Chapter 5

Reframing the Tripod

A Foreign Form Adopted by the Early Classic Maya

D. Bryan Schaeffer

On the cover of the seminal volume The Maya and Teotihuacan: Reinterpreting Early Classic Interaction (Braswell 2003a), a tripod ceramic becomes the representative material, and therefore, cultural focus of this particular interregional interaction. The presentation of the complex interaction between the central Mexican metropolis of Teotihuacan and the Maya region is visually distilled into the singular object of the tripod.1 This specific form has become an index of Teotihuacan’s influence on and interaction with the Maya region during the Early Classic period, particularly the fourth through sixth centuries AD (Ball 1983; Borhegyi 1951; Bove and Medrano Busto 2003; Clayton 2005; Conides 2001; Demarest and Foias 1993; Nielsen 2003; Stuart 2000; Taube 2003; see also Jesper Nielsen et al., chapter 6 in this volume). But such a unidirectional emphasis of influence negates Maya agency (see, e.g., Cash 2005; Englehardt 2012). In this chapter, I argue that Early Classic Maya ceramicists appropriated and adapted the tripod form, creating an innovative fusion of artistic styles. This fusion clearly demonstrates that the Maya were aware of and appreciated the specific Teotihuacan tripod form, even as they translated and incorporated the tripod form into their own artistic canons.

Following this introductory section, I will briefly review the current scholarship on tripod ceramics from Teotihuacan. The subsequent section outlines the problem of the tripod’s origin for the Maya area. Then I examine particular tripods excavated in the Maya region in order to reframe our understanding of the Maya tripod by adding a few germane observations and by exploring questions that unpack the central ideas of this chapter. In the final section, I argue that the tripod ceramic form is an index of travel. In other words, the tripod ceramic form in the Maya realm visually signifies interregional interaction because traveling human beings take from and bring to foreign regions their knowledge, experience, and visual cultures. Therefore, the act of travel can produce new and innovative fusions of local and extralocal visual programs. This, in turn, layers the tripod form with significant meaning. Viewing the tripod ceramic form through this lens of travel offers a novel perspective. My contention is that the tripod form in general, and its material manifestation in the Maya area during the Early Classic in particular, is ripe for further analysis.

The tripod ceramic vessel is a constitutive component of social agency whose shared form underscores the multidirectional nature of interregional interaction in ancient Mesoamerica.2 The Early Classic tripod vessels found in the Maya area have been analyzed within the contextual framework of material and cultural interactions and exchanges between Teotihuacan and disparate Maya cities. This framework includes talud-tablero architecture,3 written narratives, iconography, stelae, Fine Orange ceramics, incensarios, figurines, and other material evidence. However, the analytical angle of drawing out the implicit categorical designation of the tripod as associated with travel presents a fresh perspective, even if such a focused lens attempts to explicate only a fraction of this complex interregional interaction through the specificity of the tripod form. Many tripod vessels have been excavated from the tombs of elite Maya and therefore contain the culturally instructive particles of funerary practices, the material vestiges of the rulers’ connection to not just Teotihuacan, but to various Mesoamerican regions, including other Maya cities.

Tripod ceramic vessels formed part of interregional interactions through gift exchange and ritual feasts, activities of a cultural and political nature often only implicitly connected to the act of travel (Ball 1983; Reents-Budet 1998; Shaw and Johnstone 2006; Stuart 1998). Some tripods retained lids, but we do not know if many or most tripods originally had lids as several presented in this chapter show no signs of having lids (although some do; see figure 5.1).4 Scholars argue (e.g., Braswell 2003b, c; Demarest and Foias 1993; Nielsen 2003) that through the accretion of all evidence—architectural, art historical, epigraphic, and archaeological—we are able to begin to comprehend the political, economic, diplomatic, and artistic spheres of interregional interaction between Teotihuacan and various Maya cities. I suggest that the tripod vessel itself elicits clues as to how the ancient Maya conceptualized, and therefore visualized, their connection to the foreign city of Teotihuacan. It is certain that not all Maya cities interacted with Teotihuacan on all political, economic, or cultural levels and that the modes of interaction were overwhelmingly carried out at the elite level (Clayton 2005; Taube 2003; cf. Joyce Marcus, chapter 12 in this volume).5

Therefore, the practicality of noting and examining both specific details and general patterns will provide the frame with which tripod ceramics are discussed in this chapter. Most tripods excavated in the Maya area, with a few notable exceptions, were integrated into prominent funerary collections of ceramics from various Mesoamerican regions, materially tying the buried noble or ruler with other polities, peoples, deities, landscapes, and, therefore, other avenues of political and sacred power within a localized context.6 The foreign tripod form coupled with indigenous Maya iconography represents a Teotihuacan-Maya hybrid aesthetic that frames an autochthonizing process. Through the prism of travel, it also acknowledges foreign influence and localized adaptation.

