Classic Maya politics

The Classic Maya lived across a broad region in what is today the Yucatan Peninsula, the adjoining Mexican states of Tabasco and Chiapas, the nations of Guatemala and Belize, and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador (Figure 1). Until the Spanish Conquest, this region was never unified under a single empire but instead was divided into many small semi-autonomous kingdoms or city-states. During the Classic period (a.d. 250–900), Maya kingdoms were ruled by hereditary lineages that maintained unique local traditions, mythic origin stories, and deity cults. Yet these lineages also frequently interacted with their peers in other kingdoms: they intermarried, fought, exchanged, repeatedly made and broke alliances, and generally shared a courtly culture that included common political institutions, a writing system, and artistic conventions.

Figure 1.

Map of the Maya world, inset showing locations relevant to the Holmul Dancer theme.

Figure 1 Long description

The left map displays the Maya region, covering parts of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador. Key locations include Dzibanche, Calakmul, Tikal, Naranjo, and Caracol . The inset on the right provides a detailed view of the border region between Belize and Guatemala, highlighting specific sites such as Rio Azul, Holmul, Buenavista, Baking Pot, and Machaquila. Triangles mark significant archaeological sites, with a focus on the Holmul Dancer theme. Scale bars indicate distances of 200 km on the left map and 50 km on the right map. The maps use shading to represent elevation and terrain features, with a north arrow for orientation.

Over the course of the Classic period, certain kingdoms rose to special prominence. These kingdoms began to exercise dominance over their peers, reducing them to vassals, and establishing large hegemonic networks of allies and tributaries. These relations of overlordship can be reconstructed in the historical hieroglyphic texts that have been left to us on carved monuments, on ceramics, and in other media (Martin Reference Martin2020; Martin and Grube Reference Grube, Chase and Chase1994, Reference Martin and Grube1995, Reference Martin and Grube2008). One political title that appears in these inscriptions and that will be especially important in this article is kaloomte’. Starting in the fourth century, the first instances of this title were originally carried by individuals linked to the central Mexican city of Teotihuacan, especially rulers from Tikal who had a history of connections to that distant city (see Stuart Reference Stuart, Carrasco, Jones and Sessions2000; Stuart et al. Reference Stuart, Grube and Schele1989). The title gradually proliferated over time (see Martin Reference Martin2020:80–81). As they became more common, kaloomte’ office holders sometimes claimed directional dominion over the northern, eastern, and southern quadrants of the Maya world (Closs Reference Closs1988:14; Lacadena Reference Lacadena2005:67; Riese Reference Riese, Boone and Willey1988:Figure 5), while the title of western kaloomte’ retained its original association with Teotihuacan and with the lords of Tikal. By the eighth and ninth centuries—the period that interests us here—kaloomte’ referred to the most powerful rulers of all: those who knew no overlord.

For most of the Classic period, Maya politics were dominated by two mutually antagonistic royal lineages, each claiming the title kaloomte’. These included the rulers of Tikal, located in Peten, Guatemala; and Calakmul, located in southern Campeche, Mexico. The history of the Calakmul lineage is complex: the origins of this royal house reside in a different city entirely, that of Dzibanche in Quintana Roo, Mexico. The ancient name of Dzibanche was Kaanul, or “Place where Snakes Abound” (Lacadena and Wichmann Reference Lacadena and Wichmann2019; Velásquez García Reference Velásquez García and Nalda2004). By the sixth century, the lords of Dzibanche had established a far-reaching network of allies and vassals across the lowlands and claimed kaloomte’ status. Yet in the early seventh century, an internal conflict split this royal lineage in two, with one side removing itself and founding a new capital at Calakmul (Helmke and Awe Reference Helmke and Awe2016a; Helmke and Awe Reference Helmke and Jaime2016b; Martin Reference Martin2005; Tokovinine Reference Tokovinine2007). This breakaway group went on to be far more politically successful than the branch that remained at Dzibanche, and it continued to dominate the politics of the Maya world for about a century. The rulers of this breakaway Calakmul dynasty continued to claim the title of “Lord of the Place where Snakes Abound” (Kaanul Ajaw), while the less influential branch remaining at Dzibanche also continued to do the same (Velásquez García and Balanzario Granados Reference Velásquez García and Granados2024).

In the late eighth and ninth centuries, the Maya world saw a series of changes that culminated in the dramatic demographic decline of the southern lowlands. This “Maya collapse” has been one of the most hotly debated topics in Maya archaeology for over a century, and its ultimate cause or causes remain unknown. Unraveling those causes is challenging because changes came at different times in different places, but some overall trends are noteworthy. These include a rapid decline in the creation of monumental architecture, art, and inscriptions that began around a.d. 800 that Martin (Reference Martin2020:279–282) has called the “early ninth-century crisis,” paired with a much slower abandonment by the general population that took perhaps a hundred years.

This final century of the Classic period—the ninth century a.d.—is known as the Terminal Classic. The archaeology of the Terminal Classic is characterized not only by a population decline, but also by the introduction of new trends in art and architecture. Fine paste ceramics, a tradition that originated on the Gulf Coast, found their way into the interior and were then produced locally in the upper Usumacinta valley (Bishop et al. Reference Bishop, Sears and Blackman2005; Ek Reference Ek2016; LeMoine et al. Reference LeMoine, Halperin and Salas2022). Mold-decorated pottery also became popular across many sites in the southern lowlands (Helmke and Reents-Budet Reference Helmke and Reents-Budet2008; LeMoine et al. Reference LeMoine, Halperin and Salas2022). Round structure platforms—a feature possibly introduced from Yucatan—started to appear in Belize, eventually making their way westward into Peten, Guatemala as well (Awe et al. Reference Awe, Helmke, Hoggarth and Ebert2023; Chase and Chase Reference Chase and Chase1982; Harrison-Buck and McAnany Reference Harrison-Buck and McAnany2013; Martin Reference Martin2020:297–298). Finally, carved monuments indicate the introduction of foreign styles of grooming and dress by the middle of the ninth century (Carter Reference Carter2014; Just Reference Just2006, Reference Just2007; Martin Reference Martin2020).

Historical records from the Terminal Classic are sparse, but those that exist tell a remarkable story. The lords of Tikal commissioned their last “normal” monument in 810, a stela that was smashed to pieces not long after. By 820, the dynasty had removed itself to a defensive location outside of the capital (Martin Reference Martin, Garrison and Scherer2024). In the intervening time, the rulers of Naranjo and Caracol began to acknowledge a new overlord—a kaloomte’—based at the site of Ucanal (Carter Reference Carter2014:213–214; Grube Reference Grube, Chase and Chase1994:95; Martin Reference Martin2020:259–260). This overlord’s name, Papamalil, is foreign, possibly from the Chontal language of Gulf Coast Tabasco (Martin Reference Martin2020:295–296). Importantly, though this foreigner claimed the status of kaloomte’, he did not use the traditional titles of the Ucanal kings (Martin Reference Martin2020:260). The sudden subjugation of the southern lowlands’ most powerful dynasties to a foreign overlord resident at Ucanal suggest that sweeping changes were afoot at this time. In the decades that followed, Papamalil and other kaloomte’s with foreign names exerted their influence further and further west, subjugating the dynasties of Uaxactun, Nakum, Seibal, and eventually, the exiled lords of Tikal as well (Carter Reference Carter2014; Guenter Reference Guenter1999; Martin Reference Martin2020, Reference Martin, Garrison and Scherer2024).

These Terminal Classic developments point to significant influence from peoples beyond the southern Maya Lowlands—particularly people from Yucatan and/or the Gulf Coast. Such foreign influence has long been noted (Adams Reference Adams and Culbert1973; Sabloff Reference Sabloff and Culbert1973; e.g., Sabloff and Willey Reference Sabloff and Willey1967; Thompson Reference Thompson1970). Whether this influence and likely political dominance of foreign powerbrokers can be considered the ultimate cause of the eventual demographic collapse is still unresolved, and it is likely that these newcomers were filling a vacuum created by an already bad situation. The historical record of this period is useful because it allows us to time these developments more precisely than can be achieved with archaeological material alone. Though there is evidence of malaise in the form of abandoned building projects throughout the southern lowlands in the years leading up to 800, Martin (Reference Martin2020) dates the beginning of foreign political domination to sometime between 810, when the last normal Tikal monument was erected, and 817, when Caracol began acknowledging Papamalil as kaloomte’. The crisis of the early ninth century, he argues, was precipitated by watershed events that took place within that seven-year gap.

The Holmul Dancer theme on Maya ceramics is well positioned to shed light on the political situation during this crucial time for three reasons. First, this ceramic tradition is unique to eastern Peten and western Belize, the very region in which Papamalil began to assert his influence in the early ninth century. Second, the period in which Holmul Dancer ceramics were produced spans these same dates, with some of the vessels produced before and some during/after the ninth-century crisis. Finally, the Holmul Dancer theme represents a religious allegory for the office of kaloomte’, which was undergoing crucial changes in the early ninth century. As the Maya world underwent political upheaval, these changes were reflected in the changing iconography of Holmul Dancer vessels.

