Papers by William Saturno
Science Advances
Here, we present evidence for the earliest known calendar notation from the Maya region, found am... more Here, we present evidence for the earliest known calendar notation from the Maya region, found among fragments of painted murals excavated at San Bartolo, Guatemala. On the basis of their sealed contexts in an early architectural phase of the “Las Pinturas” pyramid, we assign these fragments to between 300 and 200 BCE, preceding the other well-known mural chamber of San Bartolo by approximately 150 years. The date record “7 Deer” represents a day in the 260-day divinatory calendar used throughout Mesoamerica and among indigenous Maya communities today. It is presented along with 10 other text fragments that reveal an established writing tradition, multiple scribal hands, and murals combining texts with images from an early ritual complex. The 7 Deer day record represents the earliest securely dated example of the Maya calendar and is important to understanding the development of the 260-day count and associated aspects of Mesoamerican religion and cosmological science.
DISCLAIMER: This document does not meet the current format guidelines of the Graduate ... more DISCLAIMER: This document does not meet the current format guidelines of the Graduate School at The University of Texas at Austin. It has been published for informational use only. Copyright by Anabell Coronado Ruiz
Pathways to Complexity, 2018
This chapter adds to the current debate evaluating the functions and meanings of Maya architectur... more This chapter adds to the current debate evaluating the functions and meanings of Maya architectural layouts and contributes to our understanding of the diverse cultural and political values embedded within these complexes. Excavations at San Bartolo of an architectural assemblage consisting of a ballcourt, E-group, and triadic complex defines a developmental sequence highlighting both significant changes and continuities in ceremonial expression during the last four centuries of the Preclassic period. The changes reflect an evolution of the role of ajaw from an intermediary with divine forces to a divine force to which nature was subject. The shift at San Bartolo, from E-group to Triadic complex, thus characterizes a monumental architecture expressing nascent institutions of kingship that would come to define the politics of the Classic period.
Arqueología Mexicana, 2004
Arqueología Mexicana, 2016
Se ofrece aqui una breve actualizacion de los recientes trabajos arqueologicos en Xultun, Guatema... more Se ofrece aqui una breve actualizacion de los recientes trabajos arqueologicos en Xultun, Guatemala, enfocado todo en un mural del Clasico Tardio descubierto en 2010. Se analiza lo que ese mural y su contexto significan para nuestra comprension de la politica, el ritual y los hacedores de codices del periodo Clasico.
Maya E Groups, 2017
This chapter presents an archaeology of the Las Pinturas complex at the site of San Bartolo, Guat... more This chapter presents an archaeology of the Las Pinturas complex at the site of San Bartolo, Guatemala, where recent excavations have revealed three well-known architectural forms overlaid in close context—a ballcourt, an E Group, and a triadic complex. The developmental sequence of these architectural complexes highlights both significant changes and continuities in ceremonial expression during the final four centuries of the Preclassic Period (1000 BCE-250 CE). Layered one atop the other, these assemblages also provide suggestive evidence of evolving symbols of power and forms of legitimacy in use during the early Late Preclassic Period (350 BCE-0 CE) and underscore the connection between these tangible symbols and the codification of institutionalized kingship.
Ancient Mesoamerica, 2017
This article presents an in-depth analysis of an important mural painting discovered within Struc... more This article presents an in-depth analysis of an important mural painting discovered within Structure 10K2 of the Los Sabios Group at the Classic Maya site of Xultun, Guatemala. We first discuss the composition of the mural scene and its central protagonist, a Late Classic period (a.d.550–900) ruler of Xultun named Yax We'nel Chan K'inich, suggesting that it presents a ritual performance associated with an ancient New Year ceremony. Several attendant figures in the mural are labeled as members of a specialist order or category calledTaaj, “obsidian,” and are marked by an unusual shared appearance. This “obsidian order” exhibits internal hierarchical ranking and is attested at other Classic Maya centers. In addition to discussing the overall content of the Xultun mural scene, we conduct a focused inquiry into these variousTaajindividuals by presenting associated archaeological evidence and considering related epigraphic data. Through this analysis of theTaaj, we shed light on...
