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The sacred mountain in social context. Symbolism and history in maya architecture:
Temple 22 at Copan, Honduras

Article  in  Ancient Mesoamerica · September 2011

DOI: 10.1017/S0956536111000319

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Ancient Mesoamerica, 22 (2011), 271–300
Copyright © Cambridge University Press, 2011
doi:10.1017/S0956536111000319

THE SACRED MOUNTAIN IN SOCIAL CONTEXT.

SYMBOLISM AND HISTORY IN MAYA
ARCHITECTURE: TEMPLE 22 AT COPAN, HONDURAS

Jennifer von Schwerin

Department of Art and Art History, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131

Abstract
Did Mesoamerican temples really symbolize sacred mountains? If so, what accounts for their varying forms across space and time?
Through a socio-historical and iconographic approach, it is now becoming possible to explain the social and historical factors for why
design in ancient Maya temples varied. Using these methods, this paper reconstructs and reinterprets one famous “sacred mountain” in the
Maya region: Temple 22, at Copan, Honduras, dedicated by king Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil in a.d. 715. Since 1998, the author has led
a project to conserve, document, analyze, and hypothetically reconstruct thousands of sculptures from the building’s collapsed façades. In
design and symbolism, the building probably represented not just a mountain, but the Maya universe. In its more specific historical
context, Temple 22 was designed as royal rhetoric to affirm order at a disorderly moment, and used both traditional and innovative forms to
assert Copan’s leading role on the boundary of the Maya world.

Humans often express their relationship to the natural world through
the forms and symbolism of religious architecture. Scholars agree
that temples in ancient Mesoamerica often were designed as meta-
phors for sacred mountains and served as stages for rulers to place
themselves within the natural order of things. The relationship
between landscape and architecture, one of the more prominent
topics in Mesoamerican studies in the last half-century, has
allowed scholars insight into ancient Mesoamerican worldviews
and state religions.1
Although there is evidence that Mesoamerican peoples con-
ceived of their temples as sacred mountains at specific moments
and sites in history—Mound C at La Venta, circa 600 b.c. (Reilly
1999), the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan circa a.d. 100
(Heyden 1981), or the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan circa a.d.
1400 (Broda et al. 1987; Schele and Kappelman 2001)—this is
probably not true for all temples in Mesoamerica. Their forms
and meanings varied through time and space, due to a range of
factors such as available materials, the existing natural and built
landscape, aesthetics, and local socio-political concerns. These
latter two factors are extremely hard to recover archaeologically.
Ancient Maya architecture is ideal for a socio-historical study of
temple variation, because it is the best-preserved architectural tra-
dition in Mesoamerica and because archaeologists have uncovered
artifacts and deciphered texts that span almost two millennia. In
the 1970s, before Maya hieroglyphic texts could be read in any
great detail, scholars approached variation in Maya architecture by
E-mail: correspondence to: jvonschw@unm.edu
1
Andrews 1975; Bassie-Sweet 1991, 1996; Benson 1985; Bernal-Garcia
1994; Brady and Ashmore 1999; Broda et al. 1987; Coe 2003; B. Fash 1992,
2005; Freidel et al. 1993; Girard 1969; Heyden 1981; Koontz et al. 2001;
M. Miller 1986, 1999; Pasztory 1992; Reilly 1999; Schele 1998; Schele
and Freidel 1991; Schele and Kappelman 2001; Schele and Mathews
1998; Schele and Miller 1986; Staller 2005; Stuart 1987, 1997; Tate 1992;
Taube 1986, 2002; Townsend 1979, 1992; Vogt 1960, 1969, 1981.
charting regional styles, but these so-called regional styles now
need to be reconsidered. For example, they defined the “Southern
Lowland” regional style in part by its high-relief architectural sculp-
ture and cited the ancient city of Copan in Western Honduras as the
classic example (e.g., Gendrop 1974; Kubler 1962a; Pollock 1965)
(Figures 1 and 2). However, recent excavations indicate that façades
in northern Yucatan also had high-relief architectural sculpture
(Figure 3). A revised comparative study of Maya architectural
design is in order and since the 1990s scholars have been calling
for “an art historical analysis of stylistic interaction between sites”
(Culbert 1991:345). They also have suggested that although scho-
lars have identified temples, sweat baths, and ball courts, “additional
work needs to be done to determine when and where such buildings
appear and what their local attributes might be… the ways in which
[they use] a vocabulary that was both universally Maya and simul-
taneously local” (Houston 1998:520). The challenge is not only to
better date and describe regional schools of architecture to under-
stand how their appearance varied over time and space, but also
to understand the reasons for these changes (Miller 1999:6–7).
Fortunately, it now is becoming feasible to examine the “whys”
behind variation in temple design. Now that Maya hieroglyphs
can be deciphered, and archaeological data is expanding, scholars
are beginning to synthesize histories of the art and architecture of
individual Maya kingdoms (W. Fash 2001, 2004; Fash and Stuart
1991; Harrison 1998; Looper 2003; Martin and Grube 2000;
Schele and Freidel 1990; Stuart and Stuart 2008; Tate 1992). It is
slowly becoming possible to engage in closer analyses of the
design, function, and meanings of certain buildings within their
micro-historical contexts—that is, plus or minus just a few decades.
The micro-historical study of Maya architectural design has
already been underway at the ancient city of Copan (Figure 4).
Over 160 years of investigations have resulted in texts and archae-
ological data spanning five centuries and the dynasties of sixteen
kings, and archaeologists now are able to date change in ceramics

271
272 von Schwerin

Figure 1. Copan and other Maya kingdoms mentioned in the text. Map by Heather Richards-Rissetto.

and architecture to within a few decades (for the most recent over-
view of research at Copan see Andrews and Fash [2004]). Relevant
to the study of architecture, the Copan Mosaics Project (CMP), the
Copan Acropolis Archaeological Project (PAAC), its sub-
operations, and other projects have shown that architectural sculp-
ture programs at Copan can be reconstructed and interpreted
within a micro-historical context.2 For example, the Popol Na or
Council House at Copan has been interpreted to have been built
by the sixteenth ruler of Copan in response to a challenging political
situation (Fash et al. 1992), while the House of the Bacabs has been
interpreted to be the home of a scribe of one of the rising lineages
that threatened the power of this very ruler (Webster 1989). But
what about the temple-like structures—buildings that scholars
refer to as “sacred mountains?” What evidence is there for such
“sacred mountains” in the Maya region, and can they be placed
within a socio-historical context?
The building at Copan that scholars recognize as representing the
Yax Hal Witz (“First True Mountain” or Creation Mountain) of
Maya mythology (Freidel et al. 1993:149) is located high on the
East Court of the acropolis of Copan. Called Structure 10L-22, or
simply, Temple 22 (Figures 4–6), it was dedicated in a.d. 715 by
the thirteenth king of Copan, Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil
(known in earlier literature as 18 Rabbit) (Figure 7). Temple 22

2
Copan Mosaics Project (see, for example Fash 1991a, 1991b, 1992,
2011); Copan Acropolis Archaeological Project (see, for example, Agurcia
1996; Agurcia and Fash 2005; Andrews and Fash 1992; Fash 1998, 2001;
Fash and Fash 1990; Fash et al. 1992; Schele and Freidel 1990; Sharer Figure 2. One of twenty Maize God sculptures from Temple 22, Copan (©
et al. 1999; Stuart 1992, 1997); other projects (see Webster 1989). The Trustees of the British Museum).
Symbolism and History in Maya Architecture: Temple 22 at Copan, Honduras 273

Figure 3. Detail from stucco façade at Ek Balam, Yucatan. Photo by author.

has been lauded as the “single most beautifully executed” of all
extant Copan structures (Miller 1988:153). Relatively small as
temples in the Maya area go (with a floor plan 25.5 × 11.5 m), it
is perhaps best known for the detailed sculpture that frames the
structure’s interior doorway (Figure 8). This represents the
Cosmic Monster (Milbrath 1999:275–283, Figure 7.5d; Schele
1992b:135–136; Stone 1985) or starry-deer-crocodile (Stuart
2005) with deer, serpent, and crocodile attributes. This symbolizes
the sky—or perhaps more specifically, the Milky Way (Milbrath
1999:277–280; Schele 1992b:135–136)—that is held up by
Pahuatuns or sky-bearers who hold up the four corners of the
earth. Like this sculptural tour-de-force, the exterior façade bore
an equally ornate sculptural program with almost 4,000 pieces
and fragments of mosaic, stone sculpture that have led scholars to
consider Temple 22 a masterpiece of Maya architecture (Freidel
et al. 1990:147). Although Temple 22’s façades are now collapsed
and the sculpture is in collections around the world, the pieces are in
good condition and the building has excellent archaeological and

Figure 4. Reconstruction of the Principal Group of Copan with surrounding structures, as the architecture appeared in a.d. 820,
viewed from the northeast. Sketch Up Model by Heather Richards-Rissetto.
274 von Schwerin

Figure 5. Plan of Temple 22 and the East Court. Graphic by Heather Richards-Rissetto (after Hohmann and Vogrin 1982).

