According to our reconstruction of the sociopolitics of tenth-century Chichen Itza, the polity was ruled by a paramount king who identified himself with the sun. A high priest, the second-ranking figure, stood by the king's side. A political and military elite, with an S-shaped serpent as its emblem, shared power with these top figures. Finally, the whole community of warriors was treated as a collective corps with important religious and political responsibilities. The iconography of the Temple of the Wall Panels depicts the initiation of jaguar knights by a warrior figure designated as Serpent Jaguar. The same individual, also represented and designated on the slab covering the cache buried in the upper temple, was assisted or controlled by personages who ranked above him. The panels illustrate the destiny of the jaguar-warriors after their glorious death, first as they accompany the rising sun and, later, as they transform themselves into birds. This interpretation appears very close to the destiny of the dead Aztec warriors as recounted by Sahagún and other chroniclers. The butterfly/bird theme, associated with warriors, indicates that similar beliefs were current at Teotihuacan. The Temple of the Wall Panels, too small to be a telpochcalli was probably a house used by warriors, as indicated by its images and its distinctive architecture, which are shared at the same site by the Temple of the Warriors.

Between 1980 and 1995, two new hypotheses disrupted our archaeological and art historical conceptions on Chichen Itza. Rejecting the traditional view of an Early Postclassic “New Chichen,” also called “Toltec-Maya,” following a Puuc Terminal Classic “Old Chichen.” It was claimed that the many cultural differences observed at the site were not due to the passage of time but to other factors, such as function. While some scholars advocated a total overlap model (Lincoln Reference Lincoln1990), many others favored a partial overlap of varying importance. Following the identification of a glyph by David Stuart (in a 1988 letter to Maya epigraphers), some scholars further suggested that Chichen Itza had not been ruled by divine kingship but by a joint rulership or multepal type of government (Schele and Freidel Reference Schele and Freidel1990; Grube Reference Grube and Prem1994).

After many debates, both private and public, most Mayanists felt that more work was needed to resolve these discrepancies. A surge of activity then ensued: archaeologists, ceramicists, art historians, and epigraphers dedicated much time and effort to Chichen Itza. At the same time, added work was undertaken on Tula, with the hope of making inroads into the thorny subject of the Chichen-Tula relationships.

A recent volume brings forth syntheses written by the major actors in these new developments (Kowalski and Kristan-Graham Reference Kowalski and Kristan-Graham2007). Rejecting the total overlap model proposed by Lincoln (Reference Lincoln1990), most scholars now agree that “the incorporation of foreign groups at Chichen Itza was a gradual process that began sometime after a.d. 800 and did not necessarily involve conquest” (Kowalski and Kristan-Graham Reference Kowalski and Kristan-Graham2007:10). Inscriptions on public monuments and the reign of K'ak'upakal coincide with the early Sotuta ceramic facet. While the authors of the Twin Tollans volume may disagree on the respective chronological placement of individual structures (Cobos Reference Cobos, Kowalski and Kristan-Graham2007; Bey and Ringle Reference Bey, Ringle, Kowalski and Kristan-Graham2007), they concur in placing the construction of the Northern Terrace (also called Northern Group, Great Terrace, or Gran Nivelación) coeval with Late Sotuta ceramics, beginning just after a.d. 900 and lasting tentatively until the end of the tenth century (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Monumental center of Chichen Itza, showing the Northern Terrace and some “Old Chichen” buildings.

The multepal hypothesis, based on an insecure reading of the y-itaaj hieroglyph as “sibling,” has been discarded. Today, it is agreed that the inscriptions at Chichen Itza cover a short span of 58 years, from a.d. 832 (Temple of the Hieroglyphic Jambs) to a.d. 890 on Stela 2 (Grube and Krochock Reference Grube, Krochock, Kowalski and Kristan-Graham2007). The pillar from the Osario is the only later exception with a date of a.d. 998 (Graña-Behrens et al. Reference Graña-Behrens, Prager and Wagner1999). A large share of this epigraphic activity belongs to the reign of K'ak'upakal with the first mention of his name in a.d. 869 in the Casa Colorada texts and the last mention in a.d. 890 on Stela 2 (Grube and Krochock Reference Grube, Krochock, Kowalski and Kristan-Graham2007:229). K'ak'upakal's brother, whose name is read today K'inilkopol, seems to have played an important political role at the king's side, according to the inscriptions on the Temple of the Initial Series and the Temple of the Four Lintels (dated a.d. 878 and a.d. 881, respectively). Grube and Krochock (Reference Grube, Krochock, Kowalski and Kristan-Graham2007), while sensing that K'inilkopol was of lesser rank than K'ak'upakal, admit that the inscriptions do not give “clear indications of the hierarchy between the two brothers” (Grube and Krochock Reference Grube, Krochock, Kowalski and Kristan-Graham2007:240). Besides the above two persons, “there are many other nominal phrases referring to real people at three monuments situated at the small outlying sites of Halakal and Yula” (Grube and Krochock Reference Grube, Krochock, Kowalski and Kristan-Graham2007:228).

Breaking with a very long Maya tradition of royal portraits on stelae and other monuments, the political figures of the second half of the ninth century, while having their names mentioned in inscriptions carved on the buildings of “Old Chichen,” did not leave portraits of themselves. Even in the absence of writing in the tenth century, the successors of K'ak'upakal may also have avoided portraiture. Rulers, at Chichen Itza as well as at Teotihuacan, may not have felt the need to perpetuate their image on carvings or paintings.

