Scientific News  Hypotheses Historical hypotheses NEW RESEARCH SHEDS LIGHT ON THE CRUEL FATE THAT AWAITED OFFICIAL SCRIBES FOR MAYA KINGS WHO HAD BEEN CONQUERED BY RIVALS.
NEW RESEARCH SHEDS LIGHT ON THE CRUEL FATE THAT
AWAITED OFFICIAL SCRIBES FOR MAYA KINGS WHO HAD BEEN CONQUERED BY RIVALS.
 "The
fact that these king's scribes were specifically targeted for torture and
execution showed the importance they played in Maya society."
These scribes - the rough equivalent of today's
public relations writers - would have their fingers broken and then be executed
after their kings were defeated in battle.
"The conquering Mayas were not
interested as much in the executions as they were in this seemingly bizarre
practice of destroying the scribes' fingers," said Kevin
Johnston, assistant professor of anthropology at Ohio
State University.
"By breaking the fingers of scribes, what
they were really doing was muting the ability of scribes to write politically
powerful texts for their defeated king."
Johnston discussed his findings in a recent issue
of the journal Antiquity.
The Maya civilization, which reached it height
from about A.D. 600 to 900, occupied parts of present-day southern Mexico,
northern Guatemala, Belize, and western Honduras (map).
Johnston made his findings by examining new,
computer-enhanced photographs of murals painted in Maya buildings. While the
paintings have been studied for many years, he said these new photographs showed
details of the paintings that were not visible earlier. "I first saw the
new photographs of murals in an issue of National Geographic," Johnston
explained. "I saw some things that I wanted to investigate further."
For example, one mural found in the Maya site of
Bonampak, in the Chiapas state of southern Mexico, shows nine captives crouched
at the feet of the site's victorious king and his supporters. In the mural, red
paint signifies blood dripping from the broken fingers of some captives. The
murals depicted some of the scribes having their fingers twisted and their
fingernails removed. But the new photographs also showed a detail that had not
been visible before: one captive is holding up a quill pen, as if recording his
capture and execution.
"We've long known that these people in the
mural were captives, but no one had thought much about their status - who they
were in Maya society," Johnston said. "The new photographs clearly
suggest that these men were scribes."
Johnston also found five other works of Maya art
that support his thesis that scribes were tortured and killed for their
politically powerful role supporting conquered kings.
The fact that these king's scribes were
specifically targeted for torture and execution showed the importance they
played in Maya society, according to Johnston.
Maya city-states were only weakly centralized,
and kings had to use persuasion as much as direct power to exercise control over
their kingdoms. Scribes played a key role by producing texts to both threaten
and cajole citizens into supporting their king. These texts would extol the
virtues of the king and promise material rewards to those who supported him.
Texts would also describe the terrible consequences for those who were
insubordinate.
"Texts were a way that kings asserted and
displayed power, and so the scribes who produced them were targeted during
warfare for destruction," he said. "The captors emphasized through
finger mutilation the destruction of their rivals ability to produce politically
persuasive texts."
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Publishing date: August 30, 2001
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