Figure 6. Temple 22 in its consolidated state today. Only the structure’s platform and bearing walls of the first story remain. Photo by
author (2008).
Symbolism and History in Maya Architecture: Temple 22 at Copan, Honduras
Figure 7. Stela B, Great Plaza, Copan. This stela is believed to be a portrait
of Ruler Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil. Photo by author.
historical context. Since the 1980s, scholars have used Temple 22 to
argue that Maya temples were symbolic mountains because its first
story bears masks with the witz (hill) and tuun (stone) glyphs (Fash
1992; Schele 1987; Stuart 1987:17–23, 1997:15) (Figure 9), anthro-
pomorphized maize figures (see Figure 2) (Spinden 1913:90), and
an exterior doorway in the form of a fanged mouth, symbolizing a
cave within the mountain (Figure 10) (Freidel et al. 1993:
146–155; Schele 1987; Schele and Freidel 1990:146–155; Schele
and Miller 1986; Stuart 1987, 1997). There has been ongoing
debate, however, as to whether the building actually was a temple.
Hypotheses vary from temple (Fash 1991a; 1992, 2005; Morales
1997; Plank 2003:261; Schele and Kappelman 2001; Schele and
Miller 1986; Spinden 1913; Taube 1994, 2002) to observatory for
Venus and the Sun (Aveni 1977; Closs et. al 1984; Morley 1920:
277–282; Šprajc 1987), to royal residence (Baudez 1989; Miller
1999:52; Sanders 1989) (for a more detailed survey of previous
interpretations see Ahlfeldt [2004b:29–71]). This disagreement is
partly because these studies had to rely on archaeological data
and reconstruction drawings that employed less than one percent
of the sculpture sample.
Four archaeological projects over the last century have recovered
close to 4,000 pieces of sculpture now attributed to Temple 22 and
this unanalyzed material (as well as recent advances in archaeology
and epigraphy at Copan and throughout the Maya area) demands a
reinterpretation of the building’s form and meanings. The most
recent project, the PAAC, directed by William L. Fash of Harvard
University (Fash 1989, 1998), contributed vastly to this corpus
and the CMP, directed by Barbara Fash, catalogued the sculpture
to conserve and analyze it (Fash et al. 1992; Fash 2011). In 1998
they invited me to continue the sculpture analysis and I have
since directed the Temple 22 Façade Sculpture Analysis Project as
a subproject of the CMP. I followed CMP methods to hypothetically
reconstruct the building’s façade sculpture, and to synthesize
275
interdisciplinary data to determine the structure’s significance
(Ahlfeldt 2004a, 2004b) and began to explore the advantages of a
digital reconstruction (Remondino et al. 2009; von Schwerin et al.
2010, 2011).3 In preliminary publications I also employed formal,
stylistic, and construction analyses, and phenomenological and per-
formance theory to locate this structure within the social and archi-
tectural history of Copan (Ahlfeldt 2004a, 2004b). A forthcoming
excavation report by the PAAC project on the excavations of
Temple 22 will include a more detailed report of the Temple 22
Façade Sculpture Analysis Project than can be presented here.
This paper summarizes what we have learned to date about the
sculptural program of Temple 22 and analyzes it within the socio-
historical context of eighth-century Copan—offering a case-study
for how and why royal elites employed sacred mountain imagery
in ancient Maya architecture. I show that during his reign (a.d.
695–738), king Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil was struggling to
hold the kingdom together and that he commissioned Temple 22
as a response to his situation. This paper concludes that Temple
22 represented not only the sacred mountain of creation, but more
broadly the fertile, ordered Maya universe—or kaan kab’ (sky-
earth)—peopled with the ruler, ancestors, and patron deities. I
show how the building employed both ancient and innovative
forms with a clarity intended both for Maya and non-Maya audi-
ences, visually explaining the historical, mythical, and cosmic
basis for Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s reign to his eighth-century
subjects as he sought to maintain Copan’s power base on the south-
eastern Maya frontier. More broadly, this paper offers insights not
only into Maya kingship and state religion at Copan in the early
eighth century, but also moves the study of Mesoamerican temple
design beyond structural interpretations as sacred mountains to
show how and why this metaphor was used in one specific historical
context. The reconstruction and interpretation of the Maya temple
presented here offers a specific instance of how Mesoamerican
elites used architecture as media to express their political agendas,
and also how humanity’s relationship to nature was conceived of
and expressed at one moment in Mesoamerican history.
A SOCIAL HISTORY OF MAYA TEMPLE DESIGN
By “social history” I refer to that branch of art history influenced by
the Marxist approach that examines circumscribed moments in the
history of art, focusing on historical relations between artists, art-
works, and institutions (for example, T.J. Clark’s [1973] The
Absolute Bourgeois: Artists and Politics in France between
1848–1851) (Hatt and Klonk 2006). This is different from
Appadurai’s anthropological concept of the social history of
objects (1986) in which an object goes through various states, at
one time or another ending up as a commodity. While
Appadurai’s is a diachronic approach—looking at the change in
meaning of a single object over time—in the discipline of art
history, a social history of an object is a synchronic study that
locates the object’s significance within a particular socio-historical
moment and context. This approach emphasizes that art (or architec-
ture) does not simply reflect society, but can change society. A
socio-historical inquiry of an object asks: “How is the object’s
design a product—and even agent—of the social, political, and
economic conditions in which it was made?”
3
Note that my previous publications on this subject were published
under my maiden name, Jennifer Ahlfeldt.
276
Figure 8. Reconstruction drawing of sculpture surrounding the doorway to the north room of Temple 22, based on the original sculp-
ture now in the Copan Sculpture Museum. Drawing by Edgar Zelaya under the direction of the author.
The relationship between historical context and architectural
design has long engaged historians of Gothic cathedrals and
Greek temples (e.g., Marconi 2007; Murray 1989), and in the last
decade, studies of elite architecture of the New World also have
begun to take the social historical approach—although they have
not named it as such. Edited volumes of studies of palace architec-
ture, for example, have sought to identify palace forms and then to
combine ethnohistoric, epigraphic, and archaeological data to infer
ways that the forms and spaces of elite architecture express royal
rhetoric (Christie 2003; Christie and Sarro 2006; Evans and
Figure 9. View of 3D model of witz masks in the Copan Sculpture Museum
that once decorated the corners of the bearing walls of the first story of
Temple 22. Range data and 3D model realized by the 3D Optical Metrology
research unit of FBK Trento, Italy.
von Schwerin
Pillsbury 2004; Inomata and Houston 2001). It has been shown,
for example, that palace forms at different kingdoms and cities
ranged widely in both Inka and Maya civilizations and that this vari-
ation in form reflected differing regional political strategies
(Demarest 2006; Morris 2004). As to the details of these political
strategies, the recent developments in Maya archaeology, epigraphy,
and archaeometric technologies now make a social history of Maya
architectural design at individual cities a viable endeavor. See for
example, the studies of royal architectural programs at Quirigua
(Ashmore 2007; Looper 2003) or Copan (W. Fash 1991a, 2004;
Freidel et al. 1993).
While most other socio-historical studies of Mesoamerican or
Maya architecture focus on how building programs are built to
send messages to people within the city or kingdom in question,
I take a slightly different approach here in that I conceive of
“context” more broadly—to explore the role Temple 22 played
in Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s, and Copan’s, relationship to
the broader southeastern Mesoamerican region—in particular
the city’s trading partners. I also build upon the results from a dia-
chronic approach I took in a previous publication (von Schwerin
2011), in which I examine the building as one “event” (Kubler
1962b), within a longer tradition of similar architectural events
at Copan. This assists me in highlighting the temple’s traditional
and innovative aspects that in turn shed more light on the temple’s
significance to its eighth-century viewers. Finally, I seek to break
down the static concept of Maya “pyramid-temples” by rethink-
ing them in a socio-historical context, to consider how their
design was part of a grander tradition with variation that might
be explained by local factors. I am interested in the variation
between royal temples specifically, but even the word “temple”
needs to be defined and reconsidered (Ahlfeldt 2004b). Along
these lines, Lisa Lucero (2007) has suggested that more research
needs to be made into the relationship between royal and commu-
nity temples. To avoid entering this discussion here, I limit my
focus here to a structure type that scholars believe often
Symbolism and History in Maya Architecture: Temple 22 at Copan, Honduras
Figure 10. Hypothetical reconstruction of Temple 22 by Tatiana Proskouriakoff (2002:43), highlighting the serpent mouth doorway,
corner masks, and maize god niches. Her reconstruction shows only one story.
represented sacred mountains and caves—those with “zoo-
morphic portals” or “dragon-mouth entrances” (Gendrop 1985;
Schávelzon 1980) (see Figure 2).
Among the buildings of this “serpent-mouth doorway” type in
the Maya region, Temple 22 is one of the few that can be confi-
dently designated as a royal structure, because its inscription,
symbolism, location, and quality of construction indicate that it
was linked to the royal dynasty. The building’s inscription indi-
cates that king Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil dedicated it on the
katun (20-year) anniversary of his accession (Stuart 1986,
1989). Scholars have thus interpreted the structure as a symbolic
gateway to the underworld that bore symbols related to ruler
accession, where the ruler performed bloodletting rites
(M. Miller 1986, 1988:170–171; Schele 1976; Schele and
Miller 1986; Stuart 1988:204), perhaps related to cycles of
maize agriculture and appearances of Venus (Aveni 1977; Closs
et al.1984; Fash 2011; Morales 1997; Šprajc 1987). Abrams
(1994) showed that Temple 22 required more energy to build
than any other structure he examined at Copan, further supporting
the royal status of the building.
Here I examine specifically how this particular sacred mountain
functioned as part of the kingdom’s “ideological apparatus”
(Patterson and Gailey 1987). I am able to do this because research
at Copan over the last few decades has provided a wealth of infor-
mation to reframe Temple 22 and its patron’s building campaign
and political agenda within a micro-historical context. I use ideol-
ogy here as other Maya researchers have used it, to indicate the
set of doctrines the ruling elite project regarding the economic, pol-
itical, religious, and social order of the world (Demarest 1992). It is
clear that king Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil had an ideological
program to convey, for when he ascended to the throne on July 6,
a.d. 695 (9.13.3.6.8), he began to renovate Copan’s urban center
and was a prolific patron during the remainder of his forty-three
year reign (Fash 1991a). His most famous monuments are the
stelae in Copan’s Great Plaza (Newsome 2001). Excepting one
(Stela C), none of these stelae were erected until the third decade
of his reign. Rather, Temple 22 was dedicated at the end of the
second decade of his reign on 9.14.3.6.8. (as were the East Court,
and the other structures he dedicated—probably Structures 20 and
277
21 (Fash 1991a:124)—and clearly laid out his agenda for a range
of audiences.
COPAN (a.d. 715) AND THE KING’S AGENDA
The synthesis of published interdisciplinary data on early eighth-
century Copan, and the broader Maya realm, that follows below indi-
cates that when Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil dedicated Temple 22
in a.d. 715, Copan had reached the apex of its political and cultural
expansion. I argue that as Copan’s hegemony and the ideology of
rulership was becoming more pronounced and yet increasingly pro-
blematic, the king was struggling to hold the city together and to stay
abreast of current developments in Maya religion and aesthetics. The
combination of both traditional and innovative forms found on
Temple 22 is a clear response to these challenges.
When Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil acceded to power in a.d.
695, twelve successive Maya rulers had reigned at Copan for
almost three centuries. Copan was an ancient city—a “city with a
pedigree” (Miller 1999:9)—established as the center of a Maya
kingdom in the fifth century (Sharer 2003). As the thirteenth
ruler, he inherited the legacy and prosperity of his father, Ruler
12, K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil—the longest ruling king in
Copan’s history—who had expanded Copan’s territory in the south-
eastern Maya area (Canuto and Bell 2008; Fash 1991a; Looper
2003; Schele and Mathews 1998; Stuart 1992). His father’s influ-
ence as far north as southern Belize is seen at Pusilha, where
kings adopted the names of K’ahk’ Uti’ Ha’ K’awiil and his prede-
cessor (Prager 2002), or at Nim Li Punit where the kings wear the
Copan turban headdress, and a ruler is named after a place name
at Copan (Martin and Grube 2000; Schele and Mathews 1998). In
a.d. 695, Copan’s population levels (estimates range between
8,000 and 15,000 people at this time [Webster et al. 2000;
Webster and Freter 1990]) and socio-political complexity indicate
it was a state-level society that had deep and powerful ties with
the Maya region to the northwest, and that it controlled the south-
eastern Maya region (Andrews and Fash 2005; Fash 1991a:112).
Despite this long period of control, Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil
had the misfortune of taking the throne during a period of rapid
growth, political reorganization, and consolidation throughout the
278
Maya area (Fash 1991a; Sabloff and Henderson 1992), and his build-
ing program indicates his concern with the situation. In a.d. 695, in
what has been called the “turning point in the history of the entire
lowlands,” the twenty-sixth ruler of Tikal defeated his rival city of
Calakmul, thus shifting the balance of power throughout the Maya
region (Martin and Grube 2000; Grube 2001:168). This volatile
period continued throughout Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s reign,
to the final capture of the king of Calakmul in a.d. 736 and the
defeat of his dynasty. His building program must have responded
to these changes—one example of this self-consciousness is Stela
A, which Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil dedicated in a.d. 731. Its
text cites four cities: Tikal, Calakmul, Palenque and Copan, thus
asserting Copan’s foundational place in lowland Maya civilization
(Marcus 1973:912–913, 1993:150).
Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil continued Copan’s hegemony
over the site of Quirigua and the lower Montagua valley by instal-
ling the Quirigua king K’ak Tiliw Chan Yoaat in a.d. 724
(Martin and Grube 2000:203). One reason for Copan’s interest in
this region seems to have been economic—Copan likely benefited
from the increased demand, production, and trade in precious
goods that served the expanding elite class (McAnany 1993;
M. Miller 1993). Copan’s reign at Quirigua may have been estab-
lished in the fifth century to control trade in jade from sources
along the Motagua river (Fash 1991a), the feather trade from the
highlands (Coggins 1987:98–109), as well as in Ixtepeque obsidian
from the Guatemala highlands. The trading patterns of Ixtepeque
obsidian have been traced along the Motagua River to the
Caribbean, up the Belize coast, and then around the Yucatan penin-
sula, reaching as far away as the Chenes region (Aoyama 1999;
Gonzalez de la Mata and Andrews 1998). These trading routes
were also conduits for architectural ideas and religious ideologies
and may explain similarities between Copan and Chenes-style archi-
tecture to the north (Proskouriakoff 1963), and to sculptural styles in
the Guatemalan highlands (B. Fash 2004). Copan was interacting
with Maya polities to the northwest and so we can conclude that
Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil commissioned Temple 22 in part to
assert Copan’s central identity within the Maya region.
Copan was a frontier kingdom, however, and during Waxaklajuun
Ub’aah K’awiil’s reign, Copan was janus-faced, looking to objects
and ideas from the Maya lowlands and exporting these to non-Maya
areas towards the southeast. Copan was a distribution center, a
gateway city (Fash 1983, 1991a; Fash and Stuart 1991). By the
time Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil took power, Copan was peaking
in its control of the southeastern Maya region, and had shifted econ-
omic and political relations to the non-Maya areas of interior
Honduras, western El Salvador, and the middle Montagua basin.
Cultural interaction with these areas peaks around a.d. 700 and is
visible in ceramic trade (Demarest 1988; Fash 1991a; Longyear
1952; Viel 1993), architecture and site planning (Ashmore 1987,
2007; Canuto and Bell 2008; Schortman et al. 2001:315; von
Schwerin 2010), in the adoption of stone stelae at several sites in
Honduras (Nakamura et al. 1991), and in the appearance of Maya
motifs on local polychrome ceramics (Beaudry 1983; Beaudry et al.
1993; Hirth 1998:297; Joyce 1993). A non-Maya audience made up
much of Copan, for household artifacts show little connection to
Maya culture, and are like those found in Comayagua and the Lake
Yojoa regions of Honduras (Fash 1983:236–240; Leventhal et al.
1987). These collections also include trade items from El Salvador
(Demarest 1988:355), and objects common to the Lenca people
who had lived in the Copan valley for centuries (Gerstle 1988). In
fact, when a sixteenth-century visitor inquired of Copan’s inhabitants
von Schwerin
as to who had built the ancient structures, they replied, “a great lord
from the Yucatan came, built these monuments, and then left”
(Maudslay 1889–1902:5–8). Archaeology and oral history both indi-
cate that the eighth-century Maya ruling elite were ethnically different
from their subjects and Newsome (2001) argues that both Copan sub-
jects and the non-Maya peoples to the east and south were the primary
audience for Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s building campaign.
Copan’s multi-ethnic nature was rather unusual among Maya king-
doms in the eighth century, and scholars have proposed models
where ruling vassals from sites in Honduras and El Salvador came
to Copan to witness the Mayan king perform period-ending rites or
dedicate monuments such as Temple 22 (Demarest 1998; Newsome
2001; Schele and Freidel 1990).
Having vassals affirm his power was more important than ever,
for during Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s reign, Copan was on the
verge of decline, never to return to its former glory (Fash et al.
2004). The increasing population density at Copan suggests that
its carrying capacity on a regional level might have been surpassed
in the eighth century (Fash 1983). Decreased economic production
may also explain why fine-ware ceramic diversity at Copan peaked
at this time and declines thereafter, whereas the diversity of utilitar-
ian wares had been declining since a.d. 650 (Bill 1997:521–523).
His power must have been weakening, as he struggled to hold
Copan’s power together by leading military campaigns against
Quirigua’s subsidiary centers (Canuto and Bell 2008; Martin and
Grube 2000:203; Nakamura 2003), and he ultimately perished in
a battle with Quirigua in a.d. 738 (Marcus 1976; Fash et al.
2004). Wendy Ashmore (personal communication 2010) has
noted the rapidity with which “new” non-Maya polities emerged
in the wake of the king’s assassination (Ashmore 2007; Canuto
and Bell 2008; Schortman and Nakamura 1991), and has pointed
out that the restiveness that can be inferred from such rapid political
transformation surely would have been a factor in the king’s aware-
ness that public action was needed.
Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil was not alone in his struggles, for
martial themes increased in frequency and explicitness at Copan and
in the Maya region through the eighth century (Fash 1992; Fash and
Fash 1996). As competition amplified throughout the Maya region,
rulers asserted their power through intensified building campaigns
(M. Miller 1993, 1999)—campaigns of which Waxaklajuun
Ub’aah K’awiil was well aware. These public constructions
served as locales for the performance of state ritual and expanded
the vocabulary of religious iconography to enhance state power
and identity. This paralleled an increase in the complexity of
written texts (Houston and Stuart 1998:95). Finally, at this time
there was an increasing emphasis on the body of the ruler as the
embodiment of state, for imagery of rulers appears on buildings
that previously only displayed deity masks (A. Miller 1986).
Proskouriakoff (1950) made many of these observations 60 years
ago, calling this period the “Ornate phase” of Maya art, which
she dated to a.d. 692–751. In this style there is great intricacy and
detail in what is represented, but compositions are ordered and
restrained (in contrast to the later Dynamic phase, no action or nar-
rative is shown) and thus very legible. These changes may well
reflect a shift in the nature of Maya kingship and state religion.
Temple 22 must be considered, therefore, within the context of
the increasing reliance of Copan on the non-Maya regions to main-
tain a prominent position in the Maya world, the demographic and
resource challenges it faced, challenges to the office of divine king-
ship, and perhaps a shift in the cosmology and aesthetics of early
eighth-century Maya religion. Until now, scholars have said that
Symbolism and History in Maya Architecture: Temple 22 at Copan, Honduras
Figure 11. Sculpture from Temple 22, Copan, Honduras. Photograph by Alfred Maudslay, taken in 1890–1891 after his excavations
around the temple (© The Trustees of the British Museum).
Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s agenda was to assert his central role
(Schele and Freidel 1990:316), and to expand state ritual in order to
maintain influence over diverse ethnic communities (Newsome
1991:49, 2001). I would add a third intention—a desire to be com-
petitive with the architectural campaigns of other Maya rulers. As
this paper will demonstrate, the evidence for this tri-partite agenda
can be found in patterns recoverable from Temple 22’s socio-
historical context, but are more directly apparent in the design and
symbolism of the building itself.
TEMPLE 22 FAÇADE SCULPTURE CONSERVATION
AND ANALYSIS PROJECT
Previous Research (1885–1998)
The effort to determine the original appearance and significance of
Temple 22 may be traced back to the beginnings of Maya archaeol-
ogy. Discovery and initial excavation of Temple 22 occurred in the
nineteenth century when, like the Parthenon, explorers treated it as a
quarry for museum collections. The building’s façade sculpture is in
collections of the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History,
as well as the British Museum, Harvard’s Peabody Museum, the
American Museum of Natural History, the National Gallery in
Washington, DC, and Tulane University. The British Museum
pieces are in London due to Alfred Maudslay, the first person to
excavate and document Temple 22 (Maudslay 1889–1902:10–13,
17–29). Although Stephens and Catherwood had been to Copan
decades earlier to record its monuments, they did not discover
Temple 22. Rather, it was Maudslay who in 1885 encountered the
collapsed building with only load-bearing walls remaining, with a
central southern entrance and four vaulted rooms, one in each car-
dinal direction (Figure 5). He found that the entrance to the north
chamber is marked by a sculpted doorframe and hieroglyphic
inscription (Figure 8). Maudslay also encountered four sculpture
motifs in the rubble around the collapsed building: the Maize
God sculptures (Figure 2), corner masks (Figure 9), other masks,
and human figures (Figure 11), but did not document their original
locations.
279
A decade later, G.B. Gordon from Harvard’s Peabody Museum
excavated around the structure and concluded that Temple 22 had
a second level: “without a doubt the fragments in the [Peabody]
collection are pieces of an elaborate fallen façade from the northern
wall of temple no. 22 and I believe that by diligent search, the remain-
ing pieces can be recovered, or a sufficient number of them to indicate
the design” (Gordon 1894–1898:17–18). Unfortunately, he only
vaguely recorded the sculpture’s provenience, and neither he nor his
predecessor published all of the pieces, nor attempted a reconstruction.
After a 1934 earthquake sent three East Court buildings toppling
into the Copan River, the Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW)
excavated and consolidated three-fourths of Temple 22 between
1935–1937 (Trik 1939). The archaeologists did not publish the thou-
sands of pieces of sculptures they encountered, but rather left them in
piles around the structure roughly according to the side of the building
that they were found (Fash 1992). The excavation report includes a
reconstruction drawing by Proskouriakoff that identifies the monster-
mouth framing the central doorway, and revised it a decade later to
include the Maize God motif (Proskouriakoff 2002) (Figure 10). In
both drawings she represents the structure with only one story and
includes only a few pieces from the sculpture corpus.
Attention finally turned to the unanalyzed sculpture sample
when between 1986 and 1994, the PAAC carried out final exca-
vations and conservation of the building and catalogued the sculp-
ture piles left by the CIW (Fash 1989). One goal was to locate the
remaining fallen sculpture with the hope of finding a fall pattern
that would serve as a template for a reconstruction. The PAAC dis-
covered and catalogued thousands of stone mosaic fragments, many
of which helped to recontextualize sculpture from earlier exca-
vations and re-identify sculptures now mixed in piles with those
from other buildings. The project expanded the sculpture motif
count from four to twenty (Barbara Fash, personal communication
1998; see also Ahlfeldt [2004:Figure 31] for an unpublished recon-
struction by Fash), restored several corner masks onto the building
(Fash 1989, 1992, 2011:124–129; Freidel et al. 1993; Schele 1987),
and determined the stratigraphy of surrounding structures, support-
ing Stuart’s dating of Temple 22 based upon the inscription (Larios
et al. 1994). Meanwhile, as part of the PAAC, the Early Copan
280 von Schwerin

