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chapter 4 Sacred and Profane Mountains of the Pasión contrasting architectural paths to power Arthur A. Demarest Recent debate in Maya archaeology has emphasized the great regional variability of Classic Maya civilization. Controversy has also centered around the nature of ancient Maya states, that is, the degree to which they were ‘‘centralized ’’ or ‘‘decentralized’’ and the realms of action of Classic-period rulers —economic, political, or ideological (see, for example, Fox et al. 1996). More recently, scholars have begun to accept that both perspectives are in part correct , with the degree of centralization and economic involvement of state authority varying over time and space in Classic Maya history (Demarest 1992, 1996a; Marcus 1993). Evidence suggests that in some regions during the Late Classic there were more centralized states (e.g., Caracol, Tikal, Calakmul) with an active state role in economic infrastructure and local community integration (Aoyama 1996, 1999; Chase and Chase 1996; Folan 1992; Folan et al. 1995).Yet, in general, most Maya centers seem to have had less centralized authority or settlement and a heavy reliance on warfare and/or ritual as sources of royal power to hold together their loose hegemonies of satellite centers and sustaining populations (Ball and Taschek 1991; Demarest 1992; Fox and Cook 1996; Sanders and Webster 1988). Recent excavations and settlement surveys across the Maya lowlands have recovered even more evidence of regional variability. Classic Maya states appear to have ranged from small, ritual-dominated polities to much larger and more centralized urban centers. Even within a single region, kingdoms experienced both gradual changes and radical shifts in their degree of centralized power; the extent of their hegemonies; and the varying economic , military, and ideological bases of the power of the kings (Demarest 1992, 1996a, 1996b, 1997; Marcus 1993; Martin and Grube 2000). Realization of this variability and attention to its parameters have increased in the past decade.This attention to regional and local variability responds to the inductive discoveries of archaeology and epigraphy.Yet it also reflects the current theoretical content of American anthropology, which has been struggling to join the postmodern or ‘‘postprocessual’’ discourses (Bourdieu 1977; Foucault 1972; Giddens 1984) of critical theory, hermeneu- 118 arthur a. demarest tics, and constructivist theory, even within the subfield of archaeology (Hodder 1985, 1986; Preucel 1991; Shanks and Tilley 1987, 1992). These new perspectives have led to greater interest in aspects of conscious agency, including individual and class strategies. Fields of strategic action and practice included politics, ritual, and ‘‘ideology’’ broadly defined. Renewed interest in agency and ideology has focused attention in new ways on the constructed settings of such practice, in both public and residential architecture. As rulers competed in the volatile Classic political landscape, they did so as conscious individual and group agents. They were constantly adjusting their strategies of gaining and maintaining power and authority in response to the resistance of competing elites and other individual and group interests within their society. Long-distance exchange networks, manipulation of dynastic history, lavish religious rituals, and status-reinforcing monuments and architecture were elements employed in their political struggles as individuals and as agents of subgroup or community interest. Palaces, as the principal sites for ritual and political events, were also among the instruments of power utilized by elites in their status rivalry with other rulers and their efforts to generate, consolidate, and legitimate their power and authority over their local and regional populations, courts, and vassals. For these reasons, palace architecture and geographical settings may re- flect the political strategies of the particular Classic city-state, dynasty, or ruler. Palaces were not casually constructed in the Maya world; they were carefully placed, constructed, and ornamented to reflect and reinforce conceptions of sacred authority (Christie 2003; Inomata and Houston 2001). Analyses of these palaces and their relation to cultural geography can help us to understand the varying strategies and bases of Maya royal power. In turn, these insights, together with other archaeological, paleoecological, and historical evidence, may help us to understand the protean nature of the Classic Maya state. Pasión River Palaces In this volume we are exploring the role of elite residences as instruments of power, not merely as areas of occupation. Such a perspective has been an active element of research design in the past ten consecutive seasons of Vanderbilt University projects in the western Petén (Figure 4.1), including the Petexbatun project from 1989 to 1994 (Demarest and Houston 1989; Demarest et al. 1992...

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