The Classic Maya Ceremonial Bar

Abstract

The basic varieties of the Classic Maya ceremonial bar are described; its formal histories outlined; and its iconographic potentials are delimited. The significant gestures used to hold the bar are traced, along with the bar, to the Middle Preclassic Olmec culture. With this genealogy, with regional differences in Classic representations, and in certain iconographic reflections, the Classic cermonial bar is shown to represent a kind of allegory through which various “origin stories” were anciently told and interpreted to explain, thus to rationalize, royal power and action.