The Holmul Dancer theme: an introduction

Named for a set of painted vessels excavated at the Guatemalan site of Holmul (Merwin and Vallant Reference Merwin and Vallant1932), the Holmul Dancer theme is one of several iconographic genres depicting the Classic Maya maize god (see Taube Reference Taube and Fields1985). This all-important deity has a complex mythical cycle that includes death and resurrection, mimicking the life cycle of the maize plant. The Holmul Dancer theme shows the resurrected maize god, dancing in an elaborate costume and attended by water birds, dwarves, and/or attendants with hunched backs.

Michael Coe (Reference Coe1978:94–100) was the first to recognize this theme in Maya ceramics, which he called “the young lord.” Hellmuth (Reference Hellmuth1982) renamed the theme the “Holmul Dancer” and assembled other examples from both excavated and unprovenanced ceramics. Typically, this theme is represented on red-on-cream ceramics classified as Cabrito Cream Polychrome and Zacatal Cream Polychrome (Reference Ball, Taschek, Almada and SearsBall et al. in press; Callaghan and Neivens de Estrada Reference Callaghan and de Estrada2016:178–182; Reents Reference Reents1985; Reference Reents-Budet, Helmke, Bishop and SearsReents-Budet et al. in press). Yet Hellmuth also noted that the same iconographic elements are also occasionally present on other styles (see also Reference Ball, Taschek, Almada and SearsBall et al. in press). In her dissertation, Reents (Reference Reents1985) further expanded the list of examples and used neutron activation analysis to establish the potential workshop locations of similar Cabrito and Zacatal vessels. She proposed that the vessels were manufactured at both Holmul and Naranjo, but also cited examples excavated from a variety of sites on both sides of the Guatemala–Belize border. She also found additional examples of the theme on other ceramic styles and on carved stone monuments. The number of ceramics identified with the Holmul Dancer theme continues to expand, both in collections and from excavated examples (Fialko and Barrios Reference Fialko, Barrios, Arroyo, Salinas and Alvarez2016; Helmke Reference Helmke and Helmke2019a; Helmke and Kupprat Reference Helmke, Kupprat and Graña-Behrens2016; Helmke et al. Reference Helmke, Awe, Morton, Iannone, Golden, Houston and Skidmore2015, Reference Helmke, Polyukhovych, Reents-Budet and Bishop2017; Matteo and Krempel Reference Matteo and Krempel2020).

The Holmul Dancer theme can be distinguished from other iconographic renditions of the dancing maize god by its depiction of a complex assemblage on the maize god’s back called a backrack or, according to La Corona Panel 1, paat pik, “back clothing” in Classic Mayan (Canuto Reference Canuto2008; Zender Reference Zender2011) (Figure 2). This assemblage consists of a zoomorphic mountain. Rising vertically out of this mountain and then turning a 90-degree angle to form a roof is a band representing the sky, sometimes shown as the body of a celestial snake or eagle. In the niche formed between the mountain and the arching sky sits a creature whose identity varies from one maize god to the next. And perched on top of the sky band is a presiding bird, which also sometimes varies from example to example (Reents Reference Reents1985:93–94). Importantly, these backracks correspond to glyphic captions associating them with place names, (Coe Reference Coe1978:94–100). Each caption refers to the maize god’s “ascent” or “accession” at a specific political community, especially Tikal and Calakmul (Helmke Reference Helmke and Helmke2019a:136; Houston et al. Reference Houston, Stuart and Taube1992; Tokovinine Reference Tokovinine2013:116–118). Thus, each community had its own local maize god associated with a specific supernatural milpa, and the name of this supernatural milpa corresponded to the animal in the god’s backrack. These supernatural milpas always begin with the number six, followed by a descriptive term, and finished with the word nal meaning “corn,” “milpa,” and also by extension, “place” (Stuart and Houston Reference Stuart and Houston1994; Tokovinine Reference Tokovinine2013:9–10) For example, on the vessel K0633, the maize god of Tikal carries a small jaguar in his backrack (Figure 2). The accompanying caption reads, “it is the image of Maize [of the] Six Jaguar Milpa. He ascends at Tikal.” The maize god of Calakmul carries a creature with a snake’s head in his backrack, and the caption reads, “it is the image of Maize [of the] Six Sky Milpa. He ascends at Calakmul/Dzibanche (Kaanul).”

Figure 2.

Rollout of vessel K0633. Photograph by Justin Kerr. This and all subsequent Kerr images are from the Justin Kerr photographic collection, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC.

In light of these captions, we can think of the entire backrack assembly as constituting an elaborate place name (Houston et al. Reference Houston, Stuart and Taube1992; Reents Reference Reents1985; Reents-Budet Reference Reents-Budet and Fields1991), which is often reinforced through the glyphic captions. In fact, on some vessels, the zoomorphic mountains of the backracks are completely replaced by zoomorphic place glyphs: Tokovinine (Reference Tokovinine2013:119–120) describes this substitution on K4464—probably one of the first Holmul Dancer vessels ever made (Figure 3). Here, the animals in the backracks sit upon glyphic signs for MUT (Tikal) and WINAAK-MIH-[?] (“Twenty-Zero-[?]”), a historical/mythological place of origin here linked to the Calakmul dynasty. Another example of this pattern occurs on K3400. The Tikal place glyph is also incorporated into zoomorphic mountains on K4619 and K7434, while another place name also appears on K7434, which I will discuss in what follows.

Figure 3.

Rollout of vessel K4464. Zoomorphic place glyphs of Mut (Tikal) and Winaak Mih … (unknown location) appear in place of zoomorphic mountains at the base of each backrack. Photograph by Justin Kerr.

On carved monuments, rulers are sometimes depicted in the guise of the Tikal or the Calakmul dancing maize gods, employing the specific backrack appropriate for the ruler’s dynasty or overlord: Tikal affiliates with jaguars, Calakmul affiliates with snakes or saurian entities (Houston et al. Reference Houston, Stuart and Taube1992; Reents-Budet Reference Reents-Budet and Fields1991; Stuart Reference Stuart2015; Tokovinine Reference Tokovinine2013:118–119). This picture is complicated somewhat by the occasional depiction on monuments of the Snake backrack, rather than the expected jaguar backrack, being used by Tikal rulers. Tokovinine (Reference Tokovinine2013:119–120) argues that the “Twenty-Zero-[?]” place corresponding to the snake backrack was in fact claimed as a place of origin by both the Tikal and Calakmul dynasties. This would explain why this maize god was occasionally impersonated by Tikal lords.

The conflicts between the dynasties of Tikal and Calakmul/Dzibanche, and between rival factions within each of them, defined Classic period politics. Sometime probably during the reign of ruler K’ahk’ Tiliiw Chan Chahk of Naranjo, ceramic artists began placing these two dancing figures next to each other on the same vessel—an innovation not seen on carved monuments or other media, which only ever depict the one maize god costume and backrack appropriate for the dancer involved. While the earliest Holmul Dancer vessels were probably produced at Naranjo, many others were made elsewhere throughout northeastern Peten and western Belize. Some of these additional production centers were vassals of Naranjo, while others were not. There is evidence that vessels moved around between different communities, probably as gifts (LeCount Reference LeCount1996; Reents-Budet Reference Reents-Budet1994, Reference Reents-Budet1998). For example, K4464 was produced at Naranjo, yet excavated from Buenavista del Cayo in Belize (Taschek and Ball Reference Taschek and Ball1992). Such gift-giving probably facilitated the spread of this visual genre, as artist throughout the region sought to emulate the latest trends from Naranjo and other prestigious courts.

With the innovation of the Holmul Dancer theme—two or more maize gods shown together—these ceramic artists were depicting the political-cosmological order that structured Classic Maya geopolitics in general (see Martin Reference Martin2020:165–166) and those of Naranjo in particular. The rivalry between Calakmul/Dzibanche and Tikal had buffeted the Naranjo polity over its long history—a history too long to describe in this article. Suffice to say that previous Naranjo kings had variously intermarried with the Tikal royal lineage, supported the Calakmul/Dzibanche lineage, and suffered greatly when that lineage splintered. Though K’ahk’ Tiliiw Chan Chahk was an avowed vassal of Calakmul, he descended from Tikal rulers through his mother (Martin Reference Martin2020:166). The ceramic vessels produced by his artists represent this tortured history rather poignantly as a dance between two serene and complementary–opposing maize gods.

The geopolitical implications of these ceramics are made explicit in hieroglyphic captions that describe the backrack-wearing maize gods as acceding into the highest political office, kaloomte’, a title held only by the most senior paramount rulers of the most powerful dynasties. (As vassals of Calakmul, Naranjo rulers were not kaloomte’s, and therefore Naranjo artists never depicted the local Naranjo maize god as part of the Holmul Dancer theme.) The glyphic captions make it clear that the dancing maize gods represent archetypes of paramount lordship, offices that were associated only with specific powerful political communities. The link between the dancing maize gods and political office is reinforced by gods’ costume elements, which frequently include the paper headband of Maya lords and occasionally even include the Ux Yop Huun (“Three Leaf Paper”) headdress worn only by paramount rulers (Stuart Reference Stuart, Golden, Houston and Skidmore2012) (Figure 4).

