Trees of Paradise and Pillars of the World: The Serial Stela Cycle of "18-Rabbit-God K," King of Copan (review)

Temples apart, the most widely recognized monuments left by the Classic Maya are the elaborately carved upright stone columns called stelae. Typically resplendent with images of gods, ancestors, rulers, and hieroglyphs, stelae constitute what Elizabeth Newsome calls "the primary documents of ancient Maya kingship." Mayanists have long recognized that such monuments projected statements about royal power and ritual and that they, along with the altars, plazas, and buildings around them, were the settings for royal ceremonies, many with overtly sacrificial themes.

Newsome argues that stelae recorded not simply isolated events that bolstered and legitimized elite power but instead whole ritual cycles that manifested "divine associations and spiritual presences." Copán, Honduras, provides unusually complete sets of stelae erected by two successive kings, Smoke-Imix-God K and 18-Rabbit (to use the other's nickname). 18-Rabbit, the focus of Newsome's research, was Copán's thirteenth ruler, who enjoyed a long reign between 695 and 738 A.D., during which he dedicated eight stelae. Seven of these, which may still be seen in Copán's Great Plaza, were set up between 702 and 731 A.D., and together they represent a complex symbolic program. Each stela is the material manifestation of a dream or vision experienced by 18-Rabbit in his capacity as divine ruler and great shaman and of associated rituals, in which he participated as a god. Linking the stelae are the overarching themes of sacrifice and resurrection, or world creation and renewal. Together the stelae are the "visual recitation of one of the New World's heroic epics," redolent of maize and the maize god and embodying in stone the great trees that hold up the sky.

Deliberately archaic in conception and set in a grandiose formal plaza, 18-Rabbit's stela cycle, Newsome believes, was designed to be understood by a wide public audience that perhaps included ethnically non-Maya people at this great center near the southeastern frontier of Mesoamerica.

The core of Newsome's book is the description and analysis, in chronological sequence, of the individual stelae that comprise the ritual cycle. This section will be dense going for those who are not art historians (the book is a reworking of her dissertation of a decade earlier). Iconography bears the heaviest load of interpretation, and the book presupposes considerable sophistication on the part of the reader.

What I appreciated most were the many illustrations and the clear presentation of the inscriptions on these famous Copán stelae—the book could serve as a handy guide for anyone touring the Great Plaza monuments. Ethohistorians will perhaps be more interested in the many comparisons with the post-Conquest books of Chilam Balam and Bishop Landa, which Newsome believes retain vestiges of much older creation stories, including one in which seven trees or pillars are created to support the heavens. Numerous comparisons are made with Classic monuments from other centers, including Tikal, Palenque, and Quiriguá, and there is a useful overview of Copán's dynastic and cultural history. To her credit, Newsome clearly points out the similarities and differences between her interpretations and those of previous Copán researchers, most notably Claude F. Baudez.

Because the focus is so heavily on the stelae and their associated monuments and ambient spaces, the discussion seemed to me somewhat disembodied from the realities of human intention and behavior. Inherent (I think) in Newsome's thesis is some sort of community of priests, scribes, and architects who collectively, along with the king, must have planned this great effort. I would have appreciated more discussion of just how this intricate project, in many ways unique in the Classic Maya world, was organized and implemented...