal body.

Submitted 12/18/2004 by:
Dr. Jennifer F. Ahlfeldt
Assistant Professor of Pre-Columbian Art and Architecture
Department of Art and Art History
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
ahlfeldt@unm.edu

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