Monumental architecture at Piedras Negras, Guatemala: time, history, and meaning

Piedras Negras, Guatemala, is one of the principal ornaments of Classic Maya civilization, rich in hieroglyphic texts and equally endowed with deep and extensive remains of monumental architecture. Along with Uaxactun, this was the city where Mayanists first applied themselves systematically to understanding how Classic buildings functioned, developed, and fell into disuse. Earlier visitors had dug at Piedras Negras. Oliver Ricketson, member of the Carnegie Expedition of 1921, pitted in the K-6 ball courts (Satterthwaite 1944a: 30). Twenty-seven years before, loggers had hauled objects, including a flat slab with patolli-like design, back to their camp near the beach of Piedras Negras1. But it was the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania that excavated with the greatest energy, sophistication, and tenacity, in field seasons taking place throughout the 1930s (1931-1937, 1939). This essay tells a story about scholarly techniques and interests -how they changed, how they stayed the same, how, through refinement, they sharpened views of Maya architecture and urbanism. The research of the University Museum begins this account. Current investigations by the Proyecto Piedras Negras (PPN), sponsored by Brigham Young University and the Universidad del Valle, form its middle. Field seasons to come, projected through 2001, will complete the process of archaeological reflection, as two perspectives separated by sixty years converge on ancient realities. Here we focus on three themes: time (elapsed sequences deduced from stratigraphy, artifacts, and dated monuments), history (agents and activities identified by Proskouriakoff [1960] and others [Houston 1983; Stuart 1985]), and meaning (ancient intention and use inferred by various means, including guarded speculation and clues from glyphic evidence). An historical introduction explains the University Museum’s overall approach. Interest in time, history, and meaning also informs current investigations by the Proyecto Piedras Negras, especially within two buildings of the ancient city: the P-7 sweatbath and the Acropolis (Fig. 1). A comparison between the two projects will express in microcosm the history of Maya archaeology2. Monumental Architecture at Piedras Negras, Guatemala: Time, History, and Meaning