RESOURCE: Maya painted vault capstones

27th Aug 2022

Mexicolore contributor Marie Botzet

We are very grateful to Marie Botzet, currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Anthropology of the Americas at the University of Bonn, and her colleague Dimitris Markianos, for allowing us to share some of their finely researched and illustrated resources on the ancient Maya from their instagram page ‘ancientmayahistory’. This is a brief introduction to the Maya vaulted arch - an iconic element in ancient Maya architecture.

A typical and characteristic feature of ancient Maya architecture is the vault, which is a very common style for stone buildings. It is formed by walls (either corbeled or cast) which narrow more and more towards the center of the room and the higher they get. The remaining open space on top, where the walls almost meet, is then closed by a slab or capstone. Puuc architecture is especially known for its sophisticated vault building technique, which was improved again and again over time.

Interestingly, vault architecture first appeared in Maya tombs. Because we can already see vaulted tombs in Middle Preclassic Guerrero and La Venta (Olmec style sites), north of the Maya Area, it is possible that the ancient Maya learned this building technique from their neighbours. Subsequently, the first vaulted tombs in Maya sites likely appeared in Late Preclassic sites such as Tikal, Holmul, and Uaxactun, and by the Early Classic had spread throughout the Lowlands (interestingly they were not used in the Highlands). With time, vaulted buildings started to be used not only for tombs, but for monumental structures as well.

A specific element of Maya vaults is the use of capstones to bridge the gap between the corbeled walls. In Northwest Yucatan, these capstones were often used as a medium for the painting of glyphs and iconography. There are many sites in the area that feature painted capstones, such as Uxmal, Santa Rosa Xtampak, Chichen Itza, Ek Balam, Dzibilnocac and many more. Painted capstones often show deities and dedicatory texts about the building they are set in. At Ek Balam, they follow a very uniform structure, usually specifying the building’s dedication date and its owner.

Sources:-
• Gilabert-Sansalvador, L. et al. (2020): ‘Constructive Analysis of Maya Vaulted Architecture from Photogrammetric Survey’, in: The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Volume XLIV-M-1-2020: 357-363
• Wernicke, D. (2005): A Stone Canvas: Interpreting Maya Building Materials and Construction. Ph.D-Thesis
• Lacadena, A. (2004): ‘The Glyphic Corpus from Ek’ Balam, Yucatán, México’, FAMSI.

All images supplied by, thanks to and courtesy of Marie Botzet. Additional notes:-
• Pic 2: Dzibilnocac, Capstone 3 (Photo by Wikipedia user HJPD); Dzibilnocac, Capstone 1 (sketch by Marie Botzet).