720 AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST
Winter, Joseph C., and H. G. Wylie
1974 Paleoecology and Diet a t Clydes
Cavern. American Antiquity 39:303-315.
Folk Classification of Classic
Maya Pottery
STEPHEND. HOUSTON
DAVIDSTUART
Department of Anthropology
Vanderbilt University
KARLA. TAUBE
Department of Anthropology
University of California at Riverside
. . . in the archaeological study . . . of (an-
cient Chinese) bronze and pottery vessels,
the textual materials . . . are indispensable.
[Chang 1973:518]
With this statement K. C. Chang gave
some notion of the importance of docu-
mentary sources in interpreting ancient
Chinese artifacts. Recent work on an-
other set of documents, recorded not in
Chinese characters but in Mayan hiero-
glyphic writing, underscores the value of
Chang’s approach. The present paper re-
ports on the decipherment in Mayan
script of terms for a single category of ar-
tifact: Classic Maya pottery, which has
long intrigued specialists for the light it
sheds on chronology and intersite com-
parison (Sabloff and Smith 1969:283-
284; and more recently, Rice and Sharer
1987, cf. Dunnell 1971). These terms are
of interest to specialists, but they also
touch on a broader question: Do written
sources, particularly those from periods
of limited literacy, lend themselves easily
to the reconstruction of folk classifications
(see Beaudry et al. 1983; Chang 1973:514;
1980:23; Webster 1972:274-275)?
An Overview of Mayan Pottery Texts
Within the past decade, much has been
deciphered of the Mayan writing system,
which was used from about A.D. 100-
1600 in what is now northern Central
America and southeastern Mexico. Sub-
jects as diverse as history and politics,
[91, 19891
penitential sacrifice, and phoneticism are
now understood in considerable detail.
Less well known-at least until re-
cently-were the many hundreds of texts
painted and inscribed on stone and ce-
ramic vessels. J. Eric Thompson insisted
that most were little more than gibberish,
with an occasional legible sign (Thomp-
son 1950:27; 1962:14-18). In several im-
portant studies, Michael Coe (e.g., 1973,
1978) demonstrated that Thompson was
wrong: texts on pottery often conform to
a standard sequence of signs, each of
which occupies a predictable position.
Since the texts were in the primary (rim)
position of a vessel, and since they ap-
peared to be standardized over time, Coe
termed the signs the “Primary Standard
Sequence” (Figure 1) . This formula has
since been shown to be common on dec-
orated vessels of the Maya elite, particu-
larly those of the Classic period, although
it may appear in variant forms that es-
cape the notice of non-specialists (e.g.,
Adams 1977:409).
Coe was perhaps less successful in de-
termining the meaning of the Primary
Standard Sequence, which seemed to him
a n incantatory c h a n t . T o Coe, most
Maya vessels were funerary in function.
They accompanied their owners after
death, and the texts on them referred to
cthonic events and human aspirations to
immortality (Coe 1973:22). (The Egyp-
tian Book of the Dead is perhaps the best
parallel to such a ritual formula.) How-
ever, there is a serious objection to this
interpretation. Not all vessels with the
Primary Standard Sequence are unam-
biguously mortuary. T o the contrary,
many show evidence of extensive use and
mending prior to deposition in burials
(Christopher Jones, personal communi-
cation, 1980).
We have argued previously that the
Primary Standard Sequence is not a fu-
nerary chant (Houston and Taube 1987;
Stuart 1986). Rather, in its extended form
it refers to (1) the method of decoration
on vessels, (2) the name of the class to
which the vessels belong, (3) the contents
of each vessel, and (4) the owner of the
vessel. These data are unique in pre-Co-
 RESEARCH
REPORTS 721