The main purpose of this paper is to show that during the tenth century, the Mexicanization of Chichen Itza increased dramatically, as demonstrated by the Temple of the Wall Panels, a building probably dating from that time. Based on the analysis of its iconography, we propose that the Maya of Chichen Itza had military schools where they taught an ideology very close to the Aztec beliefs reported by the Spanish chroniclers of the sixteenth century. But since our paper deals with sociopolitics, a domain in which scholarly opinions do not yet converge, we believe it necessary, before entering into the heart of the matter, to state our positions on the subject and the arguments on which these are founded. We wish to show that tenth-century Chichen Itza was ruled by a paramount king who identified himself as the sun; that a high priest, probably the second-ranking figure in the state, stood by the king's side; that a political and military elite, with an S-shaped serpent as its emblem, shared power with these top figures; and, finally, that the whole community of warriors was treated as a collective corps sharing religious as well as political responsibilities.

THE SUN DISK MAN: CELESTIAL BODY OR POLITICAL FIGURE?

The sun, figured as a human warrior in front of a spiked disk, is engraved on the top of some piers in the Northwest Colonnade (Tozzer Reference Tozzer1957:Figure 274). The anthropomorphic figure, whose lower body is hidden by the half-disk, is seen diving or flying over the standing personage who takes up most of the carved pillar's surface. It represents the sun, for its attitude is that of a celestial body and also because it appears very similar to the Mexican sun deity Tonatiuh (Figure 3). The central figure of the north panel in the Temple of the Wall Panels appears as a variant of these images: a human figure—a sun disk framing its head—is flying or floating through the air (Figure 2b).

Figure 2.

The sun disk man at Chichen Itza: (a) Temple of the Wall Panels, detail of the south panel; (b) detail of the north panel; (c) Upper Temple of the Jaguars, carved wooden lintel of the inner doorway (after Maudslay 1889–1902, vol. 3:Plate 35a); (d) Detail from the northwest mural; (e) Detail from the southwest mural.

Figure 3.

The sun disk man motif elsewhere: (a) Palenque, House A, Medallion 5 (after Robertson Reference Robertson1985, vol. 3:Figure 124b); (b) Codex Borgia 71, detail; (c) Codex Vienna 23, detail.

In the Upper Temple of the Jaguars (UTJ), the man in the sun disk is much more sophisticated. Inscribed within a complete spiked disk, he is shown seated on a jaguar throne or kneeling; he holds atlatl and darts and wears a multirowed jade collar; a small butterfly mask adorns his forehead (Figure 2c). An elaborate speech scroll, in serpent form, issues from his mouth. Considering the chronological and geographical distance between Chichen Itza and the Aztecs of central Mexico, the resemblances between the Chichen man in the sun disk and the central Mexican Tonatiuh are intriguing (Figure 3b). However, a Classic Maya version of this icon can be seen at Palenque, with the 13 stucco medallions decorating House A and composing a gallery of royal portraits (Robertson Reference Robertson1985:25–31). Every medallion consists of a human bust placed at the center of a circular cartouche forming a k'in glyph, from which four skeletal serpent heads radiate (Figure 3a).

The man in the sun disk appears several times on the murals of the UTJ inner room. Coggins (Coggins and Shane Reference Coggins and Shane1984) has suggested that the paintings (recorded by Adela Breton at the beginning of the twentieth century) were determined by the daily cycle of the sun and the related cycle of Venus; according to this author, the warriors on most scenes would compete for these two celestial bodies, ending with the victory of Venus over the sun. According to Milbrath (Reference Milbrath1999:183, 196; Reference Milbrath, Rubio and Gubler2008) the eight-part division relates to eight years in the Venus cycle, and the warfare iconography relates to a series of battles conducted by Chichen Itza against neighboring polities, timed in accord with Venus events taking place during the dry season, the season of warfare.

One cannot deny that the presence of the sun in different positions on most murals suggests that each mural is part of a whole story, more allegorical than historical; however, since four murals out of seven have lost more than 50% of their paintings, a convincing reconstruction of the whole may turn out to be an impossible task. We agree, however, that on these murals the sun disk figure is the star-sun and not the image of a king or a “captain.”

On the northwest and southwest murals, the icon appears at the top of a vertical construction and towers above the landscape. On the former example (Figure 2d), four stylized serpent heads—a mixture of the Maya zip monster and the later Aztec xiuhcoatl—radiate from the disk, recalling the serpent heads radiating from the Palenque medallions. A very similar image can be seen on page 23 of the Codex Vienna where it stands for the primordial sunrise (Figure 3c) (Anders, Jansen, and Pérez Jiménez Reference Anders, Jansen and Pérez Jiménez1992). On the southwest mural, the best preserved of the UTJ murals, two or three rows of houses can be seen at the top (background) and another row of huts at the base (foreground) of the composition (Coggins and Shane Reference Coggins and Shane1984). The warriors in between are not fighting as suggested by Anderson (Reference Anderson, Robertson and Fields1994) but perform on a plaza a war dance in celebration of the rising sun (Figure 2e). The scene recalls the dead Aztec warriors welcoming the sun as it rises: the brave warriors who died in war “met the sun as it emerged, brought it forth, came giving cries for it, came gladdening it, came skirmishing” (Sahagún Reference Sahagún, Dibble and Anderson1956–1982, VI:162). Miller (Reference Miller and Hammond1977) recognized in the Adela Breton watercolors two major warrior figures that he named Captain Sun Disk and Captain Serpent, supposedly representing the leaders of hostile armies. However, no mural shows such antagonism; two of them (northeast and southeast) do not include any of these “captains” while some murals include several Captain Serpents (southwest and south).

