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This chapter focuses on the themes of rulership and creation that were featured on Late Preclassic (300 b.c.e.–c.e. 200) Izapan-style monuments from the Paci¤c slope region, speci¤cally from the sites of Izapa in Chiapas, Mexico, and Abaj Takalik, Guatemala. The monuments from these sites share a vocabulary of forms, a stylistic sensibility, and a variety of themes that were manipulated by the ruling elite to accommodate their claims to power in both this world and the supernatural sphere. Of greatest interest are those monuments whose imagery and messages are echoed in the sculptural corpus of both sites. The shared narratives of the monuments evidence active participation in a Late Preclassic communication sphere through which basic principles of rulership and worldview were articulated. The term Izapan style takes its name from the site of Izapa, but it also applies to contemporaneous stone carvings from sites located throughout a broad geographic region extending from Chiapas to the valleys of central Veracruz and down into the highlands and coastal piedmont of Guatemala.1 Typically, Izapanstyle monuments are characterized by the ®uid contours of their bas-reliefs and the complexity of details within their compositions (Coe 1965b). Izapanstyle monuments also share a vocabulary of iconographic forms that, although distinct, links them to the art of the Middle Formative Olmec and Classic Maya.2 In fact, their intermediary nature—stylistic, iconographic, and temporal —between the art of the Olmec and Maya has been emphasized in the literature since the earliest publications by Stirling (1943). Nevertheless, the messages encoded into these Late Preclassic Izapan-style monuments represent a mature 5 Carved in Stone The Cosmological Narratives of Late Preclassic Izapan-Style Monuments from the Pacific Slope Julia Guernsey Kappelman expression of civilization. Not mere iconographic or stylistic intermediaries, Izapan-style monuments are testaments—carved in stone—to a sophisticated and dynamic Late Preclassic political ideology and worldview that was shared across a broad geographic region. Both Izapa and Abaj Takalik occupied strategic locations along communication routes between the Paci¤c coast and interior regions of modern Mexico and Guatemala. Izapa, located in the Soconusco region of Chiapas, is approximately¤fty kilometers northwest of the hill-terrace site of Abaj Takalik in the Guatemalan Paci¤c piedmont. This region represented a critically important crossroads of communication during the Late Preclassic between Mayan-speaking peoples to the east and Mixe-Zoquean–speaking peoples to the west. The Izapans probably spoke a Mixe-Zoquean language as the site is located at the southeasternmost extension of what has been de¤ned as the Mixe-Zoquean language region.3 Glyphlike forms that appear on several of the Izapa monuments also compare closely to hieroglyphs from the epi-Olmec script on La Mojarra Stela 1 (ca. c.e. 157), from Veracruz, whose language was ancestral to modern Zoquean languages (Justeson and Kaufman 1993). In contrast, the site of Abaj Takalik appears to have been ethnically Maya by at least the Late Preclassic period, as evidenced by the hieroglyphic inscription on Abaj Takalik Stela 5, which dates to circa c.e. 126 and bears the title ajaw spelled in Mayan with the phonetic complement -wa (John Justeson, personal communication 1997). Accordingly, the symbol systems and thematic programs shared by monuments from Izapa and Abaj Takalik appear to have transcended linguistic boundaries and ethnic divisions and become the lingua franca of a cross-cultural, Late Preclassic interaction sphere. Examination of cosmologically—and politically—charged narratives found within the sculptural corpus at both sites provides important insight into the types of messages that were being communicated during the Late Preclassic. One recurrent theme concerns the birth and resurrection of the Maize God, featured in the monumental programs of Izapa, on Stelae 22 (Figure 5.1) and 67 (Figure 5.2), and Abaj Takalik, on Stela 4 (Figure 5.3).4 Similar motifs were used to convey this creation narrative at both sites and appear to have been part of a standard , Late Preclassic iconography. For instance, all three stelae contain combinations of emergent ¤gures, portals, twisting conduits, and a watery basal band that is bound on both ends by a zoomorphic mask. Although each is presented in a unique manner, the theme of all three appears to be the transportation, sacri¤ce, and rebirth of the Maize God from a watery realm that was marked by a cosmic portal. Featured as a part of this cosmological narrative during the Late Preclassic was the appearance of a cosmic conduit...

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