Two Mythological Sceneries in Palenque: The East Court and House E

Abstract

The recreation of mythological places in the built environment was a common practice among the Maya of the Classic period. Especially temples and plazas have been associated with cosmological concepts and specific supernatural locations. Nevertheless, the identification and interpretation of these urban reflexes of primordial landscapes is a difficult task that usually results in refined hypotheses. In general, a successful analysis of this kind of symbolic representations requires multiple lines of evidence, such as images, texts, architectural features, and the configuration of space. In this article, I point out how sculpture and architecture created mythological sceneries for certain performances that where conducted in and around the buildings of the Palace in Palenque. The East Court and House E were spaces perceived for the recreation of mythological narratives that deal with Balun Yookte’ K’uh and the Maize God, respectively.