Ancient Maya sculptures of Tikal, seen and unseen

MEGAN E. O’NEIL

This article addresses the ancient Maya practice of
burying monumental stone sculptures, including stelae,
altars, and other sculptural forms. In particular, I explore
why and how the ancient Maya buried sculptures and
sculpture fragments, if the sculptures continued to have
meaning outside the mode of the visible, and what
they did once buried. I argue that some sculptures
performed during the act of burial or once buried,
whether to sanctify buildings, transfer their power to
newer buildings or sculptures, or make connections with
ancestors. The buried objects, I argue, were intended—
and perceived—to be present, similar to an ancestor
or deity that could not be seen but was known to exist
through signs, surrogates, or other perceptual modes. In
fact, this investigation offers further evidence that vision
was not the only operative mode influencing the creation
and use of ancient Maya monumental sculpture.1
This article addresses buried sculptures from Tikal
(Peten, Guatemala), although it is part of a larger project
concerning ancient Maya treatment of sculptures across
multiple sites—including Uaxactun, Caracol, Calakmul,
Piedras Negras, and Copan—and across time.2
Research for this article was supported by a J. Paul Getty Foundation
Postdoctoral Research Fellowship and an Advancing Scholarship in the
Humanities and Social Sciences award from the University of Southern
California. Special thanks to Dr. Héctor Escobedo of Guatemala’s
Instituto de Antropología e Historia for granting permission to
photograph the sculptures at Tikal, to Licenciado Juan Carlos Meléndez
for his support in the Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología, and
to Arqueólogo Oswaldo Gómez, Arqueólogo Marco Tulio Castellanos,
and the staff of the Museo Sylvanus Morley and the Museo Lítica for
their kindness and assistance in the Parque Nacional Tikal. I am also
grateful for the helpful comments of Dr. Francesco Pellizzi, Dr. Stephen
Houston, and an anonymous reviewer.
1. Although the study of sculptures’ visibility has been a dominant
mode in the study of ancient Maya sculptures, some studies have
focused on other reasons for their production and use. For example,
David Stuart and Stephen Houston (Stuart 1996; Houston and Stuart
1998) have argued that Maya stelae functioned as avatars that would
hold a part of the depicted person’s soul.
2. The working title for this project is “The Lives of Ancient
Maya Sculptures” (O’Neil n.d.). Other studies concerning ancient
Maya sculptural modifications and movements are Satterthwaite
(1958); Houston and Stuart (1998); Martin (2000); Just (2005); and
Mesick (2006).
Visibility and presence
In the stories of the Hero Twins in the Quiché Maya
Popol Vuh, visibility and invisibility are important
paradigms in the mythical twins’ communication with
and journeys to Xibalba, the Maya Underworld. Earth
and Xibalba are parallel worlds that cannot be seen from
either location, though sound and visible signs provide
connections between them. For example, when the first
set of twins—One Hunahpu and Seven Hunahpu—
played ball on earth, the Xibalban Lords could not see
them but could hear them, and the twins’ stomping
and shouting disturbed the Xibalbans. The Xibalbans
challenged the twins to descend to Xibalba, and there—
tragically—the twins were defeated.
The next set of twins—Hunahpu and Xbalanque, sons
of One Hunahpu—found their father’s ball, and their
stomping and shouting again disturbed the Xibalbans,
who challenged the twins to descend to Xibalba. Upon
their departure from earth, in an effort to soothe their
grandmother’s fears that they too would die, Hunahpu
and Xbalanque left a sign for her, planting ears of maize
in the center of her house that would sprout and wither
in tandem with their life states (Christenson 2003:160).
Although in Xibalba, where they could not be seen,
visible signs would reflect their state of being to those
on earth. As the Xibalbans challenged the Hero Twins,
the maize sprouted, withered, and sprouted again, and
all the while the grandmother watched and burned
copal before them. In this story, cycles of growing and
withering corn function as metaphors for life, death, and
rebirth. In addition, the maize ears are signs reflecting
actions that are unseen but are known to be happening
in a parallel realm.
This passage is one of many examples of sensitivity
to and exploration of the line between the visible
and invisible in Maya culture, past and present.
Vision, although of great import, is only one mode of
perception, among others; and beings—even if unseen—
can be considered present and perceived through modes
other than sight, whether through hearing, through signs
that marked and reflected their existence and behavior,
through dreams, or through memory.
The ancient Maya explored the boundary between
the visible and invisible in a number of ways, including
using representational media to make visible what
was normally invisible, particularly in the depiction of
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ancestors and other deities. Ancestors often were depicted
in quatrefoil cartouches that materialized portals between
human and ancestral worlds, these portals showing that
ancestors inhabited a realm parallel to the human world.
Depiction of deities also made visible the invisible, giving
what could be felt or perceived a visible state, such as
the lightning deity Chahk in his anthropomorphic form,
brandishing the stone axe he used to create lightning
(fig. 1). Although people could perceive Chahk’s
presence through flashes of lightning, Chahk as an
anthropomorphic being was not visible, except when
represented in artistic media or impersonated by a priest
or dancer. Such visible manifestations—particularly in
scenes showing glimpses to other realms—may have
suggested that what was invisible was always present,
ready to come to the surface, to be brought forward
through representation or ritual.
Visibility and display were crucial aspects of the
production and reception of ancient Maya sculptures,
but examination of sculptures’ compositions and
placements—both at initial dedications and later in
their life histories—suggests that through them the
boundary between the visible and the invisible was
exploited and explored. For instance, carvings on the
backs of monuments—depending on placement and
accessibility—remained unseen to many. And no one
could see the carving on the tops of tall monuments,
except ancestors or deities in the celestial realm
(Houston, Escobedo, and Webster n.d.:2–3). Furthermore,
placement of monuments in small shrines limited
viewership, and glimpses of them may have reified the
denial of accessibility, highlighting the power that lay at
the boundary between visibility and invisibility.
Lastly, the practice of burying sculptures made them
invisible and inaccessible to all. Nevertheless, I argue
that buried sculptures often continued to perform, both
within and outside the realm of human perception.
Evidence strongly suggests that buried sculptures were
remembered and intended to have an effect on what
existed around them and what was visible above them,
comparable to the Hero Twins’ life state affecting the
condition of maize on earth. Nonetheless, although
I privilege this line between visible and invisible, the
sculptures’ presence, materiality, and sacrality were of
utmost importance.
Pakal’s interred sarcophagus
Few Maya sculptures were made for burial. One is
the carved sarcophagus of K’inich Janaab Pakal, who
ruled Palenque (Chiapas, Mexico) from A.D. 615 to 683.
The sarcophagus lid’s representation of Pakal as the
maize god falling into and rising out of the Underworld
portrayed what the Maya believed about the deceased
ruler and the events taking place after death (see
Schele and Mathews 1998:fig. 3.16).3 Pakal’s travel to
the Underworld and his rebirth along the World Tree
were a journey of his spirit that ostensibly happened
but could not be seen; nevertheless, the carved image
makes manifest this transformative voyage, making it
visible and also causing this journey by materializing it.
Pakal’s sarcophagus was buried soon after its creation,
its imagery denied to humans. Nevertheless, the
materialization of its transformative processes performed
outside the visible mode, functioning as a container for
Pakal’s remains and a vehicle for his rebirth. Moreover, in
the natural world there were visible signs that reflected
this occurrence, including the withering and sprouting
maize ears in the agricultural fields, which gave signs
that the ruler—and the maize god—were reborn, and
when one saw maize sprouting, more was happening
than could be seen.
The building where the sarcophagus was interred—the
Temple of Inscriptions—was a locus for remembrance
and communication with Pakal. Evidence is in the
sanctuary’s carved panels, whose texts recounted
episodes in Pakal’s life and connections to his past; the
psychoduct, which snaked up the pyramid’s inner stairs
and enabled communication between the sanctuary
and burial chamber; and the sanctuary, where the Maya
performed rituals to Pakal. In addition, the sarcophagus
likely continued to act within memory, remembered
perhaps not with absolute specificity of what it narrated,
but for what it was, and what it did, particularly as
the vehicle for Pakal’s rebirth. Moreover, Pakal was
kept within memory and representation elsewhere
at Palenque, for even after his death in A.D. 683, his
descendants depicted him in sculptures, including the
Palace Tablet of A.D. 720 and the Temple XXI Panel of A.D.
736, which showed him to have a continuing, active role
in politics and ceremony.
The lives of buried sculptures
Pakal’s sarcophagus is somewhat anomalous in
ancient Maya culture, for the Maya placed most stone
sculptures on view after their creation. However, after
initial displays, the Maya treated sculptures in a variety of
3. Many scholars have described the imagery on Pakal’s
sarcophagus lid. For one detailed description—and interpretation—of
the image’s constituent parts, see Schele and Mathews (1998:110–119).