The Teotihuacan Tripod

James Bennyhoff (1967) and Evelyn Rattray (1977) have proposed that the origin of the tripod vessel in Mesoamerica could possibly be the present-day Mexican state of Veracruz. Whatever its origin, Teotihuacanos certainly adapted the form to their own style and iconography as will be demonstrated in this chapter. Because a secure chronological sequence for tripod vessels in the Maya area is elusive, I now turn to the ceramic stratigraphy for Teotihuacan tripods in order to use it as a building block for understanding the tripod vessels from the Maya region (in the following sections). The chronology I am utilizing for Teotihuacan ceramics is that presented by George Cowgill (1997:131). According to Rattray (2001), who uses the same chronology, the tripod vessel is first formed as early as the Miccaotli phase. Tripod supports at Teotihuacan start as large nubbins that barely lift the vessel off the ground (figure 5.2). These initial tripods are crudely incised; some have postfire cross-hatch incising and others are prefired, cross-hatch incised (Rattray 2001:109). Their shape does not appear to be perfected, perhaps demonstrating an impetus for the newly conceived stylistic program of tripod vessels. The two incised vessels also portray a starting point for the decorative surface program on tripod ceramics manufactured at Teotihuacan.

In her volume on Teotihuacan ceramics, Rattray (2001; cf. Berlo 1980 and Conides 2001) identified over eleven different ceramic forms including plates, dishes, bowls, jars, amphoras, incensarios, copas (cups), and, of course, the tripod ceramic vase (figure 5.3). The form and structure for tripod supports created at Teotihuacan varied and were not limited solely to vases. Plates, bowls, and jars also have tripod supports. Large nubbin supports appear as early as the Miccaotli phase from AD 150–225/250, and thus the tripod vessel begins to take form as its own category of a ceramic type at Teotihuacan. This date for the initial appearance of the tripod vessel at Teotihuacan contradicts, between 50–150 years, the later date of AD 300 proposed by Braswell (2003b). However, it appears that Braswell’s dating for the tripod vessel within the Maya area is correct. The Maya region produces and/or adopts the tripod vessel form, and its proliferation takes hold between AD 300 and 600.

The next phase is referred to as the Early Tlamimilolpa phase from AD 225/250 to 350, during which tripod supports on certain vessels begin to change shapes, suggesting a play with form and style by Teotihuacan ceramicists. Ceramic vessels become cylindrical vases with knoblike supports that lift the vessel higher off the ground than those of the Miccaotli phase. This Early Tlamimilolpa phase also includes the introduction of a basal flange with what appear to be cacao beans and a direct rim. Rattray (2001:493) writes that this particular vessel was found in Burial 21 at La Ventilla B in Teotihuacan. It presents an evolution, then, in tripod supports and also in the actual shape of the ceramic vessel itself. Lids for certain tripod vessels, though rare during this phase, have been found (Rattray 2001:109). Cowgill (2003:317) suggests that this phase and its transition into the Late Tlamimilolpa phase comprise the “most pronounced changes in the whole Teotihuacan ceramic sequence.” He surmises that the evolution of flat-bottomed bowls with outcurving sides and nubbin supports suggests a “continuity of the local population.” This assertion, if true, affirms the aforementioned idea that the Teotihuacan ceramicists were engaging with different forms and styles for the tripod vessel in order to enhance its aesthetic value and create new structural designs. The Late Tlamimilolpa phase, then, continues this variation of the vessel’s form and the shape of the supports (figure 5.4). The conical tripod supports on the vessel in figure 5.4 underscore a fledgling design innovation that occurs during this phase, but its austere decoration is a visual persistence from previous time periods. It is also during the Late Tlamimilolpa phase that hollow slab rectangular supports begin to appear.