Geoarchaeology, 2016
Scholars have long puzzled over the ancient human use of swampy depressions (bajos) in the interi... more Scholars have long puzzled over the ancient human use of swampy depressions (bajos) in the interior part of the Maya Lowlands. Part of this debate has centered on the reputed, but undocumented, existence of canals in the bajos of the northeastern Peten District of Guatemala. We report on the use of satellite imagery along with fieldwork to reveal numerous linear features in the Bajo de Azúcar, the largest bajo in the northeast Peten. We conducted ground‐truthing and excavation at three linear features in two separate trips into the bajo. We also calculated sinuosity of channel segments using IKONOS and QuickBird satellite images. Our investigations indicate that the linear features are partly natural in origin, but some segments were either modified or are solely the product of human activity. We surmise that the canals most likely functioned principally to facilitate transportation across the bajo, though other uses are also possible, including drainage, water storage, and aquacult...
Journal for the History of Astronomy, 2013
IntroductionRecently, we' reported on the existence of a group of numerically related texts p... more IntroductionRecently, we' reported on the existence of a group of numerically related texts painted on the walls of a room in an early ninth-century A.D. residential house (structure 10K-2) in the Classic Maya city of Xultun, Guatemala. The texts, carefully executed in fine black line over colourful underlying murals pertaining to royal rituals, with which they appear to have no apparent connection, consist of a 162-lunar synodic month semester table and a group of four relatively large day tallies, ranging in length between 935 and 6704 tropical years, used to calculate commensurations among important calendrical and astronomical cycles. Though executed in a different medium, the numbers resemble those found in the codices, or bark paper books, dated to the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries; therefore the major significance of the discovery is that it pushes back by several centuries the archaeological evidentiary baseline for sophisticated Maya astronomical computations.Here we analyse the aforementioned inscriptions in detail not permitted, for want of space, in our original report. We also describe and interpret additional texts discovered since the submission of that report. We refer to three text areas: Area A, near the middle of the East Wall of Structure 10K-2; Area B, immediately to the left of Area A; and Area C, on the northeast corner of the north wall2 (Figure 1).Area A: A Lunar Semester TableA neatly composed, but badly eroded, 5 cm wide by 48 cm long text located in the middle of the east wall, about 40 cm above the level of the raised floor, consists of 27 columns of black dot and bar numerals. Each column is topped by one of three alternating forms of a glyph (Glyph C) identifiable with that used on monumental inscriptions to record moon positions in a semester cycle.3 It has long been known from studies of the monumental inscriptions that the Maya grouped lunar synodic months in semesters, or lunar half-years, consisting of six lunar synodic months made up of combinations of 29 and 30 days, totaling 177 (or 178) days.As first recognized by one of the authors (Stuart), the readable portion of the text below each of the glyphs leaves little doubt of its lunar function. The last two (the 26th and 27th) columns read 4606 (12.14.6) and 4784 (13.5.4), respectively, the difference between the two being 178 days. Moreover, subtracting 177 (178) from the 26th entry, one arrives at 4429 (4428) or 12.5.9 (12.5.8), which is consistent with the readable portion, 12.5.(7), of entry 25. Fragments of the remainder of the text are consistent with its being a table of 27 lunar semesters, 22 consisting of 177 days and five (including the 26th) of 177, totaling 4784 days,4 or 162 lunar synodic months. The implied average value of the lunar synodic month is 4784 days, or 29d.530864. This is a remarkable 0d.000278 short of the value ofthat period for epoch 800 A.D. (29d.530586).5 Absent the five days added in the 178-day entry columns, the time averaged synodic period would have produced a much less accurate, though nevertheless still impressive, lunar synodic period of 29?500000, 0d.030586 short of the epoch 800 A.D. value.The restored version of the Xultun Lunar Semester Table (hereinafter LST) is given in Figure 2. This text, the only one of its kind, surely functioned as an instrument to calculate, either backward or forward, the position of a particular moon in a Lunar Series statement. Such statements are found on numerous monumental inscriptions. They consist (usually) of the name of the semester in a trimester system, Jaguar Lord Semester (columns A, D, G, ... of Figure 1), Death Skull Semester (columns B, E, H, . . .), and Female Moon semester (columns C, F, I, . . .), followed by the numbered moon (1-6) in that particular semester, along with the age (phase) ofthat particular moon, usually measured from new moon = 0d; e.g. in Column B: Skull semester, fourth moon, day 2 (a thin waxing crescent, visible low in the west after sunset). …
Antiquity, 2015
Abstract Maya murals depicting scenes of courtly life are well known from sites such as Bonampak;... more Abstract Maya murals depicting scenes of courtly life are well known from sites such as Bonampak; far less common are scenes depicting life outside the royal sphere. Recent excavations at Xultun in Guatemala have revealed well-preserved murals in a domestic context that offer a fresh perpective on life in the Maya court, that of the priests, scribes and artists who attended the royal governor. Here, the authors decode the images to reveal the lives and activities of those who planned, performed and recorded official events in Classic-period Xultun. One of only two well-preserved examples of eastern Maya lowland wall painting from the Late Classic period, this rare display of master craftsmanship outside of the royal court sheds new light on the lives of those who produced it.