Figure 1. Chahk, detail from cylinder vessel, Maya, A.D. 600–900.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photograph: K521 (detail) © Justin
Kerr.
ways. They left some on view in their original locations;
they moved others to new places in the polity; they
dragged some to other polities as war booty; and they
buried others. Nearly all the sculptures that the Maya
buried had previous iterations as displayed monuments,
buried as secondary or other phases of their life histories.
Nevertheless, many continued to perform after burial.
Most buried sculptures were broken before burial.
The breakage runs the gamut, from accidental to
intentional, from reverential to desecratory, and burial
appears to be one of several choices of what to do with
broken monuments, for the Maya placed other broken
monuments on view in new settings. Buried sculptures
and sculptural fragments appear in a variety of contexts,
some reused as construction material, others buried
with great care in symbolic locations. Fragments used as
construction fill were not placed in explicitly meaningful
places, and the Maya did not necessarily keep pieces
of the same sculpture together. At Tikal, for example,
O’Neil: Ancient Maya sculptures of Tikal, seen and unseen 121
archaeologists discovered numerous fragments in
construction fill, jumbled with rubble, with no evident
symbolism in their placement.4 Nevertheless, they still
performed an important function, for they enabled the
construction of Tikal’s towering temples.
Alternatively, across the Maya realm, the Maya buried
broken and whole sculptures in significant locations,
collecting the fragments and burying them together,
some as if they were human bodies. They interred them
at the bases of other monuments, in altars or small
platforms, or in pyramids, frequently in special cache
deposits. They buried some sculptures where they had
4. Some are fragments of substantial size, though others were
so small that archaeologists could not identify the original whole and
catalogued them as “Miscellaneous Stones.” University of Pennsylvania
archaeologists found 166 miscellaneous stones at Tikal, though some
were later connected to named monuments. Archaeologists have found
broken sculptures used as construction material at other sites, including
Altar de Sacrificios, Calakmul, Copán, Piedras Negras, and Uaxactun.
122 RES 55/56 SPRING/AUTUMN 2009
been displayed and moved others to new locations
for burial. With many, we can see meaning in their
treatment, for the Maya buried them such that their
movement to an invisible mode did not necessarily
entail a forgetting of them or a neutralization of their
power to act.
Among other motivations, the reverential interment
of a broken sculpture was a way to put a damaged
sculpture to rest. By burying the sculpture, the Maya
preserved the remaining dignity or sacrality of a
destroyed sculpture and the person it depicted or
embodied. Regardless, this motivation complemented
others, for sculptures often simultaneously functioned as
offerings to other sculptures, buildings, or graves. In fact,
my survey of buried sculptures across multiple Maya
sites makes clear that the practice of burying sculptures
was not simply a disposal mechanism for objects whose
use-life had ended, for their burials gave them new life
and meaning in relationship to the entities to which they
were offered. This is apparent not only in the fact that
whole sculptures were buried, but also in the way the
Maya treated them, caching them in dedicatory cists
or chambers beneath standing sculptures or at temple
centers. And in these new locations, they entered other
phases in their life histories, taking on roles relevant not
only in the realm of human perception—in the intention
and witness of burial, and in memory of them—but also
outside human perception, performing through their
presence and materiality.
The ancient Maya buried sculptures and fragments
beneath other sculptures (as at Copan), but the burial of
sculptures and sculptural fragments within buildings is
the largest, most varied subset of ancient Maya sculpture
interment, occurring at Tikal, Uaxactun, Caracol, Copan,
Piedras Negras, and elsewhere, and there are parallels
in these practices across sites. In particular, the ancient
Maya often interred sculptures on pyramids’ central axes,
at times at the pyramid’s center or in the superstructure’s
back room, locations similar to where the Maya cached
other materials (Mock 1998:6). Furthermore, there are
multiple examples in which the buried sculpture is in
close relation to a human burial, and others in which
the sculpture—usually a stela—is treated as if it were a
human body.
We may conceptualize ancient Maya practices of
burying sculptures within a larger context of cached
offerings, a common practice related to building and
sculpture dedication and termination.5 For example,
5. Shirley Boteler Mock (1998:6) notes that other common places
for ancient dedication and termination caches are at “interstices of
dedicating houses by burying something at the
center was common for ancient Maya buildings, with
parallels in modern Maya rituals. For example, Evon
Vogt (1976:51–55; 1998:21–23) has described house
dedication and ensoulment rituals of the Tzotzil Maya
of Zinacantan (Chiapas, Mexico) that include the burial
of roosters and chickens in a hole at the house’s center;
these rituals also consisted of lit candles, processions,
and prayers.6 According to Vogt (1998:21), the
ceremonies give the house a c’ulel or ch’ulel—an “inner
soul”—so that it becomes “a part of living Zinacanteco
society.”
Ancient building dedications appear to have followed
patterns analogous to modern Zinacanteco house
dedications. In addition to the commonality of burying
offerings at buildings’ centers, the fires that blackened
ancient temple walls and floors are analogous to candles
burned in Zinacantan, and the ancient Maya also may
have perceived their dedication of caches on buildings’
centers and central axes as giving their houses ch’ulel.
Furthermore, Shirley Boteler Mock has suggested
that ancient practices of caching objects and burying
buildings inside new ones transferred the ch’ulel of
older objects and buildings into the new structures, the
ch’ulel “reincarnated through offerings in each new
‘descendant’ building episode” (Mock 1998:11).7
When stone sculptures and fragments were buried
in important locations, what about the sculptures was
salient in their burial? Was it their carvings, whether
image or text? Or their patronage? In reviewing the
range of cases, it appears that image, text, and patronage
frequently did matter in the choice of which sculptures
the Maya chose for special or symbolic burials.
However, once sculptures were buried, the opportunity
for reception of sculptures’ particularities was reduced,
and memory of the sculpture—if any—likely was of
the object itself, as opposed to specific details. In other
words, sculptures’ images or inscriptions may have been
important in selecting them to receive special treatment,
but when buried, their meaning was transformed.
structures,” including stairways, axial centers, boundaries, doorways,
and corners. Multiple articles in The Sowing and the Dawning, edited by
Mock (1998), discuss Mesoamerican caching and other offering practices.
6. The house dedication rites are in two parts: the hol chuk
(“binding the head of the roof”) ceremony, which happens when the
walls and rafters have been built, and the ch’ul kantela (“holy candle”)
ritual, which takes place after construction is complete.
7. Bryan Just has also discussed the burial of sculptures and
buildings in new architectural phases. Citing Mock, he discusses the
interment of sculptures and buildings within a context of “transferral,”
arguing that such interments “contributed their accrued potency to the
new structure” (Just 2005:70).