Acropolis Project (ECAP) tunneled underneath Temple 22, unco- Table 1. Sculpture Motifs found in previous excavations around Temple 22
vering earlier façade sculpture and seven antecedents to the building that were likely originally on its façade
(Morales 1997; Sharer et al. 1992, 1999). Overall these projects to
date have resulted in a half-restored building and a corpus of Motif # of Repetitions
class Motif Name (MNI)
façade sculpture from the building in collections around the world.
Definitely on First Story
1 Mouth Doorway 1
Current Research (1998–2011)
2 Corner Witz (Earth) Masks 8 (perhaps more)
Since 1998 I have directed the Temple 22 Façade Sculpture Likely on First Story
Conservation and Analysis Project under the aegis of the PAAC 3 Yax Kan streams TBD (to be
project and the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History. determined)
We developed a database of Temple 22 sculpture, conserved and 4 Maize Deity 20
5 Tuun Witz Masks (maize deity emerges 20
restored individual sculptures, and attributed or confirmed attribu-
from)
tion of 3,713 pieces to the building (based on location excavated,
6 Other Tuun Symbols TBD
sculptural style and motif, and on the refitting of excavated pieces 7 Bird (Principal Bird Deity?) 4 or 5
to unprovenienced sculpture). Many of these sculptures were then 8 Volutas or Flower Imagery 19
refitted together to form motifs containing up to 25 or more 9 Skeletal head -yax/ajaw border TBD
pieces of mosaic sculpture. 9 K’ul glyph 7
A motif is a symbol that can be identified; for instance, a mask, a Likely from Second Level or Roofcomb
human figure, a bird, or a volute (Kubler 1969). When I began this 10 Ruler Figure 8
study, just six motifs from Temple 22 had been published: the Maize 11 Ahau with teeth/Flowers? TBD
God and the tuun witz masks (Maudslay 1889–1902; Miller 1988: 12 Chaak/Pax Figures 9–11
13 Flower Mountain/“Bearded Serpent” 4
172–175; Spinden 1913), the mouth doorway (Freidel et al. 1993:
Mask
149–151; Trik 1939), the corner witz masks (Trik 1939), the ruler
14 Large Figure 1
figures (Fash 1992) and the interior doorway (Freidel et al. 1993; 15 Ik Glyph 7
Maudslay 1889–1902). I analyzed and revised these sculpture 16 Yax Kan Ajaw border TBD
motifs, as well as unpublished ones identified by the PAAC, and dis- 17 PBD Heads (from Ruler headdress?) 8
covered 18 additional motifs. The information on the sculpture 18 Border with ball and star sign TBD
recovered by previous excavations varies in utility for reconstructing 19 Knots/Pop band TBD
Temple 22’s façades. Notes from the earliest excavations state 20 Starry-Deer Crocodile with Pawahtun 1
simply: “west side Temple 22,” or “north side,” or “Mound 22.” 21 G1 waterbird Mask 5
The CIW left no records on the sculpture, but if a piece is located 22 God C profile face 7
Likely façade location still unclear
in Pile 22, for example, we can deduce that the piece was prob-
23 Elongated wavy Ajaw 10
ably—but not positively—gathered or excavated near the area
24 Smaller Tzuk Face 3
where Pile 22 once stood—southeast of Temple 22. Fortunately, 25 Curves and curved borders with beads TBD
coordinates and maps exist for the pieces excavated by the PAAC. 26 Ajaw with tenons 10
These pieces act as a control sample to indicate which motifs were 27 Feathers (various types) TBD
definitely from Temple 22 and on which side of the building a 28 Vegetation TBD
piece fell when the building collapsed. Fortunately, there are many 29 Architectural features (moldings, drains, TBD
factors other than provenance that make a reconstruction possible: etc)
stone size, tenon angle, relief depth, as well as iconographic patterns 30 Death mask in Copan sculpture museum 1
in the art of Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s reign and throughout the 31 Loincloths TBD
32 Serpents TBD
Maya area. Once individual motifs have been reconstructed, they are
33 Border with jester god and serpent scrolls TBD
tested in the sandbox, and then reconstructed digitally. In total, 36
34 Large grotesque faces TBD
mosaic sculpture motifs repeated around the building’s façades Likely from T22 (not found in
between four and twenty times (Table 1). excavations but rather in Carnegie
These repetitions are determined by a minimum number of indi- sculpture piles)
vidual (MNI) count that I collected for each motif (Ahlfeldt 2004b: 35 Waterlily serpent 2
449–596). For example, I have identified 20 Maize God busts and 36 Skeletal Mask 3
19 Maize God heads, suggesting that the motif repeated 20 times
(Figure 12). The number of motif repetitions probably often
carried symbolic meaning. How this motif was arranged on the
façade is determined by examining various factors such as location tuun witz mask groups with maize vegetation and 20 Maize Gods,
found; the length, size, shape and angle of the tenon; the height of indicating that the motifs could have been paired (Figure 13).
stone coursing; the depth of relief; the weight and size of individual Moreover, the tenons of the tuun witz masks are 80 cm long with
stones, the number of repetitions of the motif; the size of the motif, a level surface that could have served as a platform for the busts
and patterns of design and iconography on Waxaklajuun Ub’aah (the Maize Gods must have been intended to be busts, as I have
K’awiil’s other monuments. not located matching legs). Long, heavy tenons are used in Maya
For example, some scholars have suggested that the Maize God architecture at the medial molding to support the sculpture frieze
figures might have been set on earth masks within niches (Miller above. Moreover, human-like figures in niches at Copan tend to be
1988:172–173; Proskouriakoff 1963). An MNI count reveals 20 placed on the entablature (upper portion of building between
Symbolism and History in Maya Architecture: Temple 22 at Copan, Honduras 281

