LIGHTNING SKY, RAIN, AND THE MAIZE GOD: The Ideology of Preclassic Maya Rulers at Cival, Peten, Guatemala

Research in the northeastern Peten region at Holmul and nearest minor centers shows a complex history of public ritual activity from the Middle Preclassic onward. Patterns of public architecture, monumental sculpture, iconography, caches, and burials at sites such as Holmul and Cival document early development of the ideology of Maya kingship. Late Preclassic monumental sculptures adorning large pyramid temples provide immediate and elaborate metaphors for the ancestral patrons of emerging dynasts. Middle Preclassic architecture and caches are encoded with the ideological program of the earliest ruling institutions, incorporating themes of cosmological order; sun, water, and maize deities; the agricultural cycle; and ancestor veneration. All of these early remains are found in the sacred space of the first “E-group” plazas.