Funerary Masks of the Mayan Classic Period

Maya Classic Period rule (250-900 CE) was centred on the concept of the "divine king", who acted as a mediator between mortals and the supernatural realm. Kingship was patrilineal, and power would normally pass to the eldest son. A prospective king was also expected to be a successful war leader. Maya politics was dominated by a closed system of patronage, although the exact political make-up of a kingdom varied from city-state to city-state. By the Late Classic, the aristocracy had greatly increased, resulting in the corresponding reduction in the exclusive power of the divine king. The Classic period Maya political landscape has been likened to that of Renaissance Italy or Classical Greece, with multiple city-states engaged in a complex network of alliances and enmities. The largest cities had populations numbering 50,000 to 120,000 and were linked to networks of subsidiary sites.

In 378 CE, Teotihuacan decisively intervened at Tikal and other nearby cities, deposed their rulers, and installed a new Teotihuacan-backed dynasty. Tikal's great rival was Calakmul, another powerful city in the Petén Basin. Tikal and Calakmul both developed extensive systems of allies and vassals which were used to against each other. At various points during the Classic period, one or other of these powers would gain a strategic victory over its great rival, resulting in respective periods of ascendance and decline.

Classic Maya social organization was based on the ritual authority of the ruler, rather than central control of trade and food distribution. This model of rulership was poorly structured to respond to changes, because the ruler's actions were limited by tradition to such activities as construction, ritual, and warfare. This only served to exacerbate systemic problems that may have included overpopulation with resulting severe environmental degradation and drought. By the 9th and 10th centuries, this resulted in collapse of this system of rulership. In the northern Yucatán, individual rule was replaced by a ruling council formed from elite lineages. But, in the southern Yucatán and central Petén, kingdoms declined. In western Petén and some other areas, the changes were catastrophic and resulted in the rapid depopulation of cities. One by one, cities stopped sculpting dated monuments. The last Long Count date was inscribed at Toniná in 909 CE.


Image: Funerary Mask (Jade, Shell and Grey Obsidian) Calakmul, Late Classic (660-750 CE) at the Museo de Arquitectura Maya, Baluarte de la Soledad, Campeche, Mexico courtesy of Bernard Dupont (CC BY-SA 2.0) The Maya exhibited a preference for the color green or blue-green, and used the same word for the colors blue and green. Correspondingly, they placed high value on apple-green jade, and other greenstones, associating them with the sun-god Kʼinich Ajau. 

See more Maya funerary masks on Wikimedia Commons:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Maya_funerary_masks

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