Report of the 1998 and 1999 Investigations on the Archaeology and Iconography of the Polychrome Stucco Façade of Structure N10-28, Lamanai, Belize

Section 2: Archaeological Excavations at Structure N10-28

The N10-3 Plaza Group

Structure N10-28 is located in the N10-3 plaza group, a highly complex assemblage of elite and residential structures. The structures that are visible now largely date to the Terminal Classic (Figure 2:1-2:2, Figure 2:3, and Figure 2:4), and represent later versions of an assemblage that dates at least as far back as the Middle Classic (Pendergast 1986:231).

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By the late ninth century, the group consisted of a series [at least six] of structures arranged around two contiguous courtyards. While the three eastern structures of this period are typical of the Lamanai Classic…the masonry is largely or wholly reused from earlier structures. The western portion…resembled its eastern counterpart in that it consisted of three structures, but with the significant difference that the three sat atop a common platform that bordered the court on three sides. While masonry characteristics are essentially those of the Classic, the enclosure of a courtyard with a single multipart platform is a marker of the late Terminal Classic and the Postclassic on parts of the Yucatán (Pendergast 1986:231-232). Two…appear to have rested directly on the surface of a large underlying platform, while the remainder were raised on two-terrace platforms (Pendergast 1985:93).

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The use of vertically set facing stones in stair risers, the tripartite platform, which seems to prefigure those of the Yucatán, and the use of a columned entryway, is an innovative step on the part of the city’s builders (Pendergast 1986:232). In the Early Postclassic this assemblage of structures would undergo a radical transformation in the middle to late tenth century.

As the initial step in the modification, the builders razed the upper portions of all structures but one, and capped the remains with part of the material used to fill both courtyards to a depth of approximately 2.5 meters so as to create a single large platform top. The partly razed rear faces of the northern structures were abutted by a huge platform, with a volume of roughly 3,000 cubic meters, while the west side of the tripartite platform was cased with an extensive new face, and additions were made to platform units peripheral to the principal group… The transformation of the courtyard group was clearly an effort of such magnitude as to have engaged the energies of a very large work force over a very considerable period. Data from a variety of offerings in the core of the courtyard fill indicate that the better part of a century may have been taken up in this effort. During the period, the lone remaining building of the earlier complex, a masonry-walled building with wooden roof (Structure N10-15), was also undergoing numerous internal and external modifications, while at the east and west ends of the new large main platform the builders erected residential structures that differed radically from each other and from their predecessors. The northern extensions of the complex were probably built shortly after the courtyard filling, perhaps in more than one stage, while ceramic evidence from core of the western addition shows that it was almost certainly the last element in the modification, built in the twelfth century or later. The gigantic size of the effort, couples with the fact that earlier construction must have brought about depletion of core-material sources, means that the rebuilding of the group must reflect the presence of an elite still fully capable of marshaling the populace for a massive undertaking that probably spanned, in all, at least a century and a half. That this was the work of a vigorous, vital community with its goals clearly in view is surely beyond question (Pendergast 1986:232-233).

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