The sun-disk figure is depicted on the three visible sides of the carved wood lintel above the inner door of the temple (Figure 2c). He is facing another warrior whose emblem is a feathered S-shaped serpent behind him. The two figures are neither antagonistic nor equals; the serpent-man places his atlatl on his left shoulder, a respectful or submissive gesture. Coggins and Shane (Reference Coggins and Shane1984) wrongly state that both figures hold their atlatls across their chests. Only the serpent man makes this gesture to show his respect toward a superior. In Maya art, the submissive gesture is used to state ranking. Coggins, following Miller, sees on the lintel Captain Serpent and Captain Sun Disk “in peaceful confrontation” (Coggins and Shane Reference Coggins and Shane1984). We do not see any evidence of war leaders or of confrontation but a gesture of submission toward a superior. Here the sun disk figure, shown on the same ground and same level as his vis-à-vis, might represent a man—the sun king. As epigraphy (the k'inich title) and iconography (Baudez Reference Baudez, Boone and Willey1988, Reference Baudez2004) indicate, Classic Maya kings were likened to the sun. Therefore, a Mexicanized solar metaphor, using a spiked disk as an emblem, would not be alien to Maya ideology. The offering between the two figures is a cuauhxicalli, a sacrificial vessel (identified by the eagle feathers decorating the vessel's exterior rim) filled with human hearts. The Chichen Itza cuauhxicallis can be compared to analogs at Tula that contain hearts and lancets (Tozzer Reference Tozzer1957:Figure 676).

The man in the sun disk on the upper register of the south panel of the Temple of the Wall Panels is seated on the same bench as the serpent man he faces and another serpent man sitting behind him, therefore indicating that he is not a supernatural figure but a real human being (Figure 2a).

A similar icon is placed at the top of the west wall in the Lower Temple of the Jaguars (Maudslay Reference Maudslay1889–1901, III:Plate 50); it occupies a central position above a serpent man, who is himself above the main personage of the building. The sun disk figure is level with the group of warriors he is facing, very much like the serpent man who meets warriors on the register below. They both look like living persons and the sun disk man, very probably, represents the ruler. We reach a similar conclusion about the sun disk man surrounded by 17 small standing figures, from the lintel of the Castillo north doorway.

After this survey of sun disk figures that might pretend to be king images, we must confess that the results are thin. Without being iconoclasts, the Chichen rulers were not especially interested in leaving their portraits to posterity. But again, this discretion cannot be taken as indicating the absence of a paramount king. In fact, it can be assumed that only a paramount ruler could have held together such a complex, stratified, and cosmopolitan society. Who but he could have had the authority to control the “powerful lineages …which had previously enjoyed greater political independence and autonomy as lords of their own domains”? (Kowalski Reference Kowalski and Prem2003:237). Who but such a figure could have ordered the construction of such an imposing building as the Castillo?

THE JADE-SKIRTED PRIESTLY FIGURE

We suggest that the existence of a high priest, second only to the king, can be found in the Great Ball Court complex. We agree with most of Linnea Wren's analysis of the iconography of the Great Ball Court North Temple. She interprets the carvings of its southern vault as depicting the rituals surrounding the death of “an elite individual, possibly a ruler,” and those of the northern wall as showing the accession of his successor (Wren and Schmidt Reference Wren, Schmidt and Culbert1991:215). “Visits to sacred shrines after investiture” are illustrated on the northern vault while the east and west walls tell of additional festivities and rites, among them a ball game followed by decapitation (Wren and Schmidt Reference Wren, Schmidt and Culbert1991, Figures 9–11). In another article (Wren Reference Wren, Robertson and Fields1994), she describes, in the north wall's basal band, a huge recumbent figure flanked by small bacabs and vines that indicate that this figure is lying within the earth. Two serpents, with a flint knife in place of their tongues, emerge from his belly (Figure 4a). He wears a long robe sown with perforated chalchihuitls that Wren compares with the garment, also covered with jade disks, worn by the acceding figure in the center of the north wall.

Figure 4.

The jade-skirted figure: (a) Great Ball Court North Temple, detail of the north wall; (b) Roll-out detail of a column (after Seler Reference Seler1990–1998, vol. 6:100, Figure 182); (c) Upper Temple of the Jaguars, wall painting above the inner doorway; (d) detail from a Late Classic cylindrical vase (K6547).