Figure 4.

Detail of headdress assemblage on vessel K5976 showing paper headband and Ux Yop Huun headdress of royal authority. Photograph by Justin Kerr.

While the maize gods of Tikal and Calakmul were the most common ones depicted on Holmul Dancer ceramics, other maize gods also make an appearance. These include the Six Monkey Milpa of Machaquila and the Six Dog Milpa of Rio Azul among others (see Helmke and Kupprat Reference Helmke, Kupprat and Graña-Behrens2016). It is my contention that this proliferation of alternative maize gods is a chronologically late development, and that it reflects the geopolitical fragmentation of the early ninth century. As new kaloomte’ titleholders abounded, the Holmul Dancer ceramic tradition expanded to include them in its new geopolitical-cosmological scheme. Before I lay out the evidence supporting these arguments, however, I will introduce the data and methodology of the Dumbarton Oaks Kerr Archive project, and I will introduce a previously unpublished Holmul Dancer vessel that adds important new data to the corpus.

The Maya ceramic archives at Dumbarton Oaks

In 2013, Justin Kerr committed to donating his photograph archive to Dumbarton Oaks. This extensive archive contains approximately seventy thousand negatives, slides, transparencies, and prints taken by Justin Kerr of approximately ten thousand objects, mostly from the pre-Columbian Americas as well as archaeological sites and travel photography. The archive also contains logbooks and papers pertaining to the photographic material and to Justin Kerr’s scholarly interest in the ancient Maya, as well as a photographic record of his wife Barbara Kerr’s restoration of many of the objects photographed by her husband.

Prior to its arrival at Dumbarton Oaks, the Kerr Archive has had a long and important history for the academic study of ancient Maya art, iconography, and epigraphy. Kerr’s collaboration with Michael Coe on the catalog for the Grolier exhibition (Coe Reference Coe1973) both deepened his connections to the academic world and inspired him to develop rollout film photography of cylindrical Maya vessels. Kerr amassed a large corpus of these rollout photographs as well as “still” photographs of pre-Columbian ceramics and portable objects. This was made widely available via a self-published series, The Maya Vase Book (Kerr and Kerr Reference Kerr and Kerr (editors)1989–2000), and, when the Internet became available, in an online portal called Mayavase.com. The corpus became an essential resource for scholars of the Maya, contributing to the nascent field of Maya epigraphy and deepening our understanding of Maya iconographic conventions. In doing so, it also created a way for Maya scholars to refer to ceramics through the K-number system. This system evolved out of Kerr’s original invoice numbering for his commercial work and later became a unique four-digit designator for specific objects that he photographed.

Upon receiving the donation of the Kerr Archive, Dumbarton Oaks has embarked on an ambitious program to rescan the entire archive at high resolution (completed for approximately fifty-eight thousand photographs), to make them available on a new portal (in progress), to recatalog them using a new vocabulary based on the most recent academic research and finally, to provide readings of all hieroglyphic texts, a feature not available on Mayavase.com. As a postdoctoral fellow at Dumbarton Oaks, I undertook the development of the new iconographic vocabulary and the necessary digital tools to manage the vast quantities of data that the project began to generate. The most important of these tools is a FileMaker database called the Unified Kerr InfoBase or UKIB. While working to catalog the Kerr material, I also added numerous comparative examples to this database to aide in the consistency and accuracy of cataloging. These additional works have been assigned provisional U-numbers in the same tradition as the K-number system. While the U-number system may eventually change, it currently allows for the designation of unique objects that Justin Kerr never photographed.

One thing that has become very clear while working on this project is that the Kerr Archive still has secrets to share. High-resolution images provide details not previously visible on Mayavase.com. While the website usually only supplies one or two images of a vessel, the Kerr Archive frequently contains many more, including prerestoration images. In addition, there are many items that were never put up on Mayavase.com at all and therefore are only familiar to a small group of people. Finally, the documentation that has come with the archive—including annotations on the media themselves as well as the logbooks kept by Justin Kerr—provide crucial provenance information that will likely become important in the coming years.

While most of my postdoctoral fellowship was devoted to the Kerr Archive, Dumbarton Oaks also contains other significant photograph archives of pre-Columbian material. Most relevant here are the photographs of Maya ceramics taken by Nicholas Hellmuth. Though perhaps not as well known as Kerr’s work, Hellmuth’s photographic documentation was also extensive. In the 1970s, Dumbarton Oaks purchased a set of photographs of Maya ceramics from him, which were later organized by Dorie Reents-Budet, who assigned each vessel a unique archive number. The vessels in this archive partially overlap with the Kerr Archive, and many are shown in a prerestored state. In addition, in 2025, Nicholas Hellmuth donated to Dumbarton Oaks the much larger photograph archive of his nonprofit, the Foundation for Latin American Anthropological Research (FLAAR). Because this is a recent—and very large—donation, it will require a few years of archival processing before it is ready for the kind of cataloging that is currently in progress for the Kerr Archive. As I will describe later, however, some records from the FLAAR Archive proved very important in the research for this article.

The study and publication of this archival material—so much of it depicting objects that were looted—is of course controversial. By publishing looted antiquities, there is the potential to increase their commercial value and, in so doing, to drive further demand for newly looted pieces. For this reason, the initial publication of looted archaeological material is still discouraged in many academic archaeological journals. Conditions on the ground have improved, however. In an effort to curb new looting, many museums are taking provenance research seriously and committing to only acquire items that left their countries of origin prior to 1970. The public is also increasingly aware of the ethical issues surrounding pre-Columbian antiquities. In this new environment, by continuing to abstain from publishing looted works, we might passively allow their commercial value to increase, as they continue to pass from hand to hand on the art market. If, on the other hand, we shine a light on questionable object histories and reconstruct archaeological origins, we create the possibility for other outcomes beyond commercial sale. Vessel U0186 serves as a compelling example: archival research reveals vessel’s movement through the hands of a black-market smuggler in 1979. This, combined with comparative paleographic, iconographic, and archaeological data provides a preponderance of evidence that would support a legal repatriation claim on the part of the government of Belize.

The history of U0186

Among the images donated to Dumbarton Oaks in the Kerr Archive is a tranche of 29 slides that are labeled as “Lee Moore 1979.” These 29 slides represent four unique objects: two of them were later rephotographed and assigned the K-number designations K0555 and K5454. The third does not appear elsewhere in the Kerr Archive and was never assigned a K-number. But it does appear in the photographs that Dumbarton Oaks purchased from Nicholas Hellmuth, and it was published by Robicsek (Reference Robicsek1978:168, Plates 197–200). The fourth vase also lacks a K-number and represents an example of the Holmul Dancer theme. I have designated this vessel U0186 in the UKIB database.

Lee Moore was a notorious looter, smuggler, and dealer based in Florida. Hiding smuggled artifacts among his apparently legal orchid imports from Latin America, he was able to clear US customs with some of the best-known Maya ceramics today. Moore once told a reporter for the Tampa Bay Times, “I never smuggled orchids, I used the orchids to hide what I was really smuggling” (Pittman Reference Pittman2019). The journalist Susan Orlean (Reference Orlean1998) interviewed Lee Moore and his wife about their orchid import activities. Moore explains, “collecting the pre-Columbian art was so much easier [than importing orchids]. We started in about 1966 and it just…took off. We got started and then in a minute we were selling in Europe and Australia to all the top collectors” (p. 288). His wife adds, “we were making a fortune on the art. Millions! Lee had a Lincoln, no two Lincoln Continental cars! But you know, it was patrimony we were taking. It was illegal to take it out of the country of origin! We were outlaws!” (p. 289). The professional relationship between Moore and Kerr appears to have been minimal: Moore’s name only appears in the Kerr logbooks four times, indicating that he photographed for Moore on only four occasions. Yet none of these occasions corresponds to the four items in the tranche of 29 slides.

When I was unable to determine the K-numbers of two of the vessels in this 29-slide tranche, I realized that these slides likely were not taken by Justin Kerr at all but were probably taken by Lee Moore himself and then sent to Kerr. To confirm this hypothesis, I conducted an exhaustive search of Lee Moore photographs in Hellmuth’s recently donated FLAAR Archive. Shortly after the FLAAR acquisition, I had had the opportunity to interview Nicholas Hellmuth in Guatemala City. During that meeting, he made a point to tell me that the archive contained several boxes of photographs that were not taken by himself, but rather by Lee Moore, and had been sent to him unsolicited. I located 10 such boxes in the FLAAR material, all of which were labeled with Lee Moore’s name. They consist mostly of slides but also some negatives, 3 x 5 prints, and polaroids. In going through this material, I found duplicates of some of the slides that had been sent to Kerr, as well as additional slides and a polaroid taken at the same time (Table 1). One of these slides that was sent to Hellmuth was labeled “fine Holmul vase $14,000” (Figure 5).

Figure 5.

