Welcome to Izapa

Izapa

The site of Izapa is located along the Pacific coastal piedmont of Chiapas in a location that sat at the juncture between Mixe-Zoquean-speaking peoples to the West and Mayan-speaking peoples to the East. Although there is evidence of occupation at the site during the Early Formative, the site reached its height during the Late Formative period (300 BC - AD 250). The site is most famous for the many stelae that were erected in combination with carved and plain altars. These were placed within large quadrangular plazas that were bounded by pyramidal mounds.

The Landscape of Creation

		The quadrangular plaza of Group B was the focus of ritual activity by 300 BC. While the Group B plaza contains many stela-altar combinations, it is most famous for its triadic arrangement of pillars. Each of the three pillars, measuring about 130 cm tall, holds a stone sphere that is about 70 cm in diameter. The triadic arrangement of the pillars was the earthly equivalent of the Three Hearthstones of Creation, which were also reflected in the night sky in the three stars in the belt of the constellation Orion.

	The theme of rulership also was woven into this cosmic landscape. Izapa Throne 1 was placed directly in front of the center pillar, thereby alluding to the power of the ruler in both the terrestrial world and the supernatural one. The top of the throne was marked with a scalloped cartouche that compares closely to a cartouche on the top of Stela 8. In fact, Stela 8, with its imagery of a ruler seated upon a throne within a quatrefoil, may depict the kind of rituals held in association with Throne 1.

Drawing of Izapa Stela 4

Doing the Bird Dance
Perhaps the greatest amount of information about Late Formative rituals of rulership can be gleaned from the series of "bird-dancer" stelae at the site. Izapa Stela 4 depicts a ruler engaged in an act of avian transformation. Such imagery enables scholars to recreate the rituals and performances of shamanic journeys that were choreographed within the centers of Late Formative sites. Other evidence for these bird transformation rituals comes to us from hieroglyphic information, like that recorded on La Mojarra Stela 1, and from the archaeological record as at the site of Kaminaljuyú.

These avian transformation rituals also invoke passages from the Popol Vuh, the K'iche' Maya creation account. This is demonstrated by Izapa Stela 25. According to the Popol Vuh, the Principal Bird Deity was a vain macaw that claimed to rule the world during the prior creation. In order to usher in the present creation, a set of Hero Twins needed to shoot the Principal Bird Deity from its perch in a tree. This encounter between the twins and the macaw is depicted on a Classic Maya vessel known as the "Blowgunner Pot" and on Izapa Stela 25. This story was also reflected in the night sky through the movements of the Milky Way and the Big Dipper, or Ursa Major, which was the astronomical counterpart to the Principal Bird Deity. In fact, Stela 25 should be understood as a map of the night sky that depicts this specific passage from the creation story.

Drawing of the "Blowgunner Pot" and link to FAMSI

Bibliography

Cortez, Constance. 1986. The Principal Bird Deity in Late Preclassic and Early Classic Maya Art. M.A. thesis, University of Texas at Austin.

Freidel, David A., Linda Schele, and Joy Parker. 1993. Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand Years on the Shaman's Path, pp. 75-113. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc.

Kappelman, Julia Guernsey. 1997. Of Macaw and Men: Late Preclassic Cosmology and Political Ideology in Izapan-style Monuments. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas at Austin.

______. 2000. "Late Formative Toad Altars as Ritual Stages." Mexicon XXII 4 (August): 80-84.

______. 2001. "Sacred Geography at Izapa and the Performance of Rulership." In Space, Power, and Poetics in Ancient Mesoamerica, edited by Rex Koontz, Kathryn Reese-Taylor, and Annabeth Headrick, pp. 81-111. Boulder: Westview Press.

______. 2001. "Carved in Stone: The Cosmological Narratives of Late Preclassic Izapan-style Monuments from the Pacific Slope." In Cosmos and History: A Mesoamerican Legacy, edited by Andrea Stone, pp. 100-124. University of Alabama Press.

Lowe, Gareth W., Thomas A. Lee, Jr., and Eduardo Martinez Espinosa. 1982. "Izapa: An Introduction to the Ruins and Monuments." In Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation, no. 31. Provo: New World Archaeological Foundation.

Norman, V. Garth. 1973; 1976. Izapa Sculpture. Parts 1 and 2. Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation, no. 30. Provo: New World Archaeological Foundation.

Tedlock, Dennis. 1985. Popol Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of God and Kings. New York: Simon and Schuster.