Figure 2. Tikal North Acropolis, Maya. Drawing adapted from H. S. Loten, Additions and
Alterations: A Commentary on the Architecture of the North Acropolis, Tikal, Guatemala
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2007),
Tikal Report 34, part A, fig. 49.
Nevertheless, even without the specificity of their
carvings available, the fact that they had come out of the
past may have been known.
Even so, analysis of these burials demonstrates that
the materiality of the monuments was a crucial part of
their continued meaning, particularly in their operation
in material and symbolic realms outside of human
perception. For example, one aspect may have been
the transfer of ch’ulel from one object to another, which
took place because of what the materials were and
where they existed in relation to one another. Another
aspect was their potential to make eternal an ephemeral
ceremony—either because the sculpture’s deposition
took place within a ceremony, because its physical form
replicated the ceremony, or because it retained traces
of ceremonial burning or breakage. The materiality and
positioning of cached objects would have continued
the performance of rituals that sanctified them, the
sculptures’ physical states materializing that ceremony.
Stelae cached in buildings: Tikal
Excavations conducted by the University of
Pennsylvania’s Tikal Archaeological Project (1956–1970)
and the Proyecto Nacional Tikal (PNT) of Guatemala’s
O’Neil: Ancient Maya sculptures of Tikal, seen and unseen 123
Instituto de Antropología e Historia (1979–1985)
uncovered examples of monuments buried in significant
and meaningful locations within buildings. These
locations generally are on buildings’ central axes,
often in a superstructure’s back room, and frequently
in relation to a tomb. Most were broken, and a major
motivation for the interments may have been to put the
sculptures to rest, protecting and revering them as if
they were human bodies. Even so, interred sculptures
functioned as offerings to buildings, tombs, and
ancestors, and burning rituals often accompanied and
followed the interments. Because of the way the ancient
Maya treated these sculptures, it is clear they perceived
them to be sacred, powerful objects deserving of special
treatment.
Stela 26
The Tikal Maya buried several broken Early Classic
stelae—Stelae 26, 31, and 40—in North Acropolis
temples (fig. 2). Stela 26 originally depicted a standing
ruler on the front, with texts on its sides. The front figure
had been severely damaged, but parts of its side texts
are well preserved and include the names of ancestors
(fig. 3). Stela 26 appears to have been a monument of
124 RES 55/56 SPRING/AUTUMN 2009
Figure 3. Tikal Stela 26, 1958. William R. Coe, University of
Pennsylvania Tikal Project Negative 58-4-1467 © University of
Pennsylvania Museum.
Chak Tok Ich’aak I, a Tikal ruler from the mid- to late
fourth century who may have been assassinated when
the Teotihuacan-affiliated regime entered Tikal in A.D.
378, installing Yax Nuun Ahiin I as ruler of Tikal (Martin
and Grube 2008:28–30; Stuart 2000:472–481; Martin
2003:12–13, 17).8 The damage to Stela 26 was clearly
deliberate (Coe 1990:745), and the new regime may
have broken this stela and others as a way of desecrating
Chak Tok Ich’aak’s public symbols.9
8. Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube suggest the depicted person
was Chak Tok Ich’aak I, because his name appears at the end of the
text on the right side. The text on the left side includes names of deities
and rulers from the early part of the Early Classic (Martin and Grube
2008:28; Grube and Martin n.d.:42–43). All transliterations of rulers’
names in this article are from Martin and Grube (2008).
9. In fact, Martin (2003:15) observes that there are no pre-378
monuments found at Tikal that were not broken. There were other
episodes of monument destruction, though, for later sculptures were
broken, including Stelae 31 and 40, which had to have been broken
after their dedications in A.D. 445 and 468, perhaps in 562 C.E. when
Calakmul defeated Tikal. Jones and Satterthwaite (1982:117) also note
Nevertheless, in the late seventh century, the Maya
set Stela 26’s largest fragment—its basal fragment—in
the center of the back room of the shrine at the top
of Structure 5D-34-1st in the North Acropolis, which
already contained Burial 10, likely Yax Nuun Ahiin’s
tomb (Coggins 1975:145–146; Coe 1990:479–487,
505).10 They planted the fragment in a hole cut through a
floor blackened by fires, evidence that the room already
had been a site for burning rituals—perhaps to Yax Nuun
Ahiin. Furthermore, the pit that sustained the fragment
was filled with obsidian and flint flakes and charcoal
(Coe 1990:475, 498), materials left over, perhaps, from
ceremonies in the shrine.
After reerecting the Stela 26 fragment, the Maya
built a masonry altar around it, into which they placed
other fragments of the stela and other materials (see Coe
1990:fig. 158; fig. 4 in this article).11 The stela thereby
became invisible within its altar, and the Maya continued
to use the room, performing more fire rituals and
depositing offerings in the shrine. Evidence of continued
fire ceremonies includes blackened plaster on the altar
and a 5–6 centimeter layer of charcoal and ash on the
floor of Room 3.12 In addition, there were two caches
of charcoal—one of five pounds, predominantly from
pines—deposited in the floor before the altar and buried
stela. These ash and charcoal deposits were radiocarbon-
dated to the late eighth or early ninth centuries (ibid.:
476, 498–499, 503).
Furthermore, the Maya buried more caches in the
floors of Rooms 2 and 3 and scattered “smashed pots,
drums, and censers” that were “intermingled with
charcoal” in Room 3. Also scattered in Room 3 were
items that Coe suggests came from inside the altar,
including stone fragments (MS 2 and 137) that may
have been part of Stela 26, dispersed when the Maya
broke open the altar at a later date (ibid.:490–501).
The charcoal layer on the shrine floor, the charcoal
caches in the floor, and the smashed vessels and censers
intermingled with charcoal are examples of ceremonial
trash, remains of offerings performed in the sanctuary
Tikal monument destruction from earlier than the fourth century (see
also Jones 1991).
10. The Maya also interred Burial 8 in Temple 34, but this tomb was
reentered and ravaged in the ancient past (Coe 1990:487–490).
11. Based on radiocarbon dates, comparisons with Structure 33,
and other evidence, Coe (ibid.: 745, 505) hypothesized that Stela 26
was buried ca. A.D. 652–672.
12. Coe suggested this ash mound may have come from burning
on top of the altar, swept to the floor when the altar was broken open,
its contents spread across the room. The radiocarbon date range for this
deposit was A.D. 740–880 (ibid.: 476, 503).

