The Piedras Negras Project: Preliminary Report of the 2000 Field Season

In the Land of the Turtle Lords:
Archaeological Investigations at Piedras Negras, Guatemala
Stephen Houston, Héctor Escobedo, Mark Child, Charles Golden, Richard Terry, and David Webster

Later Years at Piedras Negras

The latest phases at Piedras Negras can now be seen to take place against a backdrop of dynastic turbulence and, following that the apparent and highly destructive war with Yaxchilán (Houston et al., 1998), leading to catastrophic and irrecoverable collapse at Piedras Negras (Houston et al., n.d.). New evidence establishes that dynastic "hiccups" and uncertainties obtained in the final three reigns at the city. Up until Ruler 4, the dynasty profited from what seems to have been an unbroken descent from father to son. One suspects a principle of primogeniture, since Ruler 2’s minority and time of regency would suggest strict application of this rule of inheritance.

After Ruler 4’s death something changed. Consider that all subsequent rulers appear to have been born during his reign. For example, Ruler 6 was probably under 20 years old on 9.15.18.3.13  (July 27, 749), implying birth after 9.14.18.3.13  (Nov. 9, 729), shortly after Ruler 4’s succession. Stela 23 clarifies this point by making explicit Ruler 6’s filial connection to Ruler 4.  Similarly, Ruler 7 was born on 9.15.18.16.7  (April 7, 750), and Ruler 5, acceding at 9.16.6.17.1  (March 10, 758), is likely to have come on the scene after Ruler 4’s birth on 9.13.9.14.15  (Nov. 18, 701). Parentage statements from the last three reigns are notably sparse (n = 2, both partly effaced). But there are ample and symbolically freighted connections between Ruler 4 and at least two of the last three kings. Ruler 7 famously reentered Ruler 4’s tomb in front of O-13 and refurbished that building as an act of ostentatious piety (Escobedo and Alvarado, 1998). On Stela 23, Ruler 6 went to some length to describe the death and memorial rites of his father. Thus, one of these later kings was certainly Ruler 4’s son, and a strong circumstantial argument can be developed that the other two were as well. This means that, after Ruler 4, the pattern of inheritance changed from filial to fraternal succession, in violation of a pattern firmly fixed and followed during the first four reigns of the dynasty.

An historical aside is necessary at this juncture. There is now solid information that a "Ruler 6" did in fact exist at Piedras Negras, despite justifiable doubts about small portions of Proskouriakoff’s original sequence (Simon Martin, personal communication, 2000; cf. Houston, 1983). He is mentioned on Stela 23, Throne 1, and a small fragment of text supposedly from El Porvenir, but more likely scavenged by loggers from Piedras Negras itself. His name was Ha’ K’in Xo:k, and, with him, the steady alternation of royal names at the site, used assiduously from Ruler 1 through Ruler 5, came to an end, although Ruler 7’s name was recycled from an Early Classic ruler. More strikingly, there are hints that he abdicated so that Ruler 7 could come to the throne (Simon Martin, personal communication, 2000): Throne 1 records an enigmatic event (an antipassive construction) that took place at night, on March 24, 750  (9.17.9.5.11). On this date the passage also indicates that: ya-ka-ta-IJ/a-AJAW-le/?-TU:N-ni, y-akta-(i)j ajawel ? tu:n, "his dropping of/he dropped the kingship (at) the Jaguar Paw Stone."  The Jaguar Paw Stone may allude to the area of Altar 4, which represents precisely this combination of elements, a gigantic jaguar paw atop vitalized stones (David Stuart, personal communication, 1997); nonetheless, that particular stone was surely carved later, during the reign of Ruler 7.  More to the point, Throne 1 probably refers to abdication by Ruler 6 in favor of Ruler 7.  The final passage is problematic: u-ku-chu-(~chu-ku?)-wa/i-ki-tsi/T’AB’-yi/LAM-NA:H, u kuchuw (u chukuw) ikits t’ab’ay lamna:h.  In local dialect–ikits replaces the more common ikats–this reads "he carries (seizes?) the burden or office, it gets offered at the Lam Na:h," presumably a structure with large stairway. A similar connection exists at Tamarindito between stairways, ikats, and the same transitive verb, either u kuchuw or u chukuw.  It may be that public declarations and solemnities of this sort required such locations, where emblems and bundles of office could be offered. Months before the accession of Ruler 7 a ritual object (?-b’a-hi, ?-b’a:h,  "celt image") arrived at the site under his supervision, perhaps as a necessary prelude to his assumption of power.

In sum, the final years of Piedras Negras differ historically from the beginnings of the Late Classic. At first, the dynasty gloried in direct, father-to-son succession. After Ruler 4 and more precisely Ruler 5, fraternal succession took over. The fact that Rulers 5, 6, and 7 do not mention one another, aside from the unhappy event of abdication, intimates that their relations were not entirely cordial. The violence of an abdication, an aberration in a system of rule predicated on sacred kingship, whispers of the collapse and of internecine instability before the demographic implosion of the city. Between Ruler 6 and the last known ruler of Piedras Negras there existed an interregnum of over a year (close to a solar-year anniversary), suggesting troubled times for the kingdom.

Excavations in and around J-24 and other parts of Piedras Negras now suggest that what we term Late Chacalhaaz ceramics postdate the war with Yaxchilán, which took place between A.D. 795 and 808 (Stuart, 1998b). Early Chacalhaaz ceramics seem to be characterized by the presence of Fine Gray ceramics, especially Telchac Composite (René Muñoz, personal communication, 2000). The burned Structure J-12, presumably coincident with the Yaxchilán war, contained many examples of fine-gray; the midden atop the ruined J-17 sweatbath did not, nor did the final layers above early Chacalhaaz buildings in the patio of Structure J-24.  These data indicate that life in the palace continued, if squalidly, after its partial destruction. They also show that Chacalhaaz ceramics embraced a period of about a hundred-years’ duration, in force by ca. A.D. 730 and proceeding up to roughly A.D. 830.  Its later phases showed some minor changes in rim profiles (René Muñoz, personal communication, 2000), and, intriguingly, the absence of Chablekal Fine Grey, a prominent and moderately common trade ware at the site, implying some disruption in patterns of inter-site commerce along the Usumacinta basin.

The Piedras Negras project has recovered little evidence of further occupation, although the University Museum excavations found somewhat more. Our finds include a scattering of Fine Orange and Pabellon Molded-Carved, and, in a notable find this season, two inverted, stacked vessels of unidentified type found atop rubble within the P-7 sweatbath (Figure 7). These had been "killed" by having their tripod supports hacked off, and a small perishable object covered with green stucco placed on top of the vessels. This cache, clearly offertory, demonstrates that a major building at the site was in ruins by Kumche times, ca. A.D. 850-900.  Thereafter, apart from the infrequent placement by Lacandón pilgrims of incensarios, Piedras Negras enters a long slumber until modern times.

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