Human-object relationships in Classic Maya contexts: Object technologies, political participants, and cultural infrastructures

Summary

This paper examines the foundational cultural infrastructure provided by seemingly quotidian objects in Classic Maya (ca. AD 250-900) contexts. These materials (things like ceramic vessels, stone benches, and mirrors) carry out prosaic tasks (e.g., containing, supporting, reflecting), but also higher-order relational work, taking on roles as non-human "persons," and as partners in social relationships. In this paper, I focus on these human-object relationships in order to recast our view of objects and their technological significance, and to frame Maya political systems as structured around both human and non-human participants. To do this, I look at representations of human-object relationships on Classic-era painted ceramic vessels and carved stone monuments. In particular, I examine moments of interaction and intersection, including bodily engagement and communication between people and objects, in order to address several related questions: What kinds of work are these objects carrying out? How are humans and objects involved in mutually constitutive ways? What do we learn about the technology of objects and their role in providing underlying cultural infrastructure in ancient polities through examining the dynamics of their efficacy on short and long time scales (including the contexts necessary for their successful functioning, and moments of apparent material failure)?

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• The Technopolitics of Ancient Infrastructures

Keywords

Spatial Coverage