Figure 4. Tikal Stela 26, view from within Room 3 of Structure
5D-34, 1958. West wall of enclosing altar removed. William R.
Coe, University of Pennsylvania Tikal Project Negative 58-4-
322. © University of Pennsylvania Museum.
and potentially considered sacred because they resulted
from ceremonial action.13
As a severely broken sculpture, the original
historical specificity of the Stela 26 image and text
was significantly reduced, yet the stela’s interment and
the continued offerings and fire ceremonies suggest
that people perceived the stone to hold power and
sacredness. Whereas the whole stela may have embodied
Chak Tok Ich’aak I, the broken stela may have embodied
his memory, the stone perceived as important precisely
because of the connection to this ancestor. Alternatively,
they may have revered the stela as a relic of the past and
ancestors in a broader sense because of its text naming
earlier ancestors. Regardless, once buried, the reception
of the specificity was diminished even further, for none
of the stela could be seen. Nevertheless, this did not
neutralize its power, for it continued to be a focus of
ritual and offerings. Even unseen, it was remembered
13. The term “ceremonial trash” encompasses materials left over
from ceremonies, which may have required special treatment such as
deposition in a sacred location (see O’Neil n.d.).
O’Neil: Ancient Maya sculptures of Tikal, seen and unseen 125
and worshiped as a proximate, tangible locus of contact
with ancestors. Moreover, even outside modes of human
perception or remembrance, the Stela 26 caching may
have served to transfer the monument’s ch’ulel and the
sacredness accrued from burning and other ceremonies
into this structure.
It is clear that the Maya buried Stela 26 in a highly
sacred location and performed ceremonies to it before,
during, and after burial. The archaeological remains
surrounding this stela give a glimpse into the human
experience within this sanctuary, of the heat from
fires burning the face, the smoke clouding the eyes,
the pine aromas gracing the nose, the sounds of pine
burning with its characteristic crackles and pops, the
sounds of censers and other ceramic vessels being
smashed, together stimulating multiple human senses
and complementing memories recalled or retold of the
ancestor and the object, such that the realms of the
visible and invisible, the tangible and intangible, and
multiple corporeal senses would have come together for
a powerful sensorial and religious experience.
Stela 31
The largest fragment of Tikal Stela 31 was also reset
amidst intense ceremony in an Early Classic temple
shrine, Structure 5D-33-2nd, the funerary pyramid
of Sihyaj Chan K’awiil II, who ruled from A.D. 411 to
456 (Martin and Grube 2008:34). Dated to 9.0.10.0.0
(October 16, A.D. 445), Stela 31 is carved on all four
sides: on the front is Sihyaj Chan K’awiil, and the
monument’s sides bear images of his father—Yax Nuun
Ahiin—dressed as a Teotihuacan warrior (fig. 5). On
the back is an inscription narrating a series of period
endings—beginning in the fourth century and ending
with the stela’s dedication—and unique events related
to the Teotihuacan incursion, including the Sihyaj
K’ahk’s arrival, Chak Tok Ich’aak I’s death in A.D. 378,
and Spearthrower Owl’s death in A.D. 439 (Stuart 2000:
482–483).
The ancient Maya mutilated the three human faces
on Stela 31 by chipping, but this damage is minor
and common on Maya stelae and may have served to
release the monument’s soul or prevent it from seeing or
breathing (Houston and Stuart 1998:88; Just 2005:78).
In contrast, the stela’s bottom was broken off, a more
extreme type of damage, and this broken edge was
burned (Coe 1990:757). Later, the ancient Maya reset
the broken Stela 31 in the Structure 5D-33-2nd shrine,
and subsequently they interred this structure in a larger
building phase, Structure 5D-33-1st, most likely in the
126 RES 55/56 SPRING/AUTUMN 2009

second half of the seventh century or the early eighth

century.14
There is evidence of burning rituals before, during,
and after the enshrinement and interment of Stela 31
and its sanctuary. Like Stela 26, the broken Stela 31 was
planted in a pit dug through the already blackened floor
of the shrine’s back room, blackened from fires that may
have been offered to Burial 48, Sihyaj Chan K’awiil’s
tomb. Archaeologists also found monument fragments,
many of them burned, on the Room 2 sanctuary floor
in a layer of “black-brown dirt interspersed by charcoal,
sherds, and censer parts” that “significantly covered
the Stela 31 pit’s patchwork” (ibid.:513).15 Containing
charcoal and censer parts, this is ceremonial trash, likely
accumulated during ceremonies within the sanctuary.
Additional evidence for ceremonies was a mound of ash
and charcoal (5–10 cm thick) in the northwest corner
of the chamber (ibid.), comparable to the mound of
charcoal and ash in Temple 34.
After burying Stela 31 and its shrine in the Temple
33-1st building phase, the ancient Maya performed more
ceremonies in the new shrine, directed most likely to
Sihyaj Chan K’awiil, present and embodied in Stela 31
and his corporeal remains, both of which were buried
in the temple. Evidence for fire rituals performed in the
Temple 33-1st shrine includes an annular stain—perhaps
from a censer—on one phase of the Room 2 floor,
charring on the central part of all phases of floors, and
remains of soot reaching 1.50 m at the center of the rear
wall of the 33-1st shrine (ibid.:534).

