Structure 10L-22 Sculpture Reconstruction Project, Copán, Honduras

Results of the 2002 Field Season

Sculpture Drawings

While we are still in the process of determining how all of the motifs were arranged on the building, we can say with certainty what motifs were on the structure and therefore can make conclusions about the messages of the sculpture program. A full catalogue of the motif drawings executed to date (funded by FAMSI, and executed by Project Artist Edgar Zelaya) as well as a more recent digital model of the building (executed by architect, Laura Ackley), have been published in my dissertation (Ahlfeldt 2004). Because the analysis of Structure 10L-22 sculpture motifs is ongoing, this catalogue is still far from complete.

Continued Motif Analysis

During seven weeks Eliud Guerra (sculpture conservator), Santos Rosa and Pancho Canan (masons), and I analyzed just a few of the dozens of sculpture motifs that remain to be analyzed. We continued to identify fits from the broken and dispersed sculpture; these were restored by sculptor conservator, Ruffino Membreño.

Working at the warehouses of sculpture at the Copán Lab, and with sculpture in unprotected piles out at the archaeological park, I continued to collect MNI (minimum number of individual) counts of each motif as well as lists and group photographs. These sculptures were plotted on fall plan maps of the structure to determine how the sculpture was arranged on the building.

I worked on four motifs specifically, as shown below:

Click on image to enlarge.

Drawings of Interior Sculpted Doorway

Over the last century, at least four different scholars made drawings of the interior sculpted doorway–or, as I prefer to call it, "proscenium" (Annie Hunter in Maudslay 1889-1902; Trik 1937; Hasso Hohmann 1986; Linda Schele 1993). Unfortunately, none is entirely accurate and all are missing important details, including the interior and exterior profiles of the sculpture that have never been published.

Under my direction, E. Zelaya completed an excellent line drawing of how the proscenium appears today, in its rather decayed state (Figure 5). He measured the actual stone, now in the sculpture museum in Copán, and rendered it on graph paper in pencil on a 1:10 scale. He then used black and white photographs we’d taken of the sculpture with raking light to add in various details. This drawing also indicates the size of the individual sculpted blocks, which shows that the sculptors would have clearly carved this masterpiece in situ, as Fash has suggested (1991).

Click on image to enlarge.

This line drawing is useful for comparison with a second, stippled reconstruction drawing that he completed under my direction. The reconstruction drawing (Figure 2) is a rendering of the proscenium as it appeared in the eighth century. Our reconstruction is based on: (1) Maudslay’s 19^th century photos of the proscenium in a more preserved state, (2) similar sculpture programs found on Waxaklahun U’baah K’awiil’s stelae, and (3) the expert advice of Karl Taube.

Click on image to enlarge.

This drawing is far more accurate than other such reconstruction drawings to date; the new information we have gleaned from a close analysis of this sculpture has modified my understanding of Structure 10L-22 considerably, and a discussion of these insights is included in the dissertation.

Profile Views of Interior Proscenium

Interestingly, the profile views of the right and left sides of this proscenium were never published. Any rendering of this masterpiece of Maya sculpture must include these views as well, for they contain important iconographic information that lead to a fuller understanding of the building. Zelaya also completed a line drawing and stippled reconstruction of these four profiles, which took him three months.

Click on image to enlarge.

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