Figure 12. (a) Maize God busts in the warehouse at the Copan Regional Center for Archaeological Investigations, Honduras (11 out of
the 20 total Maize Gods on the building); (b) The Maize God as it appeared 20 times on Temple 22, each time seated on top of a tuun
witz mask (Drawing by Edgar Zelaya). The tuun witz mask was originally found and illustrated by Maudslay, although he did not recog-
nize it as such.

medial and cornice molding corresponding to the vault that rests on
the load-bearing walls). This motif was therefore probably on the
entablature. CIW excavations recovered ten masks from the south
side, concluding that they came from the south façade (Trik 1939:
101). These masks would not have fit on the south side unless
they were stacked vertically, as is seen in Campeche and the northern
Yucatan. But this probably was not the arrangement on Temple 22,
since the Maize Gods were emerging from them. More probably, the
building’s vaults collapsed towards the south, sending sculptures on
the South, East and West façades towards the south. Because
Maudslay encountered three maize gods on the west side, I recon-
struct the motif distribution as follows: six on the south side of the
building (three flanking each side of the doorway), three on the
east and west sides, and eight along the north side (Figure 13).
This multi-faceted analysis—requiring knowledge of individual
stones, Maya iconography, stone masonry technology, and the
building’s collapse and excavation history—must be carried out
for each of the 36 motifs. Although the project is ongoing, I sum-
marize the most important motifs here as well as their likely
arrangement.
DESIGN AND SYMBOLISM OF TEMPLE 22
The results of the façade reconstruction project indicate that Temple
22’s façades bore over 36 sculptural motifs that repeated in a hier-
archical display of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures and
swirling vegetation (Figure 14 and Table 1). The structure’s
façades represented a fertile mountain with flowers, maize and
flowing water. Upon this mountain sat statues of the ruler and
these were surrounded by pan-Maya deities, local patron deities
and probably an arching sky-serpent. An iconographic analysis of
these motifs indicates that together this sculptural symbolism and
the building’s design represented a three-dimensional diagram of
the Maya universe, articulating its horizontal quadripartite and

Figure 13. Test of Maize God and tuun witz mask on entablature of Temple 22. Uncompleted scale 3D reconstruction of Temple 22 in
3D Studio Max. Rendering by architect Laura Ackley and the author.
282
Figure 14. Hypothetical reconstruction of selected motifs from Temple 22. Drawing by Nancy Allen under the direction of the author
(2007).
vertical tripartite spatial divisions as well as the temporal divisions
of cosmic and human time. In many ways it mirrors the imagery
found on the interior doorway of the building (Figure 8) but is far
more elaborate and detailed.
Creation Mountain, Sacred Time/Space, and the Birth
of Humanity
The first story—that is, the first level—of the structure represented
the sacred cave of Creation Mountain as previously hypothesized
(Freidel et al. 1993), as well as Flower Mountain as Taube (2004)
suspected. Moreover it bears directional symbolism of quadriparti-
tioning, as well as sacrifice and creation mountain imagery, thus
continuing pan-Maya creation imagery that is associated with
ruler accession in the murals at San Bartolo, Guatemala (150 b.c.)
almost one thousand years earlier (Saturno et al. 2005; Taube
et al. 2010).
Each of the four corners of the building’s first story bore two
(and perhaps three) masks that marked the building as a stone moun-
tain. The main doorway as a gaping mouth with teeth and fangs
recalls a cave entrance rimmed with stalactites and stalagmites
(Figure 15). This metaphor is prevalent in Mesoamerican art as
far back as 700 b.c. at Chalcatzingo. Caves are considered to be
underworld, womb-like emergent spaces, and sources of water
where maize was first found. They are the abode of ancestors and
powerful forces and contemporary Maya still make sacrificial offer-
ings in caves (e.g., Bassie-Sweet 1991, 1996; Brady 1988, 1996;
Brady and Prufer 2005; Brady and Veni 1992; Heyden 1981; Le
Fort et al. 2009; Saturno et. al. 2005; Schávelzon 1980; Schele
1998; Stone 1995; Townsend 1992).
von Schwerin
Emerging from either sides of this doorway are streams that rep-
resent water (Freidel et al.1993; Thompson 1960:275) or blood
(Stuart 1988). My research indicates that streams of liquid with
glyphs for yax (first, green) and k’an (yellow, ripe, preciousness)
also probably framed the doorway (Figure 16a). Such signs occur
on Maya stelae on period endings or accession anniversaries in
the fluid scattered by rulers, or emerging from cosmic serpents
(Stuart 2004:138–139) or the starry-deer crocodile (Stuart 2005:
70–71). This fluid represents the ruler’s blood—offered as a
source of life, fertility, and abundance (Stuart 1988:212–213), as
well as ch’ulel, the inner spirit that resides in the blood (Freidel
et al. 1993:201–202). Together they indicate k’ul/ch’uh (“sacred-
ness”) which is also a symbol for blood sacrifice offerings (Stuart
1988:202–203). The glyph for ch’uh repeated seven times some-
where on the building (Figure 16b), seven being a sacred number
for the modern Chorti Maya (Girard 1969). Additional sculpture
pieces that made up the doorway require further analysis, but it is
clear that this doorway was similar to other zoomorphic doorways
in the Maya region and alluded to themes of sacrifice, transform-
ation, and birth.
Project results also confirm Miller’s hypothesis (M. Miller 1988)
that the Maize God statues represented corn growing on this fertile
mountain, however my research indicates that there were 20
“Foliated Maize Gods” (Taube 1985) on the first-story entablature
that sprouted from 20 earth masks with flowers growing out of
their foreheads (Figure 12). That this motif appears in 20 iterations
may refer to the 20 agricultural cycles over which Waxaklajuun
Ub’aah K’awiil presided during his first katun (20 years) of
office—since the temple was erected on the twentieth anniversary
of his coronation. This number may allude to the Maize God in
the Popol Vuh, who planted five seeds in each corner of his maize
Symbolism and History in Maya Architecture: Temple 22 at Copan, Honduras 283

Figure 15. (a) Side view of doorway as it appears today; (b) Hypothetical reconstruction of the mouth doorway. Drawing by Nancy
Allen in collaboration with the author (2007).

