Mundo Perdido: the E-Group Assemblage of Tikal

There has been some mention on this blog (and to be sure there will be much more in the future) of Maya E-Group archectectural assemblages. As was hinted at in the discussion last time on the Cosmology of Complex Q at Tikal (or Q Group), archectectural assemblages in ancient Maya cities are often assigned letter designations by archaeologists to help identify and differentiate them in the literature. At Uaxactun, Guatemala, the complex designated E constitutes one of the most known and earliest examples of astronomically defined alignments in the Maya region. The complex ‘consists of the three west-facing small temples (called E-I, E-II, and E-III, respectively) built atop the elongated terraced artificial platform (E-16), a radial stepped pyramid (E-VII) occupying the western side of the Group, and a ceremonial plaza extended between them.’[1] It was first postulated by Karl Ruppert in 1940, and then confirmed in the late nineteen-eighties by Anthony Aveni and Horst Hartung that from a position on the staircase atop the pyramid, E-VII-sub (which will be defined using the surveying term Backsight) looking eastward towards the the southern-most “west-facing” temple, E-III (which will be defined using the surveying term Foresight), the line of sight matched the rising of the sun on the morning of Winter Solstice.[2] Similarly, the line of sight from the backsight, E-VII, to the foresight of the northern temple (E-I) aligned with the rising of the sun on Summer Solitse. The center temple, E-II, aligned with the Atumnal and Vernal equinoxes. Therefore the entire complex could be used as a calendar by which important ritual and agricultural dates could be marked and measured. The figure below, illustrated by by P. Dunham for Aveni’s Skywatchers (Figure 109) demonstrates how this observatory would have been used. [3]

Since that time, more than a hundred similar archectectural assemblages used as observatories have been identified throughout the Petén lowlands.[4] These have been collectively named E-Groups (or E-Group Variations or Pseudo-E-Groups) after the original complex at Uaxactun. As will be discussed in later posts, E-Group complexes served not only as solar observatories, but as highly religious and politically important ritual centers. Often, sacred ballcourts are located immediately adjacent to or within a short distance of E-Group clusters. (Recall Ashmore’s fourth components of the Classic Maya cosmological city template; more on that later as well.)[5] Chronolgically, along with the E-Group of Uaxactun and El Mirador, one of the earliest examples in that of Tikal’s Mundo Perdido, or ‘Lost World’. Designated by Greg Savoie in 2003 as a ‘Uaxactun- Type’ E-Group, the complex map is shown below.[6]

It will be seen in future posts that the same observational principles used at E-Groups were used throughout the Americas, whether they be the Woodhenge circles of Cahokia and the Hopewell, The Medicine Wheels of the Native Americans of the Plains, natural horizons/geological foresights, or the artificial horizon of the Thirteen Towers of Chankillo, Peru. Below is a short video of my first exploration of Mundo Perdido, the Lost World.

References

[1] Iwaniszewski, Stanisław, ‘Ancient Cosmologies Understanding Ancient Skywatchers and their Worldviews’, Journal of Cosmology, 2010, Vol 9, pp. 2121-2129

[2] Aveni, Anthony. F. and Horst Hartung, ‘Uaxactun, Guatemala, group E and Similar Assemblages: An Archaeoastronomical Reconsideration’, Aveni, A.F. (ed.), World Archaeoastronomy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 441-461.

[3] Aveni, Anthony F., Skywatchers: A Revised and Updated Version of Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico, revised edition (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2001) p.

[4] Guderjan, Thomas H., ‘E-Groups, Pseudo-E-Groups, and the Development of the Classic Maya Identity in the Eastern Petén’, Ancient Mesoamerica, 17 (2005), pp. 1–9

[5] Ashmore, Wendy, ‘Site-Planning Principles and Concepts of Directionality among the Ancient Maya’, Latin American Antiquity, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Sep., 1991), p. 200

[6] Savoie, Greg, ‘The Spatial and Temporal Distribution of Maya E-Group Complexes’, M.A. thesis, Department of Archaeology, University of Leicester, 2003

#Tikal #egroup #uaxactun