Architectural Assemblages Research Articles

Astronomy, Architecture, and Landscape in the Olmec Area and Western Maya Lowlands: Implications for Understanding Regional Variability and Evolution of Orientation Patterns in Mesoamerica

AbstractIn the area along the southern Gulf Coast in Mexico, a large number of previously unrecorded archaeological sites have recently been detected with the aid of lidar data, which also allowed us to determine the orientations of hundreds of structures and architectural assemblages, including many standardized complexes dated to the Early-to-Middle Formative transition. As revealed by our analyses, most orientations were based on astronomical and calendrical principles, occasionally combined with certain concepts of sacred geography. While the results of these analyses were presented in a recently published article, here we explore the potential of alignment data for addressing other questions of archaeological relevance. The distribution of particular building types and regional variations in alignment patterns in the study area suggest the existence of two somehow different cultural spheres, loosely corresponding to the areas conventionally called the Gulf Olmec region and the western Maya Lowlands. Examining pertinent evidence, we argue that it was in this area where some of the most prominent orientation groups materialized in later Mesoamerican architecture originated. We also attempt to reconstruct the paths of their diffusion, which are expected to contribute to understanding the dynamics of long-distance cultural interaction in Mesoamerica.

Geochemical soil analysis of sequential ritual and residential floors from the Maya site of Holtun

This research elucidates the changing function of some of the earliest types of monumental architecture in the Maya world, the E-Group, using ICP-MS soil chemistry analysis of associated floor surfaces at the site of Holtun, Guatemala. E-groups are architectural assemblages first appearing during the Middle Preclassic period that are associated with public, ritual activities, such as marking important celestial and agricultural events. Our methodology targeted sequential, stratigraphic plaza floors in the E-Group compound at Holtun to examine changing activities through time. Residential patio surfaces were also sampled as a comparison to public, ritual activity. Our results suggest that activities related to food production and consumption are visible in sequential plaza floors of the E-Group, and the locations of some of these activities changed over time. Moreover, activities and locations revealed through soil chemical analysis also differed somewhat from those in residential patios, suggesting different patterns of use in public versus private spaces.

New insights on Teotihuacan color technology: a proposal of a technological style for mural painting

Teotihuacan, the main city of the Classic period in Central Mexico (ca. 150/200–650 CE), was among many things, a colorful city. Through its application on mural painting, ceramics, lapidary, bone, textiles, and the human body itself, coloring materials gave meaning to the Teotihuacan reality. This research presents color as a socio-technological phenomenon from the archaeology of color, the anthropology of technology, and the application of the concept of technological style.From this scope, pictorial palettes of mural painting fragments from three Teotihuacan architectural compounds were studied by digital microscopy, colorimetry, fiber optic reflectance spectroscopy (FORS), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), Raman spectroscopy, infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) in order to identify the color technology of pigments. This approach led us to identify materials shared by the three studied compounds, red and yellow earths, cinnabar, malachite, pseudomalachite, azurite, and the Teotihuacan grayish blue, found to contain a mix of bone black with calcite. Our results contribute to the discussion on the use of raw materials and their mixtures. We observed a standardization of pigment technology in Teotihuacan mural painting through the use of shared and standard formulations with four indicators that we propose as markers of a technological style for pigments, along with variations in the color materials that evidence the use of different strategies for the procurement and distribution of raw materials among the diverse architectural assemblages of the city.

Stability and change at Çadır Höyük in central Anatolia: a case of Late Chalcolithic globalisation?

AbstractScholars have recently investigated the efficacy of applying globalisation models to ancient cultures such as the fourth-millennium BC Mesopotamian Uruk system. Embedded within globalisation models is the ‘complex connectivity‘ that brings disparate regions together into a singular world. In the fourth millennium BC, the site of Çadır Höyük on the north-central Anatolian plateau experienced dramatic changes in its material culture and architectural assemblages, which in turn reflect new socio-economic, sociopolitical and ritual patterns at this rural agro-pastoral settlement. This study examines the complex connectivities of the ancient Uruk system, encompassing settlements in more consistent contact with the Uruk system such as Arslantepe in southeastern Anatolia, and how these may have fostered exchange networks that reached far beyond the Uruk ‘global world‘ and onto the Anatolian plateau.

Architectural Assemblages: The Northwest Complex at Zincirli

The Northwest Complex is one of several known Syro-Anatolian elite residences on the citadel of Zincirli. Syro-Anatolian elite residences such as the Northwest Complex are generally described with the anachronistic term Hilani. The related discourse has focussed on the architectural features that can define the Hilani type. More recently, discussions have focused anew on how these complexes functioned. This paper uses assemblage theory to move the discourse away from its focus on what architecture is to what it can do. It situates the Northwest Complex in an assemblage of Syro-Anatolian elite residences that partake in a shared culture of hospitality. It argues that the distinctive feature of these residences is their externalization of hospitality through the creation of elaborate in-between spaces in the form of external porticos.

Sistemas de impermeabilización y control de masas. Características arquitectónicas de la frontera en tiempos de excepción.