field—20 in all. That the Maize Gods are related to cycles of time
can be further supported by the fact that modern Maya day-keepers
traditionally used maize seeds to count the 20 days of the Tzolkin
ritual calendar (Bassie-Sweet 2002). Finally, Erik Boot (personal
communication 2008) reminded me that the word for human also
means “twenty” in Maya languages. In sum, the imagery on the
first story supports Taube’s theory that Temple 22 refers to the cre-
ation of maize and the emergence of humanity from Flower
Mountain (Taube 2004). Additional motifs confirming that Temple
22 was Copan’s “Flower Mountain” include serpents and four ik’
symbols—symbols for breath and wind (Taube 2002), as well as
tuun (stone) symbols, and vegetation (Figure 17). Four pairs of
bird talons—most likely belonging to the Principal Bird Deity—
probably graced the top corners of the first story (Barbara Fash, per-
sonal communication 2008; Fash 1991b) (Figure 17).
Moving beyond iconography, the design of this mountain
anchored it in sacred space and time. Its plan expresses a cosmologi-
cal order in that its four rooms are oriented to the cardinal directions,
and the only sculpture on the load-bearing walls of the first story are
located at five points: on the four corners (witz masks) and the center
(interior doorway and mouth doorway) (Figure 18). These points Figure 16. (a) Two types of Yax and K’an borders from Temple 22. These
form a quincunx pattern that symbolizes the sun’s yearly path probably once framed the building’s mouth doorway; (b) Sculpture of K’ul
between the solstice points and zenith—this pattern is used in or ch’uh glyph. Drawings by author.
284 von Schwerin

Figure 17. Additional motifs that were likely on the first story: (a) feet from Principal Bird Deity motif, (b) skeletal head, (c) serpents, (d)
flowers, (e) ik (breath, wind) glyphs, and (f) tuun (stone) glyphs. Drawings by Edgar Zelaya.

Maya ritual practice in both the past and present to bind and conse-
crate a sacred space (Hanks 1990; Maca 2002; Mathews and
Garber 2004). Oriented to the cardinal directions and to solar time,
Temple 22 was a fertile landscape in stone—a model of cosmic
order that provided a sacred space for ritual. These rituals probably
had to do with the themes of human origins, creation, ingestion, trans-
formation, and rebirth that are alluded to in the building’s sculptural
symbolism.
King of the Mountain
Arranged probably on the middle level of the building were images
of Maya rulers seated between four zoomorphic mountains. I have
reconstructed these zoomorphic mountains—over three meters
wide—that probably anchored each corner (Figure 19). The same
figures are found on contemporaneous vessels from the Maya low-
lands (Figure 20), with zoomorphic snouts, drooping eyelashes,
tuun glyphs, ear flares, and sacred water dripping out of the
mouth. The serpents emerging from the ear flares are ‘breath ser-
pents exhaled from witz masks [that] pass through ear spools, denot-
ing mountains as places of conjuring and celestial ascent’ (Taube
2002:435). In the Temple 22 sculpture corpus, these serpents and
other features appear in sets of four, thus the MNI of four for the
earth masks. Like the vessel masks that are rendered in profile,
these stone masks likely appeared in profile on the corners (see
also Tikal Lintel 3 in Stuart [1988:Figure 5.40]). Often their

Figure 18. Locations of sculpture on load-bearing walls of first story of Temple 22, forming a quincunx, representing cosmological
order and the stations of the sun in the year. Adapted by the author from Hohmann and Vogrin (1982).
Symbolism and History in Maya Architecture: Temple 22 at Copan, Honduras 285

Figure 19. Hypothetical reconstruction of one of four large Flower Mountain masks that probably graced the corners of the building
on the upper level(s). Each mask was at least 4.5 m wide. (a) Frontal view; (b) side view; and, (c) line drawing. Photos and drawing by
author.

prominent nose has the tzuk (“partition”) on it (Nikolai Grube, per-
sonal communication, 2008) (see also K1370 in Kerr’s Maya Vase
database) (Figure 21). Other kinds of tzuk faces appeared on the
building and so it seems that there is an interest in expressing par-
titions, or spaces of the universe. Perhaps these four corner masks
alluded to the mountains at the corners of the Maya world, or the
partitions made by the sun as it stops in its yearly path along the sky.
Arranged among these mountains were eight, greater-than-life-
size statues of rulers that—in style and iconography—confirm the
date of the building and support existing hypotheses about the

Figure 20. Zoomorphic flower mountains from Maya vessels. Detail drawings by author (after (a) Red Background polychrome vessel,
Northern Peten Robicsek and Hales 1983:Figure 30); and (b) detail from vessel featured in Robicsek and Hales 1983:Figure 18).
286
Figure 21. Nose of large earth (“flower mountain”) mask. Note Tzuk face. Drawing by Edgar Zelaya.
rituals that occurred here (Figure 22). Previously called “guardian
figures” (Fash 1992, 2011), I call them “ruler figures” for they
wear the ajaw (“lord”) belt, ajaw breastplate, and sit on a cushion
throne in a posture of royal ease (Fash 1992). This cushion has
flower motifs similar to that which Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s
contemporary, king Hasaw Chan K’awiil sits upon in Lintel 3 at
Tikal (a.d. 700). Another detail from these ruler statues that dates
to the proposed dedication date of the building is the feathered “flap-
staff headdress.” This appears in the costume of Maya rulers after
9.13.0.0.0 (Tate 1992:84) and is related to warfare (Looper 2003:
46). At the top of the headdress is the Hu’unal “jester god
diadem” that represents a sprouting plant, perhaps maize (Fields
1989, 1991). (I thank Elizabeth Wagner [personal communication
2008] for pointing out that this sculpture piece belongs to the
ruler’s headdress). The relationship between warfare and fertility in
the headdress is also alluded to in the items that the statues hold in
their hands: blood letters in their left hands at their groin, and centi-
pede lances in their right hands (also seen at the Temple of the Sun at
Palenque, ca. a.d. 692, on which is incised the etz’nab glyph for
obsidian, or sharp stone). These two instruments allude to auto-
sacrifice and captive sacrifice respectively (Baudez 2004:71–74)—
two activities that likely took place in this building. One of these
ruler statues was different in that it also bore a crocodile pectoral
(alluding to creation) and held in its right hand a k’awiil figure (an
infant-like creature with a snake for one leg—like a baby with
Figure 22. One of eight ruler figures (over 2 m high) from the upper façade of Temple 22: (a) Drawing by author; (b-c) Sandbox recon-
struction of actual sculpture elements. Photos by author.
von Schwerin
umbilical cord). The k’awiil figure symbolized rulership and
power and is associated with transformations (such as birth, acces-
sion, or death) that occur through blood sacrifice (Freidel et al.
1993:193–207; Miller and Taube 1993:110). It is held by rulers in
accession scenes and indicates that accession ritual or commemora-
tions thereof may have occurred at Temple 22. Additional sculptures
that emphasize the royal nature of the building and need to be ana-
lyzed further include: ajaw faces, pop (mat) bands, and eight small
masks (Figure 23). Overall, the statues likely represented
Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil and his contemporaries or ancestors,
and were placed on all four sides of the building, asserting the
ruler’s control over the partitions of the world, the earth and its fer-
tility, and his city.
The Celestial House/Sky-Cave and its Residents
The highest level of the building represented the sky with ances-
tors or patron deities. I have identified at least seven small sculp-
tures of twisting and spreading limbs (Figure 24), and these are
similar to the nine small figures that cavort in the body of the
cosmic serpent in Temple 22’s interior doorway. Stuart (1988:
203) identified these as ancestral deities and I have identified
them as Chaaks and K’awiils (Ahlfeldt 2004b:148). The seven
figures, with bulging eyes, flattened nose, and missing lower
jaw, are a notable contrast to the idealized beauty of the Maize
Symbolism and History in Maya Architecture: Temple 22 at Copan, Honduras 287

Figure 23. From Temple 22: (a-b) Ajaw signs; (c) small masks; and, (d) pop bands.

Gods and Ruler figures. Naked except for a loincloth and pectoral,
they wear the same leaf-shaped diadem that Waxaklajuun Ub’aah
K’awiil wears on Stela B. This has been identified as relating to
Chaak—the rain god (Newsome 2001; Schele and Mathews
1998), or a representation of a tobacco leaf (Nikolai Grube, per-
sonal communication 2008), or a cacao pod (McNeil et al.
2006); and the missing lower jaw suggests the god of the month
Pax (Karl Taube, personal communication 2002). The pectorals
on these figures vary, suggesting they are different beings. This
motif requires further research and so I simply call it “patron
deities.” As for the serpent in which they probably cavorted on
the top of the building, there are a range of large serpent heads
and potential body parts that have been catalogued but have yet
to be analyzed. One particular serpent head is large enough that
it may be a candidate for one of the heads of the celestial
serpent (Figure 25).
Another celestial motif that likely came from the upper level of
the building is a mask from which an egret or heron emerges,
holding a fish in its beak. Five such heads were cataloged from
Pile 5 (Figure 26a), and fragments of the fishing birds that emanated
from these heads were found in excavations confirming that these
came from Temple 22 (Figure 26b). These fragmented sculptures
resemble those birds excavated beneath Structure 26 at Copan Figure 24. Reconstruction of Chaak figure motif or “patron deity” motif
(Fash 2011; Fash and Fash 1996) (Figure 26c). Justin Kerr was on Temple 22. Drawing by Edgar Zelaya. Compare this diadem with that
the first to point out their similarities with images on Maya worn by Ruler 13 on Stela B at Copan (see Figure 7).
vessels (Figure 27) (Barbara Fash, personal communication
2001). Stuart identifies this figure as God GI (Stuart 2005)—a
proto-sun, perhaps from the watery underworld. And indeed, the rain and aquatic spirit—appears at Copan in the context of period-
GI sculpture from Temple 22 has star symbols on it suggesting ending rituals and also is part of K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil’s name
that it relates to a celestial object (see also Krempel and (Stuart 2007). Its appearance on the façade probably alluded to all
Davletshin 2011:27). Both the heads from Temple 22 and those of these meanings, but the abundance of imagery and icons of
found under Structure 26 were accompanied by forms of falling sacred water also supports Williams-Beck’s (1987) association
water—perhaps representing a celestial body such as Venus that of zoomorphic portals in the Maya area with water. Overall, the
accompanies the onset of the rainy season. motifs that represent the sky, celestial bodies, and patron deities
Additional water imagery on the upper façades probably were probably on the upper levels of the building, so that the
included a single drain in the form of a serpent (Figure 28b) that
I attribute to Temple 22 based on stylistic features and that it
was found in excavations around Temple 22.4 This was probably
placed on the roof so that water fell in streams over the façades,
likened by William Fash (personal communication 1997) to water-
falls falling over the sacred mountain. Two large “water serpent”
heads with a water lily blossom headdress were found on piles
right next to the building and probably appeared on Temple 22
as well (Figure 28a). This symbol of streaming water—deity of

4
This is a skeletal serpent according to Schele’s analysis of similar
images at Palenque (see Milbrath 1999:264–266). Millbrath
(1999:Figure 3.6c) suggested a connection with the scorpion constellation
based on the fact that Stela A has a snake with a segmented body and a Figure 25. Reconstruction of portion of a serpent head possibly from
pincer tail—but this may be a centipede, as Taube suggests. upper level of Temple 22.
288 von Schwerin

