Crocodiles need more study in iconography of Classic Maya art

Posted February 22, 2022 by Nicholas Hellmuth

There are two species of crocodiles and one species of caiman in Guatemala and surrounding countries of Mesoamerica. Crocodiles are known from 3D sculptures at Yaxchilan and rock outcrops near Copan. Crocodile trees are well known from proto-Maya stelae of Izapa, Chiapas, Mexico and from Early Classic and Late Classic scenes on ceramics.

But rarely do iconographers or archaeologists identify (and document) which species it is. Thus the team at FLAAR (USA) and FLAAR Mesoamerica (Guatemala) are dedicated to photographing the different species at different angles so that iconographers and archaeologists can see the details.

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This is the crocodile that you see in many rivers and lakes of Peten. I estimate this is the in-land crocodile, Crocodylus moreletii. But the sign said it was the other crocodile, Crocodylus acutus. But this croc in front of me does not have a longer head that is the indicator for a Crocodylus acutus. Crocodylus acutus is found in brackish water close to the Caribbean Sea. It is a challenge to identify the species when they are not in their original wild habitat. The third species, Caiman crocodilus, is found in swamps parallel to the Pacific Ocean. This is a crocodilian but not a crocodile. We find and photograph crocodiles when exploring swamps and seasonally inundated savannas in Peten. We see crocodiles many times a year but do not want to get too close. So to get a “close-up” photo, we go to the Parque Zoológico Nacional La Aurora. Photo by Nicholas Hellmuth, February 23, 2023, with iPhone 14 Pro Max, FLAAR Photo Archive.

Iconography of Snakes of Guatemala in Classic Maya Art

Posted February 21, 2022 by Nicholas Hellmuth

The Classic Maya pictured hundreds of giant snakes of various different genera and species. Snakes are most common on stelae, lintels (especially at Yaxchilan, Chiapas, Mexico), murals and ceramics. A few have been misidentified as centipedes (but centipedes do exist in the art of Mesoamerica). So our long range goal is to photograph all the pertinent snakes of Guatemala and make these photos available to iconographers, epigraphers, archaeologists and ethnozoologists.

We have been photographing whatever snakes that we happen to see along the trails as we hike deep into remote areas of Peten. But out in the wild it’s a challenge to get macro photos to show details up-close. So to get better photos we do photography in the zoos of Guatemala. The zoo administration and zoo herpetologists assist us.

Today we went to the zoo to check and see what snakes would be available to study in the future. So we post this snapshot.

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Boa constrictor imperator, Daudin 1803, mazacuata, photographed in Parque Zoológico La Aurora. Photo by Nicholas Hellmuth, iPhone 14 Pro Max, February 23, 2023, FLAAR Photo Archive.

To see more views, we show boa constrictors on our www.Maya-ethnozoology.org web site.

Sacred Water Creatures of Mesoamerica

Posted February 20, 2022 by Nicholas Hellmuth

Nicholas has been studying sacred waterscapes of the Maya since the 1980’s (for his PhD dissertation of 1986, published 1987: Surface of the Underwaterworld. We continue since today there is more material available, for example in the late 1990’s we had an 18-month permit with INAH to photograph in most of the national museums, state museums, and site museums plus Cacaxtla murals, Bonampak murals, and all national parks (all archaeological sites).

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Jaguar in turtle shell, Cacaxtla murals, drawing by Luis Molina, FLAAR Photo Archive.

It helps to have line drawings, so capable illustrator Luis Molina is doing drawings of water-related creatures. Here is one example: a jaguar in a turtle carapace in the murals of Cacaxtla.

Was honey of wild Stingless Bees used by the Maya to make “cement” for construction?

Posted February 02, 2023

Every two days Academia.edu sends me PDFs on aspects of Maya iconography, archaeology and other Mesoamerican topics. One of the PDFs that I received was an amazing report on use of bee honey by the Maya. Since I have over 13,000 PDFs downloaded in my in-house e-library it will take a while to find and cite the capable authors. But in their article they say that the Classic Maya may have used bee honey to make “cement-like” material, plasters and glue. Plus, that grandparents of the previous generation of Maya today still used bee honey for the same purposes until modern cement was everywhere.

So, I immediately telephoned the oldest Mayan-speaking research assistant that has provided us information on flora and fauna for many helpful years. He raises bees in his apiary so he knows stingless bees. He said that grandparents of Mayan people did speak about using bee honey with cal to make cement-like or glue-like material. I about fell off my desk chair with happiness and surprise.

I find Academia.edu a thousand times more helpful than others. Plus any website that demands lots of $$$ and lets you only read but not download is not an academic-friendly database. I thus highly recommend Academia.edu.

It would be great if students can tackle these questions for a thesis or PhD dissertation, in Honduras, in El Salvador and in Guatemala to see what wild native honey can be used for besides the obvious medicinal use, health use, and sugary taste to make us all happy.

The FLAAR bibliography team will now be preparing a webpage with a bibliography on uses of bee honey of Mesoamerican bees. We hope this will be ready by mid-April (since we are preparing lists of suggested reading for all the flora, fauna and biodiverse ecosystems that we are working in for our current 2021-2025 project in the Reserva de la Biosfera Maya). We are going to be documenting a lot of bees. We will not identify them; we will send macro photos to bee specialists. Our ability is to find the bees and our team of photographers can do macro photos plus video.

January Video of Nicholas Hellmuth’s lecture on Patolli of the Classic Maya

Posted January 26, 2023

The Precolumbian Society of the Penn Museum (University of Pennsylvania) invited Dr. Nicholas Hellmuth to give a presentation on the Patolli Game boards of Mesoamerica. This lecture is now available to view. Chris Layser was the host.

