Classic Maya Provincial Politics: Xunantunich and Its Hinterlands

7. Shifting Political Dynamics as Seen from the Xunantunich Palace

c h a p t e r 7 Shifting Political Dynamics as Seen from the Xunantunich Palace Jason Yaeger a classic maya palace was much more than the residence of a city’s ruling family, as Peter Harrison (1970, 2001a) demonstrated in his landmark study of Tikal’s Central Acropolis. It also provided a venue for a variety of activities that were central to a polity’s administration and its ruler’s authority . In recognition of this broader array of activities, Takeshi Inomata and Stephen Houston (2001) argued that palaces be understood as royal courts, a term that refers both to the palace architectural complex and to the social group that surrounded a sovereign ruler and constituted the polity’s central decision-making and administrative personnel. In this chapter, I argue that the history of the palace complex organized around Xunantunich’s Plaza A-III (see fig. 7.1) yields important insights regarding the polity’s changing political organization and the shifting bases of authority and strategies of legitimation employed by its rulers.1 The evidence suggests two salient inflection points in the site’s political history: (1) the construction of the Plaza A-III palace complex early in the Hats’ Chaak phase and (2) the abandonment of most of that complex and the intentional destruction of Str. A-11, the ruler’s residence, later in that same phase. The Founding of the Xunantunich Palace Xunantunich’s early growth occurred within a political landscape dominated by sites with long histories (Ashmore, chapter 3). These sites were likely autonomous centers, deeply rooted in local social, political, and ideological structures (Ashmore, chapter 3; Leventhal and Ashmore 2004).2 In the Samal phase, Xunantunich was relatively small, and its modest architectural volume suggests that its rulers wielded considerably less power than their neighbors (Leventhal, chapter 4; also LeCount et al. 146 Jason yaeger 2002). The Hats’ Chaak phase marks a dramatic change, as the site’s rulers mobilized the manpower needed to greatly expand the site’s civic ceremonial core (Jamison, chapter 6; Leventhal, chapter 4; LeCount et al. 2002). This reorganization included the construction of a new palace complex at the site’s northern perimeter, an area of the Xunantunich ridge that seems to have been largely unoccupied since Preclassic times (Yaeger 1997).3 Plaza A-III constituted the heart of the palace. The masonry substructures of Strs. A-10 through A-13 demarcate the edges of this modestly proportioned plaza, roughly 35 m on a side. The plaza and the buildings that form the palace compound all sit on a massive basal platform that is elevated approximately 2 m above Plaza A-II. This basal platform was built as a single architectural unit, along with the substructures of Strs. A-11 and A-12, and probably Strs. A-10 and A-13 as well. Although modifications Excavated Area N 0 25m figure 7.1. Hypothetical reconstruction of the palace compound (shaded areas are unexcavated). Shifting Political Dynamics 147 to Str. A-11 did little to change the overall size or layout of the building, one significant renovation to the entire complex later in the Hats’ Chaak phase entailed raising the plaza floor some 20 cm, enlarging the footprint of the substructures of Strs. A-10, A-12, and A-13, and replacing the superstructures of Strs. A-12, A-13, and probably A-10. Three lines of argument lead me to infer that the initial construction of the Plaza A-III palace signals a transformation in Xunantunich’s political organization. First, the construction of the Plaza A-III palace permitted the relocation of Xunantunich’s ruling court, probably from the smaller and more isolated gallery and patio complexes on top of the Castillo acropolis (discussed in Leventhal, chapter 4). Indeed, the Plaza A-III complex was likely built specifically for that purpose. At many Classic Maya sites, the royal palace was used over centuries. At Copan, for example, the palace complex established by K’inich Yax K’uk’ Mo’ when he founded the polity’s royal line was used until the site’s abandonment four centuries later (Traxler 2003), although the residential sector may have shifted south as the palace grew crowded (Andrews et al. 2003). The royal palace at Palenque (Robertson 1985a, 1985b) provides another example. In these powerful polities, multigenerational use of the royal palace anchored each king’s authority within the polity’s count of rulers...