The Classic-period pictographs at Juliq’ Cave, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala: an interdisciplinary approach to cave art as organizing principle

Abstract

The Cave of Juliq’ in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala contains an impressive corpus of ancient Maya rock art. Unlike other examples of rock art in this area, the Juliq’ pictographs are simply rendered, generally consisting of lines, handprints, and other basic shapes. We thus focus on context rather than on iconographic content in order to access the meaning of these ancient pictographs. We argue that they were used to record human presence in and movement through the alien cave environment in specific ways, demarcating procession routes, points of transition, moments of physical prowess, and places charged with sacred power. These circuits within Juliq’ reflect attempts to order the Underworld landscape and link it to the surface world through ritual movement akin to aboveground ritual processions.

Keywords:

• Mesoamerica
• Maya
• rock art
• cave archaeology
• ritual

Acknowledgments

This research was financed by The Alphawood Foundation, The Ahau Foundation, US-AID, SANK, and the Vanderbilt Institute of Mesoamerican Archaeology and was undertaken under permits granted by the Guatemalan Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes, Dirección General de Patrimonio Cultural y Natural, and the Departamento de Monumentos Prehispánicos y Coloniales. It was made possible through the generosity of the residents of Por Venir II along with Landivar Sierra Martínez and Alicia Ortiz Morales as well as the various cavers, residents, ethnographers, and archaeologists who have worked with us in and counseled us about Juliq’—Orion Asturias, Justin Bracken, James Brady, Patricia Carot, Mario del Cid, Arthur Demarest, Sergio Ericastilla, David García, Lori Jahnke, Amalia Kenward, Kristin Landau, Nicolas Miller, Rubén Nuñez Ocampo, Matt Oliphant, Nancy Pistole, Greg Schwab, Jon Spenard, Margaret Tarpley, Carlos Efraín Tox Tiul, Ernesto Tzi, David Unger, Juan Valdillo, and Antolín Velásquez.

This research would not have been possible without access to the extraordinary resources at the Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas at Austin, the Wilson Library and the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as the assistance of the members of Proyecto Salinas de los Nueve Cerros and Proyecto Arqueológico Cancuen. We are also deeply indebted to James Brady, Mary Virginia Coleman, Arthur Demarest, Caitlin Earley, Julia Guernsey, Kristin Landau, Megan Leight, Donald Slater, Jon Spenard, and our anonymous peer reviewers for their helpful comments, suggestions, and critiques.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Brent K. S. Woodfill

Brent K. S. Woodfill (Ph.D. 2007, Vanderbilt University) is a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution, a Visiting Professor at Georgia State University, an Affiliated Scholar at the University of Minnesota's Institute for Advanced Study, and the director of Proyecto Salinas de los Nueve Cerros. His primary interests are in the archaeology of ritual, economic archaeology, community archaeology, and the ethics of anthropological research.

Lucia R. Henderson

Lucia Henderson (Ph.D. 2013, University of Texas at Austin) was a Coleman Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2014–2015) and is currently a Mayer Fellow at the Denver Art Museum in the Department of New World Art. Her primary interests are in iconography, art historical analysis, and the intersections among art production, objects, human behavior, and belief systems.