Jeweled Stones and Detachable Finery

Stephen Houston (Brown University)

Carved surfaces tend to endure, if, for the Classic Maya, in eroded, broken or hacked form. But, in the past, stone seldom stood alone. Images of stelae reveal a larger reality. There can be paper, gore, and whole or incomplete human bodies, including a freshly severed head atop a carving (e.g., Stuart 2014, K8351 and K8719 in the Kerr tally of rollout photographs; to be sure, these are both mythic scenes). An extant sculpture, Ixkun Stela 1, has regular holes along its edges, presumably to attach offerings or some wrapped textile (Houston 2016b). Stelae were not just for final display, as set pieces, finished and ready for viewing. They were, evidently, part of an ongoing process that involved acts of carving, erection, concealment, exposure, binding, heaping or draping with blood-flecked paper and human heads, periodic burning or censing, and cleaning—blood or incense had to be wiped away, one imagines, or paper and cloth removed or replaced. Stelae needed to be cared for, activated, used, renovated. Yet ephemera like blood, flesh, paper, cloth, and cord do not last. Time, the elements, and inattention would reduce them to the resistent part, the worked stones that survive.

A few carvings from Palenque and Tonina in Chiapas, Mexico, show another feature: evidence that jewels (earspools, pectorals and collars), long-gone, were once attached to them. Without exception, these are on royal or aristocratic portraits, two fully in the round. At Palenque, insets or inlays have been attested for “breath beads,” the tokens or embodiments of regal souls that occur only with the most important people in multi-figural compositions (Figure 1). The contrast must have been meaningful, for the bead did not adorn depictions of other, lower ranking individuals (González Cruz and Bernal Romero 2012:fig. 7; Stuart 2005:45, 188, in unnumbered plates).

Figure 1. Left, face of Pakal, detail, Palenque Temple XXI throne, Julian July 23, AD 726 (photograph by Jorge Pérez de Lara[?]); right, detail of K’inich Ahkal Mo’ Nahb, stone panel, Temple XIX pier, Julian February 4, AD 734 (photograph by Jorge Pérez de Lara).

While cataloguing the holdings of the “bodega” or storeroom of stuccos and various stones at Palenque, Peter Mathews and Linda Schele noted an unusual trait in one carving from the northwest court of the Palace: “[t]wo pairs of very carefully drilled holes about .05 cm. deep are located on and behind the earplug…We do not know the use for these holes, but several people have suggested that they were used for inlays of other materials” (Schele and Mathews 1979:#82, Bod. #186). A more recent photograph demonstrates that there were four such tandem holes, clearly intended for hanging ornament (Figure 2; Parpal Cabanes and Raimúndez Ares 2024:fig. 7). Paired holes to either side of a crack are documented on ceramics and alabaster bowls; a small cord was probably passed through and cinched to prevent a break from spreading (e.g., Inomata and Eberl 2014:figs. 6.30–6.32; K6312, K6436). Infrequent repairs such as these must have reflected some special value, perhaps of an emotional sort. Few of these vessels have special aesthetic distinction or dynastic content, nor, in the case of ceramics, are they shaped from challenging, labor-intensive materials like alabaster. The panel fragment from Palenque is about something else. The holes are in places where chest, back, neck, and ear jewelry might have been attached, to dangle over the surface. The figure is probably a woman, a queen or illustrious mother—the absence of a text prevents any certain identification, unfortunately—and the finery hints at a respectful, almost affectionate gesture by the patron and his carver. Attachability also implies the chance of detachment, a switching out with other ornament. As with a human body, the carving could be dressed anew.

Figure 2. Panel fragment, Northwest Court, Palenque, 30 cm x 31 cm (photograph by Benito Velázquez Tello, Coordinación Nacional de Conservación del Patrimonio Cultural-Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico, Parpal Cabanes and Raimúndez Ares 2024:fig. 7).

