When, Where, and Wahy: Wielding the Wahy Over Time at El Zotz

Summary

This is an abstract from the "A Celebration and Critical Assessment of "The Maya Scribe and His World" on its Fiftieth Anniversary" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In “The Maya Scribe and His World,” Michael Coe published some of the first detailed photographs of a series of vases depicting ghoulish, supernatural characters identified by the Maya as “wahy.” With names like “Deer Death,” “Head Louse Spider Monkey,” and “Red Bile Death,” Coe and others associated the wahy with death, disease, and sacrifice. Many of the vases depicting these creatures were produced at El Zotz, in Guatemala. Since the dynasty was founded, rulers and nobility at El Zotz wielded the wahy as a source of political power. This paper will discuss how the wahy evolved over time in the Buenavista Valley, the contexts where they were evoked, and their role in Maya politics. The wahy vases of El Zotz are also unique in that they were all looted during the systematic plundering of the site in the 1980s. Due to a paucity of stone inscriptions at El Zotz, looted vases were the primary source used by scholars to piece together Pa’ka’n’s dynastic history. Given the heavy looting of El Zotz, research about the site is enmeshed in the study of looted artifacts.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• A Celebration and Critical Assessment of "The Maya Scribe and His World" on its Fiftieth Anniversary   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37173.0