La frontera se ha convertido un elemento central a la construcción del territorio. Debe entenderse como un dispositivo transescalar, donde diferentes funciones convergen en una materialización aparentemente simple. Desvelemos las condiciones espaciales específicas que genera, alejándonos de formulaciones históricas para entender su funcionamiento operativo. Se ha seleccionado la excepción para desarrollar las profundas implicaciones espaciales que ésta produce sobre el territorio y la arquitectura. Es necesario cuestionarse qué configuraciones espaciales son propias de un modelo territorial que ya no es representado por la norma, sino por la excepción. A través de dos casos situados en la frontera de Ceuta se analizan las condiciones espaciales relacionadas directamente con la excepción para obtener características de este dispositivo arquitectónico. El primer caso, el retorno de un migrante en la frontera del Benzú introduce una serie de mecanismos en relación a la construcción de la frontera operativa: la importancia adquirida por los cuerpos en la construcción de ensamblajes móviles y el cuestionamiento de la línea soberana. El segundo, el cruce del paso del Tarajal en 2014 evidencia como dicha frontera operativa genera arquitectónicas de la excepción que involucran agentes dispersos, dotándolos de nuevas funciones. Ambos acontecimientos evidencian la capacidad de generar espacialidades instantáneas cuyos límites no poseen la precisión de las fronteras históricas. Además, muestran la capacidad de conexión e inclusión entre diferentes elementos para asegurar la efectividad del sistema. Si la arquitectura que materializa la ley requiere la fisicidad del muro, la arquitectónica de la excepción necesita estos mecanismos para configurarla.

On Simple House Architecture at Tell el-Dabca and its Parallels in the Late Middle Kingdom

Numerous examples of simple house ground plans of the late Middle Kingdom are discussed in this article and the line of development is traced as far as possible. This type of domestic architecture consists exclusively of mud brick. Measurements as well as proportions are given as possible means for dating such dwellings. The point of departure is the late Middle Kingdom settlement in Area A/II at Tell el-Dabca, where a number of one and two room houses were excavated. While some of these houses are free standing, it is possible to find bipartite core-units, with one wide and one narrow room, embedded in other architectural assemblages in Egypt. These are known from at least the early Middle Kingdom onwards with a possible earlier tradition. At Tell el-Dabca itself, the bi-partite ground plan exists from the Middle Kingdom to the New Kingdom. House models and other comparanda were also used to learn more about the distribution of this very simple architectural type used by non-elite individuals. In an overall cultural comparison various other socio-economic topics such as subsistence strategies, placement and capacity of storage facilities and various influences on the assemblage found in Area A/II of the late Middle Kingdom are also discussed.

Subjectivity and Objectivity in High and Historical Formalism

High formalism (often identified with the criticism of modern arts) can be defined by the reification of pure formality, the promotion of close looking, and the decontextualization of "the object," its disaggregation from the archaeological and architectural assemblages in which all artifacts are usually found. It is avowedly subjective. By contrast, historical formalism (often identified with the archaeology of art in premodern and non-Western traditions) attempts a hermeneutics of integrated aspect-seeing in the past—including the constitutive historical subjectivity of formality produced by the makers of the artifacts in question—that proceeds methodologically from the formalities we can see when we organize artifacts according to explicit morphological typologies and series. It is provisionally objective.

ASTRONOMY, RITUAL, AND THE INTERPRETATION OF MAYA “E-GROUP” ARCHITECTURAL ASSEMBLAGES

E-group architectural assemblages, constructed and used for more than a millennium in the Maya Lowlands, are among the most distinctive and enduring forms in Mesoamerican monumental architecture. Since the 1920s, E-groups have been thought to mark the solstices and equinoxes, but more recent investigations have shown that these alignments were rarely accurate. We argue that accurate solar alignment was probably only a minor element, and primarily an early one, of a larger set of metaphorically linked design considerations that included concepts of sacred geography, ritual performance in reference to yearly solar and agricultural cycles, and longer cycles of time, especially katuns, that played a role in Lowland Maya geopolitical structuring.

Maya Calendar Reform? Evidence from Orientations of Specialized Architectural Assemblages

AbstractLong before they devised a written calendar, the Maya articulated their seasons by means of an “orientation calendar” that consisted of visual alignments involving their architecture. One specialized set of buildings, Group Eat Uaxactún, Guatemala, in the Petén lowlands, has been regarded as the prototype of such a calendar. We present new data based on precise measurements made in the field at 12 Group E complexes and obtained for a number of additional sites from reliable maps where on-site astronomical fixes were acquired. Statistical analysis of the resulting 99 alignments supports the hypothesis that, at least at some stage of development, certain of these specialized complexes did indeed function astronomically. The earliest version of the orientation calendar seems to have developed in the Petén; it was focused on the solstices. A later orientation calendar seems to have functioned principally during the season leading up to the onset of rain and crop planting. It consisted of a division of the dry season into 20-day months prior to the first annual passage of the sun across the zenith (approximately May 10 in the Christian calendar). We argue that this later orientation calendar was derived from Teotihuacan during the Early Classic period (A.D. 278–593).

Radial Pyramids and Radial-Associated Assemblages of the Central Maya Area

Although little known, the radial pyramid is one of the most important and widespread architectural forms of the Classic Maya culture. The radial pyramid is found in many sites of the Central Maya area, often incorporated into standardized assemblages. Both the association between radial pyramids and astronomical observation, and the open character of radial-associated assemblages, suggest that these structures were designed for public participation in rituals regulated by the solar or agricultural calendar. The ritual motions performed on or around radial pyramids were probably understood as acts of sympathetic magic. A comparison with Aztec ritual indicates that among other uses, the Maya would have employed the radial pyramid for the ritual establishment of the axis mundi in equinoctial ceremonies. The public nature of radial-associated assemblages, as well as the rigidity of form, orientation, and arrangement of the component structures, are shown to contrast with the qualities of Maya dynastic architectural assemblages such as the temple and palace acropolises.