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The Politics of Classic-Period Ritual Interaction

Iconography of the ballgame cult in coastal Oaxaca

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2008

Judith Francis Zeitlin
Judith Francis Zeitlin
Affiliation:
Center for Latin American Studies, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA
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Abstract

The Classic period along the Oaxaca Coast was a time of population growth and increased sociopolitical complexity, as marked by the prominence of hierarchical settlement systems, large regional centers, and the proliferation of monumental artworks. An iconographic examination of standing stone sculpture from six archaeological sites between the Rio Verde and the Río de los Perros indicates that these later Classic societies were concerned with the same religious themes that prevailed at that time throughout the Peripheral Coastal Lowlands: the Underworld death and rebirth of the celestial deities in mythical events reenacted in the ritual ballgame. With no single dominant power dictating cult orthodoxy, independent political leaders interpreted these rituals freely. As permanent public expressions of the polity's stature, the sculptures and the religious message they encoded appear to have both enhanced a leader's prestige in intergroup social competition and helped foster internal social differentiation.

Type
Special Section: The Coast Beyond the Clouds: Coastal Highland Interaction in Pre-Hispanic Oaxaca
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , Spring 1993 , pp. 121 - 140
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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