I!
L
..
722 A MESICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST
lumbian America, both in regard to vessel
ownership and in regard to function. And
more important, they include contrastive
terms for different kinds of ceramic vessel.
These terms reflect categories used by the
Maya themselves, and should be of inter-
est to students of ceramic classification.
The Primary Standard Sequence as a
“Name-Tag”
In 1979, Peter Mathews showed that
some Maya artifacts had “name-tags.”
Name-tags are texts denoting the owner-
ship of an object. They tend to display a
uniform syntactic structure consisting of
a third-person marker, the name of the
object, and the name of the individual
who possessed the object. Thus, “X’s ear
ornament” might be rendered “his ear or-
nament, X” (Mathews 1979:79). This
pattern accords with unmarked Mayan
syntax, particularly in the Lowland lan-
guages, which a r e most relevant to
Mayan decipherment. Name-tags have
subsequently been documented on sev-
eral objects, including lintels, structures,
and stelae (e.g., Schele and Stuart 1985).
In fact, name-tags now appear to be one
of the most common syntactic structures
in Mayan script. (However, note that the
syntax is generally ambiguous: the person
who possesses the object may also be the
maker. For the purposes of our analysis,
this distinction is irrelevant.)
It is also apparent that the Primary
Standard Sequence is an elaborate name-
tag. “Distributional analysis,” a means of
determining patterns of substitution be-
tween signs, makes this clear (Lounsbury
1984:167). If a sign in a fixed context-
say, an individual’s name or the highly
predictable pattern of the Primary Stan-
dard Sequence-alternates systemati-
cally with another, then it is reasonable to
assume that the signs are either (1) equiv-
alent semantically and perhaps phoneti-
cally, or (2) complementary in a func-
tional sense. Distributional analysis is the
Mayan script’s internal Rosetta Stone.
And it reveals, among other things, the
phonetic reading of several hieroglyphs in
the Primary Standard Sequence.
Such research has not resulted in a
complete decipherment of the Sequence,
[91, 19891
but it has met with some success. For ex-
ample, the so-called “Fire-Quincunx”
glyph may be translated as u tz’ib, or
“his paint” (Figure lc; Stuart 1987); it al-
ternates on carved, molded, or engraved
vessels with a sign meaning “carving” or
“burnishing” (Stuart 1986). Both expres-
sions are name-tags, although the name
of the possessor of the writing is deferred
to the end of the text. Another sign is the
“Wing-Quincunx” (Figure 1e) . It, too,
has a third-person marker, and alternates
with a sign reading u lak, or “his dish”
(Figure 2; Houston and Taube 1987; note
that the term may also refer, in its more
general sense of “clay object,” to in-
scribed bricks at the site of Comalcalco,
Salazar Orteg6n 1987:37). Our tentative
reading for the Wing-Quincunx is yuch’-
ib, “his drinking vessel,” suggesting that
some terms in the Primary Standard Se-
quence refer to function as well as form.
Of course, the two are often closely re-
lated: the fact that most Wing-Quincunx
ceramics are higher than they are wide
might be expected in vessels designed for
liquids.
In yet another context, wide dishes,
there appears a third hieroglyph. This
sign may be translated u hawa(n)te, or “his
wide dish” (Figure 2; Barrera Vhsquez
1980:188). Thus, terms for “dish,” “wide
dish,” and, probably, “drinking vessel”
occur in the Sequence.
T h e signs following the Wing-Quin-
cunx glyph provide further information
about vessel function. The most common
sign reads kakaw, or “cacao, chocolate”
(Figure Ih); it correlates well with tall-
sided vessels, of which one, with kakaw
glyph, contains vestiges of cacao (Stuart
1988). The other glyphs in the clause are
of uncertain meaning, but they may refer
to flavorings in the chocolate drink. Oc-
casionally, the cacao sign is absent. In its
place are relatively rare glyphs reading ul
or sakha, “atole, maize gruel.” The ul sign
appears on vessels with rounded or glob-
ular interiors, a form associated ethno-
graphically with liquid refreshments that
the Maya wished to keep cool (see Bec-
quelin a n d Baudez 1979:Figure 206;
Reina and Hill 1978:Figure 3). The pre-
ponderance of liquids in Wing-Quincunx
 RESEARCH
REPORTS 723

( N o t t o scale)

kakaw

Figure 2
Hiemglyphs and vessel shapes: a summary.

