On reconstructing and performing ancient Maya architecture: Structure 22, Copan, Honduras (AD 715)

This dissertation offers a reconstruction and reinterpretation of an eighth-century Maya monument, Structure 22, at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Copan. The reconstruction presented here is preliminary, the first stage of a project to catalogue, conserve, restore, analyze and reconstruct the full corpus of stone facade sculpture recovered from excavations of this building over the last century. The reinterpretation assembles recent archaeological, architectural, epigraphic, and ethnohistoric data for Copan and the Maya area to reframe the building within its eighth-century socio-economic, political, and architectural contexts and to determine its functions and meanings within the building campaign of its patron, Waxaklajun U'bah K'awil , the thirteenth ruler of Copan. The study then approaches Structure 22 as a significant event in the history of Maya architectural design and employs performance theory, semiotics, and phenomenological analysis to consider the contexts of its production and reception, as well as its various communicative modes.; Research results indicate that Structure 22 should be considered within the dual contexts of the construction of monarchy and the experiential aesthetics of eighth-century Maya religion. Erected during a period of political consolidation throughout the Maya area, the building was designed as a performance space for asserting social order within particular rituals, such as commemorations of royal accession. Built to be competitive and conversant with the building campaigns of contemporaneous Maya kingdoms, the builders of Structure 22 pushed the boundaries of sculptural skill and tested the limits of engineering technology at Copan. The forms of the building offer an expanded vision of divine kingship at Copan, one that situates the body of the ruler within historical, mythic, and cosmic frameworks. This investigation suggests that this building functioned as the royal throne room of the highest ruler at Copan; it was here that the ruler was transformed into, and subsequently reigned as, a deity. As such, Structure 22 was both a physical and conceptual extension of the royal body.