Two examples of the same view. Slide on the left labeled “Fine Holmul vase $14,000” was sent to Hellmuth, while the slide on the right labeled “L. Moore-143” in Coe’s handwriting was sent to Kerr. Kerr’s category label “Lee Moore 1979” appears on the right. Both slides are dated November 1979.

Table 1.

Views of vessel U0186 in media sent to Kerr and to Hellmuth. Note the overlap between views a, f, g, and h

Table 1 Long description

Three columns list each view and the identifiers for media sent to Kerr and to Hellmuth, with Hellmuth entries labeled as provisional archival location. View a lists Kerr_Slides_45_0007 and Hellmuth entries 7D2_2_4(2) and 7D2_2_4. Views b through e and i each list a Kerr_Slides identifier and have no entry under Sent to Hellmuth: b Kerr_Slides_45_0009, c Kerr_Slides_45_0005, d Kerr_Slides_45_0004, e Kerr_Slides_45_0003, and i Kerr_Slides_45_0029. Views f, g, and h have both Kerr and Hellmuth entries: f Kerr_Slides_45_0024 and 7D2_2_4(11), g Kerr_Slides_45_0001 and 7D2_2_4(10), and h Kerr_Slides_45_0002 and 7D2_2_4(9) plus 6G6_2, fine Holmul vase $14,000. Views j, k, and l have no Kerr entry and list only Hellmuth locations: j 7D2_2_4(6), 7D2_2_4(7), and 7D2_2_4(8); k 7D2_2_4(3), 7D2_2_4(4), and 7D2_2_4(5); and l Polaroid.

Upon the presentation of this archival material at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology (2026), I was surprised to learn from Mary Miller (personal communication) that she not only recognized the handwriting on the Kerr slide, but that this handwriting was Michael Coe’s. Coe’s role in this story is still somewhat unclear, but he seems to have received the slides before sending them to Kerr.

To summarize, this archival evidence all suggests that the vase was removed from its country of origin by Lee Moore in 1979 and that he sold it for $14,000. Slides and a polaroid of the vessel were later sent from Moore to Coe and thence on to Kerr; and from an unidentified associate of Moore to Hellmuth. Because the vase does not show up again in the Kerr Archive, Kerr likely never saw it in person and never assigned it a K-number. In spite of concerted efforts, I cannot find any publication history for this vessel, so its current location remains unknown. Furthermore, given the importance of its iconography and inscription, I believe that it also remains unknown to the scholarly community. It does not appear in Nicholas Hellmuth’s (Reference Hellmuth1982) manuscript on Holmul Dancer iconography or in Dorie Reents-Budet’s (Reference Reents1985) PhD dissertation covering the same theme. Nor does it appear in the Maya Hieroglyphic Database now overseen by Matthew Looper, which includes many pieces in museums and private collections (Looper and Macri Reference Looper and Macri1991). And I have been unable to locate it in auction catalogs. For all of these reasons, I believe the vase has likely been held in a private collection since its purchase in or around 1979. In light of Moore’s interview with Susan Orlean, the vessel might not even be in the United States but could also be in Europe or Australia.

As I will discuss later, an analysis of the vessel’s inscription points to an origin in western Belize. In 1971, Belize passed a law making the sale and export of pre-Columbian antiquities illegal without a permit, carrying a penalty of up to a $10,000 fine or five years’ imprisonment (Prott and O’Keefe Reference Prott and O’Keefe1988:19). The triumphant attitude of Moore and his wife in their interviews with Susan Orlean demonstrate that they knowingly flouted antiquities laws to obtain and smuggle antiquities.

The Holmul Dancer theme in the UKIB corpus

Vessel U0186 (Figure 6) is one of 58 Holmul Dancer vessels that I have assembled in the UKIB database (see Table 2). There are likely some that I have missed, especially fragmentary examples from archaeological excavations. In her dissertation, Reents (Reference Reents1985) also analyzes an example referred to as BNL 0375, of which I have been unable to find photographs or publication record and which I have therefore left out of the UKIB corpus. Six examples in UKIB do not actually depict the maize god and are therefore peripheral to the theme: five show only the maize god’s water bird companion, while a sixth shows only the maize god’s dwarf companion. The other 50 depict the maize god himself. Forty-three are rendered in the typical red-on-cream color palette of Cabrito Cream Polychrome and Zacatal Cream Polychrome: Cabrito Variety while seven are rendered in other ceramic styles, including one Pabellon molded-carved example (Hellmuth Reference Hellmuth1982:Figure 4).

Figure 6.

Rollout drawing of vessel U0186 by the author. Based on photographs by Lee Moore in the Justin Kerr and FLAAR Archives, Dumbarton Oaks.

Table 2.

Holmul Dancer vessels in the UKIB corpus, showing designations, associated sites, and repositories

Table 2 Long description

Columns give UKIB number, Additional Kerr number, Hellmuth Number, MS Number, BLN Number, Other designations, location from dedicatory text , Place of Excavation if known, and Current repository if known. Rows include K and U series identifiers from K0517 through K9113 and U0173 through U0199. Current repository is recorded for many entries, including Los Angeles County Museum of Art for K1698, K3400, K5976, K5977, K6002, K6679, and K7814, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for K0517, K0703, and K5723. Belize, Institute of Archaeology appears as current repository for K4464, U0191, U0192, U0194, U0198, and U0199, and Museo Nacional de Arqueologia y Etnologia appears for K5626, K5627, U0173, and U0193. Several entries list dedicatory associations with places in Guatemala, including Naranjo for K1304, K2085, K4464, K5447, U0173, and U0189, plus Ucanal for K1698, Chochkitam for K1837, and Ixtutz for K5356. Place of excavation is provided for some rows, including Buenavista, Belize for K4464, Holmul, Guatemala for K5447 and U0197, Rio Azul, Guatemala for K5626, Uaxactun, Guatemala for K5627, Xultun, Guatemala for K5976 and U0187, and multiple Belize sites such as Baking Pot, Cuychen, Cahal Pech, and Lower Dover. Other designation is filled for K4464 as Buenavista Vase, Jauncy Vase, and for U0194 as Cuychen Vase. Many cells are blank across the numbering and location columns, including several rows with no current repository listed.

All of the ceramic examples of the Holmul Dancer theme identified in the UKIB corpus date to the Late Classic (a.d. 600–800) and Terminal Classic (a.d. 800–900) periods. I will discuss their chronological development more fully in what follows. Where we can identify the sources of these vessels, they all come from locations close to the Guatemala–Belize border. Examples in the corpus were excavated archaeologically from five sites in Belize (Baking Pot, Buenavista, Cahal Pech, Cuychen, and Lower Dover), and from six sites in Guatemala (Holmul, Nakum, Naranjo, Rio Azul, Uaxactun, and Yaloch) (Audet and Awe Reference Audet, Awe, Awe, Morris, Jones and Helmke2005; Fialko and Barrios Reference Fialko, Barrios, Arroyo, Salinas and Alvarez2016; Gann Reference Gann1925:172; Helmke Reference Helmke and Helmke2019a, Reference Helmke and Helmke2019b; Helme and Kupprat Reference Helmke, Kupprat and Graña-Behrens2016; Helmke et al. Reference Helmke, Awe, Morton, Iannone, Golden, Houston and Skidmore2015, Reference Helmke, Polyukhovych, Reents-Budet and Bishop2017; Merwin and Vallant Reference Merwin and Vallant1932; Reents-Budet et al. Reference Reents-Budet, Bishop, Audet, Awe, Blackman, Awe, Morris, Jones and Helmke2005; Smith Reference Smith1955; Taschek and Ball Reference Taschek and Ball1992). Thirteen of the vessels carry hieroglyphic texts that allow them to be linked to rulers or dynasties from Buenavista, Chochkitam, Ixtutz, Naranjo, Rio Azul, Ucanal, and Xultun (Estrada-Belli and Tokovinine Reference Estrada-Belli and Tokovinine2022:726; Fialko and Barrios Reference Fialko, Barrios, Arroyo, Salinas and Alvarez2016; Helmke et al. Reference Helmke, Polyukhovych, Reents-Budet and Bishop2017; Looper and Macri Reference Looper and Macri1991; Matteo Reference Matteo2007; Matteo and Krempel Reference Matteo and Krempel2020; Reents-Budet Reference Reents-Budet1994:188, 360; Taschek and Ball Reference Taschek and Ball1992). The rim text of U0186 places it within western Belize and most likely from the site of Baking Pot.

The rim text of U0186

The rim text of U0186 is somewhat difficult to read because of the poor photography. The camera’s focal length appears to be trained along the edges of the vessel rather than in the center. Furthermore, the top of each glyph has undergone erosion and fading. To assist in interpreting the inscription, I employed the photograph enhancement software DStretch, developed by Jon Harmon originally for the enhancement of rock art photography (Figure 7). The enhanced color contrast provided by the program allowed me to read several glyphs more clearly and decipher their meaning (Table 3).

Figure 7.

Detail of vessel U0186 enhanced using DStretch software, YBK channel, View e. This glyph (H1) reads CHAK-ch’o-ko for chak ch’ok (“great youth”).

