Victims of Mesoamerican Royal Funerals: Companions of the Dead or Sacrificial Victims?

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Bringing the Past to Life, Part 1: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Since the seminal studies by Alain Testard, there has been debate over the function of victims in royal funerals in different parts of the world. In the case of Mesoamerica, did the wives, servants, dwarves, slaves, and other immolated individuals serve as “companions of the dead,” as “belongings” of the deceased rulers? Or did they participate in the classic sacrificial system defined by Hubert and Mauss, in which the king as “sacrificer” dedicated them to some divine entity? Another possible interpretation is that the divinized sovereign was the recipient of the sacrificial act. In this paper I will examine sixteenth-century sources that describe royal funerals in central Mexico, the Mixteca, and the Maya area to try to answer these questions, particularly analyzing the function of ixiptla (deity representative or impersonator) of specific victims and exploring the possible divine status of the dead sovereign.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Bringing the Past to Life, Part 1: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38165.0