The Ahaw and His Representative: A New Approach for the Reading of Stela 2 at Chichen Itza

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The following paper offers a new proposal for the reading and interpretation of the Stela 2 of Chichen Itza, a flat limestone 2.11 meter tall monument discovered in the late 90s by the late Dr. Peter Schmidt. The monument presents a middle register composed by 32 glyph blocks in an advanced state of erosion, a feature that prevented most epigraphers from getting a full reading of the text. This resulted on partial readings focusing mostly on the second, less damaged, half of the register. During the Promeza Chichen Itza 2022-2023 research season, the project specialists used photogrametry to develop a high resolution image catalog of Chichen Itza's monuments. The most recent enhanced image of Stela 2 revealed multiple features that, in addition to oblique light observation, allowed us to recognize most of the cartriges from the first half of the text. The resulting reading shows important aspects about the role of intermediate elites in the site during the late 9th century as well as the strategies they used in order to legitimize their position in relation to the paramount lord.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52800