The subsequent Xolalpan phase from AD 400–550 is the time during which the Teotihuacan-style tripod vessel was at its influential zenith in the Maya area. The Xolalpan phase is subdivided into an early phase and a late phase. The Early Xolalpan phase is characterized by both rounded tripod supports and rounded supports that appear more linear, almost rectangular, continuing to build upon the changes in form of the supports from the previous phase. Lids that accompany certain tripod vessels begin to have rounded knobs on their top that seemingly echo the shape of large polished ware jars from this same period that were excavated in the Tetitla complex burials at Teotihuacan. Stucco decoration on bowls also begins during the Early Xolalpan phase (Rattray 2001:110).

Late Xolalpan phase tripod vessels multiply and build upon the dynamic and varied forms of the ceramic vessel and supports. Certain tripods have pseudo plano-relief decoration with molded heads, instead of cacao beans, encircling the basal flange. This particular tripod form maintains the slab-footed rectangular supports with carved designs. Other tripods from this time period have the largest globular supports and much more intricate plano-relief decoration and design. However, other tripod ceramics continue the austere decoration from the Tlamimilolpa phase, but combine the lack of decoration with talud-tablero-style supports (figure 5.5). This is an interesting form for the supports because, as Esther Pasztory (1997:156) avers, the tripod supports contemporaneously appeared with talud-tablero architecture. However, she does not offer any specific evidence for such a claim. Another vessel from the Tetitla burials displays a Late Xolalpan stucco painted design on a dark background, demonstrating the appearance of stucco decoration specifically on tripods.

A chronological ceramic stratigraphy for tripod ceramic vessels from Teotihuacan has been an apposite starting point for the examination of tripods from the Maya area. By analyzing the decoration and form of Teotihuacan tripods, I believe that I have only glimpsed the beginning of a more detailed and thorough study for the hybrid aesthetic of tripod vessels that are reportedly from the Maya area. I now turn to specific tripod ceramic vessels in order to examine their various shapes and decorative programs. It is the objective of this chapter to examine the hybrid aesthetic of tripod ceramics from the Maya area and determine what the combination of styles denotes for a Maya-Teotihuacan connection in the Early Classic.

The Tripod’s Origin in the Maya Area

Scholars have discussed the tripod ceramic vessel as a diagnostic trait of Teotihuacan’s presence anywhere in Mesoamerica that the tripod is found (Ball 1983; Borhegyi 1951; Bove 1990; Bove and Medrano Busto 2003; Braswell 2003a, b; Cheek 1977; Cowgill 2003; Culbert 1993; Demarest and Foias 1993; Kidder et al. 1946; Pendergast 2003; Sanders 1977; cf. Jesper Nielsen et al., chapter 6 in this volume). Although Bennyhoff (1967) and Rattray (1977) argue that the tripod vessel may not have originated at Teotihuacan, they do suggest that the particular form is a pan-Mesoamerican characteristic that developed distinct local variations. In terms of the tripod vessel within the Maya area, Carmen Varela Torrecilla and Geoffrey Braswell (2003:259) argue that the basic tripod form without any Teotihuacan or central Mexican characteristics was first used in Preclassic Kaminaljuyú, but they do not cite any specific evidence for this claim. Braswell (2003b:102) also claims that at Teotihuacan “there is little evidence for the local production of cylindrical tripods before AD 300 or after AD 600. All of the central Mexican-style ceramics found at Kaminaljuyú date to a period after AD 300.” This assertion appears to be true of many Maya sites in both the lowlands and the highlands of the Maya area. At Tikal, however, Laporte and Fialko (1987) posit an earlier date than AD 300 for slab-footed tripod vessels, suggesting that the Maya artists drew upon not only the stylistic canons known at Teotihuacan but also other known ceramic traditions from the cultures of Veracruz, Tabasco, and the Pacific coast of Guatemala. This makes sense given the geographical proximity of the Maya to the visual cultures of the Mexican Gulf Coast and the Guatemalan Pacific coast.

