WARFARE, SACRIFICE, AND THE CAPTIVE BODY IN LATE CLASSIC MAYA SCULPTURE Caitlin C. Earley Department of Art, University of Nevada, Reno, 1664 N. Virginia Street, Reno, Nevada 89557, USA Abstract Traditional interpretations of Maya warfare have focused on the ritual aspects of war, including the necessityof taking captives for sacrifice. Captives are acommon theme on carved stone monuments in the Late Classic period, and images like the murals at Bonampak suggest that captives taken in battle were ultimatelysacrificed. Textual information from hieroglyphs and historical records, however, suggests a variety of fates for prisoners of war. Considering this information, the iconography of carved stone monuments is a poor indicator of historical outcomes for captives. What, then, was the function of captive imagery? In this article, I suggest that images of captives on carved stone monuments worked to prepare elite viewers for warfare by creating embodied social identities for warriors. Sculptures constructed a warrior identity that encompassed both victor and victim and emphasized the importance of elite bodies in the maintenance of political and ritual power. Understanding the ways in which images of captives were communicating allows a more robust view of how the practice of warfare differed from polity to polityand suggests that context is key to using art to learn about war. INTRODUCTION In many parts of the Maya area, carved stone monuments, painted murals, and elite ceramics feature captives in great numbers in the Late Classic (ca. a.d. 600–900) period. The prevalence of captives on carved stone monuments, in particular, has led scholars to inter- pret the taking of captives as a key part of Maya warfare—perhaps even its primary goal (Inomata 2014:48; Rice and Rice 2004: 129–130; Schele and Miller 1986:212–213). Generally, it is under- stood that captives were taken in highly ritualized combat and trans- ported to the victor’s center, where they were presented before a crowd and eventually sacrificed. Images like the murals of Bonampak display these ceremonies with gruesome candor, while broad stairways present theaters where such spectacles could have taken place (Miller and Houston 1987). Sacrifice would have been necessary for the accession of kings, calendrical rites, and other important rituals (Schele and Miller 1986); it would have high- lighted the achievement of warriors and allowed a wide swath of people to experience narratives of victory (Inomata 2014:36–37). Our understanding of warfare, however, is changing. Colonial- era accounts suggest that people did die on the battlefield. Warfare also involved significant destruction—not just in the Terminal Classic, but by the late seventh century, as illustrated by the burning events at Witzna (Wahl et al. 2019). We know more, too, about the goals of warfare, which included the disruption of links with landscape and the ancestors, the desecration of ritual spaces, the capture of deities and sacred objects, and the control of labor and economic resources (González del Ángel 2015; Helmke 2019:1–2; Hernandez and Palka 2019:44–45; Martin 2020:228–233; Tokovinine 2019:92–97). The taking of human captives was crucial—but it was one goal among many. Our understanding of the fate of captives is also changing. Warfare-related iconography from this time period privileges captive imagery and provides multiple examples of captive sacrifice. Recent hieroglyphic decipherments, however, combined with infor- mation from Colonial-era documents, suggest a variety of fates for captives taken in combat (e.g., Martin 2020:207). Combined, this information reveals that the iconography of carved stone monu- ments is a poor indicator of historical outcomes for prisoners of war. This paradox drives the investigation I present here: if carved stone monuments were not transparent about the outcomes of warfare, then what was the function of captive imagery? I suggest that stelae in many Late Classic Maya centers were designed to prepare people for war—specifically, elite men. These sculptures constructed an embodied social identity for warriors by positioning them as potential winners and potential losers; and by emphasizing the role of the elite body in achieving local political goals and per- forming correct ritual action. Viewed in this light, these monuments demonstrate the ways in which Maya art messaged about people other than the ruler. The monuments allow a more nuanced under- standing of diverse approaches to warfare at different sites, and suggest that context is key in using imagery to understand the practice of war. Key to this discussion is the active role of sculptures in the ancient Maya world. As animated, potentially agentive beings, sculptures could take on elements of personhood through ritual action, and they would have interacted with viewers in myriad ways (Astor-Aguilera 2010; Harrison-Buck and Hendon 2018; Houston 2014; Houston and Stuart 1998). Their placement in site centers facilitated the construction of normative identities for people who engaged with them, whether by seeing them, moving around them, or participating with them in rituals or performances (Bachand et al. 2003:239–240). Depictions of the human body, in particular, affected bodily practices: engaging with such sculptures 1 E-mail correspondence to: ccearley@uw.edu Ancient Mesoamerica, page 1 of 17, 2023 Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0956536121000110 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536121000110 Published online by Cambridge University Press