Figure 26. (a) One of six GI heads with star symbol from Structure 22—note the protrusion at the top for the egret’s neck. Drawing
by author; (b) Egret and fish fragments. Photo by author; (c) Similar sculpture found by PAAC cached in the Hijole structure (under
Temple 26), now in Copan Sculpture Museum. Drawing by Edgar Zelaya.

water imagery symbolized rain coursing down from the sky onto
Flower Mountain.
A Multi-Story Cosmogram
Together these motifs were arrayed on what was probably a three-
level façade that may have been at least 17 m tall. One story
would not have held all the sculpture attributed to the building
and the vaulted chambers of the first story and its unusually thick
load-bearing walls suggest that a great deal of weight was planned
for the upper levels. The upper levels probably did not contain
interior rooms, however, because there is no evidence for an interior
or exterior stairway as occurs on other buildings at Copan with
second story rooms (see Structure 10L-11 and Structure 10L-20
[Hohmann and Vogrin 1982:Figures 176 and 178]). Rather, the
building was probably comprised of a first story and a two-level
roof crest.
Multi-level structures with no interior stairways but rather roof-
crests have precedent at Copan. The sixth-century “Rosalila” struc-
ture is a good model for the likely form and dimensions of Temple
22, as it was discovered buried intact with an initial story and two-
level roof crest, making three levels in all (Agurcia and Fash 2005)
(Figure 29). The building’s roof comb had a room with doorways to
the outside, but with no stairway and so it is probable that this space

Figure 27. Vessel with G1 (K 6181 © Justin Kerr). See also Kerr vessels K3536, 6438, K6167, K6438, K8538, and K8651. Compare with
Figure 26a and 26c above.
Symbolism and History in Maya Architecture: Temple 22 at Copan, Honduras 289

Figure 28. (a) One of two Water Serpent heads (author drawing); (b) Serpent drain in Peabody Museum, excavated in 1895 from slope
of Temple 21. 117 cm long. Drawing by Nancy Allen (after Spinden 1913:Figure 152).

was not a room but rather served to lighten the load of the roof comb Additional evidence that Temple 22 might have had a two-level
upon the structure (Agurcia 1996). I reconstruct Temple 22 accord- roof crest is the similar imagery on both structures. Agurcia and
ing to these proportions, so that including its platform, Temple 22 Fash (2005:232) describe the iconography of Rosalila as a “gigantic
was over 17 m tall. cosmogram with a solar god, scenes of creation, the heavens, the