On the base of the round columns at the entrance of the same temple, the recumbent jade-skirted figure may be seen twice below the two earth monster masks on which stand two human figures. The jade-skirted individual appears clearly as a man—with nose rod, ear plugs, bead necklace, and bracelets; a single serpent springs from his belly (Figure 4b). The pilasters of the temple also have a partly recumbent jade-skirted figure carved on their base below an earth monster mask from which plants sprout. Since the prismatic pillars of the South Temple also display at their base this same figure (here squatting), we assume that the whole Ball Court was built to celebrate the succession to the same deceased personage. Finally, a recumbent jade-robed figure was painted twice in the UTJ. It appears once above the lintel of its inner door (Figure 4c) below the remains of the decorated vault—a scene of human sacrifice, preceded by captors leading their captives to the altar. The figure appears a second time in the basal band under the two personages standing on the east wall, opposite the entrance (Coggins and Shane Reference Coggins and Shane1984:159). As Ringle (Reference Ringle2004:196) demonstrated, the same individuals are depicted on the table bench from the UTJ (Schele and Mathews Reference Schele and Mathews1998:Figure 6.38). We propose that these much-defaced figures are the same individuals that we see at the center of the north wall of the North Temple (WrenReference Wren, Robertson and Fields1994:Figure 3): to the left, the newly elected high priest would be standing, with his fanlike feathered crest and panache; and to the right, the serpent man who, in the North Temple, is seated—with a three-feathered headdress. The human sacrifice scene that remains on the UTJ vault probably represents part of accession rituals similar to those illustrated on the North Temple.

Coggins sees the jade-robbed figure as “Mother Earth” (Coggins and ShaneReference Coggins and Shane1984:Figure 202). Taube (Reference Taube and Prem1994:216) agrees, seeing a relation between the serpents issued from the belly of the figure and the myth of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca who transform themselves into serpents to tear apart the earth monster. For Schele and Mathews (Reference Schele and Mathews1998:236), it is the sacrificed maize god. Milbrath (Reference Milbrath, Rubio and Gubler2008) interprets it as a goddess, or two aspects of Venus or the Milky Way. Wren (Reference Wren, Robertson and Fields1994) identifies it as “a goddess associated with water and fertility,” and does not carry further her observation that the central figure of the north wall and the personage lying underground are wearing similar jade costumes. We think, however, that the similarity in costumes is a sign of close relationship and suggest that the north wall central individual is succeeding to the post held by the deceased figure.

Ringle (Reference Ringle2004:174) also sees a connection between the two personages but sees in them Quetzalcoatl incarnations: “The supine figure is perhaps identifiable as the deceased Quetzalcoatl or deceased king-as-Quetzalcoatl.” On a drawing by Adela Breton, published for the first time by Ringle (Reference Ringle2004, Figure 36a), the lower body of the central figure is eroded; it is then likely that this individual was wearing, like the buried figure, a robe and not the jacket drawn by other artists.

We question the interpretation of the recumbent figure as a fertility or earth goddess, arguing that the Aztec goddess Chalchiuhtlicue, whose name means “the one with the jade skirt,” is a deity of terrestrial waters who is never shown lying in the underworld. At Chichen Itza, the earth is most often represented in the Maya tradition as a frontal mask (Tozzer Reference Tozzer1957:Figures 336–343, 345) or as a serpent head with upper and lower jaws aligned (Lothrop Reference Lothrop1952:Figure16) or as a cauac monster with bacabs emerging from its sides and a young figure sprouting from its upper cleft (Tozzer Reference Tozzer1957:Figure 346). Few examples are known of an upside-down Tlaltecuhtli-like mask (Lothrop Reference Lothrop1952:Figures 41, 42). There are no examples of a “Mother Earth” or any impersonator of the earth as an anthropomorphic figure lying supine. On the other hand, many Classic Maya stelae show captives lying underground under the ruler's feet. There is also on a Late Classic Maya engraved bowl, kept at Berlin (K 6547), an example of a skeleton lying supine underground, level with a water frieze (Figure 4d).

We think that the jade garment is a priestly costume. In the Temple of the Chac Mool (Kowalski Reference Kowalski, Kowalski and Kristan-Graham2007:265, 271–273, Figure 13), one can see benches for members of a royal council. The first three figures painted on the south bench are identified as priests, for they are presenting offerings in bowls. They wear long skirts adorned with perforated jade elements sewn on it. Similar figures stand on the pillars of the same temple (Pillar 4) and on some of the Northwest Colonnade (Robertson Reference Robertson and Prem1994:Figure 4.). We then suggest that the individual, lying supine within the basal band of the North Temple and elsewhere, is also a priest and a high priest at that because of his relative size and the importance of the buildings where he is depicted.

Based on the iconography of the buildings associated with the Great Ball Court we suggest that the successors of K'ak'upakal shared power with an important political and religious figure, probably corresponding to the ninth-century K'inilkopol. Lincoln (Reference Lincoln and Prem1994) also proposed a dual division of power at Chichen Itza, pairing Miller's “Captain Sun Disk,” an image of K'ak'upakal, with “Captain Serpent,” associated with K'uk'ulkan. The pair would be an equivalent of the external and internal rulers of Aztec Tenochtitlan, the Tlatoani and the Cihuacoatl. However, we cannot accept this hypothesis since it is founded on the pair constructed by Miller (Reference Miller and Hammond1977) that we do not recognize.