A more obtrusive example comes from the lone, carved stelae at Palenque, Stela 1, some 240 cm in height (Figure 3; Robertson 1991:38, figs. 67–68, 70). Most likely dating to AD 692, an important calendrical anniversary, it has long intrigued scholars because of its anomaly at Palenque and its similarity to fully plastic figures in the stonework of Tonina, a dynastic capital that tusseled with Palenque (e.g., Stuart and Stuart 2008:195). No testing has been done of its vesicular limestone, so the stela may have come from elsewhere. Was it war booty or carved by an artist from Tonina (Houston 2016a; Miller 2000)? The holes in its ear assemblages are large enough to accommodate substantial and removable jewelry. Similar openings, holes or slots for ear ornaments occur on Piedras Negras Stela 36 and a scatter of other portrait sculpture (Stuart and Graham 2003; see also Godfrey 1940:32).

Figure 3. Palenque Stela 1, front slope, Temple of the Cross, 9.13.0.0.0 8 Ajaw 8 Wo, Julian March 16, AD 692, Museo de Sitio de Palenque “Alberto Ruz Lhuillier”; note perforations through ear assemblages (height of figure in grey, 170 cm.; photographs by Stephen Houston).

Given the similarity, it is perhaps unsurprising that Tonina has its own carving with what may have been detachable jewelry (Figure 4). This is the decapitated Monument 102, a sandstone sculpture found on the lower steps of a stairway by Structure E5-2, at the central axis of a pyramid near the summit of the city. The excavators observe: “[a]utour du cou et sur la poitrine, un collier dessiné en creux, était destiné à recevoir des incrustations (sans doute de jade) sous forme de perles rondes ou ovales et d’un pendentif en plaque” (Becquelin and Baudez 1982, II:713). Thus: with slots and hollows just deep enough to have held actual jades or beads for a collar. The figure is notable for not clutching a scepter like other such carvings at Tonina (Mons. 3, 5, 12, 14, 20, 26, 56, 142, 146, 150, 168) or frozen in the act of scattering incense (Mons. 9, 13, 29, 45, 47, 85, 87, 101, 158, 162, 163, 166, 169, 176). The clothing is close to informal, at least for an elite man, the hands crossed in repose, somewhat like an attendant courtier (see figure to far right, K558). Ian Graham and Peter Mathews comment on its “pristine” condition (Graham and Mathews 1996:126). This anomaly, of a figure without texts, not surely regal, widely visible yet clothed as though at a courtly and less public event, may relate in some unknown way to the anomaly of a carving with places for detachable jewelry. Ornament employed to exhibit status and wealth, not ritual obligations. There is much that is unanswerable: why was the figure portrayed in this way, as though in courtly service yet fronting an important building? Why did he lack ceremonial regalia and an identifying text yet also appear with potentially detachable ornament? Was the carving soon buried, hence its condition, after the removal of the head?

Figure 4. Tonina Monument 102, first steps of stairway, southern façade, Str. E5-2, height of person (“hauteur du personnage”) 89 cm (Becquelin and Baudez 1982, II:712, III:fig. 98).

A final note: Palenque itself is unique in describing the process of giving or attaching objects to sacred effigies (Figure 5; see Houston et al. 2001:43–45; Stuart 2005:166–167, fig. 132; Zender 2004:199–200, fig. 8.1). These are described as ‘ikaatz, jewels, treasures or tributary items of both celestial (kaanal) and terrestrial (kabal) nature (Stuart 2006). They consisted of collar ornaments or pectorals (uuh) and earspools (tuup), and, to judge from the absolutive suffixes here, are merely present, not securely possessed or owned. It is conceivable that such rites might also apply to select depictions of kings and queens, in carvings accorded special status as repositories of precious ornament. The fact that two of these carvings, the Palenque stela and Tonina Monument 102, are both fully in the round and close to actual human dimensions suggests a play of scale in which carvings could transpose with humans, humans with their depiction: jeweled, dressable, in flux, a class of images that live.

Figure 5. Temple of the Inscriptions, Center Tablet:B6–A9 (Robertson 1983:fig. 96)

Acknowledgments David Stuart reminded me of the evidence from Piedras Negras for inlays or attached jewelry, for which my thanks.

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