Where, then, did the tripod vessel originate for the Maya region? Coggins (1983:55) suggests that Yax Nuun Ayiin, the man who became ruler of Tikal in AD 379, was from Kaminaljuyú and that with him came the connections to central Mexico that would have initiated stylistic or formal changes in visual culture such as ceramics. The fifth century Burial 10 of the Manik Complex at Tikal, believed to be the tomb of Yax Nuun Ayiin or his son, contained “stuccoed vessels with quadripartite designs painted in the style found at Teotihuacan and depicting the goggle-eyes, fangs, Kan crosses, year signs, chalchihuitls, and dart-throwers of the Teotihuacan patron rain deity Tlaloc” (Coggins 1983:50). Coggins does not mention that at least eight tripod vessels (and fragments), all with lids, were found in Burial 10 and that solely Maya hieroglyphs and iconography appear on them (Culbert 1993:figs.19–21). Therefore, the eight tripods found in Burial 10 demonstrate a localized Maya appropriation of an etic ceramic form but with emic writing and iconography.7 Her argument is problematic, however, because there is insufficient evidence to determine whether central Mexican-style ceramics first appeared at Kaminaljuyú or Tikal, whatever Yax Nuun Ayiin’s origin. In addition, there is scant archaeological evidence at Tikal of material items from central Mexico (Iglesias Ponce de León 2003; Laporte 2003; cf. Joyce Marcus, chapter 12 in this volume). Braswell (2003b:101) observes that the chronological evidence for foreign-style ceramics found in Mound A at Kaminaljuyú may precede, be contemporary with, or postdate Yax Nuun Ayiin’s life, a chronological supposition that lacks temporal specificity and therefore fails to settle the origin of the tripod ceramic form in the Maya region.

Determining a particular center for the dissemination of the tripod vessel throughout the Maya area is a complicated task because of contradictory and elusive evidence. There is no common chronology for ceramic vessels in the Maya region, hence the difficulty in pinpointing any one city or region as the origin for the dissemination or appropriation of tripod vessels amongst Maya ceramicists. Citing available evidence of interaction between Kaminaljuyú, Copán, and Tikal, Braswell (2003b:101) reasons that the “temporal data do not allow us to propose any one of those sites as the point of origin from which central Mexican-style pottery spread throughout the Maya region.” Whatever the origin for the tripod form may be, the overwhelming majority of scholars have pointed to the tripod vessel in the Early Classic as evidence of interaction between Teotihuacan and the Maya, if only at the elite level, and if only perceived by us through the tripod’s singular physical form.

The Maya Adopt the Tripod Form: Teotihuacan-Maya Hybridity

Previous studies have attempted to understand the geopolitical implications of Teotihuacan presence in the Maya region by utilizing archaeological, epigraphic, and art historical evidence (Adams 1990; Ball 1983; Borhegyi 1971; Bove and Medrano Busto 2003; Braswell 2003a, b; Cheek 1977; Cowgill 2003; Culbert 1993; Demarest and Foias 1993; Fields and Reents-Budet 2005; Kidder et al. 1946; Marcus 2003; Pendergast 1975; Reents-Budet et al. 2004; Sanders 1977). Beginning with Bennyhoff (1967), scholars have suggested that the Maya were simply appropriating the distinct Teotihuacan style, something they became familiar with through interregional trade with Teotihuacan, but then adapted to fit their own particular local variations (Bennyhoff 1967; Berlo 1989; Braswell 2003a; Demarest and Foias 1993; Hellmuth 1978; Laporte and Fialko 1987; Rattray 1977; Sanders 1977; Varela Torrecilla and Braswell 2003). Rather than attempting to understand the geopolitical territory of Maya-Teotihuacan interaction, it is my goal here to visually consider the hybrid aesthetic of tripod vessels in order to comprehend such a fusion of styles.

Dated between AD 400 and 500, a specific tripod vessel with lid (figure 5.6) was excavated from Mound B, Tomb B-II at the Maya city of Kaminaljuyú in present-day Guatemala (Fields and Reents-Budet 2005:225). Kaminaljuyú is over 1,100 km from Teotihuacan but has architectural features, such as talud-tablero, and ceramic forms and iconography that suggest interaction with central Mexico. This ceramic and stucco vessel depicts a figure, most likely a king or ruler, dressed in central Mexican garb and seated on a throne. He is dressed in Teotihuacan style with a spangled headdress, yet he wears Maya-style jadeite jewelry. Although this is a tripod vessel, the supports do not have a clear correlation in form to any of the tripod supports established by Rattray’s ceramic study (cf. figure 5.3). One could refer to them as slab-footed but they are much thinner and more curvilinear than any of the typical slab-footed supports from Teotihuacan.