Table 3.

Reading of the rim text of U0186

Table 3 Long description

Four columns list glyph block, transliteration, transcription, and translation for entries labeled A1 through Q1. A1 gives transliteration a ALAY ya, transcription Alay, translation Here. B1 gives transliteration T’AB yi, transcription t’abay, translation it ascends or gets dedicated; C1 gives transliteration u tz’i bi ; D1 gives transliteration na ja la . Transcription and translation for C1 and D1 together are utz’ihbnajal, his painted thing. E1 gives transliteration yu k’i bi, transcription yuk’ib, translation his cup; F1 gives ti TE’, transcription ti followed by ixiim and tele, translation for maize tree; G1 gives ka wa, kakaw, chocolate. H1 gives CHAK ch’o ko, chak ch’ok, great youth; I1 gives the transliteration a followed by a missing sign then la tzi, transcription alaatz, with a translation shown as a question mark; J1 gives transliteration SAK NIK; K1 gives TE’ e; Transcription and Translation for J1 and K1 together are Sak Nikte, White Flower; L1 gives BAAH TUUN ni, baah tuun, head stone; M1 gives mu xi, Muxi with a reconstructed l, Broken; N1 gives BAAK ka, Baak, Bone. O1 gives 13 tz’i ki, uxlajuun tz’ik, thirteen with a question mark; P1 gives 6 ti ki li, wak tikil, one of six; Q1 gives e k’e followed by 6 then a missing sign then su li, ek’ wak? suul, stars, six with a question mark.

Rim texts on Maya vessels are typically quite formulaic and consist of a dedicatory self-referential “name tag” stating the vessel’s surface treatment, intended contents, and original owner. The rim text of U0186 is not unusual in this regard (Figure 8). Glyphs A1–G1 are all exactly as you would expect, opening with a dedication verb and a description of the vessel as a painted cup for the purposes of drinking cacao. Glyph H1 begins the owner’s name-title string with chak ch’ok, meaning “great youth.” Glyph I1 appears to spell a common, though still untranslatable, title alaatz, though there is room in the upper part of the glyph block for additional phonetic information. Glyphs J1–L1 give another title, Sak Nikte’ Baah Tuun, in other words, the “head stone” (baah tuun) associated with the location of Sak Nikte’ (“White Flower” aka “Plumeria”). Glyphs M1 and N1 give what is likely the personal name of the owner, probably Muxil Bak or “Broken Bone.” The ba-ka spelling of Bak “Bone,” as opposed to the more typical ba-ki, is consistent with a date in the mid-eighth century or later (Houston et al. Reference Houston, Stuart, Robertson and Wichmann2004:91–92). Glyphs O1–Q1 contain additional titles to which we will return presently. For the moment, however, let us examine some important features of the text so far.

Figure 8.

Drawing of full rim text of U0186. The text reads, alay t’abay utz’ihbnajal yuk’ib ti [ixiim] te’el kakaw chak ch’ok alaatz Sak Nikte’ baah tuun Muxil Baak uxlajuun tz’ik wak tikil ek’ wak? suul, “here it ascends [gets dedicated] his painted thing, his cup for [maize] tree cacao: great youth, [?], White Flower head stone, Broken Bone, thirteen [?], [one of] six stars, six [?]”.

There are two paleographic features that stand out in this text. The first, at C1, is a distinctive rendering of the syllable u on the left side of the glyph block (Figure 9a). The middle part of the glyph has been decorated with a bracket and two dots associated with bone markings. This unique feature was recognized by Helmke, Hoggarth et al. (Reference Helmke, Hoggarth and Awe2018:41–42) on two other vessels: K2730, first published by the Kerrs (Reference Kerr and Kerr (editors)1990) and the “Komkom vase,” a vessel excavated at Baking Pot, Belize between 2015 and 2016 that carries an important historical text.

Figure 9.

Paleographic features linking U0186 to other vessels. (a) u sign from U0186, K2730, and the “Komkom vase,” (b) diagonal dots on the xi sign from U0186 and the xi and u signs of the “Komkom vase.” Photographs of the Komkom vase provided courtesy of the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance (BVAR) Project.

The second paleographic feature also links U0186 to the Komkom vase: the scribe has rendered the xi syllable in block M1 (a skull with dots surrounding its eye) with an additional diagonal line of dots starting at the skull’s forehead and sloping back toward its ear, possibly representing some sort of beaded headband (Figure 9b). This feature is also found on the Komkom vase in the scribe’s rendering of the syllables xi and u (see Helmke, Hoggarth, et al. Reference Helmke, Hoggarth and Awe2018:30). These unique features suggest that all three vessels were made by the same artist or within the same scribal school.

If produced by the same artist or at least the same workshop, we can also surmise that the three vessels were created in roughly the same period of time. The Komkom vase gives important historical information about a series of conflicts that took place in a.d. 799 between Naranjo and its rival Yaxha, in which local Belizean sites participated. Yet the vessel itself was dedicated in a.d. 812 (Helmke, Hoggarth, et al. Reference Helmke, Hoggarth and Awe2018:24–25). This span of time is important: the early ninth-century crisis had not begun yet in 799, yet by 812, it was probably well underway. K2730 bears no obvious references to the crisis, yet the iconography of the dancing maize gods on U0186 points to changing geopolitics, as I will discuss.

Another similarity between these three vessels is the use of the place name Sak Nikte’. Readers may already be familiar with the more famous site of La Corona in western Peten, Guatemala, that also used this ancient name. Yet the Sak Nikte’ of U0186, K2730, and the Komkom vase must instead be a location in Belize. On the Komkom vase, the owner of the vessel is said to be a young lord from the court of Komkom, while his father held the same title and was from Sak Nikte’. Similarly, the owner of K2730 is said to be a young lord of Komkom but also from Sak Nikte’. The location of the Komkom court can now be identified with another Belizean site, that of Buenavista del Cayo, based on two artifacts that were excavated there: a vessel fragment with the title Komkom Ajaw or “lord of Komkom” (Houston et al. Reference Houston, Stuart and Taube1992), and a shell gorget recovered in 2015 from a tomb bearing the same title (Yaeger et al. Reference Yaeger, Brown, Helmke, Zender, Cap, Rodriquez and Batty2015).

This leaves open the question of the location of Sak Nikte’. Although the two place names appear together on K2730 and on the Komkom vase, they usually occur separately (Table 4). Importantly, in many of these inscriptions, people carry the titles of ajaw (“lord”) or k’uhul ajaw (“holy lord”) of Komkom, indicating that they are members of the Buenavista royal court. Yet Sak Nikte’ titles are more modest, consisting only of “he of Sak Nikte’” or “head stone of Sak Nikte’.” This suggests that Sak Nikte’ was home to noble—but not necessarily royal—lineages that were subject to Buenavista and that, by the end of the eighth century, at least two nobles from Sak Nikte’ were elevated to lordly positions within the Buenavista court. Though chemical sampling was unable to conclusively link the Komkom vase to Buenavista or Baking Pot (Reference Reents-Budet, Helmke, Bishop and SearsReents-Budet et al. in press), Reference Ball, Taschek, Almada and SearsBall et al. (in press) document the importation to Buenavista of bisque-fired ceramic “blanks” that were then painted locally, which complicates interpretation of chemical compositional analysis. Of the potential sites where U0186 might have been painted, used, and ultimately deposited in its archaeological context, Baking Pot remains the strongest candidate, given its similarities to the Komkom vase, which was found there. Thus, the unique paleographic features and use of the Sak Nikte’ placename allow us to place vessel U0186 in western Belize, probably at Baking Pot, in the early ninth century.

Returning now to the remainder of the rim text, we are left with three additional titles, each incorporating a number. Glyph block O1 reads uxlajuun (“thirteen”) tz’ik. Unfortunately, tz’ik is a unique term that cannot be currently translated. The second numerical title spans block P1 and the first half of Q1 and reads Wak tikil Ek’ or “Six Stars.” (Simon Martin, personal communication 2025.) Tikil is an optional numerical classifier for counting people, demonstrating that Ek’ “Stars” refers to human title-holders rather than celestial bodies. The epithet bears strong resemblance to that of Chan Ek’ (later Kan Ek’) “Four Stars,” which proliferated in inscriptions of the eighth and ninth centuries and would later become an historically important surname in the Colonial period. One such “Four Stars” person was probably the ruler of Ucanal and participated on the side of Naranjo during its conflicts in 799, later sending a subordinate to Seibal in 830 (see Helmke et al. Reference Helmke, Beliaev and Vepretskii2020:12–13). The inscription of U0186 raises the possibility that Chan Ek’ was just one among a larger group of at least six Ek’ people. Finally, the second half of glyph block Q1 remains difficult to read, but probably consists of another number, perhaps six, followed likely by the syllables su and li for suul. As pointed out by Christophe Helmke (personal communication 2025), this bears resemblance to the title u-2-su-lu or “second sul” found on Caracol Ballcourt Marker 3, dating to 803. Chase and colleagues (Reference Chase, Grube and Chase1991:6–7) cite a similar title for subordinate lords at Palenque, aj sul, suggesting that it is has the meaning of “dependent.” Though the difference between the synharmonic spelling su-lu at Caracol and Palenque differs from the disharmonic su-li on U0186, the numerical qualifier at Caracol does indeed suggest that these are similar titles.