Figure 29. (a) Elevation drawing of Rosalila structure, Copan, circa sixth century. Drawing by Barbara Fash (from Agurcia and Fash
2005); (b) Cross section of the Copan Acropolis on the central axis of Structure 10L-16. Reconstruction drawing by Barbara Fash,
after the original Proyecto Arqueologíco Acropolis Copán (PAAC) drawing by Rudy Larios and Fernando López (Agurcia and Fash
2005:Figure 6.1).
290
Figure 30. Counter-clockwise route for a possible ritual circuit from West court to East Court to arrive at Temple 22. Graphic by
Heather Richards-Rissetto.
sacred mountain and death, intertwined with the instruments that
royal mortals used to try to control these forces—sacrificial
bundles, incense burners, vision serpents, and bicephalic serpent
bars.” They note that like Temple 22, Rosalila has mountain
imagery with maize marking the building as a sacred mountain,
as well as an arching sky-serpent (Agurcia and Fash 2005:
117–232, 228), suggesting a design of the Maya cosmos with its
three domains of sky, earthly world and otherworld. Indeed they
note that it is a forerunner to Structures such as 22, 11, and 16
that contain world “cosmograms.” There are also allusions to the
first king of Copan on the façade imagery, through icons that
relate to his name.
Like Rosalila, Temple 22 represented not only a sacred mountain
as previous interpretations have suggested, but more the ordered,
fertile, universe—what the Maya call the kaan kab’ (sky-earth). It
could also be the “sky-cave” (chan ch’e’n), a phrase “often
related to the center of Classic sites, that may refer to royal tombs
as both underworld chambers and paths of celestial ascent into
the heavens” (Taube 2002:433; see also Stuart 2000). David
Stuart (personal communication in Taube 2002:435) noted that
two of the carved bones from Burial 116 at Tikal describe the con-
juring of a war serpent or Waxaklajuun Ub’aah Chan at Flower
Mountain. Taube also notes that in Mesoamerican mythology, the
dead may enter the path of the dawning sun at Flower Mountain
(Taube 2002:425–427). Finally, Linda Schele observed that the
central doorway of Temple 22 was illuminated on the winter sol-
stice, thus suggesting that Temple 22 was intended to mark the
moment/place where the sun literally dawns, emerging from the
watery underworld (Freidel et al. 1993). Given that serpents are
von Schwerin
seen as creatures of conduit, passing, and transformation (Taube
2002) and the abundance of serpent imagery on the building, it is
likely that Temple 22 was such a place to access the path of the
sun through transformation rituals of various kinds (sacrifice,
death, rebirth/accession).
This solar cosmological symbolism also extended to the East
Court whose design is a diagram of Maya directional cosmology
(Ahlfeldt 2004b; Fash 1998:250; Miller 1988). It was renovated
under Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s reign along with Temple
22 (Sharer et al. 1992). The East Court is oriented to the cardinal
directions (Figure 5) and the stairway sculpture refers to the move-
ments of the sun: the setting sun is represented by the symbolic
“Jaguar God of the Underworld” sculpture on the west stairway,
while the rising sun may be represented by the naturalistic sculp-
ture of a crouched jaguar, known as the “jaguar altar” (see
Robicsek 1972:Plate 182), that sat on the east stairway so that
the sun rises and falls through this symbolic landscape.
Emphasizing this point are the ballcourt markers on the north-south
axis of the court rendering it a symbolic ballcourt (Fitle 2006;
Miller 1988). These may have been placed there by a later ruler,
however, and so the concept of the East Court as a ballcourt
may not have yet been the case during Waxaklajuun Ub’aah
K’awiil’s reign. Overall, though, it is clear that the East Court
itself is a bounded, sacred location that ordered Temple 22
within cosmic space-time.
In sum, Temple 22’s design is elegant in its symmetry and lavish
in its sculptural style, with organic, zoomorphic, and anthropo-
morphic forms that animate the building, all organized within a
three-dimensional diagram of the quadripartite and tripartite
Symbolism and History in Maya Architecture: Temple 22 at Copan, Honduras
universe. Why was such an overt diagram necessary? Why at this
time and place?
DISCUSSION: TEMPLE 22 AS AN AGENT OF RULER 13’S
AGENDA
We have seen that Temple 22 was built at the peak of Copan’s power
as the kingdom was beginning to feel economic, environmental, and
political stress, and that the temple’s audience included both Maya
and non-Maya inhabitants of Copan, vassal polities, and other king-
doms. Temple 22 served Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s agenda of
maintaining power and competitiveness by addressing this range of
audiences. To do so it bore different levels of signs through its
location, design, iconography, and carving style—some overt,
some more subtle, some traditional, and some more innovative.
Tradition
One of Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s concerns was to assert
Copan’s role as a foundational Maya kingdom—and himself as its
center. In location, access, and spatial design, Temple 22 uses a
pan-Maya spatial vocabulary to create an urban experience that
would have been familiar to those who had visited other Maya
cities. For example, as the seat for the highest civic-religious auth-
ority at Copan, Temple 22 was one of the most elevated buildings
at the city. High on the acropolis, it could be seen from most direc-
tions in the Copan pocket of the Copan River valley (see Figure 4).
The ruler’s statues on all sides expressed his all-seeing gaze. This use
of elevation is a traditional feature of Maya state architecture. To
access the temple, one had to move through the city, climb at least
30 m to the top of the Acropolis and be channeled through corridors
before arriving in the East Court. Based on what remains of the archi-
tecture today, it appears that this path followed a counterclockwise
direction (Figure 30), the typical direction of ritual performance in
Maya culture (Hanks 1990). The quadripartitioning and vertical
layering of Temple 22 and its courtyard are also ancient signs for
sacred space, the ordered universe, and the place of creation
(Christie 2003; Houston 1998; Mathews and Garber 2004; Schele
1998; Schele and Miller 1986). The courtyard’s forms and acoustics
were designed for people to gather and to view performances around
Temple 22 (Fash and Fash 1996), and probably only members of the
ruler’s court, captives about to be sacrificed, and visiting elites were
invited to climb up to the temple or to circumambulate its platform to
survey the valley below and mountains beyond. The phenomenolo-
gical experiences of height, gaze, and ordered space that Temple 22
and its court offered were typical of Maya cities and Maya state ritual
for millennia.
Not only would visiting elites have found the physical experi-
ence of visiting the temple familiar, but they would also have recog-
nized its themes: the mythology of sacrifice and cyclical
regeneration, the cave of creation and the birth of maize, cosmic
order, and ruler accession. These are associated with the narrative
of divine kingship—the role of the ruler in providing abundant
food and water and carrying out the kingly duties of sacrifice and
self-sacrifice—that appeared in Maya art and architecture a thou-
sand years earlier, in the San Bartolo murals mentioned earlier.
These themes also were present on structures at Copan at least a
century before the construction of Temple 22, which was the last
in a sequence of structures built on the north end of the East
Court that had similar form and imagery (Agurcia and Fash 2005;
von Schwerin 2011). Directly below Temple 22, “Chachalaca”
291
had corner masks like those of Temple 22 (Morales 1997:
Figure 14). This dates to K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil’s reign
(Freidel et al. 1993; Sharer et al. 1999) and thus Temple 22 asserts
its place (and by extension the ruler’s) in the dynastic lineage of
Copan. Interestingly, as we have seen, this sacred mountain, ruler
accession, and sky imagery first appeared at Copan in the axis of
buildings underneath Rosalila. With the reign of the twelfth ruler,
this axis moved north to the East Court, culminating with Temple
22. The reasons for this shift in location have yet to be understood,
but as Ellen Bell notes (personal communication 2011), it is interest-
ing to think that the iconographic reorganization followed somewhat
on the heels of shifting the early residential groups from the north
to the south (the Cementerio Group) (see Sharer et al. 1992). In
any case, Temple 22 manifests organizing frameworks, or “cultural
or ideational structures” (Johnson and Gonlin 1998:144–145)
common to Maya sacred architecture and participates in a tradition
of Maya architectural design that alludes to the entire universe
(Agurcia and Fash 2005; von Schwerin 2011). This may have
occurred on a larger urban scale in Maya cities (e.g., Ashmore
1991; Maca 2002, 2006), or on the domestic level as well, for
Vogt (1976:52–58) describes modern Maya practices in which the
house is conceived as a microcosm. Moreover, as Bell has shown
(2007), Early Classic ritual deposits within the Copan acropolis
also show precise three-dimensional cosmograms. These include
caches that themselves have three levels and quadripartite layering,
but also buildings marked in this way. The fifth-century structure
Margarita, for example, had mercury deposits marking the four
corners and center of the building (Bell 2007:341–345).
These deep structures of Maya-style monumental architecture
were important to Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s expression of
his and Copan’s pivotal role in the Maya world and so they were
overtly expressed in the temple’s forms. The theme of the sacred
landscape in ancient Mesoamerican architecture appears in Maya
architecture at Copan’s Temple 22 not only in the form of the
sacred mountain, but as an entire Maya universe—the sky-cave
(chan ch’e’n) (Stuart and Vogt 2005) or kaan kab’ (world).
Self-conscious and in many ways highly traditional, Temple 22
thus placed the ruler’s symbolic and physical body in historical,
mythological, and cosmological space/time.
The fact that Temple 22 employs highly traditional creation
imagery suggests that its themes were still relevant, and perhaps
to some extent, still necessary. As has been shown, the iconographic
detail and carving style supports the dating of the building given by
archaeological and epigraphic data to around a.d. 715. Although the
evidence that Copan was facing deforestation and depleted agricul-
tural resources at this time (Rice 1993) is now disputed (McNeil
et al. 2010), Copan in the early eighth century was facing other sig-
nificant challenges due to an increased population, reliance on both
Maya and non-Maya subjects, and expanding architectural and mili-
tary campaigns of other Maya kingdoms. Lisa Lucero has suggested
that Maya kings may have maintained their power in part by provid-
ing water during annual droughts, by maintaining water systems, by
providing food when crops were lost and by “sponsoring public
events…that highlighted their special abilities in reaching gods
and ancestors” (Lucero 2004:37). Perhaps Waxaklajuun Ub’aah
K’awiil responded to looming threats by sponsoring the public
event of the construction of Temple 22 to draw upon the ancient cre-
ation myth on the anniversary of his accession, to remind his sub-
jects of the ideological relationship between Maya kingship and
fertility, and of the agricultural abundance the ruler provided in
the first katun of his reign. Temple 22 highlights the traditional
292
roles of the divine ruler, projecting his central role in eighth-century
Maya history, myth, and cosmology, and serving as a physical and
conceptual extension of his royal body.
Innovation
Although seemingly timeless in design, the temple’s use of this
ancient imagery also manifests the worldly concerns of its patron.
Contemporary viewers versed in Maya sacred architectural design
would have noticed, however, some truly innovative features of
the structure’s design, symbolism, and style. These suggest that
Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil was concerned with being “up to
date” with contemporary developments in Maya politics, religion,
and even aesthetics and philosophy.
As a physical and conceptual extension of the royal body, Temple
22 emphasized the ruler’s physical, historical person, the more
human side of the god-like king, as well as his territorial control
and martial power. Although divine kingship among the Maya had
existed for almost a millennium, by a.d. 715 a clear shift had
taken place in the Maya area as artistic programs on public architec-
ture began to focus on the humanity and historicity of individual
rulers—rather than their office. Throughout the Classic period, the
ruler had always been shown on stelae. However, while earlier ico-
nographic programs on temples such as Rosalila only displayed
monumental masks of deities or name glyphs of rulers, slowly the
full body of kings began to appear on buildings (Miller 1986).
The figure of the ruler seated on top of the mountain that we see
at Temple 22 is a development in Maya art that appeared as early
as a.d. 550 on Structure 1 at Okolhuitz (Gendrop 1983:
Figure 15c), and really expands in the Maya area in the eighth
century; it is a pan-Mesoamerican visual metaphor for rulership
(Bernal-Garcia 1994; Stuart 1997; Taylor 1978), indicating a
settled, civilized place. Indeed, altepetl (water mountain) in highland
Mexico is the name for a town or city—and in the codices, a town is
represented by a mountain (Fernández Christlieb and Garcia
Zambrano 2006; Noguez 2001). By placing the figure of a ruler
on this mountain that is Temple 22, it is feasible that Temple 22
was intended to symbolize the kingdom of Copan in a spatial
sense, such that Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil is asserting Copan
as a space ruled by the king.
What also is innovative about this building is that the king was
represented not as an abstract concept of a god-like king, as with the
heraldic symbolism of Rosalila, but rather a particular historical
person, with a very human body. Temple 22 is one of the earliest
buildings at Copan that had full-bodied images of a ruler on its
façades. By commissioning life-size images of himself on architec-
tural sculpture at Copan, Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil asserted a
different kind of kingship—one that focused less on the “ruler-like
deity,” and more on the “ruler-like human.” Perhaps this was
necessary given demographic and political changes in this
period. It might have been more difficult at this time to convince
the non-Maya that a Maya ruler was a god, rather than a human.
Moreover, the structure’s inscription mentions Waxaklajuun
Ub’aah K’awiil’s own accession, refers to his father, and is
written in the first person—something extremely rare for Maya
public inscriptions (Stuart 1986, 1989). All of these emphasize
the historical figure of the king in an unprecedented manner.
Along with the emphasis on owned territory and human body, a
particular feature of these figures that I have already mentioned
above is the more overt military imagery that emphasizes the role
of the ruler as warrior, captive taker, blood letter, and guardian of
von Schwerin
the order of the city and of the natural cycles. The king as warrior
is certainly a prominent theme in the architectural monuments of
the Principal Group from the time of Waxaklajuun Ub’aah
K’awiil onward. Barbara Fash has demonstrated that this is a near
obsession in Late Classic Acropolis architectural sculpture.
Knives, Tlaloc imagery, and portraits of rulers as warriors are
found on Structures 10L-16, 10L-18, 10L-20, 10L-21, 10L-21A,
10L-22, and 10L-26 (Fash 1992, 1997a, 1997b).
Finally, the abundant and ornate feather-work in the costume of
Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil is also new to ruler imagery at Copan.
He is the first ruler to be represented wearing feathers in his head-
dress and there is an abundant amount of feather imagery in his
stelae and in Temple 22. The reason for this sudden change at
Copan is unclear. It may have some economic implications—
perhaps alluding to his role in expanding the feather-trade at
Copan, or it may simply be a connection to the feather work that
appears in rulers’ costumes throughout the Maya area at this time,
indicating that he is within the fashion or rules of costume of his
peers. Or finally, because his name alludes to the Teotihuacan war
serpent which is the feathered serpent, Guido Krempel (personal
communication 2011) suggested that the feathers in his headdress
may allude to the identity of this ruler as the feathered serpent. In
any case, Temple 22’s sculpture conformed to contemporary icono-
graphy and presented a more elaborate and human-centered vision
of the divine king.
The building indicates a desire not only to place the ruler as a
historical figure in a historical moment, but also within what
might be new developments in Maya religion. Temple 22 shows a
dramatic increase in the number and complexity of figures on the
façades compared to what came before on architectural sculpture
at Copan—this suggests an increase in the complexity of Maya reli-
gious ideology. There is an emphasis on patron deities of Copan,
both in the structure’s inscription and exterior façade. The clarity
with which this is all rendered is innovative as well. Although the
sacred mountain and ordered universe are ancient themes, the expli-
cit rendering of a zoomorphic portal or cave does not appear on
exterior façades of structures at Copan (or anywhere else in the
Maya region to my knowledge) before Temple 22 (the Chenes
temples have not yet been more securely dated other than
“coeval” with Temple 22 [Gendrop 1983, 1985]). The full-blown
representation of Creation Mountain with cave appears at Copan
for the first time with Temple 22.
Temple 22 participates in a period at Copan that initiates a new
artistic style that also is evident in the Great Plaza Stelae dedicated
by Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil. I would argue that this style may
