The Maya Wall Paintings of Chajul (Guatemala)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "The Maya Wall Paintings of Chajul (Guatemala)" at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This panel proposal presents the results of the interdisciplinary research of the murals of Chajul, an Ixil Maya town located in highland Guatemala. Different phases of this project were carried out by the Jagiellonian University in Krakow between 2019 and 2022, and included conservation and scanning of the walls in three adobe houses, archaeological excavation, and pigment analysis, as well as ethnographic and ethnomusicological fieldwork. The paintings in different stages of preservation can be observed in over 10 houses in Chajul; they are also recorded in oral history. They constitute an exquisite example of indigenous art of the Americas, especially that such mural paintings in the colonial setting were typically seen in contexts associated almost exclusively to Catholic sacral architecture. The iconography of the murals reveals interesting details such as human figures in rich attires, musicians, and animals and hunting motifs. These elements direct to interpretations associated with the performance of dance-dramas, religious sodalities activity, ceremonies, and feasts dedicated to the figures of saints. The panel will also present results of recent archaeological excavations associated with colonial houses with murals from Chajul.