Figure 5. Tikal Stela 31 (front), Maya, A.D. 445. Limestone.
Museo Sylvanus G. Morley, Parque Nacional Tikal. Photograph
by the author.
14. This date range coincides with the end of the Hiatus—a
troubled time for Tikal after its defeat by Calakmul—or during the reign
of Jasaw Chan K’awiil (reign dates: 682–734), who dedicated the first
extant stone monument after the Hiatus (Martin and Grube 2008:39–
45). Coe (1990:759) suggests A.D. 652–672, during the Hiatus. Jones
and Satterthwaite (1982:64) suggest it happened during the transition
from Ik to Imix ceramics—at the end of the Hiatus or in Jasaw Chan
K’awiil’s reign. Alternatively, Clemency Coggins (1975:188) suggests
it happened in the beginning of Jasaw Chan K’awiil’s reign—after
682—and was symbolic of the polity’s restoration.
15. These included MS 19, five burned fragments; MS 40, an
uncarved fragment; MS 43, small carved burned fragments; and MS
44, more limestone fragments, many “discolored, as if from burning.”
Some fragments in the stela pit and in Room 2 may be from Stela 31,
resulting from the stela’s mutilation in the shrine (Coe 1990:761; Jones
and Satterthwaite 1982:89). In addition, in the pit supporting Stela 31
were a fragment of Stela 37 and twenty-eight other limestone fragments
(ibid.:64, 77; Coe 1990:512, 756, 760). They may have been used
simply for the quality of stone, to keep the reset stela upright; though
mixed with charcoal, ceramic censer parts, and pieces of architectural
stucco, they may have come from burning ceremonies and architecture
termination rituals. These materials thus may have been ceremonial
trash, and the Maya may have considered them as offerings to the stela
in its resetting.
 O’Neil: Ancient Maya sculptures of Tikal, seen and unseen 127

Sihyaj Chan K’awiil’s successors considered him an

especially important ancestor, for they placed his burial
on the North Acropolis central axis, and Structure 33-1st
was the tallest, grandest North Acropolis structure.16 The
Stela 31 fragment may have been considered a tangible
locus of contact with this sacred ancestor, for when
created, it had embodied him, and in its modified state
it may have embodied his memory or inspired activation
of ritual participants’ memories about him. Furthermore,
the Maya may have revered it for its naming of a series
of early ancestral rulers, such as Yax Ehb Xook and
Foliated Jaguar. Nevertheless, the text on the stela’s back
may not have been legible within the shrine, for it was
close to the rear wall (ibid.:758). Although the narrations
may have been of extreme importance in the choice to
preserve and revere this monument, reception of those
narrations was less important in this new phase of the
monument’s life history, and when buried, its images and
Figure 6. Tikal Altar 19, Maya, ca. A.D. 445. Limestone. Museo
inscriptions were denied to all human viewers, though
Sylvanus G. Morley, Parque Nacional Tikal. Photograph by the
the sacred object still may have been remembered.
author.
The ancient Maya buried another broken sculpture
in relation to the buried Stela 31, perhaps in order to
preserve physical relationships among sculptures that
had been important when displayed. Specifically, in the
fill of 5D-33-1st, centered in front of 5D-33-2nd, they presences and physical relationships also appear to have
buried three large fragments of Altar 19, which may once been of profound import.18
have been paired with Stela 31 (Jones and Satterthwaite As with Stela 26, one motivation for Stela 31’s burial
1982:64; Coe 1990:759–760). Damage to the altar had may have been because it was broken, and its burial put
been violent, with the obliteration of much of the body the monument to rest. The Maya performed numerous
of the depicted seated person and the altar itself, though rituals to the stela in its enshrinement and burial, but
the three altar fragments were gathered and interred in buried in the center of Structure 33-1st Stela 31 also
front of Structure 33 (Jones and Satterthwaite 1982:figs. became an offering to—and seed of—the new structure,
61, 109; Coe 1990:759; see fig. 6 here). If Stela 31 transferring its ch’ulel to the new building. The intensity
and Altar 19 were once a pair on view, they were a of offerings demonstrates it was an extremely sacred,
pair within the building’s fill as well, the stela buried powerful object. Its power may have lain in who this
at the top of 33-2nd and the altar at its base, the two ancestor was, or the Maya may have considered this
functioning together as offerings to the structure, even stela to be sacred, both because of the persistence of
though neither was visible to living humans.17 In these sacrality in once-consecrated objects and because of
new contexts, the sculptures remained in a physical and the sacredness accrued through ceremonies performed
material association that is parallel to the one they had on it, its materiality imbued with sacred heat from
when displayed. In other words, the visible interrelations ceremonial fires.
of these and other sculptures were not the only salient
aspect of ancient Maya sculptures, for their material

18. The cached Tikal Stela 40 in Structure 5D-29 of the North

16. Sihyaj Chan K’awiil may have been especially revered because
he restored the pre-Teotihuacan Yax Ehb Xook dynastic line and
incorporated it with the Teotihuacan line in the fifth century, a merging
that Stela 31 celebrates.
17. Another fragment of Altar 19 was separated from them, though
it remained nearby, buried as a supporting stone for Stela P6, a plain
stela in front of 33-1st (Coe 1990:523).
Acropolis may have formed another physical—but invisible—
relationship with Stela 31. Stela 40 was a monument of K’an Chitam,
Sihyaj Chan K’awiil’s son and successor; Stela 40 emulated Stela
31 in form and composition; both were broken in the ancient past,
and—intriguingly—both were buried in North Acropolis temples. See
Valdés, Fahsen, and Muñoz (1997) for a description of Stela 40 and its
discovery in Structure 5D-29.
128 RES 55/56 SPRING/AUTUMN 2009

In the cases of Stelae 26 and 31, there is evidence of

continued memory and commemoration of sculptures
buried in buildings. The ancient Maya performed fire
ceremonies not only on the sculptures, but also in the
rooms where they had been cached or in shrines above
them, suggesting that their significance and relevance
continued to persist within memory and ceremony, not
only beyond the act of destruction, but also beyond
the moment of interment, when they became invisible
to the human eye but still remained present—both in
the material sense and in the conceptual sense, within
the heart of buildings and within social memory.
Furthermore, these sculptures—deposited as offerings to
buildings, bodies, and ancestors—continued to perform
after burial, sanctifying buildings and transferring their
power or sacredness to those buildings, making them
into even more sacred structures for the worship and
commemoration of divine ancestors.