be characterized by three features: (1) great intricacy, (2) naturalism,
and, (3) anthropomorphization. This intricacy in art at Copan first
appears with the stelae of Ruler 12 and is part of a general
“Ornate Phase” of art and architecture throughout the Maya world
that Proskouriakoff (1950) identified. This style was brought to its
highest level of expression on architecture at Copan with Temple
22. Its façades were not only ornate, but they were in a naturalistic
style with serpentine lines that animated the building. The mosaic
sculpture often was carved in three dimensions and extended out
in varying depths, so that the surface moved in and out of the
viewer’s space. Heads and limbs of figures occasionally are
turned so that the bodies seemed to be in motion, although specific
actions other than “sitting,” “emerging,” “seeing,” or “flying” are
not alluded to. What is important is that the sense of “–ing,” (that
is, “being,” or animation) is expressed very clearly. The temple
imagery also participates in a Maya-wide shift in religious
Symbolism and History in Maya Architecture: Temple 22 at Copan, Honduras
imagery towards more animism that culminated in Proskouriakoff’s
(1950) “Dynamic Phase” of Maya art. Finally, there is a new interest
in anthropomorphization. Where maize on Rosalila is rendered as
kernels emerging out of the mountain, maize appears as half-human
(the “Maize God”) on Temple 22. Many other objects and figures
are anthropomorphized (e.g., the blood letters held by the ruler
figures) or zoomorphized, and suggest an interest in indicating the
ch’ul, or life essence, and animism, in all things. This heightened
animism in Maya art and architecture in this period may have
related to changes in the aesthetics or tenets of Maya state religion.
What exactly these ideas were is difficult to say, except that Temple
22’s sculptors were participating in a pan-Maya phenomenon in the
public art of the early eighth century that asserted the animated
nature of the Maya universe. By showing that Copan was up to
date with the latest trends and styles in Maya politics, philosophy
and aesthetics, Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil used Temple 22 to
declare Copan’s leading position in the competitive political land-
scape of the early eighth-century Maya world.
Finally, the focus on a cosmic diagram, on the partitioning of
space and directions, is emphasized to a greater degree during
Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s reign than in previous reigns.
Temple 22 is a cosmic diagram, as were many sacred Maya build-
ings, but with Temple 22 there is a particular concern to indicate
order. For example, although the interior sculpted doorway has a
precedent at Copan in that the starry-eyed deer crocodile is found
on the earlier Margarita structure (von Schwerin 2011), this is the
first appearance of Pawahtuuns (sky corner bearers). There is also
a concern for partitioning seen by the presence of many tzuk faces
in the temples façades, as well as the marking of the four corners
and center of the building through prominently placed sculpture.
All this seems to allude to the king’s power to order the world
and control its partitions.
In sum, by using innovative forms relating to history, myth, and
cosmology, Temple 22 expressed an ideological message of universal
order and abundance to which Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil was per-
sonally connected. Temple 22 articulates the tenets of early eighth-
century Maya kingship and religion with detail and clarity for the
both the Maya and non-Maya populations upon whose allegiance
the kingdom’s power relied. An increasing emphasis on maize and
water in a time of a shortage of resources is certainly understandable,
as is the focus on the historical figure of the king, his territory, and his
prerogatives in a period of increased warfare and competition.
The Temple’s Legacy
This overemphasis on the singular power of the human king ulti-
mately may have led to his defeat. Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil
was killed a few decades later in battle on 29 April 738
(9.15.6.14.6) by the ruler of Quirigua (David Stuart [1998], cited
in Fash et al. [2004:263]). No matter how impressive the temple
was, it did not succeed in its goals of solidifying power for the thir-
teenth ruler. Copan then began a slow decline ending in the collapse
of the Copan dynasty in a.d. 820 (Fash et al. 2004). After
Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil’s reign, many subsidiary sites in
western Honduras began to represent figures of rulers on mountains,
suggesting that these sites were newly independent and thus allowed
to indicate their sovereignty (von Schwerin 2010).
However, Copan’s eighth- and ninth-century occupants recog-
nized Temple 22 as a significant architectural event in the history
of their city. Not only did the three subsequent rulers of Copan con-
tinue to care for Temple 22—opting not to raze and build over the
293
structure as was common practice—but they also allowed it to play
an enduring role in the life of the city for over a century. Eventually
Temple 22 fell into disuse after the end of the dynasty in the ninth
century—for pilfered sculpture from the temple appears at other
sites in Copan that date between a.d. 950 and 1050 (Manahan
2004). But before this, three subsequent structures all erected
under Copan’s last king, Yax Pasaj (Structure 11, Structure 18,
and Structure 10L-32), show enough influence in design and icono-
graphy that they may be considered direct progeny of Temple 22
(Ahlfeldt 2004b; Morales 1997; Plank 2003; Schele and Freidel
1990:322–327; Schele and Miller 1986). If buildings are considered
works of art, it is because they continue to have relevance for sub-
sequent generations. Temple 22, a masterpiece of Maya temple
design, persisted in asserting a particular perspective of history,
myth, and cosmology for Copan’s population for at least a
century after its construction.
CONCLUSIONS
Not since the Temple of the Warriors at Chichen Itza, Mexico and
the House of the Governor at Uxmal, Mexico were reconstructed
in the 1920s and 1930s (Morris 1931; Kowalski 1987) has Maya
archaeology had such a large sample of preserved sculpture from
which to reconstruct a collapsed, highly-complex, temple façade.
Temple 22 at Copan, Honduras offers not only an abundance of
façade sculpture and therefore greater insight into eighth-century
Maya temple design, kingship, and religion, but—thanks to the
archaeologists, epigraphers, and conservators who have worked at
Copan and other ancient Maya archaeological sites over the last
century—its façade now can be analyzed within a rich historical
context. Certainly, Maya temple architecture was a tradition with
thousands of years of history. Temple builders did not depart
easily from its forms and themes—including the concepts of the
sacred landscape, sacred mountain, and ordered universe. Yet
finer features of these buildings did vary due to local factors and his-
torical events, and it is this richness of meaning that I have explored
with regard to Temple 22. Specifically, this paper’s goals were to
understand the intended meaning of the building’s form and its
sculptural program, and then to infer the commissioning king’s
intentions in the socio-political context of his reign. Briefly put,
to grasp not only the “what” and “when,” but also the “why” of
Maya temple design in the early eighth century.
The Temple 22 Façade Sculpture Analysis Project has shown that
the temple’s exterior had at least 36 repeating sculptural motifs (rather
than the six that have been previously published), that it was probably
three stories tall, and in design, construction, and carving style was the
most sophisticated stone mosaic façade at Copan yet discovered. This
study of the temple’s full corpus of sculpture shows that Temple 22’s
builders designed it not simply to represent a symbolic mountain, but
to diagram the Maya universe. The building represented an animate
and fertile “sky-earth,” populated by human and heavenly bodies.
The lower level represented the origin mountain of Mesoamerican
creation mythology and the source of maize, water, wind, and birth
place of the sun. The upper levels, meanwhile, portrayed the ruler
who presides over this land and its partitions and above, the sky
with ancestors, patron gods and abundant water. The building’s
design and imagery expressed myths of emergence, sacrifice, regen-
eration, and ruler accession, and placed the ruler within historical, reli-
gious/mythic, and cosmic frameworks.
There are many sculptural motifs from this temple that still
require analysis and publication and so the project continues.
294
Surely insight into the identities of many zoomorphic figures will
emerge in future years, as will a clearer understanding of the
design of the mouth doorway, the uppermost levels of the building,
and the abundant serpent imagery that covered the structure. Further
research into the early eighth century no doubt also will alter the his-
torical narrative related here. The three-dimensional ordered uni-
verse (with flower mountain and celestial imagery) and the central
role of the sun, the ruler, and sacrifice in Maya religion are rep-
resented not only on Temple 22, but on temple architecture at
Copan as early as the sixth century (Agurcia and Fash 2005; von
Schwerin 2011), and throughout the high cultures of Mesoamerica
over millennia. Three-dimensional cosmograms also are prominent
in a range of media throughout Copan’s history—additional
instances of these, and the reasons for this emphasis at Copan
would be worth further investigation.
This research also has shown that Temple 22 contains inno-
vations on these ancient themes that manifest king Waxaklajuun
Ub’aah K’awiil’s concerns that are particular to his kingdom’s
role in the early eighth-century Maya (and non-Maya) world. A
survey of the specific historical moment of Temple 22 indicates
that the building should be considered within the context of increas-
ing population and declining resources at Copan, within Copan’s
need to reinvent itself in a shifting political climate, and in light
of new developments in Maya religion and aesthetics. Of the inno-
vations seen on Temple 22, what most stands out is the detail and
clarity with which the temple presents the cosmic diagram and the
central tenets of Maya state religion. Certainly this clarity has
much to do with the non-Maya audiences at Copan. Further inves-
tigations of how Copan’s non-Maya population affected artistic pro-
duction at Copan are certain to be revealing. In any case, it is
fortunate for posterity in that the temple tells us so clearly about
the themes and aesthetics of Maya state religion at Copan in the
early eighth century. It also is striking that the structure’s imagery
is so closely linked to contemporary developments in Maya dynastic
art at other cities such as Tikal, Palenque, and Yaxchilan—surely
the artists at these cities were traveling between cities and sharing
the same pattern books. Research into the similarities and differ-
ences in the architectural programs of Waxaklajuun Ub’aah
K’awiil’s contemporaries will provide even greater insight into
Temple 22’s significance for Copan in a.d. 715.
Although this paper has sought to summarize the range of
imagery and meanings that Temple 22’s façades expressed, there
RESUMEN
Tradicionalmente los templos de la Mesoamérica precolombina han sido
interpretados como montañas sagradas, definición estructuralmente estática
que no tiene en cuenta el contexto histórico y social en que estos edificios
se sitúan y en el que adquieren su pleno significado. El propósito del presente
artículo es reexaminar críticamente esta interpretación a través de una
revisión de la forma, las funciones y los significados del Templo 22 en la
ciudad maya de Copan (Honduras), y mostrar cómo las imágenes que
acompañan a estas montañas sagradas fueron empleadas en un contexto
histórico específico.
El Templo 22, ó estructura 10L-22, se encuentra en la Plaza Oriental de
Copan. Este templo fue dedicado en el año 715 n.e. por el treceavo gober-
nante de Copan, Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil, para conmemorar su
primer katún (20 años) de gobierno. Varios investigadores lo identificaron
como una Montaña Sagrada. Actualmente, sólo se conserva parte una
parte de la fachada del templo.
von Schwerin
has not been space to address the variety of use-functions that the
building likely had. I will conclude with one observation in this
regard—although the façade imagery is three-dimensional and ani-
mated, it is not narrative. The human and deity figures on the build-
ing do not appear in action scenes—rather, they are iconic figures
placed in a hierarchy. Important stories must have been narrated
through performances, therein supporting previous scholars’
hypotheses that Temple 22 was a stage for ritual. Throughout
world architecture, performance spaces that are designed as cosmo-
logical diagrams—such as in Temple 22 and its East Court—tend to
appear in sacred structures such as temples (Carlson 1981).
Metaphors of the sky-earth appear in other temples at Copan and
the Maya area and acted as microcosms of the universe that were
ideationally associated with the ruler’s body. Elsewhere I have
suggested that this is a fundamental aspect of Maya temple design
that always had its local variations. Temple 22 was a temple, per-
formance space, and dwelling place—although probably not the
personal residence—of king Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil
(Ahlfeldt 2004b). It was probably the temple-as-throne-room
where the ruler-as-deity sat within his larger palace (indeed we
might want to think of the entire Principal Group as the palace
complex) and received visitors and tribute, and where certain
ritual ceremonies occurred. The building functioned as a frame
and extension of the ruler’s body, and asserted social order during
state ritual, such as commemorations of royal accession. Temple
22’s design, imagery and history as presented in this paper
support a temple-like function for this structure.
I have sought to go beyond a description of a building and its
sculpture program, to an analysis of the building’s role in the
reign of Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’awiil. Overall, this is a study not
only of Temple 22 of Copan, but also of the importance of architec-
ture in establishing and supporting the power of Maya kings. This
paper thus contributes to understanding levels of meaning in elite
architecture throughout Mesoamerica. It provides new comparative
data for examining temporal and regional change in temple design
by offering an example of how rulers in ancient Mesoamerica
used elite architecture and the concept of the sacred landscape
(and in the case of the Maya, flower mountain and the “sky-earth”)
to convey ideological messages in specific historical contexts. More
fundamentally, this paper provides an example of how an art histori-
cal approach may be used to examine the ways in which humans
both express and effect change through architecture.
En el presente trabajo, la autora sugiere una reconstrucción de la fachada
y demuestra que el Templo 22 no sólo representa la Montaña Sagrada, sino el
Universo con sus tres niveles verticales, cuatro sectores horizontales y la
parte central. Estas conclusiones se basan en el análisis de miles de fragmen-
tos de esculturas, provenientes de las partes colapsadas del templo.
De los tres niveles del Universo en la fachada del Templo 22, la parte
más baja representa la fértil Montaña Florida, de donde procede el maíz y
el agua. En el nivel intermedio se encuentra el gobernante con sus
símbolos de poder y, finalmente, la parte superior está ocupada por los
ancestros, las deidades patronas y abundantes símbolos de agua. La
Montaña Florida podría ser un símbolo para el reino de Copan, por lo
que, al colocar al gobernante sobre ésta, probablemente se trate de una
metáfora del rey sobre sus dominios.
El diseño del templo contiene varios elementos innovadores. En particu-
lar, es una de las primeras ocasiones en Copan cuando el gobernante aparece
Symbolism and History in Maya Architecture: Temple 22 at Copan, Honduras
en su cualidad humana, representado de cuerpo completo en la fachada de un
edificio. Su atavío de guerrero y sus ornamentos de plumas también son
novedosos. Además, el gran detalle y el naturalismo de los relieves se distin-
guen de los trabajos anteriores.
El estudio del contexto social e histórico del periodo de la construcción
permite concluir a la autora que el diseño arquitectónico del Templo 22,
sofisticado e innovador, pretende afirmar el poder de Copan en la frontera
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks are extended to the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and
History (IHAH) and to the directors and staff for their support and per-
mission to work at Copan, particularly Ricardo Agurcia Fasquelle, Oscar
Cruz, Darío Euraque, Carmen Julia Fajardo, Olga Joya, and Eva
Martínez. Sincere thanks and gratitude go to William and Barbara Fash
of Harvard University for their invitation to join the Copan Mosaics
Project, and their generousness with the unpublished data from the
PAAC excavations and their ideas from their twelve years of working on
sculpture reconstructions on Temple 22. Their model and commitment to
sculpture conservation is exemplary. Project funding was provided by
the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies (FAMSI),
the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University,
the Whiting Foundation, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the
Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of New
Mexico (UNM). A post-doctoral fellowship from the Alexander von
Humboldt Foundation provided me with time to write up this research
while a resident scholar at both the Commission for the Archaeology of
Non-European Cultures of the German Archaeological Institute, Bonn,
and the Department of Cultural Anthropology in the Americas at the
University of Bonn. This project was also inspired and influenced by
Esther Pasztory and Stephen Murray at Columbia University.
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