Table 4.

Occurrences of the Komkom and Sak Nikte’ placenames

Table 4 Long description

Columns list Example, Date, Komkom, Sak Nikte, Context, and Citation, with an X marking where each placename occurs. Examples are listed in chronological order. Komkom is marked in five entries dated Early Classic, 696, 726, 731, and Late Classic, plus two entries dated 812 and probably around 812. Sak Nikte is marked in four entries dated Late Classic, 812, and two from probably around 812, including the vessel U0186. Two of these examples have both placenames present: Komkom Vase excavated at Baking Pot dated 812, and K2730 dated probably around 812. Context notes for Komkom include owners described as youths, Komkom lords, and a holy Komkom lord. Two Naranjo stela entries also describe wars against Komkom. Context notes for Sak Nikte include people described as he of Sak Nikte, youths, and a Baah Tuun from Sak Nikte. All rows have citations except that of the new Holmul-style vessel, U0186.

To summarize the complete rim text, this vessel was produced for the consumption of cacao and belonged to a young man named “Broken Bone.” He was an alaatz, a “head stone,” one of a group of 13 tz’ik, Six Stars, and six suul. And he was from a place called Sak Nikte’.

U0186 and the chronology of the Holmul Dancer ceramics

For most of the Holmul Dancer vessels in the UKIB corpus, it is impossible to pin down a precise date of manufacture, other than the Late Terminal Classic. Because of its similarities to the Komkom vase, which carries a date of 812, U0186 provides a valuable chronological point of reference. To these, we can add seven additional Holmul Dancer vessels for which we can narrow the chronological range based on style or glyphic texts (Table 5).

Table 5.

Chronology of datable Holmul Dancer vessels

Table 5 Long description

Columns list Vessel, Date Range, Evidence for date range, and Maize gods depicted. Rows cover eight vessels dated from 693 to 950. K4464 is dated 693 to 728 based on its textual reference to Kahk Tiliw Chan Chahk of Naranjo, with maize gods of Tikal and Calakmul. U0187 is dated mid 700s based on its textual reference to Yax Wen Chan Kinich of Xultun, with the Calakmul maize god depicted twice. K1304 is dated 755 to 780 based on its probable textual reference to Kahk Ukalaw Chan Chahk of Naranjo, with Tikal and Calakmul maize gods. K5447 is dated 780 to 785 based its textual reference to Bat Kawiil of Naranjo, with the Tikal maize god. U0189 and U0173 share the date range 784 to 814 and both name Itzam Kokaaj Muut Kawiil of Naranjo; U0189 depicts Tikal and Calakmul maize gods, while U0173 lists depicts Tikal, Machaquila, and Chak Ich’aak maize gods. U0186 is dated early 800s because it was made by the same artist as Komkom vase, and it depicts maize gods of Tikal, Rio Azul, and Yoyaan. K5021 is dated between 800 and 950 based on its Pabellon style , and it depicts the maize gods of Yoyaan and an unknown location.

What we can see from these datable examples is that all of the ones made prior to the ninth century depict only Tikal and Calakmul/Dzibanche maize gods. The reign of Itzam Kokaaj Muut K’awiil of Naranjo, who was alive during the early ninth-century crisis, provides an inflection point: one vessel keeps to this eighth century Tikal-Calakmul/Dzibanche scheme, while the other replaces the Calakmul dancer with two other maize gods. Similarly, U0186 depicts the maize god of Tikal but replaces Calakmul/Dzibanche with two different ones. K5021 is the single Pabellon modeled-carved example of the Holmul Dancer theme in the UKIB corpus. These vessels were produced only in the ninth and tenth centuries. Thus, we can almost certainly place this vessel chronologically after the ninth-century crisis, and it likely represents the latest Holmul Dancer vessel in the UKIB corpus. It is partially eroded, but one of its maize dancers matches that of one of these new figures on U0186.

It is my contention, therefore, that as Naranjo and other sites in its vicinity experienced the upheaval of the ninth-century crisis, Holmul Dancer ceramics changed, depicting the shifting political winds that buffeted the region. Vessels that show only Tikal and Calakmul/Dzibanche maize dancers, which I call the “eighth century pattern,” were probably produced before the early ninth century crisis, while those that include other maize dancers, or the “ninth-century pattern” were probably produced during or after the crisis. As we will examine next, Machaquila and Rio Azul rise in stature. So do Chak Ich’aak and Yoyoon, locations previously so insignificant as to be unmentioned in hieroglyphic texts.

Original hegemons: The iconography of Tikal and Calakmul/Dzibanche on the Holmul Dancer vessels

Assisted by the images available in the Kerr Archive and in other Dumbarton Oaks collections, we are in a position to examine the Holmul Dancer theme with fresh eyes, starting with the original hegemons of Tikal and Calakmul/Dzibanche (see Table 6). The corpus contains 26 examples of the Tikal-affiliated Six Jaguar Milpa maize dancer. U0186 is one of them (see Figure 10). Its glyphic caption for the Tikal maize dancer is unremarkable and reads ubaah Ixiim Wak Hix Nal tahn ch’een Mutul, “it is the image of Maize of Six Jaguar Milpa [at] the city of Tikal” (Table 7). The god, assisted by a dwarf, wears a typical backrack of a zoomorphic mountain, bent sky band, and jaguar in the niche formed between them.

Figure 10.

Six Jaguar Milpa maize god of Tikal as depicted on U0186, with glyphic caption. The text reads: ubaah Juun Ixiim Wak Hix Nal tahn ch’een Mut, “it is the image of One Maize [of] Six Jaguar Milpa in the city of Tikal”.

Table 6.

Iconographic patterns in Holmul Dancer vessels

Table 6 Long description

Rows list vessel examples and their corresponding iconographic pattern, whether eighth or ninth century, with columns marking presence of Jaguar, Serpent, Dog, Monkey, Duck billed Wind God, Coati, Bird, Macaw, Gopher, Rat, and Unknown maize gods. Eighth century rows include K4464, U0187, K1304, K5447, U0189, K0517, K0703, K1038, K3388, K3400, K5723, K6002, K6679, K7720, K8190, K8966, K9113, U0185, U0191, and U0196, and marks appear only under Jaguar and Serpent, plus Unknown for U0196. Jaguar marks in the eighth century include entries such as X, X2, and one entry with a question mark, and several specify presiding birds in parentheses including Yax Kokaaj Muut and Sak Kuy O. Serpent marks in the eighth century include X and X2, with several specifying vulture in parentheses and some specifying Yax Kokaaj Muut in parentheses, including one entry with a question mark before the mark. Rows of the ninth century pattern include U0173, U0186, K5021, K0633, K4619, K4989, K5123, K5169, K5356, K5626, K5976, K5977, K7434, K7814, K8088, K8533, U0188, U0194, U0195, and U0197, and marks appear across multiple columns including Jaguar and Serpent and beyond. Jaguar is marked for U0173, U0186, K0663, K4619, K5626, K5976, K5977, K7434, K7814, K8088, U0188, and U0194 with some dog entries specifying Sak Kuy O or Yax Kokaaj Muut in parentheses. Serpent is marked for K0633, K7814, and U0194 with two entries specifying Yax Kokaaj Muut in parentheses. Dog is marked for U0186, K4619, K5626, U0194, K8533, and for K5356 and U0197 with question marks, with some dog entries specifying Sak Kuy O or Yax Kokaaj Muut in parentheses and one specifying obsidian beaked bird in parentheses. Monkey is marked for U0173, K0633, K5976, K7814, K8088, and U0188, each specifying Yax Kokaaj Muut in parentheses. Duck billed Wind God is marked for U0186 with a note about fusion with Yax Kokaaj Muut, and for K5021 with X2. Coati is marked for U0173, K7434, and U0195, with parentheses specifying Yax Kokaaj Muut or Sak Kuy O. Bird is marked for K4989 as hummingbird, for K5123 as Yax Kokaaj Muut, and for K5169 as X. Macaw is marked only for K7814, gopher only for K5169, and rat only for U0197 as vulture. Unknown is marked for K5021, K4989, K5356, K8533, and U0195, with some specifying vulture or Yax Kokaaj Muut in parentheses.

Note: Presiding birds shown in parentheses. Modified and updated from Helmke and Kupprat (Reference Helmke, Kupprat and Graña-Behrens2016:Table 2).

Table 7.

Caption to the Tikal maize god on U0186

Table 7 Long description

Columns are Glyph Block, Transliteration, Transcription, and Translation for five entries labeled S1 through S5. S1 lists transliteration, u-BAAH, transcription, ubaah, and translation, It is the image of. S2 lists IXIIM, Ixiim, and Maize of. S3 lists 6-HIX-NAL, Wak Hix Nal, and Six Jaguar Milpa. S4 lists TAN-CH’EEN-na, tahn ch’een, and in the city of. S5 lists MUT-tu, Mut, and Tikal.