We suggest that the Great Ball Court was built to celebrate the accession of a new high priest, since his buried predecessor is depicted several times in the North Temple and the South Temple. This hypothesis is strengthened by the observation that the ball game is “part of the initiation ritual” (Ringle Reference Ringle2004:174) as the decapitated player on the east wall of the North Temple shows. The lateral structures may have preexisted the new ball court, forming an E Group (or astronomical observatory) because of the presence of three diminutive structures on their top which could have been used as markers for sighting sunrises and sunsets (Maudslay Reference Maudslay1889–1901, III:Plate 26). Archaeoastronomers will tell us whether this hypothesis can be seriously considered or if it should be dropped.

As a court to play ball, it features a good number of anomalies that led Merle Greene Robertson (Reference Robertson, van Bussel, van Dongen and Leyenaar1991:109) to think that “the actual game may never have been played in the Great Ball Court.” If the court presents the expected I-shape, its colossal dimensions (167 × 70 m) are truly exceptional. Passing the ball through the stone rings, even with the use of hands, would have been “a feat deemed next to impossible” considering that the rings are set ten meters high on vertical walls that are set back three meters from the top of the sloping carved benches. The low-relief decoration includes six sets of fourteen figures each. Every set shows processions of individuals approaching from opposite directions—a central decapitation scene. We do not recognize in the costume and outfit of the human figures the usual elements that make us identify ball (tlachtli) players. They do not have yugos, hachas, or palmas (Robertson Reference Robertson, van Bussel, van Dongen and Leyenaar1991:109), but they do have belts supporting big sticks; we are unable to explain why the men do not wear the same footwear on both feet, how they use of their stick (a bat, perhaps) and their handstone, or why both teams have their knee pads on the same right side. Assuming they are ball players, we do not know what kind of game they are playing: are they using their hips, their hands, their protected foot, a stick? It is as if they were not actual players but actors in some allegory of the ball game and other rituals. This concept is not entirely new. Earlier (i.e., ninth-century) ball courts at Chichen Itza offer the same iconography with standing figures on both sides of a decapitation scene: the Casa Colorada ball court and the Monjas ball court (Bolles Reference Bolles1977:77–80; Robertson Reference Robertson and Prem1994:Figure 11; Krochock and Freidel Reference Krochock, Freidel and Prem1994). In the Monjas court, the actors also display different footwear. The iconography of the Mercado ball court appears different: there, processions of individuals leading captives converge toward a central scene composed of a serpent man wielding a bent stick in front of an individual holding a flaming censer (Krochock and Freidel Reference Krochock, Freidel and Prem1994:Figure 14). The latter authors, using epigraphic as well as iconographic arguments, suggest that the ball courts at Chichen Itza were open to additional ritual activities such as “the parading of captives, human sacrifices and fire ceremonialism” (Krochock and Freidel Reference Krochock, Freidel and Prem1994: 369).

Building the UTJ destroyed the diminutive construction that could have been used as a southeastern marker in the E-group observatory, making sunrise sightings impossible. The UTJ orientation was also new. We consider this building to be a monument celebrating the anniversary of the high priest succession since his buried predecessor is depicted twice—and since the central scene of the enthronement from the North Temple is reproduced on its East mural, as we will see later.

THE SERPENT MAN FIGURE

Described as Captain Serpent by Miller (Reference Miller and Hammond1977) and Coggins (Coggins and Shane Reference Coggins and Shane1984) this figure is a rather frequent icon at Chichen Itza. While he may be the only one of his kind in a given image, several serpent men are often seen together. Therefore the S-serpent does not qualify an individual person (K’ uk’ ulkan or Quetzalcoatl) but members of a social group. On the lintel of the UTJ we see one of them paying his respect to the sun disk figure (Figure 2c), and on the murals of the same temple several serpent men are leading warriors to battle or to the war dance. We recognize two serpent men on the central and privileged axis of the north wall of the North Temple: one of them is seated in front of the newly designated priest, who is standing; the seated men around them are not warriors but rather members of some council (Wren Reference Wren, Robertson and Fields1994:Figure 3). In the register above, another serpent man, carrying weapons this time, stands leading a group of five warriors. Close to him, framed by a knotted serpent forming a sort of cartouche, an important figure floats in the air; as his jaguar throne and his serpent speech scroll indicate, he is probably an ancestor who patronizes the ceremonies. Serpent men are the only actors of the scene carved on the dais of the Northwest Colonnade: as if they were the only personages allowed to let their blood, they form two files that converge toward a bowl where autosacrificial implements are planted (Morris et al. Reference Morris, Charlot and Morris1931). On the dais of the Mercado, the main figure is a serpent man, dressed in an eagle costume, who tramples on two victims and is ready to execute the tied captives who walk toward him (Ruppert Reference Ruppert1943:Figure 23). We will see that several serpent men play a role in the Temple of the Wall Panels: they appear as major figures superior to everyone but the king.

The inner decoration of the Lower Temple of the Jaguars (LTJ) shows that, while pertaining to the same class, all serpent men do not pretend to be equal. The structure is a small, vaulted room built against the eastern side of the Temple of the Jaguars. The inner walls and vaults were covered with painted low-reliefs; at the time of Maudslay's visit, most of the northern half of the building and its sculptures were rather well preserved, in opposition to the much-ruined southern half. Since then, the Mexican government has reconstructed the temple. The carved walls are divided into three registers (not including the basal band), and the vaults into two (Maudslay Reference Maudslay1889–1901, III:Plates 44–51). As on the north wall of the North Temple, two lines of men meet at the center of each register from opposite directions; it seems that the most important people come from the south and are aligned along a central vertical axis. From top to bottom, we recognize a sun king, a serpent man, a masked serpent man whose body extends over two registers, and a “fish-man.” The masked man, placed exactly at the center of the composition, outclasses the others through the exceptional size of the feathered serpent placed behind him; his costume, which includes a round pectoral and a feather cape; and the gifts or tribute he receives. These include a sub-globular vessel or basket at his feet and oblong objects held by the two people in front of him. It seems that each of these objects is composed of three scaly, supple parts like reptile or fish skins.