Another tripod vessel with stucco and Maya-innovated supports also depicts Teotihuacan iconography (figure 5.7). The supernatural plumed jaguar is devouring a human heart and is surrounded by water or blood. Virginia Fields and Dorie Reents-Budet (2005:225) suggest that this vessel was most likely made in the Maya area between AD 450 and 600, during the Xolalpan phase at Teotihuacan, because the vessel’s shape and the form of the supports do not correspond to a Teotihuacan style.

On an incised tripod excavated in Tomb A-I of Mound A at Kaminaljuyú (figure 5.8), there is an inversion of the hybrid aesthetic observed on the vessel depicted in figure 5.7. This vase has Maya-style imagery as the scroll emanating from the central figure’s nose and mouth is, according to Karl Taube (2003:308), reminiscent of the Maya serpent-breath element on Stela 5 from El Zapote and as seen in detail from a ceramic vessel found at Tikal. However, the supports’ form clearly indicates Teotihuacan-inspired design. The protruding beads that encircle the basal flange of this tripod also point to a visual influence from Teotihuacan vessels. Whether or not this motif is a cacao bean, this specific decorative element clearly has a precedent from tripod vessels at Teotihuacan.

Found in the tomb believed to belong to Yax Nuun Ayiin, who ruled Tikal from AD 379 to 404, a lidded tripod with stucco and pigment dated to AD 404 further demonstrates the fusion of Teotihuacan form and Maya imagery (figure 5.9a). The effigy head on top of the lid is a Maya figure, and a Mayan hieroglyphic text appears on the lid as well. Fields and Reents-Budet (2005:232) state that the chemical composition of this tripod implies that it was made in a Tikal workshop producing ceramics exclusively for the elite class, thereby denoting an autochthonous origin for this specific tripod. This vessel was among many other stuccoed-and-painted ceramics found in Yax Nuun Ayiin’s tomb, perhaps to emphasize the copying of ceramics with a clear origin at Teotihuacan. Ceramic tripod vessels with lids have been found at Teotihuacan and have a starting point in the Early Xolalpan phase from circa AD 375 to 450 (figure 5.9b).

Two stucco-and-painted vessels excavated from the Sub-Jaguar Tomb at Copán and dated to AD 525 have nearly the exact same shape and tripod supports (see Fields and Reents-Budet 2005:233, figs. 128–129). The only major difference between the two is the subject matter on the vessels. One contains four glyph-like images of a Maya-style saurian head. The other depicts a Teotihuacan-style image of a feather-encircled star with water issuing from its edge. Although these tripods are nearly identical in form and appearance, each vessel utilizes distinct cultural imagery in order to become imbued with different meanings (Fields and Reents-Budet 2005:232). One ties the buried ruler to the local landscape and power, while the other visually connects the deceased to the extralocal, foreign realm of Teotihuacan. But these two vessels were found together with several other ceramics of varying shapes and sizes in the same tomb and therefore these fraternal twin tripods are contextualized within a larger collection of Mesoamerican ceramics (see Bell et al. 2004:plate 8).

Ten of the twelve stuccoed-and-painted vessels found in the Sub-Jaguar Tomb have been chemically sampled. According to Dorie Reents-Budet, Ellen E. Bell, Loa P. Traxler, and Ronald L. Bishop (2004:185), the analysis of paste ware chemistry indicates that six of them, and one lid, were most likely made in workshops at Quiriguá, a Maya site located in Guatemala, close to the border with Honduras. The uniformity in both form and decorative content of these vessels suggests the possibility that the other six could have been made within the general vicinity of Quiriguá and Copán, perhaps within the Motagua Valley. These six vessels with a secure chemical analysis of production in the Maya region clearly illustrate that Maya ceramicists appropriated and adapted the tripod form of Teotihuacan style. Maya ceramicists imbued the vessels with an indigenous design and visual vocabulary while simultaneously recognizing the physical tripod form as derived from and therefore connected to Teotihuacan.

Two of the six lidded tripod vessels made at Quiriguá also demonstrate a fusion of Maya innovation in form with Teotihuacan iconography (see Fields and Reents-Budet 2005:230–231, figs. 125–126). Dated to AD 525, both have lids with Maya-style effigy heads. The blue-green, red, and tan colors are consistent with the previous two vessels, as are the thin supports. These tripods are also infused with a hybrid Maya-Teotihuacan aesthetic, showing distinct elements of Maya form with Teotihuacan imagery. Originally carved-incised and slip-painted, these ceramics portray a feathered feline devouring a human heart, which recalls Teotihuacan iconography that we have already viewed on other vessels (Fields and Reents-Budet 2005:232). The supports mirror those mentioned above from the Sub-Jaguar Tomb at Copán, which appear to be a Maya-style form. The lids display a profile of saurian heads, a decorative motif from Maya artistic canons.