vessels supports our suggestion that this
class was devoted to drink, just as dishes
were probably used for serving solid food.
For the Classic Maya, scenes on vessels
and monumental stone carvings provide
graphic clues to vessel use and function,
and also help corroborate glyphic deci-
pherments. Many dishes display the head
of the decapitated maize god, which was
linked metaphorically to harvested cobs
724 A M E R I C A N ANTHROPOLOGIST
ofcorn (Taube 1985:Figure 5). The pres-
ence of maize iconography on these dishes
suggests that they may have held maize
products. Other Late Classic dishes de-
pict deer, indicating, perhaps, that these
contained venison (Chase and Chase
1987:Figure 36a). In Late Classic palace
scenes, both the lak and hawa(n)te dishes
frequently contain rounded objects, prob-
ably maize tamales (Taube 1989). Thus,
both the imagery on the dishes and their
presence in narrative scenes indicate that
these dishes commonly-although per-
haps not always-functioned as serving
vessels for maize foods.
The tall vases, of the type epigraphi-
cally labeled as containers for cacao, often
appear in Late Classic palace scenes. At
times the vessel mouth is supplied with a
series of small dots, perhaps illustrating
the foam of freshly frothed cacao. In one
instance, a woman pours a stream of liq-
uid from one vase to another, and this
may depict a means of straining, stirring
up, or frothing the cacao mixture (Coe
1973:92). In the Late Classic scenes, the
vases are usually held or presented, or are
placed in close association to the princi-
pal seated lord (photographs in Dumbar-
ton O a k s Archive). T h e absence of
smaller drinking cups suggests that the
tall vases were a form of drinking vessel.
We suspect that much remains to be
discovered about vessel shape, function,
and terminology. There is some evidence
that vessels with lids or stoppers had
names in addition to the ones above. In
several cases we have noted the presence
of glyphs spelling the word for “house”:
yotot (Coe 1965:30; Robicsek and Hales
1981:Table 20b). Evidently, the Classic
Maya regarded such ceramics as meta-
phoric “houses” or “structures,” of
which cache vessels were probably the ex-
ample par excellence.
Conclusions
In summary, the Primary Standard Se-
quence contains words for “painting”,
certain vessel classes, and the contents of
those vessels (Figure 2 summarizes this
information graphically). The phrasing
of the these terms and the frequent pres-
[91, 19891
ence of a name after the Wing-Quincunx
clause indicate that the Primary Stan-
dard Sequence is not a mortuary chant,
but rather an elaborate name-tag describ-
ing in detail the characteristics of a vessel
or dish.
Furthermore, our evidence suggests
that Classic classifications, a t least as
these were recorded glyphically, were
complex affairs that drew on differences
in form, function, and, to a lesser extent,
size, as shown by the distinction between
luk and hawante (see Davis [1978:114] for
similar notions among the Lacandon
Maya). Our data also underline the im-
portance of cacao, since the glyph for it
appears on a large percentage of poly-
chrome ceramics with texts.
The significance of cacao is hardly sur-
prising. Parallels from Postclassic Yuca-
tan a n d Oaxaca show t h a t chocolate
drinks were integral to dynastic ceremo-
nies and to the sealing and affirmation of
important social contracts (Roys
1972:106; Smith 1973:31; Thompson
1972:6). Conceivably, the distribution of
cacao vessels in the Maya Lowlands re-
flects political and social patterns as well
as purely economic ones (see Rands and
Bishop 1980:44).
In general, our research has answered
the question posed at the beginning of the
report: Can protohistoric texts be used to
reconstruct folk classifications? We have
responded with a qualified “yes.” Maya
archeologists are now in a position to
compare their devised classifications with
those recorded by the ancient Maya.
Analyses of vessel residue will facilitate
such comparisons by pointing to firmer
conclusions about pot function.
Yet it will be difficult to extend such
“emic” classifications to material lacking
glyphic texts. Without chemical analyses,
scholars cannot easily evaluate functional
categories derived from glyphs. At pres-
ent, little such testing is done, and many
vessels have had their contents stripped
by cleaning. A more serious problem is
classificatory: there is too much formal
variability within ceramic classes, and
too little distinction between highly inclu-
sive categories based on function (Wing-
Quincunx) and divisive ones based on
 RESEARCH
REPORTS
form (the luk; Houston and Taube 1987).
We suspect that, as with many folk clas-
sifications, Classic Maya categories
cross-cut form and function in a highly
variable and idiosyncratic manner, with
differences between users and makers of
ceramics and with distinctions between
an educated elite and their subordinates
(see Hardin 1979:95; Kaplan and Levine
1981:880; Kempton 1981:3-4; pace Gif-
ford 1960:346).Such complexities make it
all but impossible to establish a predict-
able and uniformly applicable folk clas-
sification for Classic Maya vessels. Per-
haps, as Brian Hayden notes (1984), na-
tive or emic classifications are fascinating
for their cultural richness, but not neces-
sarily fruitful for the archeologist who
wishes to organize ceramics in an analyt-
ically useful fashion.
Acknowledgments. We are grateful to Justin
Kerr and to Dumbarton Oaks for our privi-
leged access to their photographic archives.
Three anonymous reviewers and Charles Red-
man provided useful and much-needed criti-
cism of an earlier draft. Barbara MacLeod ar-
rived independently at the yuch’ib reading,
and Nikolai Grube has sorted out many of the
same substitution patterns.
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