The masked man is also the dominating figure for catching the attention of the people surrounding him: the first two or three individuals of each file in the first register raise their heads towards him while those of the third register lower theirs. The jaguar throne at the entrance of the structure was probably his. This man appears as a serpent man superior to his fellow serpent men. The crowd around him is much more diverse than that depicted on the North Temple, and some appear to be strangers, notably the men carrying harpoons on the first register—maybe coastal people.

Ringle (Reference Ringle2004) suggested that serpent men were “associated with the Quetzalcoatl cult.” While this is possible, there are cases when the S-serpent appears as a general emblem conferring sacredness and importance to the action. For instance, in the UTJ and the Temple of the Warriors, a feathered S-serpent rises above a scene of human sacrifice. Does sacrifice have anything to do with Quetzalcoatl, or is the serpent conferring a sacred quality to the rite? Some serpents display hooks attached to their bodies instead of feathers, (the serpent-man at the top of the LTJ inside decoration), evoking the clouds of the deity Mixcoatl. Do we have serpent men associated with a Mixcoatl, Quetzalcoatl's father cult? What is the meaning of plain S-serpents without feathers or hooks that rise behind bacabs (Maudslay 1889–1902, III:Plate 43c)? Chichen Itza iconography is replete with signs that would need a detailed contextual analysis to understand them: serpent heads, more or less stylized, some like zip monsters, others like jewel serpents (Maudslay Reference Maudslay1889–1901, III:Plate 51c); undulating forms, serpents, or flames radiating from the body of important individuals (the new high priest from the North Temple, the masked man from the LTJ, the right figure painted on the back wall of the UTJ). The vines, water lilies, and other plants that rise from a decapitation scene (the Ball Court frieze), an offering or tribute (the masked man in LTJ), are probably fertility icons. The earth monster with vines issuing from its eyes (the UTJ lintel) is a more developed fertility figure that comes out of a water frieze.

THE WARRIORS

Warrior images are ubiquitous at Chichen Itza. Even if they ranked fourth in the Chichen Itza political hierarchy, they are the kingdom's elite and are not standing on the lowest steps of the social scale: those who do are never represented on public monuments. Many warriors are individualized through their costume, mask, or weapons—besides the iconic signs or glyphs that supposedly give information on their name or lineage (Kristan-Graham Reference Kristan-Graham1989). At the same time, the Chichen Itza warriors are shown forming a real corps and not a simple collection of individuals sharing the same office. The new colonnaded halls in the North terrace were built not to shelter popolna (or council houses), but thousands of warriors. The pillars of the Northwest Colonnade, far from being “a multiple stela” format (Kowalski Reference Kowalski, Kowalski and Kristan-Graham2007:268), present images that draw their meaning more from the context of neighboring pillars than from the images carved on the same stone. The warriors participate in a vast mise en scène where the outfit, the place, the orientation of each one give their meaning to the whole composition (Morris et al.Reference Morris, Charlot and Morris1931:269; Baudez Reference Baudez2004). This is also true for the other corps, still badly defined, of masked “sorcerers” and unarmed “dignitaries.”

The warriors considered their mission to be a sacred one and felt honored to belong to the most important class of citizens. This is what they were taught in school, at least. We propose that the iconography of the Temple of the Wall Panels illustrates the training of young warriors in colleges in which they were taught an ideology very close to the one taught in the Aztec telpochcalli (military college). War was conceived as a collective sacrifice to the benefit of the sun, and the warriors could expect a reward only after their glorious death.

THE TEMPLE OF THE WALL PANELS

At Chichen Itza, the Temple of the Wall Panels, between Las Monjas and the Caracol, was excavated in 1927 by archaeologists from the Carnegie Institution. Originally, as Ruppert (Reference Ruppert1931) noted, its distinctive architecture and orientation reproduce, at a smaller scale, those of the Temple of the Warriors. Both constructions may have been contemporaneous—that is later than a.d. 900. The Temple of the Wall Panels, devoid of any inscriptions, is located in the center of “Old Chichen” among earlier constructions such as Akab Dzib, Las Monjas, Caracol, and Casa Colorada, which include hieroglyphic texts. On its western façade, the two-room temple presented two serpent columns flanking its door; at its corners were stacked masks of the earth monster, and silhouetted elements (almenas) adorned its roof (Figure 5a, b). A cache, covered with a carved slab, had been buried in the back room, beneath an altar. A colonnaded hall had been built in front of the high platform that supported the temple, and its facade included four columns that formed five entrances. Access to the temple was through an inner stairway joining the hall with the platform's top. A bench ran along the north, east, and south walls, and an altar was located to the right of the stairs.

Figure 5.

Chichen Itza, Temple of the Wall Panels, first stage: (a) western elevation; (b) southern elevation (after Ruppert Reference Ruppert1931:Figure 2).

