IDENTITY, PERSON AND PERSONHOOD AMONG PREHISPANIC MAYAS

Abstract

The present study has as a general objective to explore the Mayan identities during pre-Hispanic times from a current perspective. From this general objective, two particular objectives give rise to this research: 1) Study it differently compared to traditional anthropology, the issue of identity and the person in archeology. 2) Understand how the Mayan ruling elite built their identities and personalities. The methodological process that was followed for the preparation of the present study was the following: theoretical contrast of the personhood concept, compared to other categories such as individual identity and person, search for indicators from different disciplinary resources, cross-disciplinary interdisciplinary information. The empirical information used comes from mortuary contexts, spaces and tombstones, all of them studied from archeology; fundamental part were the epithets studied from epigraphy, as well as symbols and representations comprised from iconography. This whole process resulted in understanding how the Mayan rulers of the Classic period (300-900 AD) built their identities and personalities, specifically in cities such as Calakmul, Ekbalam, Yaxchilan, Copan and Oxtancah.