The Maya and Teotihuacan: Reinterpreting Early Classic Interaction (review)

A thousand years before the Mexica-Aztec civilization dominated the Valley of Mexico, the metropolis of Teotihuacan was arguably the cultural hub of ancient Mesoamerica. Its ruins, today located just outside of the sprawl of Mexico City, are vast and imposing, but we know precious little of its politics, society, history, religion, or even what language its populace spoke. By 650 A.D. its pyramids and apartment compounds were burned and quickly abandoned, and even for the Aztecs the great ancient city came to be steeped in mystery and legend. Today Teotihuacan and the nature of its tangible influence in distant parts of Mesoamerica still stand as great puzzles in American archaeology.

Some partial answers, at least, may lie hundreds of miles away where archaeologists have unearthed tantalizing clues about Teotihuacan and its curious presence within Maya cities such as Kaminaljuyu (in modern day Guatemala City), Tikal, and Copán. Pottery styles, buildings and even images of Teotihuacan warriors have appeared from time to time at these and other sites, but their appearance has led to long-standing debates among specialists. Are these best interpreted as evidence of political conquests and economic takeovers? Or were more local motives at work, with local Maya kings seeking to appropriate the mere symbols of Teotihuacan's authority? Variations on these models (simplistic alternatives, to be sure) have been at the center of long-standing discussions for decades, but as the thirteen essays in The Maya and Teotihuacan make clear, the intellectual stakes are now higher than ever. My own recent work in deciphering Tikal's inscriptions indicate (as argued elsewhere) that Teotihuacan individuals were responsible for a significant if short-lived disruption of Tikal's dynasty. Also, recent excavations and decipherments at Copan, described in the volume by Robert Sharer, show that the dynastic founder, K'inich Yax K'uk' Mo', was particularly connected with Teotihuacan symbolism. We still cannot be completely sure if he and similar figures in Maya history were foreigners, or locals with a flair for foreign political fashions.

The Maya and Teotihuacan offers an excellent overview of the varied archaeological research addressing highland-lowland relations in Mesoamerica. With two exceptions, the emphasis of the essays is squarely in the Maya area, which is perhaps understandable given the nature of the debate. Geoffrey Braswell, the general editor, contributes two important studies on the archaeology of Kaminaljuyu, where excavators first pondered the discovery of Teotihuacan-style ceramics. In both papers Braswell attempts to overturn a number of long-standing assumptions about the local "presence" of Teotihuacanos, demonstrating that local forces were principally at work. Frederick Bove and Sonia Medrano Busto describe their research at nearby sites on the Pacific slope of Guatemala and, unlike Braswell, see Teotihuacan as having a "critical role" in the political and social development of the area.

Perhaps the most significant change to our thinking is that contacts and influence did not simply move in one direction from north to south (in Mesoamerican terms, west to east). One of the supposed hallmarks of Teotihuacan cultural style is the so-called talud-tablero terrace found on many of its pyramids, but as the Guatemalan archaeologist Juan Pedro Laporte forcefully argues, these are found in a great many buildings at Tikal, and was probably an architectural feature that was widely shared among Mesoamericans in the Early Classic period (250-500 A.D.). Karl Taube, in a remarkable contribution, demonstrates that Mayan artisans were behind many of the artistic creations found at Teotihuacan itself. One painted wall even contains hieroglyphs written in the Mayan language, providing solid evidence that some Maya lived and died in the great highland city.

As the book's essays demonstrate, new data on Maya-Teotihuacan relations is exciting and clearly pointing scholarship in new directions. I would disagree with Joyce Marcus' simplistic claim, offered in...