LA SUFRICAYA ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROJECT

WHAT IS LA SUFRICAYA?

La Sufricaya is an Ancient Maya archaeological site located in the northeastern part of the department of Peten in Guatemala. Rather than a city of its own, La Sufricaya is essentially an extension of a much larger city of Holmul that dominated the adjacent basin of the Holmul River during most of the Classic Period (250-950 C.E.). The core of La Sufricaya consists of an elevated plaza with a temple and a large palace platform. A lower plaza with a ballcourt is located further to the north. More than forty residential groups (two or more house mounds around a shared courtyard) cluster around the palace and the plazas. Investigations at La Sufricaya are part of a multi-year regional Holmul Archaeological Project.

WHAT IS THE STORY OF LA SUFRICAYA?

Structure 1, Group 1, La Sufricaya by Alexandre Tokovinine on Sketchfab

Stela 1, La Sufricaya by Alexandre Tokovinine on Sketchfab

The palace complex of La Sufricaya corresponds to a seminal transformation in the Maya Lowlands characterized by the ascendancy of royal houses with explicit cultural and political affiliations to the city of Teotihuacan beginning in 378 C.E. Given the large distance between the great metropolis and the Maya area, the nature of that change and the extent of its impact on the rest of the ancient Maya society remains hotly debated. It is unclear, whether the process was triggered by a foreign invasion intended to integrate Maya polities into a Teotihuacan-dominated world-system or driven primarily by Maya political actors pursuing local agendas in adopting foreign ideas and technologies.

Within one year of the purported takeover, the rulers of La Sufricaya, who certainly belonged to the Holmul royal family, expressed their connections to Teotihuacan through constructing architecture, murals, texts, calendar, and pottery decoration in a central Mexican style and importing materials from that region, although not in the imagery of the public monuments. There is at least one depiction of a sacrificial ritual, where the recipient was a foreign deity.

The abandonment of the palace at La Sufricaya around 550 C.E. was accompanied by the re-establishment of the royal residence in Group II at Holmul. The ruling family declared its political subordination to the Kaanul royal house at Dzibanche, Quintana Roo and forged a marriage alliance with the larger nearby site of Naranjo that was also under the sway of the Kaanul lords. While foreign connections of the past rulers were still acknowledged in the inscriptions, visual references in pottery and architecture ceased.

WHY STUDY LA SUFRICAYA?

The case of La Sufricaya offers a combination of traits, which make it ideal to test models about the relationship between the royal household and its elite supporters, and its impact on the urban landscape. The creation of La Sufricaya and its abandonment were caused by the external influences directed primary at the royal court and were likely accompanied by realignments of its prestige goods networks. Moreover, the court at La Sufricaya stressed foreign cultural connections. In contrast to most Maya royal dynasties, the political landscape of Eastern Petén was characterized by strong nativism: instead of relying on migration narratives as a source of legitimacy, local dynasties claimed to have been in residence for thousands of years. A focus on foreignness must have been a particularly drastic change. The new palace and plazas moved not only from the previous royal residence, but even further away from Holmul’s E-Group plaza, which was likely the center of public rituals hailing back to the more inclusive practices of the Formative Period. The sub-royal elite supporters of La Sufricaya rulers presumably faced relocation, separation from the previous center of the community, and even a possibility of embracing foreign cultural affiliation and religion. On the other hand, the subsequent restoration of the court at Holmul also entailed relocation and external contacts, but this time with much closer Naranjo and, potentially, with more distant Dzibanche.

Much of what we know about La Sufricaya is based on the studies of its principal group. After initial mapping of the site by the Holmul Archaeological Project, research concentrated on Structure 1 of the palace. The investigation then centered on other monumental buildings and public spaces. However, only two elite residential groups (Groups 6 and 16) were investigated. Filling this gap will offer a unique inside into the choices and strategies of the elite households in the face of two major transitions.

The project addresses my long-term goal of understanding Classic Maya political landscape and its transformations in Eastern Petén, Guatemala. The objective is examining how a temporary relocation of a royal court over a distance of 1.2 km from the Holmul site center to the neighborhood of La Sufricaya transformed the urban landscape with respect to the non-royal elite households. The central hypothesis is that the royal court model alone fails to explain the relationship between the royal family and its elite subordinates, implicating that there were other local and regional factors at work. The rationale for this research is that it will lead to a more nuanced perspective on the Classic Maya socio-political organization integrating a top-down perspective of the palace with the mid-level view of those who served the ruler.

Investigations at La Sufricaya are facilitated by and contextualized through the on-going collaboration with other scholars working with the Holmul regional project as well as contributions to the documentation and study of monuments at the archaeological sites of Naranjo and Dzibanche. Textual and visual sources at Naranjo offer a perspective from the dominant regional political center, whereas inscriptions and imagery at Dzibanche present a view from the seat of the most powerful Maya royal house that extended patronage over Naranjo and Holmul.