Stela 32
In addition to the interment of large stelae, the
Tikal Maya buried smaller portions of monuments in
significant locations. For instance, inside the North
Acropolis Structure 26, archaeologists found two fitting
fragments of Stela 32 in Problematical Deposit 22
(PD 22), whose contents appear to have come from
a disturbed tomb. The fragments bear a carved image
of a frontal face wearing a headdress that emulates
Teotihuacan imagery, very similar to the shield that Yax
Nuun Ahiin holds on Stela 31’s right side (fig. 7). In fact,
Stelae 32 and 31 may have been contemporaneous
(mid-fifth century A.D.), and Stela 32’s deposition in PD
22 may have occurred in the late seventh or early eighth
century, soon after Stela 31’s interment (Coe 1990:
326–327).
Located on the building’s center line, PD 22
clearly was deposited as an offering for the structure’s
sanctification, and the ancient Maya set the Stela 32
fragments face down in the cache (ibid.:324–325). Also
in this deposit were one of four discovered fragments
of Stela 33; two other sculptural fragments (MS 49
and 109: Fragment 2); and numerous other items,
including shattered, burned human bones, which Coe
suggests formed a “secondary burial of a partially
cremated, rather elderly male” (ibid.).19 Except for
19. These three sculptural fragments are small: MS 109: Fragment
2 has a maximum dimension of 0.31 m; MS 49’s maximum dimension
is 0.18 m (Jones and Satterthwaite 1982:74, 88–89, 93). Some carving
Figure 7. Tikal Stela 32, Maya, ca. fifth century A.D. Limestone.
Museo Sylvanus G. Morley, Parque Nacional Tikal. Photograph
by the author.
the face-down placement of the Stela 32 fragments,
the items were jumbled together, though we cannot
discount their presence as important components of
the cache. For instance, although the smaller fragments
are so damaged that they are hardly recognizable as
monuments, they were deemed valuable for offering.
Their presence may point to the value placed on stone
material and potentially to the persistent sacredness of
once-consecrated sculptures, even when destroyed, their
caching allowing their sacredness to be transferred to the
new building.
Buried on the pyramid’s central axis, the PD 22
cache served as a seed for the new building, with the
items offered to the structure. Although the Stela 32
depositional context is different from the other stelae
interments previously discussed, particularly in terms
remains on each, including a portion of a human face on MS 109
(ibid.:fig. 111e). Other materials in PD 22 included eccentric flints and
obsidians, obsidian blade cores and flakes, one piece of green obsidian
(from Central Mexico), pieces of turtle carapace and crocodile scutes,
a travertine metate, jade and spondylus beads, marine shells, coralline
algae, an imitation stingray spine, vessel shards, and the burned human
bones (Coe 1990:324–325).
 O’Neil: Ancient Maya sculptures of Tikal, seen and unseen 129

of scale and focus on the monuments, the Maya treated

the stela fragments with care and reverence. Moreover,
the Maya performed fire ceremonies on Structure 26
throughout the five phases of the structure’s history,
both before and after the cache’s interment (ibid.:297),
demonstrating that this building was another locus for
ceremonial commemoration over an extended period.

