E-Groups, sounding more like something out of pharmacology than architecture, take their name from the Maya city of Uaxactun in the Petén rainforest of northern Guatemala. Carnegie Institution researchers classified the monumental Classic Period centre of the mid and late first millennium AD, studded with carved stelae, into groups A and B. Stela 9 of AD 327 was for almost half a century the earliest-dated Maya monument known, and from its Long Count date in Baktun 8, identified as the ‘eight-stone’ from which Uaxactun took its pseudo-Mayan name.
Group E was different: its heart was Preclassic, dating to before AD 300. E-VII-sub, a radial pyramid with four stairways flanked by huge deity masks, was the first Preclassic structure to be fully excavated. East of it was a long north–south mound, capped by three small temples in the middle and at the ends. Oliver Ricketson, directing the Group E excavations, proposed that an observer on E-VII could note the rising sun on the solstices and equinoxes using the temples as foresights. Given the known Maya preoccupation with astronomical calculations—the lunar and Venus tables in the late pre-Hispanic Dresden Codex had been known for decades—precise solar observation came as no surprise. Similar architectural groupings with a western pyramid and a long eastern counterpart were noted elsewhere over the years, including Middle Preclassic ones at Tikal and Cival, and an even earlier one, dating to c. 950 BC, at Ceibal. But it was also apparent that for many of these E-groups, the eastern horizon was too elevated for use as a practical solar observatory: what they were, and when and why they were built, is the subject of these useful essays.
Arlen Chase suggests two successive forms of E-Group—the Late Preclassic ‘Cenote’ type (named for that site in Petén) has a long eastern structure with a prominent central/axial ‘temple’ construction, which was succeeded by the ‘Uaxactun’ type at the transition from Late Preclassic to Early Classic around the third century AD. Its format, the original and canonical E-Group design, has three constructions located at the ends and centre of the eastern mound. Susan Milbrath adds a third type, pointing out that the earliest E-Groups, such as that at Tikal, have a simple long mound to the east, lacking superstructures.
So we would seem to have at least a three-stage evolution of this early public architecture; there may be a fourth, rather later than most contributors consider, at Classic-period Xunantunich in Belize (p. 390). Also in Belize, at La Milpa, the late Stephen Hopkins (cited by Milbrath, p. 122) suggested an E-group using stela 18 at the base of structure 9 on the west side of the Great Plaza as the sighting-point, and the row of large pyramids, structures 1, 2 and 3, lining the eastern margin as the triune foresights. Our excavations in 2000–2002 showed that the massive pyramid, structure 10, which would have blocked the northern sightline, was a late intrusion into the plaza layout, together with the elongated structure 8 to its south (the pair in fact forming an E-group plan, but rotated 90º clockwise). La Milpa’s major architectural development is after AD 700. If Hopkins is right, we have an extension in both date and scale of the E-Group concept.
The book’s first section covers the history of the study, distribution and potential significance of E-Groups, followed by four chapters dealing with astronomy (Aveni and Dowd), calendrics (Milbrath), ‘Timescape’, including Preclassic figurines (Rice), and ‘Cosmology and the origins of Maya rulership’ (Freidel). Some of these digress from the E-group theme, sometimes quite far and with varying degrees of credibility. Part III, ‘The archaeology of E-Groups’, has nine chapters that are the meat of the book. They range from links with the Olmec, Chiapas and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to the west of the Maya Area (Inomata), through early examples in several sites in Petén including Cival (Estrada-Belli), San Bartolo (Saturno et al.), El Palmar and Tikal (Doyle). There are further connections with places in Belize including Xunantunich (Brown) and its tiny satellite Chan (Robin), while the complex question of E-Groups and ‘Eastern Triadic Assemblages’ in the Belize Valley (Awe et al.) is also discussed. These last not to be confused with the notable Late Preclassic public-architecture complex, the Triadic Group (Szymanski Reference Szymanski2013). Reese-Taylor covers the karstic region north of Petén into Campeche, and Stanton claims that in Yucatan, E-Groups mark Preclassic trade routes from the south. In the final section, Dowd places E-Groups within a broader context of temple precinct development in Mesoamerica, and argues that “ritual and practical astronomy in E Groups is key to understanding beliefs and practices underlying Maya community life, governance, and religion” (p. 517). Just how she does not specify. An Epilogue (D. Chase, McAnany, and Sabloff) reiterates the significance of E-Groups as “architectural chameleons” (p. 582), their consistent association with “ground- and horizon-based astronomy” as “the earliest replicated public architecture in the Maya Lowlands”, and their importance for “performative activities linked to dynastic concerns and the long count” (p. 578).
Maya E-Groups are an important, if still not fully understood, “window to their ancient ritual world” (p. 20). From these contributions we conclude that they were the earliest form of Maya public monumental architecture, constructed from the early first millennium BC onwards and similar to structures at coeval Olmec sites to the west and others in Chiapas. By the end of the millennium, the addition of a central temple on the eastern long building resulted in a triune structure. An initial Middle Preclassic function of solar observation, perhaps astronomically quasi-accurate, modulated into more general ritual commemoration of the importance of heavenly bodies and, in some cases, into regal sepulture. By the fourth century AD this underpinned the notion of the ruler as Sun God, portrayed in Classic Maya art and reified in the Late Classic Twin Pyramid Groups of Tikal and Yaxha (Coggins Reference Coggins1980). The construction of an eastern ancestor shrine in residential groups may have been a domestication of public architectural forms, the lineage founder and ruler writ small. What we still do not know is why a public architecture emerged in the Maya lowlands almost three millennia ago, although this book goes some way to documenting the what, where, when and how.