Combining Maya imagery and a Teotihuacan-style figure, another tripod vessel dated between AD 450 and 550 was excavated at Becan in the state of Campeche, Mexico (figure 5.10), by Joseph Ball (1974:2–9) in what he has termed a “dedication cache” that was deposited during the construction of a new building over an older one. When found, this tripod vessel contained a hollow figurine that had broken and spilled its contents, similar to hollow figurines from Teotihuacan. The ceramic figure held ten small solid figurines, six of which portrayed Teotihuacan warriors, two that were non-Teotihuacan men, and two that are decorated with what Fields and Reents-Budet (2005:222) refer to as “the mosaic headgear with chinstrap adopted by the Maya.” Again, this vessel is emblematic of the stylistic and material interplay between Teotihuacan features such as the hollow figure, slab-footed supports, and beads that encircle the basal flange of the vase. Maya traits are also present on this tripod vessel, imbuing it with a hybrid aesthetic that denotes a mélange of the Teotihuacan-style figurine with Maya iconography. Found on this tripod is the depiction of the Maya rain god Chaak, who sits in front of the Jade Mountain, the origin of all precious things, including rain (Fields and Reents-Budet 2005:222).

Certain tripod vessels from the Maya area reveal a specific Maya innovation for the supports. A tripod from the Maya site of Oxkintok in northwest Yucatán illustrates such an innovation (figure 5.11). The modeled supports for this Maya vessel are bat effigies, which conceptually and visually signal a unique Maya-style decorative detail that stems from the local Maya cultural and ecological landscape. This particular tripod’s main body has no iconography, but it does have a simplified repetition of vertical lines that form columns, perhaps representative of a graphic version of architectural columns at Oxkintok.

We have already observed this type of connection between an architectural feature and ceramics with the talud-tablero and its structural interpretation for ceramics, specifically the tripod. Incised Teotihuacan-style vessels with a plain decorative program associate the austere Maya tripod from Oxkintok with similar ones from Teotihuacan. However, central Mexican vessels that have slab-footed open-work supports usually date from the Early Xolalpan phase at Teotihuacan (Rattray 2001:535). According to Varela Torrecilla and Braswell (2003:259–260), gouged-incised, plano-relief, and stucco are all absent on tripod vessels from northwest Yucatán. Dated between AD 500 and 600, the Oxkintok tripod with bat-effigy supports illustrates that different regions within the Maya area developed distinct stylistic local adaptations not only for the supports, but also for the overall decorative program of the tripod vessel, adding to the ceramic canon of distinct tripod configurations.

The tripod vessels I have examined in this section were excavated at various Maya sites, including Copán, Kaminaljuyú, Tikal, Oxkintok, and Becan. They evidence specific local adaptation and innovation in the tripod supports as well as iconographic links to an indigenous artistic repertoire and to the foreign visual programs of Teotihuacan. The distinct coupling of two sets of tripod ceramics (see Fields and Reents-Budet 2005:230–231, figs. 125–126; 233, figs. 128–129) from the Sub-Jaguar tomb at Copán underscores the visual parity between a local Copán ruler and the distant metropolis of Teotihuacan, thereby aligning the two realms, through the burial of the ruler, into a conceptual equivalence. The Teotihuacan-Maya hybrid aesthetic demonstrates the Maya ceramicists’ fusion of physical, visual, and conceptual traits that linked them to their own artistic canons as well as to that of Teotihuacan.

Travel and Foreign Objects

Found in the so-called Problematical Deposit 50 at Tikal (Culbert 1993:fig. 128), known as the “Arrival” vase, an engraved blackware tripod ceramic illustrates interaction between traveling Teotihuacanos and a Maya personage, most likely a ruler (figure 5.12). The horizontal image on this particular tripod depicts a group of Teotihuacan functionaries and warriors as they arrive at a central Mexican-style–inspired talud-tablero platform with a Maya-style temple. Presumably, this structure is located in the Maya area because to the left of the central edifice, another pyramid structure clearly portrays the Maya style of monumental architecture. The main figures designated as warriors in this image display their central Mexican weapon, the atlatl or spear-thrower. Their headdresses, garb, and paraphernalia also suggest their central Mexican origin. Greeting these Teotihuacan functionaries is a figure who appears to have Maya characteristics such as his headdress and skirt.