For unknown reasons, the plan and organization of the structure were later completely remodeled (Ruppert Reference Ruppert1931:Figure 3). The inner stairway was filled, and another one was built against the hall's façade, leading directly to the hall's roof; thus, access to the temple was no longer from the hall's inside but from the outside. Inside the temple, a wide bench was built covering the altar, and the cache was emptied of its content.

We are concerned only with the first of these two building phases, with which the sculptures are associated. Besides the slab covering the cache (Figure 6), the carved decoration of the temple included two panels on its outer north and south walls. Only eight out of eighteen carved stones were recovered, but we were unable to find any picture of them in the Carnegie photo archive. According to Ruppert (Reference Ruppert1931) the better preserved north panel showed two warriors facing each other, like the scene carved on the cache's lid. One of them had a long tubular bead through his nose and wore a feathered headdress and feathered robe.

Figure 6.

The slab inside the temple (after Ruppert Reference Ruppert1931: Plate 10c).

Two more panels graced the outer north and south walls of the colonnaded hall (Figures 7, 9). The low reliefs had been stuccoed and painted; the painting consisted of “extended areas washed in red and blue without attention to the motives;” the frame was painted blue. Ruppert (Reference Ruppert1931) published the retouched photos of both panels and had the background painted black in order to emphasize the motifs. The whole composition is easy to make out, but many details are doubtful or impossible to interpret. The new version (by Latsanopoulos) confirms most of Ruppert's illustrations and makes clear some details that were inconspicuous before. For instance, some plants were confirmed as cacti and sorted into two different species. In the Ruppert version, the uppermost part of the south panel is made of amorphous elements that look like a sky band in the new drawing.

Prior to drawing them, a complete photographic coverage of both panels was made, taking overall views plus detailed slides of each block. A one-to-one record of the panels was made in order to limit any loss of the data at the time of their reproduction. A single sheet of thin transparent film was laid on each panel, and every block was then completely and directly recorded (edges, carved elements, gaps) with fine, indelible felt pens. As a convention, he recorded the upper contours of the reliefs, aware that the motifs that protrude from the background are in fact slightly larger if the contour on the background is taken into account.

During the recording process, the artist constantly referred to the retouched Carnegie photos and found this check very useful since some blocks were greatly eroded and their motifs often hard to make out. Thanks to the Carnegie photos, it was possible to recover blurred contours and incised details. Some night photography and recording, however, would have been welcome. Back in the lab, the field records were reduced on the photocopier in order to piece together every panel at a convenient scale (A3). A new pencil drawing was then executed with the help of the field photos—a necessary step for selecting the good solution on questionable parts. This version, once mended and improved, was used for the final step, inking.

The North and South Panels (Figures 7–9)

Both panels are carved directly on their respective wall, at a height of about two meters above the ground. They consist of three rows of five to six carved stones each. The north panel measures 114 × 180 cm, while the one to the south is also 114 cm high but 196 cm long. A plain frame, a few centimeters wide, surrounds the carved area.

Figure 7.

The north panel and its reference sketch.

Figure 8.

Details from the north panel: (a) The F1–F4 sequence showing jaguar knights becoming true felines; (b) F12, a feline transforming into a bird.

Figure 9.

The south panel and its reference sketch.

Formal analysis

The panels combine two projection systems. First the orthogonal projection, in which the projected rays of light are parallel and intersect the panel plane at right angles; in this system there are no orthogonals, the edges in the scene are represented by points, and the front faces of objects are drawn as true shapes (Willats Reference Willats1997). Whatever their relative distance to the viewer, the objects are shown on the same scale: in other words, the image is flattened. As an example, in the lower register of both the north and south panels, the artist has placed on the same plane the individuals sitting in front and behind the figure standing in the middle. It seems that the purpose of this composition is to show that the seated people are either forming a circle around the standing individual or are facing him. There is no reason why the standing individual would turn his back to the six people on his right.

The other drawing system used here is the vertical oblique projection where the projection rays are parallel and intersect the picture plane at an oblique angle in the vertical plane. In this system the lower register is foremost while the upper register is to the back. There is no overlap or occlusion. On the temple slab and on the upper register of the south panel, for instance, the offerings seen one above the other are, in the real world, one in front of the other. In this system, the spatial order of the different episodes is vertical and goes upward; the sitting individuals around their leader come in front, then the jaguars, then the birds; the presiding dignitaries take up the upper register, meaning they are seen on the back stage. On the north panel, all dignitaries are shown in profile. The bench, on which the central figures are seated, occupies a lower position than the level on which the side figures stand, meaning that the bench is to be seen first, the side figures second. In perspective, all the figures would be facing the viewer: the dignitaries seated on the bench would take front stage with the side figures standing behind them.

Unlike what one would expect with orthogonal projection, the objects on both panels are not drawn at the same scale. Their relative size does not conform to the natural size, and sometimes expresses hierarchy. Thus, the dignitaries are taller than the sitting people (while their master is not). The birds are almost as large as the trees on which they are perched. In fact, here the birds are what matters; if the artist had drawn the trees at the same scale, that would have taken much space for no practical end.