The caching of other sculptural types

Hombre de Tikal
At Tikal, other types of sculptures were buried with
special treatment as well. In the cases discussed, we
see multiple phases of interaction with monuments,
including breaking, movement, burning, and burial,
demonstrating that the life histories of these monuments
can be just as complex and meaningful as any initial
meaning in an object’s creation. Another sculpture that
beautifully exemplifies this idea is the Hombre de Tikal,
an Early Classic anthropomorphic sculpture whose life
history consists of distinct phases and types of human
interactions—including creation, decapitation, recarving,
and burial—that happened over a century or more (fig. 8).
The Hombre de Tikal is a sculpture of a seated man
with a rotund belly; his arms bear glyphic cartouches,
and on his back are deeply incised texts.20 The texts are
in different calligraphic styles, with historical names
from different moments in time, and several scholars
have argued that the texts were not contemporaneous,
positing that Chak Tok Ich’aak I commissioned the
sculpture in the fourth century, and that the carving on
the back was from the early fifth century when Yax Nuun
Ahiin reused and recarved—and maybe decapitated—it,
making it his own, perhaps symbolic of his usurpation
of Chak Tok Ich’aak’s throne (Fahsen 1988; Martin and
Grube 2008:28–33; Laporte 2001:263).
The Hombre de Tikal was reused again when it was
interred in Burial 212, located in the central rear room of
the shrine of Structure 3D-43’s penultimate phase, which
was buried in the building’s final phase.21 Burial 212
contained two human skeletons, one adult male and one
adolescent female, with ornaments, cinnabar, and copal
offerings; the Hombre de Tikal was in the eastern part of
20. The naturalism of his three-dimensional form is rare in
limestone sculpture at Tikal, though there are parallels in wooden
sculptures, including the K’awiil sculptures from Burial 195, and stucco
masks on architecture. A comparable stone sculpture is the sculpture of
Bird Jaguar—which also was decapitated—from Yaxchilan Structure 33.
21. Structure 3D-43 is located in Group H.
Figure 8. Hombre de Tikal, Maya, fourth and fifth centuries A.D.
Limestone. Museo Lítica, Parque Nacional Tikal. Photograph by
the author.
the room.22 Laporte and Carlos Herman date the burial to
the late fifth century, in the reign of K’an Chitam (458–
ca. 486) or Chak Tok Ich’aak II (ca. 488–508) (Laporte
2001:263–264; Laporte and Herman 2003:378). If in
the reign of Chak Tok Ich’aak II, the sculpture’s caching
may have been a meaningful connection between Chak
Tok Ich’aak II and his earlier namesake, this physical
appropriation was a way to make contact with a
particularly revered predecessor.
The Hombre de Tikal’s caching in the shrine’s back,
central room is similar to the cached locations of Stelae
26 and 31.23 And like those sculptures, the Hombre
22. The other tomb offerings were rich in ceramics and marine
material. The room’s north wall was covered with stucco and a painted
mural; the Hombre de Tikal was turned toward this wall (Laporte
2001:263–264; Laporte and Herman 2003:371, 375–378).
23. When the tomb was placed in the back room, the doorways
into the room were blocked by stones, suggesting that the rest of the
temple’s superstructure was left open and used before the last building
phase enveloped the structure. If so, the tomb and its offerings were
hidden but remained proximate for contact and worship within the
shrine, a situation analogous to Stela 26 in Structure 34’s shrine.
Laporte and Herman (2003:372) note that three dedicatory offerings
were deposited—one a set of Early Classic lip-to-lip cache vessels—
with the construction of the building’s last phase.
130 RES 55/56 SPRING/AUTUMN 2009
de Tikal had been desecrated but later was shown
reverence.24 In fact, the recovery and placement of three
of Chak Tok Ich’aak I’s monuments—the Hombre de
Tikal, Stela 26, and Stela 3925—in shrines in the centers
or backs of temples give a strong indication that even
after the desecration of Chak Tok Ich’aak I’s sculptures
and memory, there were attempts to restore his name,
memory, and worship by recovering his sculptures.
At the same time, this is another sculpture whose text
makes reference to multiple ancestors, and as with Stelae
26 and 31, the presence of those names may have been
further reason to preserve this sculpture as a treasured
heirloom of the past.
Within Burial 212, the Hombre de Tikal functioned as
an offering to one or more of the persons buried in the
tomb. Interred in relation to a human burial, the Hombre
de Tikal’s deposition is similar to those of Stelae 26 and
31, for although they were interred centuries after the
humans in the tombs and buried apart from them, in all
cases there remains a crucial connection between buried
sculptural bodies and human bodies. Moreover, the fifth-
century burial of the Hombre de Tikal and the seventh-
or eighth-century burial of Stelae 26 and 31 occurred
two or more centuries apart, suggesting continuity over
time for such practices, both in the careful interment of
broken sculptures and in their burial in relation to tombs
of rulers or other elite persons.
Marcador
Another Early Classic sculpture—the Tikal Marcador
(Ballcourt Marker)—was buried in a significant
location, though this sculpture was perfectly preserved,
demonstrating there were other reasons the ancient Maya
buried sculptures than the fact that they were broken
(fig. 9). The Marcador also was different from the others
because it did not depict a human or anthropomorphic
being but a feathered standard. Its form is a vertical
cylinder with a feathered disk on top that is balanced on
a sphere rising out of a cylindrical post; a feathered skirt
hangs from the sphere, acting as roofing for the inscribed
text on the post. One side of the disk bears Spearthrower
Owl’s name; the other contains a common Teotihuacan
symbol referring to the Storm God Tlaloc (Laporte and
24. There appears to be erosion on its broken surface, which means
it was redisplayed after being decapitated but before burial.
25. PNT archaeologists found the broken Stela 39 in the shrine
atop Structure 5D-86-7 in the Mundo Perdido, directly above a royal
tomb. There were ceramic offerings associated with the stela in the
shrine (Ayala 1987; Laporte and Fialko 1995).
Fialko 1990:51). On the post is a Mayan hieroglyphic
text recounting the arrival of Sihyaj K’ahk’ to Tikal in A.D.
378; information about Spearthrower Owl, including
an accession statement; and the sculpture’s dedication
in A.D. 416 (ibid.; Stuart 2000:481–490). The Marcador
sculpture is a Teotihuacan form, and its text explains the
presence of such a monument at Tikal, precisely because
of the activities of Spearthrower Owl and Sihyaj K’ahk’.
Proyecto Nacional Tikal archaeologists found the
Marcador cached in an altar in Tikal’s Group 6C-XVI, an
Early Classic complex with multiple structures and patios
located south of the Mundo Perdido.26 They cached it
circa A.D. 425 within Altar 48-sub, a small platform in
the center of the complex’s North Plaza, where it once
may have been displayed (Fialko 1988:121; Laporte and
Fialko 1990:48, fig. 3.15). Altar 48 had talud-tablero
architectural forms, recalling Teotihuacan’s architecture
and aligning with the sculpture’s form and textual
content. The Marcador was laid down within the cache,
oriented north-south, with a spondylus shell beneath it
and a stucco head to its east, and the entire altar was
buried, as were other North Plaza structures (Laporte
1987:228; Fialko 1988:121–122; Laporte and Fialko
1995:65–66, 71). What is intriguing, however, is that
archaeologists report no signs of breakage, desecration,
or ritual treatment such as burning on the sculpture or in
the cache, characteristics of all other buried sculptures at
Tikal. Nevertheless, inclusion of the Spondylus shell and
stucco head as offerings denote a reverential burial that
is analogous to other buried sculptures.
People at Tikal may have buried the Marcador
because they considered it obsolete, its message no
longer valued within changing politics of the Tikal polity
and its relation to Teotihuacan. Nevertheless, even if
they perceived the Marcador’s message as obsolete,
they cached it with reverence and care, suggesting they
understood it to hold some sort of power or sacrality.
Its power may have lain in the Marcador’s narrations
of powerful figures and history-changing events of the
past, or it may simply have inhered in the stone, having
been imbued within the stone during its ceremonial
dedication, regardless of the specifics of its textual
narrations.
After burial, there was no visible record—at least that
survives—that the Marcador and Altar 48 were interred
there, for the altar and the North Plaza were covered,
26. This group, located 350 meters south of the Mundo Perdido,
was occupied from Phase Manik 2 to Manik 3b (A.D. 300–550) (Fialko
1988:218).
 O’Neil: Ancient Maya sculptures of Tikal, seen and unseen 131

and by the sixth century A.D., the entire complex was

covered (Laporte 1987:228; 2003:295). Furthermore,
archaeological reports give no indication of burning or
other ceremonial activity above the location of their
burial. It is possible there was memory of the cached
objects and the altar, though there is no evidence
of ceremonial practice in subsequent architectural
forms. Nevertheless, if there were memory, it may have
pointed to absence, a remembrance with an intention of
forgetting, of suppressing a visual record of events that
may not have been celebrated at the time. Even so, they
neither erased nor destroyed this record; instead, they
effectively preserved it, potentially because of its sacred
nature as a once-consecrated monument.