An element often overlooked in this much-discussed image floats in front of the Teotihuacan officials: lidded-tripod ceramics viewed in profile that visually attach themselves to the space of the visiting delegates. Much like the atlatl in the hands of the Teotihuacan vanguard, the tripod vessels, then, become a visual statement of Teotihuacan diplomacy, of travel from a foreign place, of possible economic trade or gift giving, and of an interregional interaction facilitated through these various groups representing Teotihuacan as they meet with an autochthonous Maya ruler. This simple iconographic depiction becomes a metaimage as it is inscribed onto the surface of a blackware tripod vessel, a secondary imagistic layering to the structural, physical body itself. Therefore, the ceramicist highlights the visual, cultural connotations of tripod vessels from Teotihuacan as imaged on a tripod vessel cached in the Maya kingdom of Tikal. Ceramics, and in this case specifically the tripod vessel, are material objects imbued with social agency in that they are physical extensions of not only the locus of production, but also the rulers, deities, rituals, geographic landscapes, and mythologies associated with the loci of manufacture. This particular tripod vessel’s image visually captions the conceptual link between foreign objects (or as noted above, the appropriation of a foreign stylistic form such as the tripod) and travel, a bridge that will perhaps shed some light on how the Early Classic Maya elite conceptualized, visualized, and at times autochthonized the material culture that we categorize as indicative of interaction with Teotihuacan.

Why would the Maya elite and other ruling noble classes in ancient Mesoamerica look to foreign places, such as the mighty metropolis of Teotihuacan, as a necessary component for establishing their cultural, religious, and political identities, and their histories and power? Perhaps one answer is the idea of consecration. Foreign lands are often associated with the unknown, potentially dangerous supernatural realms that are manipulated by rulers, by the shaman-priests who position themselves as intermediaries (Helms 1979, 1988). Therefore, foreign territories and the material objects produced there are “naturally” consecrated, layered with visual significance and conceptual connections similar to those belonging to the power, divinity, and prestige of the supernatural realm.

A major element of foundational narratives from around the world, connection to the foreign, unknown spheres “disconnects” ruling factions from autochthonous populations, thereby lending a rarefied air to their sociopolitical, economic, and religious leadership (Stone 1989). Placement of absolute power in the hands of a small group must be justified by an association with the foreign, with realms, rituals, languages, and material objects or goods that are beyond the reach, knowledge, and experiences of the larger general population (Christensen 1996). As Andrea Stone (1989) has observed, a delicate balance between “connection” to the local (through marriage, for example) and “disconnection” through ties with the foreign (through travel, symbols, knowledge, and associated objects) needs to be maintained by rulers. A distinct, constructed identity, often one tied to the foreign, is therefore an integral facet for obtaining and commanding power.

By traveling to foreign lands in order to receive their gods, the K’iche Maya establish their lineages through a connection to the foreign, naturally consecrated sphere of disconnection with the local. In the Popol Vuh, the founding dynasties—once they have received their gods at the foreign citadel of Tulan Zuyua—carry off the patron deities Tohil, Auilix, and Hacavitz and relocate them. Carried by Balam Acab, Auilix was the first to be inscribed into a local, known canyon “named Hidden Canyon, a great canyon in the forest” (Christenson 2003:223). Then Hacavitz was left on the “top of a great fire house,” either a local mountain or temple.8 Tohil is then carried by Balam Quitze into the great forest: “Nearby was the god of the Tamub, along with the god of the Ilocab . . . The god of the Ilocab was there on a nearby mountain” (Christenson 2003:225).9 This narrative sequence of the Popol Vuh highlights an autochthonizing frame employed by the K’iche Maya when they came into contact with foreign objects. Indeed, the K’iche Maya narrative exemplifies how the lineage founders, therefore the rulers, conceptualized foreign objects that, though extralocal, could be inscribed into the local Maya landscape. Such objects, much like the Early Classic tripod ceramics excavated in the Maya region, were imbued with the dual identity of local and foreign, of the mundane realm and the supernatural one.