If your museum or archaeological society would like this lecture via zoom or in-person, contact us: FrontDesk symbol FLAAR.org (replace the word symbol with the actual symbol and close the space). For each new presentation we update the content so for your museum of archaeological society in year 2023 the presentation will be special for you.

Patolli Game Boards: Maya, Teotihuacan, Toltec, Mixtec, Aztec Nicholas Hellmuth unearthed a patolli game board while working at Tikal in 1965 (incised into the top of a bench in a palace he had been asked to excavate). Patolli was a favorite gambling game among the Maya and also played by the family of the Hero Twins in the the Popol Vuh. This PowerPoint presentation of hundreds of images will show patolli game boards of the major civilizations of Mesoamerica. The rest of the presentation will explore the different shapes of patolli game boards at other Maya sites, at Teotihuacan, Tula, and in Mixtec and Aztec codices.

Readership Stats for this website for 2022

Posted November 30, 2022

193,582 people read this Maya-archaeology.org website last year. This is unique hosts (so not a fake "hit count."). Alejandra Valenzuela works long hours to document web statistics, every month.

We (FLAAR in USA and FLAAR Mesoamerica in Guatemala) look forward to providing additional documentation during 2023.

New book on THE MAYA now available

Posted November 30, 2022

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Since Michael Coe passed away, his legacy is continued with a now a 10th edition of his book, THE MAYA, co-authored by Stephen Houston. The same was the tradition when Sylvanus Morley passed away. Another archaeologist, Robert J. Sharer, co-authored a 4th edition in 1983 and then 5^th edition update in 1994 (a whopping 892 pages). And then gradually when 90% of the book was new information, the sole authorship appropriately passed to the new author Robert Sharer for 6th edition in 2005, with Loa P. Traxler as co-author.

The 10th edition 2022 is an update of the also co-authored 9th edition 2015 (when Coe was still at his desk). 10th edition is 320 pages, Thames & Hudson.

A photo by Nicholas Hellmuth is on page 95. This photograph shows our lighting style; our goal is to bring out all the details so you can see the different motifs. So we put our portable studio lights at special angles to help show the iconography. I estimate this Costa Sur area Teotihuacan-oid style incensario lid is in the Museo Popol Vuh, Universidad Francisco Marroquin. It helps when an artifact is authentic (as is this) without modern adornments being glued on.

The jade mosaic jar in Fig. 5.49 was jade mosaic on a wooden container; the wood obviously rotted over a thousand years ago but could be reconstructed. This was discovered by Hellmuth in the Tomb of the Jade Jaguar in 1965 and its position in the Burial 196 is shown in Hellmuth’s Harvard undergraduate thesis (nice photo in THE MAYA is by another photographer).

Stephen Houston is both an epigrapher and archaeologist so he brings diverse recent information to this general introduction to Classic Maya culture. The pre-Maya and Post Classic Maya are also covered. Many aspects of ancient Maya culture are still alive in rural areas of both the Maya Highlands and the Maya Lowlands so it is good reading to learn about this civilization

I and FLAAR (in USA) and FLAAR Mesoamerica (Guatemala) recommend this book. It shows the advances in studies that reveal fresh new information.

Iconography of Classic Maya Enema Rituals, Maya Lowlands

Posted November 17, 2022

The enema ritual often involved a long ceremony before actually inserting the enema syringe. Tepeu 1 bowls and Tepeu 2 vases and bowls show dozens of individuals in elaborate rituals. Elsewhere only a few people are present (in Early Classic scenes).

In Late Classic scenes females often administer the enema. The women however they themselves do not receive enemas.

On Monday evening, Nov 21, 2022, a PowerPoint presentation will be delivered by Nicholas Hellmuth on his research on enemas that started in 1977, immediately after Furst and Coe announced their discovery in March 1977. This research by Hellmuth on the iconography and Peter De Smet on the chemical aspects won the Ig Nobel Prize 2022 for art history for Dr Hellmuth and Dr Peter De Smet. The iconographic aspect has been updated for the November 2022 presentation.

Classic Maya Enema Ritual Iconography

The Mysterious World of Maya Enemas

• Enema Jugs
• Enema Syringes
• Enema Bibs
• Enema Rituals
• Jaguars in Enema Rituals
• Females in Enema Rituals
• Hand-carried jugs or same jugs hung from necklace

8 pm EST, 7 PM CT, via ZOOM, via The Aztlander (newsletter) (link is on attached PDF) https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89340702821

For zoologists: in addition to the common jaguar, deer, monkeys and other animals (or people in animal costumes) are occasionally present.

For iconographers: this ritual is shown in this PowerPoint much more often than published so far. Women are present in many of the scenes, however they themselves do not receive enemas; the females prepare the men to receive the injection.

For epigraphers: updated study is needed of all the hieroglyphs and symbols associated with the enema jug and participants. The lecture shows dozens of enema jugs. Many of these jugs have hieroglyphs on the jug and other symbols nearby.

For botanists: LOTS of plants were ingredients in the enemas. Peter De Smet has studied this aspect in his PhD and subsequently. I still estimate that lots more plants were added (including possibly cacao). His documentation will be cited in the bibliography.

The lecture will be in English but questions can be asked and answered also in Spanish.

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Master Class: Representaciones de jaguares en rituales mayas del periodo clásico by Nicholas Hellmuth

Posted November 15, 2022

Learn more here
Wednesday November 30th 6:PM Edificio del Museo Popol Vuh Q30 Students and tourism guides with a valid ID Q15 Q40

This presentation on art and iconography of jaguars in the murals of Bonampak and Cacaxtla and in the stelae, lintels, vases, bowls and plates of the Classic Maya is potentially the most complete full-color presentation on this subject.

Those that attend in-person will be able to ask questions before-after-or during each aspect of the conference. This is labeled as a Master Classic, so much more than just."a lecture".