The Incienso Throne and Other Thrones From Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala. Late Preclassic examples of a Mesoamerican throne tradition

Abstract

Abstract A “table altar,” perhaps one described by Cabrera (1822) almost 200 years ago and since unreported, is the only complete example of a class of four-legged sculptures known at present from Kaminaljuyu. Iconographic similarities between the monument and sculptures from southern piedmont and coastal centers and comparisons with other Kaminaljuyu sculptures suggest an early Late Preclassic date (Late Verbena-Early Arenal, approximately 300-200 B.C.). According to depictions on other southern-area monuments many “table altars” were formal, emblematic seats for rulers, or thrones, which had specific ideologies associated with them Review of monuments, including identification as a four-legged throne of the well-known sculpture, Stela 10, numbers the Kaminaljuyu corpus of thrones to date at a minimum of seven. The presence of thrones as a sculptural class at Kaminaljuyu in the Late Preclassic period provides more evidence of a long throne tradition reaching from Olmec times through the Maya Classic and into the Postclassic. Kaminaljuyu's thrones conceivably also add to other evidence of complex sociopolitics at the city during the Late Preclassic.