Similar to the concept of foreign realms as inherently sacred, the idea of natural consecration is evident in other symbols and objects. David Freedberg (1989:33–37) observes that objects such as black meteoric stones (known as baitulia) fallen from the sky were regarded by ancient Greek cults as imbued with divine presence. Images or objects that “naturally” have a resemblance to human figures, such as stones carved by water and time, have also been treated with reverence because of a perceived connection to the sacred (Freedberg 1989:33). There is a sense, then, that objects associated with foreignness are also imbued with a connection to the supernatural, the realm of inherent consecration that lends the presence and the owner of such objects a prestigious position. Objects that are layered with symbols and images of foreign creation represent a connection to divine creation, to an association with the numinous and powerful realm of the gods. But as the narrative from the Popol Vuh illustrates, the Maya engaged in an autochthonizing process for their very gods from a foreign Tulan (Stuart 2000) by physically integrating them into the local landscape, by “Mayanizing” their association with a recognized foreign realm. Many of the tripods I have visually analyzed above serve this same function, and the appropriated tripod form itself could have gone through a similar conceptual, physical, and visual autochthonizing process.

Conclusions

The tripod ceramic vessel is an object whose physical form could have originated in the Gulf Coast cultures of Veracruz, was then adopted by Teotihuacan, and was subsequently appropriated by the Early Classic Maya. Such a historical process would demonstrate that interregional interaction’s material evidence in Mesoamerica surfaces in many ways, in this case through the specificity of a ceramic form. The Teotihuacan-Maya hybrid aesthetic integrated into the tripods discussed here highlights the representative nature of artistic appropriation and adaptation. Indeed, multiple tripod ceramic vessels excavated in the tombs of Maya rulers reinforce a fusion of the foreign with the actual local land through the physical act of being buried—much like the effigies of the K’iche patron deities in the Popol Vuh as they were inscribed or buried into the local geographic milieu. Moreover, I suggest that Maya ceramicists and artists understood that through an autochthonizing frame, the power and prestige of Teotihuacan’s foreign symbols and forms could be employed to enhance the local ruler’s identity.10 The tripod form’s association with travel painted the local, known places and geographies with the extralocal and therefore supernatural colors of exotic experience, of recondite knowledge that specified and structured the encounters with the prestigious doctrines, rituals, and institutions associated with Teotihuacan. Teotihuacan could have been conceptualized as a foreign locale linked to the sacred, supernatural realms that rendered objects and their physical forms as a legitimizing material mechanism for local ritual and political governance.

In this chapter, I have argued that Maya ceramicists actively and intentionally appropriated and subsequently adapted the foreign tripod vessel form and localized it. The tripod form’s obscure origin (possibly Veracruz) underscores the need to advance our current understanding of this particular ceramic form in the Maya area. We do know, however, that the Maya—among other multiple and varied cultures in Mesoamerica—subsequently employed the tripod form by incorporating it into their ceramic canons. Several tripods examined in this chapter highlight an ascendant ceramic form connected to Early Classic interregional interaction between Teotihuacan and disparate Maya cities. Maya ceramicists imbued the etic tripod form with emic iconography as well as innovated the tripod form itself.

The scene depicted on the engraved blackware tripod vessel from Problematical Deposit 50 of Tikal (figure 5.12) is, in a sense, emblematic of our current understanding of the Teotihuacan-Maya hybrid aesthetic. Perhaps this ceramic vessel, because of its representative scene portraying cultural and political interaction between the Maya and Teotihuacan, is intentionally self-reflective of its origin11 but also unknowingly self-reflexive, given our limitations in historical specificity: it is an ambiguous scene open for interpretation, depicted on a tripod vessel, badly burned, and located in a problematical deposit at Tikal. However, the apparently simple and singular cultural exchange as imaged on this tripod, forcefully and explicitly tether the visual scene and the ceramic onto which it was incised to interregional interaction through the human activity of travel. Could the tripod form be the calling card, as it were, of interregional diplomacy? Moreover, while the three supports serve a practical function by lifting the bottom of the vessel off the ground and by maintaining the equilibrium of the vessel when placed on the ground, one might ask what symbolic significance the three supports may have held for the Maya or for the residents of Teotihuacan?12 As the blackware tripod was not located in an elite burial, this much-discussed ceramic scene reveals multiple potentialities for expanding our knowledge of not only the tripod vessel’s physical form, but of the conceptual, visualized, and experiential intersection between interregional interaction and travel, between foreign domains and localizing aesthetic frameworks.

Notes

References