Palacios del nuevo mundo

Palaces of the Ancient New World
SUSAN TOBY EVANS AND JOANNE PILLSBURY

PALACES OF THE ANCIENT NEW WORLD

PALACES OF THE ANCIENT NEW WORLD
A Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks 10th and 11th October 1998

Susan Toby Evans and Joanne Pillsbury, Editors

Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection Washington, D.C.

Copyright © 2004 Dumbarton Oaks Trustees for Harvard University,Washington, D.C. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America

Cataloging-in-Publication Data for this volume is on f ile with the Library of Congress. ISBN 0-88402-300-1

Contents
Preface Jeffrey Quilter Palaces of the Ancient New World: An Introduction Joanne Pillsbury and Susan Toby Evans Aztec Palaces and Other Elite Residential Architecture Susan Toby Evans Elite Residences inWest Mexico Ben A. Nelson Royal Palaces and Painted Tombs: State and Society in the Valley of Oaxaca Ernesto González Licón Palaces of Tikal and Copán Peter D. Harrison and E. Wyllys Andrews Identifying Subroyal Elite Palaces at Copán and Aguateca David Webster and Takeshi Inomata The Concept of the Palace in the Andes Joanne Pillsbury Palaces and Politics in the Andean Middle Horizon William H.Isbell Identifying Chimú Palaces: Elite Residential Architecture in the Late Intermediate Period Joanne Pillsbury and Banks L. Leonard vii

1

7

59

83

113

149

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191

247

VI

Enclosures of Power: The Multiple Spaces of Inca Administrative Palaces Craig Morris Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous: Luxury and Daily Life in the Households of Machu Picchu’s Elite Lucy C.Salazar and Richard L. Burger Body, Presence, and Space in Andean and Mesoamerican Rulership Stephen D. Houston and Tom Cummins Index

299

325

359 399

Preface

D

umbarton Oaks has long been renowned as an institution that nurtures scholarly effort, and as a place where prestigious scholarly conferences are held. It was built, two centuries ago, to serve as a “great house” in the sensethat anthropologists and art historians would use this term: a large, well-appointed building complex occupied by social elites. Thus the 1998 Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian Studies Symposium on Palaces of the Ancient New World achieved a functional duality with regard to elite residences, in that it presented a wealth of information about such traditions as they existed in the archaeologicalcultures of the Americas, and did so within the physical setting of a beautiful and grand old house. Therefore, there was a certain logic in holding this conference on palaces in what many scholars, worldwide, know and appreciate as their own intellectual great house. The initial idea sprang from a short talk, a tertulia on the palaces of Chan Chan, presented by Joanne Pillsbury at Dumbarton Oaks infall, 1995. At that time, Susan Evans was a Fellow in residence researching Aztec palaces, and from that encounter there developed the 1998 Summer Seminar on New World Palaces, the 1998 Pre-Columbian Studies symposium, and this, the conference volume. Since then, however, there have been a number of conferences and publications on New World palaces. It is interesting, however, that so littleattention has been paid to New World palaces until recently. Why might this be? I suggest that the reasons involve academic specializations combined with distinct discourses about how the past is discussed. Although there are many exceptions to the rule, art historians have tended to focus on objects often removed from their contexts of use or not fully considered in their original settings. As forarchitects, the few who occasionally have taken an interest in Pre-Columbian buildings often have been inspired by design elements, the use of masses and spaces, but have not fully considered (or cared about?) the activities that once occurred in such structures. Lastly, anthropological archaeologists, especially in the hey-day of the New Archaeology, tended to be rather anti-elitist thus shying away...