American Anthropologist, 2015
ABSTRACTThe discovery of mural paintings at the Classic Maya site of Xultun, Guatemala, provides ... more ABSTRACTThe discovery of mural paintings at the Classic Maya site of Xultun, Guatemala, provides an important context for the study of ancient literacy and writing in practice. The mural chamber was a place of writing where the hands of multiple scribes recorded events and astronomical tabulations on walls that were also painted with portraits of ritual specialists and the reigning king. We present evidence suggesting that creation and inscription of indigenous Maya books, called codices, also took place onsite by a specific cohort of ritual specialists called taaj. In this article, we seek to archaeologically “situate” these codex‐like inscriptions in the mural room—revealing a crucial and distinctly Precolumbian window (as opposed to colonial Spanish view) into Maya bookmaking, its practitioners, and the physical contexts in which it was carried out. Together, the images, texts, and archaeological materials found in and around the chamber enable us to contextualize acts of writing...
Interdisciplinary Contributions To Archaeology
The Petén region of northern Guatemala contains some of the most significant Maya archaeological ... more The Petén region of northern Guatemala contains some of the most significant Maya archaeological sites in Latin America. It was in this region that the Maya civilization began, flourished, and abruptly collapsed. Remote sensing technology is helping to locate and map ancient Maya sites that are threatened today by accelerating deforestation and looting. Thematic Mapper, IKONOS, and QuickBird satellite, and airborne STAR-3i and AIRSAR radar data, combined with Global Positioning System (GPS) technology, are successfully detecting ancient Maya features such as sites, roadways, canals, and water reservoirs. Satellite imagery is also being used to map the bajos, which are seasonally flooded swamps that cover over 40% of the land surface. The use of bajos for farming and settlement by the ancient Maya has been a source of debate within the professional community for many years. But the detection and verification of cultural features within the bajo system within the last few years are providing conclusive evidence that the ancient Maya had adapted well to wetland environments from the earliest times and utilized them until the time of the Maya collapse. In the last two years, we have discovered that there is a strong relationship between a tropical forest vegetation signature in IKONOS satellite imagery and the location of archaeological sites. We believe that the use of limestone and lime plasters in ancient Maya construction affects the moisture, nutrition, and plant species of the surface vegetation. We have mapped these vegetation signatures in the imagery and verified through field survey that they are indicative of archaeological sites. However, we have not yet determined the nature of the spectral signature in the imagery and that is a focus of our ongoing research. Through the use of
Science, 2006
The ruins of San Bartolo, Guatemala, contain a sample of Maya hieroglyphic writing dating to the ... more The ruins of San Bartolo, Guatemala, contain a sample of Maya hieroglyphic writing dating to the Late Preclassic period (400 B.C. to 200 A.D.). The writing appears on preserved painted walls and plaster fragments buried within the pyramidal structure known as “Las Pinturas,” which was constructed in discrete phases over several centuries. Samples of carbonized wood that are closely associated with the writing have calibrated radiocarbon dates of 200 to 300 B.C. This early Maya writing implies that a developed Maya writing system was in use centuries earlier than previously thought, approximating a time when we see the earliest scripts elsewhere in Mesoamerica.
Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 2010
The collapse of the Maya civilization during the ninth century A.D. is a major conundrum in the h... more The collapse of the Maya civilization during the ninth century A.D. is a major conundrum in the history of mankind. This civilization reached a spectacular peak but then almost completely collapsed in the space of a few decades. While numerous explanations have been put forth to explain this collapse, in recent years, drought has gained favor. This is because water resources were a key for the Maya, especially to ensure their survival during the lengthy dry season that occurs where they lived. Natural drought is a known, recurring feature of this region, as evidenced by observational data, reconstructions of past times, and global climate model output. Results from simulations with a regional climate model demonstrate that deforestation by the Maya also likely induced warmer, drier, drought‐like conditions. It is therefore hypothesized that the drought conditions devastating the Maya resulted from a combination of natural variability and human activities. Neither the natural drought...
Uploads
Papers by William Saturno