A “presiding bird” perches on top of the sky band on U0186. In her dissertation, Reents (Reference Reents1985:93–94) noticed that “iconographically different birds are found surmounting each of the dancers’ backracks, one for each dancer. However, these two ‘presiding birds’ share iconographic elements which identify both avians as different renditions of the Principal Bird Deity.” Apart from this observation, little attention has been paid to the identities of the “presiding birds” in the Holmul Dancer theme. On U0186, the presiding bird of the Six Jaguar Milpa has the features of an owl and wears around his neck the “death-eye-collar” typical of sinister supernatural wahy creatures. These attributes make the bird identifiable as a character elsewhere called Sak Kuy O’ or “White Owl” (Luin Reference Luin2014:74–75). Thus, in contrast to Reent’s assertion, the presiding bird differs substantially from the Principal Bird Deity, whose name was probably Yax Kokaaj Muut “First Harpy Eagle Bird” (Martin Reference Martin, Golden, Houston and Skidmore2015:209). Sak Kuy O’ was associated with the underworld, while Yax Kokaaj Muut was a sky deity. The placement of Sak Kuy O’ with the Tikal-affiliated Six Jaguar Milpa maize god is repeated on other vessels and likely stems from the fact that jaguars and owls are both nocturnal and were considered dangerous and underworldly. Of all the examples of the Tikal-affiliated maize dancer, 10 depict the presiding bird as Sak Kuy O’, while 13 instead depict Yax Kokaaj Muut.

Meanwhile, there are 19 examples of the Calakmul-affiliated Six Sky Milpa maize god. In five of these, the presiding bird is Yax Kokaaj Muut. But in seven cases, a different bird—one with vulture attributes—is depicted. This pattern demonstrates that while the Principal Bird Deity may have been the “default” bird for maize dancers, artists could also choose to specify unique birds for each maize god. When they did so, the appropriate bird for Tikal was Sak Kuy O’, and the appropriate bird for Calakmul was the vulture (Figure 11). Sak Kuy O’ never appears with Calakmul-affiliated maize dancers, nor does the vulture ever appear with Tikal ones. When artists eventually introduced depictions of maize dancers of other kingdoms, they sometimes reused these birds in new contexts. Sometimes, however, they introduced new birds to complement this proliferation of cosmological/geopolitical milpas.

Figure 11.

Common presiding birds on Holmul Dancer vessels. (a) The default bird, Yax Kokaaj Muut as depicted on K0633, (b) Sak Kuy O’ as depicted on K8966, (c) a vulture bird depicted on K8966.

Even after artists began to introduce new maize gods to the Holmul Dancer vessels, the traditional hegemons of Tikal and Calakmul/Dzibanche did not disappear. The UKIB corpus contains 18 examples of vessels of this “ninth-century pattern,” and 12 of them depict a recognizable Tikal maize dancer. In contrast, the Calakmul maize dancer appears only three times on vessels of the ninth-century pattern. This distribution probably reflects the political stature of these two once-powerful dynasties in the ninth century. Martin (Reference Martin, Garrison and Scherer2024) demonstrates that sometime between 810 and 820, the Tikal ruling dynasty experienced a crisis and moved its capital to the defensive location of Zacpeten. From there, its rulers continued to claim the title of kaloomte’ as evidenced by Altar 1, carved in 830. This claim to political independence would disappear in the following decades, when the royal house moved again to Ixlu and then to Jimbal—less defensible locations—and started expressing fealty to the foreign powerbrokers evident in inscriptions from other sites. But in the early years of the ninth century, the Tikal dynasty’s continued political independence and claims to kaloomte’ status likely made a strong impression on the artists who produced Holmul Dancer ceramics.

The Calakmul dynasty, in contrast, seems to have struggled or disappeared, a precipitous decline from its seventh- and early eighth-century hegemony. When Calakmul’s fortunes declined in the mid-eighth century, references to the “lords of the Place where Snakes Abound” disappeared from the historical record (Martin Reference Martin2005). The three Holmul Dancer vessels of the ninth-century pattern that continue to make reference to the Six Sky Milpa maize god’s ascension as kaloomte’ might be referring either to the now diminished Calakmul, to the origin of the dynasty at Dzibanche, or perhaps simply gesturing to the former glory of this now declined royal house.

New ninth-century maize dancers

In the early ninth century, Holmul Dancer vessels began to include references to additional maize dancers beyond the original hegemons of Tikal and Calakmul/Dzibanche. These include maize dancers of Rio Azul, Machaquila, and the still unidentified locations of Yoyoon and Chak Ich’aak.

Rio Azul. The second maize dancer on U0186 is assisted by an attendant wearing attributes and wings of a heron (Figure 12). The backrack of this maize god features a dog and is therefore recognizable from other examples as that of Rio Azul (Helmke Reference Helmke and Helmke2019a). The presiding bird at the top of the backrack is unusual, however. Though attributes such as a large human nose and square eyes resemble features of the anthropomorphic version of Yax Kokaaj Muut, this bird’s beak has an odd upward curl possibly meant to depict an obsidian blade. I have identified a total of nine examples of the Six Dog Milpa maize god of Rio Azul in the UKIB corpus, making it the third most common maize dancer after Tikal and Calakmul. One of these (K5626) was found at Rio Azul itself (Adams Reference Adams1999:88–89). Artists seem ambivalent about what is the appropriate presiding bird for this deity. Apart from the unusual example on U0186, three others depict Sak Kuy O’, more typically associated with Tikal, while three instead depict the “default bird,” Yax Kokaaj Muut.

Figure 12.

Six Dog Milpa maize god of Rio Azul as depicted on U0186, with glyphic caption. The text reads: ubaah Juun Ixiim Wak Ok Nal naahil kaloomte’ Ux Haab Te’, “it is the image of One Maize [of] Six Dog Milpa, the first kaloomte’ of Rio Azul”.

Three examples—U0186, K5626, and U0194—carry explicit textual labels linking the Six Dog Milpa maize god to the site of Rio Azul (Adams Reference Adams1999:88–89; Helmke Reference Helmke and Helmke2019a:133–134). On U0194 (the Cuychen Vase), the text reads ubaah Ixiim Wak Ok Nal kalaawte’ Ux Haab Te’, “it is the image of Maize [of] Six Dog Milpa; he becomes a kaloomte’ at Rio Azul” (Helmke Reference Helmke and Helmke2019a:133; Helmke and Kupprat Reference Helmke, Kupprat and Graña-Behrens2016:65–68). On U0186, the caption is similar, but with one significant extra detail: ubaah Ixiim Wak Ok Nal naahil kaloomte’ Ux Haab Te’, “it is the image of Maize [of] Six Dog Milpa, the first kaloomte’ of Rio Azul” (Table 8). Thus, the text gives Rio Azul a primary position among all kaloomte’ title-holders. This seeming ninth-century elevation is swift and unprecedented: neither Rio Azul’s own monuments nor anyone else’s had attributed the kaloomte’ title to Rio Azul lords previously.

Table 8.

Caption to the Rio Azul maize god on U0186

Table 8 Long description

Columns are Glyph Block, Transliteration, Transcription, and Translation for six entries labeled R1 through R6. R1 lists transliteration u BAAH, transcription ubaah, translation It is the image of. R2 lists IXIIM, Ixiim, Maize of. R3 lists 6 OK NAL, Wak Ok Nal, Six Dog Milpa. R4 gives NAAH ji li, naahil, first. R5 gives KALOOM TE’, Kaloomte’, kaloomte’. R6 gives 3 HAAB TE’, Ux Haab Te’, of Rio Azul.

Is the archaeological record of Rio Azul consistent with its status as a polity with no overlord during the early ninth century? It is difficult to say at the moment. Excavations at Rio Azul were overseen by Richard Adams in the 1980s and 1990s (Adams Reference Adams1999) and, starting in 2022, by Carlos Morales-Aguilar (Morales Aguilar and Valdez Reference Morales Aguilar, Fred, Carlos and Fred2024). Both projects report the discovery of Terminal Classic ceramics, including fine pastes as well as imported and locally produced modeled-carved wares (Adams and Jackson-Adams Reference Adams, Jackson-Adams and Adams2000; Perla Barrera Reference Perla Barrera, Carlos and Valdez2024). It is also possible that the dynastic seat of the Rio Azul lords moved to the fortified site of Kinal, about twelve kilometers away, at some point during the eighth or ninth century, though the site lacks carved monuments (Adams Reference Adams1999:178–179). If so, it would present a similar pattern to the lords of Tikal removing to the more defensible Zacpeten. Adams (Reference Adams1999:181) argues that Rio Azul was raided around 840, as evidenced by burned buildings, looted burials, and smashed polychrome ceramics. This episode was accompanied by the introduction of foreign traits, especially “a small four-sided platform with tenoned serpent heads at the top of balustraded stairways…in the middle of the largest paved plaza at the site” (Reference Adams1999:182). Given the proposed changes to the ceramic chronology of the site (Perla Barrera Reference Perla Barrera, Carlos and Valdez2024:283–284), however, the exact timing of these developments is still unclear.