The images include humans, felines, birds, and plants. The heads of all animated beings are shown in profile with the exception of nocturnal birds; the bodies are in profile or sometimes in three-quarter view. The two panels have the same narrative structure and tell the same story with variants. A scene with three humans occupies the center of both panels. On the lower register, seated human figures wearing a feline costume surround the principal protagonist, who is standing. On the sides, leaping jaguars converge toward the center of the composition while above them birds are perched on trees. The upper register displays seated or standing dignitaries of different rank, who preside over the scene below.

The central scene consists of three human figures in profile, two of them facing a third one, in front of a house. Because of its central situation and its “realistic” treatment, it may have been the first scene to be read, although we do not know exactly what it represents. Both panels combine the real world and the mythical world; to the former belong the sitting figures and their master, the central scene in front of the building, and the presiding dignitaries. Jaguars and birds are actors in the mythical world. The former converge from both sides toward the center, occupied, at least on the north panel by a flying figure; their jumping postures are dynamic and suggest movement. Contrasting with this dynamic progression, the birds settle on trees, motionless, expressing the stability of a later stage.

Within each panel, the main story progresses from bottom to top and includes two transformations: humans in feline costume into jaguars and felines into birds. The comparison of the two panels indicates a progression of the narration and a reading order from the north panel to the south panel.

In spite of being wider than the north panel, the south panel includes fewer subjects but of larger size: seven seated figures instead of twelve, five leaping jaguars instead of seventeen, no flying figure above the thatched building at the center, four birds instead of eight, five dignitaries instead of nine, and so on. It is as if the details of the story on the north panel could be summed up on the south panel.

Iconographic analysis

Curiously enough, the iconography of the Wall Panels sculpture has been seldom studied. Ruppert (Reference Ruppert1931), who investigated and published his findings on this structure, interpreted the figures of the lower register as monkeys, an interpretation that did not allow him to go further and offer a coherent analysis of the whole. Roys (Reference Roys1967) saw in the central part of the south panel “the four trees and birds set at the cardinal points to commemorate the previous destruction of the world.” Unfortunately for this reading, there are, on the north panel, six trees on one side and two on the other, plus eight birds.

For Wren, “each panel appears to function as part of a propagandistic campaign to magnify the hegemony of the Itza elite” (Wren et al. Reference Wren, Spencer, Hochstetler, Koontz, Reese-Taylor and Headrick2001:260–261; Wren Reference Wren and Prem2003). She sees the antagonism between the Itzas and their enemies illustrated in environmental terms: the barrel cacti in the north panel would refer to central Mexico, while the quetzals in the south panel refer to the southern Maya lowlands. Unfortunately for this hypothesis, there are cacti and quetzals in both panels. According to Wren, the Itza victory is celebrated by the display of bound, naked captives who occupy the lower registers of both panels. They “are identified not by rank, ethnic costume, or individual name but instead by their mythic role. A jaguar head emblem floats in front of each captive's face” (Wren et al. Reference Wren, Spencer, Hochstetler, Koontz, Reese-Taylor and Headrick2001:264). The author does not explain why “the defeated enemies of the Itza are identified by jaguars” (Wren et al. Reference Wren, Spencer, Hochstetler, Koontz, Reese-Taylor and Headrick2001:266).

We suggest that the major themes of the Temple of the Wall Panels iconography refer to the training of jaguar knights and their fate after death in the battlefield or on the sacrificial altar. It will be shown that the myths and beliefs illustrated in this temple of tenth-century Chichen Itza are remarkably similar to the Mexican mythology of the sixteenth century, as reported in indigenous and Spanish sources.

RESUMEN

A través del análisis iconográfico podemos observar que en el siglo décimo de nuestra era, Chichen Itza estaba dirigida por un rey todopoderoso quien se identificaba con el sol, continuando con esta característica tradición maya del período clásico. En el complejo del Gran Juego de Pelota, varias imágenes en bajo relieve muestran las ceremonias de acceso al poder de un gran sacerdote tras la muerte de su predecesor y nos indican su probable función al lado del rey, como segundo personaje del reino. Al mismo tiempo, la elite política-militar estaba representada por individuos acompañados por una serpiente erguida en forma de S. Los demás guerreros formaban un cuerpo colectivo con muchas responsabilidades, tanto políticas como religiosas.

Este fue el contexto en el que se construyó y se adornó el Templo de los Tableros, cuya iconografía es el tema principal de este trabajo. Los tableros describen la formación de caballeros-tigres a cargo de una figura militar designada como Serpiente-Jaguar. Este último, que también figura esculpido en la laja que cubría el depósito enterrado en el templo superior, estaba asistido o controlado por otros personajes. El discurso iconográfico de los tableros anticipa el destino de los caballeros-tigres después de su gloriosa muerte, primero cuando acompañan el sol al amanecer y posteriormente cuando se transforman en aves. Este relato gráfico es comparable al destino de los guerreros aztecas tras su muerte si tenemos en cuenta los relatos de Sahagún y otros cronistas. Creencias similares debían ser usuales también en Teotihuacan como lo indica la frecuente asociación de la mariposa y del ave, a menudo combinados, con los guerreros. El Templo de los Tableros, sin duda demasiado pequeño para ser un telpochcalli (un colegio militar), era probablemente un lugar de reunión usado por guerreros, como lo sugieren su iconografía y su distintiva arquitectura que, dentro del mismo sitio, comparten con el Templo de los Guerreros.