Conclusion: Visibility, invisibility, presence

At Tikal, the ancient Maya practiced a range of
sculpture burial, varying in terms of sculptural type;
condition of sculptures (from whole and undamaged
to fragmented); and their burial contexts. In this essay, I
have argued that monuments and fragments continued
to signify or perform after burial. I contend that at times
they signified because of what they narrated or depicted,
but more often they performed because of what they
were, and because they provided tangible, material
connections to ancestors.
At least in some examples, what was carved on
monuments did matter in the choice of how and where
to bury them. For example, the Late Classic Maya buried
Chak Tok Ich’aak I’s fourth-century Stela 26 in Structure
34 of the North Acropolis, resetting, burying, and
revering the sculpture, arguably as a way to restore the
dignity of the defiled king and come into contact with
this sacred ancestor. The epigraphic record implies that
Chak Tok Ich’aak I was assassinated in A.D. 378, and at
this time or later at least three of his sculptures—Stela
26, Stela 39, and the Hombre de Tikal—were broken,
potentially by the Teotihuacan-affiliated regime who
usurped his throne. Nevertheless, the Maya later
collected these sculptures and placed them in special
locations: Stela 26 in an altar in the Temple 34 shrine,
where they performed ceremonies and deposited
offerings; Stela 39 in the shrine of Structure 5D-86-7
in the Mundo Perdido, making offerings to it through Figure 9. Tikal Marcador, Maya, A.D. 416. Limestone. Museo
the Terminal Classic (Laporte and Fialko 1995:84); Nacional de Arqueología e Etnología, Guatemala. Photograph
and the Hombre de Tikal, which they interred in a late by the author.
fifth-century elite tomb—surrounded by offerings— in
Group H. These examples demonstrate that despite the
fourth-century desecration of Chak Tok Ich’aak I and his
sculptural embodiments, his descendants and successors
132 RES 55/56 SPRING/AUTUMN 2009
sought to restore his memory by recovering and placing
those sculptures in sacred locations in the context of
multiple offerings and fire ceremonies.
The ancient Maya also reset Stela 31—a monument
embodying Sihyaj Chan K’awiil I—in a temple shrine,
which they then buried within a larger building phase.
There are multiple lines of evidence that suggest that
Sihyaj Chan K’awiil’s descendants especially revered
and remembered him, for they buried him on the North
Acropolis’s primary north-south axis, and later they
made his funerary temple into the largest and grandest
of the North Acropolis—and the anchor to which they
positioned Temples I and II. Sihyaj Chan K’awiil’s funerary
pyramid seems to be the natural place for the resetting
and burial of Stela 31, and the interred sculptural and
human bodies of Sihyaj Chan K’awiil sacralized this
temple, affirming the location as a place for contact with
and worship of this sacred and revered ancestor. On the
other hand, Chak Tok Ich’aak’s Stela 26 was interred in
the funerary pyramid of Yax Nuun Ahiin, the man who
took—or usurped—the throne after Chak Tok Ich’aak
I’s untimely death. The resetting, burial, and worship of
Chak Tok Ich’aak’s Stela 26 above Yax Nuun Ahiin’s burial
place may have symbolized a conversion of the building
from a monument to Yax Nuun Ahiin into a place for the
memory and worship of Chak Tok Ich’aak I.27
In the cases of Stela 26 in Temple 34 and Stela 31 in
Temple 33, the remains of offerings and fire ceremonies
provide strong evidence for continued commemoration
around and above the interred sculptures, with
remembrance of what was buried. These shrines were
sites for the memory and worship of ancestors, and the
ceremonial performances would have allowed ritual
participants to come into contact with sacred ancestors,
using these spaces—and the remembered presences
of human and sculptural bodies—to conjure ancestors
and activate their memory. Moreover, the indices of
27. The fact that Teobert Maler (1911:70–71) found Yax Nuun
Ahiin’s Stela 4 planted upside-down in front of Structure 34 may
provide further evidence of such a conversion. Just has discussed
the inversion of Stela 4 as a “conquest-related form of sculptural
modification,” suggesting that its inversion related to its Teotihuacan
forms, and that those who inverted it were distancing themselves
from Tikal’s “earlier interactions with Teotihuacan” (Just 2005:72–73).
Whereas I agree, I suggest that this inversion was more specifically
directed to Yax Nuun Ahiin and the events of the late fourth-century
historical moment and not to a broader rejection of Teotihuacan,
for there are emulative references to Teotihuacan—in sculpture,
architecture, and inscriptions—from Late Classic Tikal. Even so, Just’s
conclusion that the Stela 4 inversion “either deactivated or severely
altered the potency of the image” (ibid.:75) is an important one.
ceremonies would have been visible reminders to others
of such reverential practice, marking the place as a
sacred location worthy of continued commemoration.
At the same time, I argue that these sculptures also
performed outside of human perception. Buried on
buildings’ centers or central axes, they dedicated and
sanctified buildings, served as seeds for new buildings,
and transferred their ch’ulel and otherwise sacred
materialities into the structures, which further enlivened
or sacralized them. This may be the case for the cached
Stela 32 fragments as well, for those who cached them
perceived them to be worthy of offering on the building’s
central axis, the objects thereby performing as an
offering to and sacralization of the building.
Moreover, these central locations also may have been
the most appropriate places for sculpture burial because
of the sacredness that persisted within them from their
initial dedications and consecrations—regardless of
their carving or any desire to remember or forget the
images or texts carved on their surfaces. In fact, across
the range of buried sculptures, both ones that appear to
have been buried for remembrance and ones buried for
forgetting, the Maya interred them in special locations
on buildings’ centers and central axes and in the midst
of other offerings. Even if the intention of burial was one
of suppression, there remained a need to give them a
proper burial or disposal, for they were sacred objects
that demanded such treatment.
For each of these cases, I have privileged the
monuments’ carvings, and I do so because I believe the
ancient Maya did, for larger fragments and ones with
preserved carvings received the most elaborate burials.
Nevertheless, there were smaller fragments and some
with severely damaged carvings that were buried in
caches, and it may have been their persistent sacredness
as once-consecrated objects that inspired their
deposition as offerings. Their caching may have been
pragmatic, a mode of disposal for material objects that
had been consecrated, used in ceremonies, or otherwise
perceived as sacred. Simultaneously, their deposition
doubled as offerings to other entities.
In conclusion, the patterns of sculpture burial at Tikal
demonstrate that for the ancient Maya, invisible objects
were not inactive objects. Although visibility and display
were important paradigms for the ancient Maya, this
was not to the exclusion of the invisible, for the invisible
was an active mode, potentially even a performative
one, which worked in tandem with and in opposition to
the visible. In the Popol Vuh, the Hero Twins could be
sensed through other modes of perception or signs that
announced their continued presence and action, even

when unseen. Likewise, I argue that the ancient Maya
considered the sculptures they buried in buildings to be
active, for despite their invisibility, people remembered
and recalled them, making offerings to them and making
contact with ancestors through them. Furthermore,
even when unseen, these sculptures themselves could
be active, performing roles of building dedication,
sanctifying structures, and making offerings to ancestors
and other divinities.
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