Machaquila. After Rio Azul, the next most popular ninth-century maize dancer was Six Monkey Milpa of Machaquila. I have identified six examples of this maize dancer. All six of them depict the “default” presiding bird, Yax Kokaaj Muut. Two glyphic captions (K0633 and U0173) explicitly link this maize god to Machaquila (see Figure 2). The dynasty of Machaquila enjoyed considerable political success during the early ninth century. Having been politically subject to nearby Cancuen for five years, Machaquila became independent once again in 799, at which point its ruler seems to have adopted kaloomte’ not only as a title but as a personal name, while his successor claims the same title on a monument dedicated in 816 (Just Reference Just2006; Martin Reference Martin2020:287–288). The dynasty continued to commission monuments, which took on more foreign traits only after 835 (Martin Reference Martin2020:288). Thus, the early ninth-century depiction of Machaquila maize dancers as kaloomte’s does indeed reflect the site’s historical record of the time, in which it threw off outside domination and its kings claimed kaloomte’ status.

Yoyoon. The final maize dancer on U0186 is assisted by an attendant with a hunched back (Figure 13). The backrack’s niche contains an avian creature with a distinctive “duck bill,” making it identifiable as the “duck-billed wind god.” The full name of this deity is still undeciphered but he was often referred to as ik’ k’uh or “wind god,” and was likely the Classic Maya equivalent of the later Mexican deity Ehecatl (Stuart et al. Reference Stuart, Houston and Robertson1999). On the San Bartolo murals, the duck-billed wind god interacts with Yax Kokaaj Muut, calling him down from the heavens as part of a longer mythical cycle (Taube Reference Taube, LeFort, Gardiol, Matteo and Helmke2009). The presiding bird on U0186 is unusual: an avian with the distinctive beak of the duck-billed wind god.

Figure 13.

Six [Wind God] Milpa maize god of Yoyoon as depicted on U0186, with glyphic caption. The text reads: ubaah Juun Ixiim Wak [?] Nal tahn ch’een Yoyoon, “it is the image of Maize of Six [?] Milpa in the city of Yoyoon”.

The glyphic caption to this maize god reads ubaah Ixiim Wak [?] Nal tahn ch’een Yoyoon, “it is the image of Maize of Six [?] Milpa in the city of Yoyoon” (Table 9). The unidentified middle element to the maize god’s name is a glyph that similarly depicts a face with pursed, blowing lips (T1009), appropriate for the wind god. In most cases, this glyph serves as the syllable ho, though here, the context suggests that it functioned as a logogram for the name of the wind god, possibly with the reading HOP meaning “to blow on a fire” (Beliaev et al. Reference Beliaev, Davletshin, Veperetskii, Breton, Ruiz, Graham, Hammond, Helmke, Kettunen and Lorenzo2018). The place name with which the maize god is associated, Yoyoon, or possibly Yoyan (spelled yo-yo-na) is otherwise unknown in Maya inscriptions. Yet its appearance on this vessel, alongside Tikal and Rio Azul, suggests that the artist viewed this location as quite geopolitically significant. One anonymous reviewer raises the possibility that this is a phonetic spelling of a polity spelled partially logographically on Naranjo Stela 46, though in that instance it has previously been interpreted to read yo-be and serve as part of the personal name of a ruler from a different kingdom (Helmke, Guenter, et al. Reference Helmke, Guenter and Phillip2018:126–126; Martin et al. Reference Martin, Tokovinine, Treffel, Fialko, Bárbara Arroyo and Alvarez2017:672).

Table 9.

Caption to the Yoyoon maize god on U0186

Table 9 Long description

Columns are Glyph Block, Transliteration, Transcription, and Translation for five entries labeled T1 through T5. T1 lists transliteration, u-BAAH, transcription, ubaah, and translation, It is the image of. T2 lists transliteration, IXIIM, Ixiim, Maize of. T3 lists 6-[T1009]-NAL, Wak [?] Nal, and Six [Wind God] Milpa. T4 lists TAN-CH’EEN-na, tahn ch’een, and in the city of. T5 lists yo-yo-na, Yoyoon, and Yoyoon.

As it turns out, though the inscription is unique, the duck-billed wind god makes an appearance on another vessel, K5021, the only Pabellon modeled-carved Holmul Dancer vessel (Figure 14). As is typical of Pabellon pottery, the vessel is barrel-shaped with a pedestal vase. It shows two versions of the same scene, which is helpful because of the poor state of preservation. In each scene, two maize dancers with backracks face each other. The left maize dancer is unfortunately eroded beyond identification in both scenes. Yet the one on the right features an anthropomorphic creature whose duck-billed mouth is clearly visible in one of the scenes. The “presiding bird” of the other scene is also well enough preserved to discern its duck-like bill as well.

Figure 14.

Rollout of vessel K5021. Notice the duck-billed wind god in the niche of both right-hand backracks and the duck-billed bird presiding over each. Photograph by Justin Kerr.

Chak Ich’aak. Three vessels (K7434, U0173, and U0195) depict a hairy creature that some have proposed is a peccary (Helmke and Kupprat Reference Helmke, Kupprat and Graña-Behrens2016:67; Martin Reference Martin2020:166) (Figure 15). I believe it is in fact a coati based on its tail on U0173, its trefoil ear on U0195, and the lack of hoofs that are typical of peccaries. A drawing of this latter vessel was published by Reents (Reference Reents1985) but I found photographs of it while scouring the Lee Moore boxes sent to the FLAAR Archive. The coati maize god is paired with Yax Kokaaj Muut in two examples, and with Sak Kuy O’ on K7434.

Figure 15.

A possible coati backrack depicted on K7434, U0173, and U0195. Photographs by Justin Kerr, the author, and Lee Moore, respectively. Note the glyphic elements of the place name Chak Ich’aak “Red Claw” on the zoomorphic mountain at the base of the coati backrack on K7434.

None of these three examples carries a glyphic caption. Yet K7434 may offer a clue to the geographical affiliation of this maize god: like vessels K3400 and K4464 discussed earlier, both of the maize dancers depicted on K7434 carry backracks whose zoomorphic mountains have been embellished with elements of their glyphic place names. The zoomorphic mountain of the Tikal-affiliated dancer has a bound headband that resembles the bound MUT glyph of the Tikal place name. On the other hand, the pendulous nose of the other zoomorphic mountain—the one associated with the coati—terminates in the shape of an open paw, illustrating the head variant of the glyph ICH’AAK (“claw”) (see Figure 15 [a]). The nose is also decorated with semicircular red marks, possibly meant to give the phonetic reading CHAK (“red”) (see Stone and Zender Reference Zender2011:124–125). This suggests that the place name associated with the Coati maize god was called Chak Ich’aak (“Red Claw”). Just as with Yoyoon, this kingdom is otherwise unknown in hieroglyphic inscriptions, so we cannot currently identify its location on the landscape.

Significant others. A handful of other maize god variants can be identified in the UKIB corpus. On U0197, a vessel excavated at Holmul, a maize dancer wears a rat in his backrack, with the vulture as the presiding bird. The other maize dancer in the same scene is that of Rio Azul. Although both dancers have glyphic captions, they are partially pseudoglphic (illegible) and do not reveal the location of the rat maize dancer. K5169 is a vase executed in a style dissimilar to that of most Holmul Dancer vessels, though I cannot determine its color palette since the only image I have is in black-and-white. One of its maize dancers carries a gopher on its back, while the other carries a bird (Figure 16). Neither of them has presiding birds nor glyphic captions. Another unidentified bird appears on K4989, where its presiding bird appears to be a unique example of a hummingbird (Figure 17a); and another is depicted on K5123 where Yax Kokaaj Muut presides (Figure 17b). Whether these three bird backracks are all intended to identify the same maize god or different ones remains unclear. Finally, K7814 depicts a maize dancer whose backrack is eroded beyond recognition. The god has a hieroglyphic caption, however. In the image of this vessel published on Mayavase.com, this caption has been overpainted to disguise damage. Prerestoration images in the Kerr Archive, however, suggest that the name of this maize god was Wak Mo’ Nal or “Six Macaw Milpa,” though no place name is provided (Figure 18). While none of these additional maize dancers are provided with glyphic texts that might tell us where they are from, this bevy of characters implies a further fracturing of political authority among southern lowland communities.

Figure 16.

Rollout of vessel K5169. This vessel is executed in a style dissimilar from most Holmul Dancer vessels. Note the bird (left) and gopher (right) in the two backracks. Photograph by Justin Kerr.

Figure 17.

Unidentified birds. (13a) detail of vessel K4989. Note the unusual presiding hummingbird. Photograph by Justin Kerr. (13b) detail of vessel K5123. This vessel is also executed in an unusual style. Photograph by Nicholas Hellmuth. Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC.

Figure 18.

Detail of vessel K7814 reading ubaah Juun Ixiim Wak Mo’ Nal or “it is the image of One Maize [of] Six Macaw Milpa.” Prerestoration photograph by Justin Kerr.