Ferrie, Helke. 1995. “A Conversation with K.C. Chang.” Current Anthropology 36, no. 2: 308–325.

Murowchick, Robert. 1999. “Bibliography of Works by Kwang-chih Chang.” Journal of East Asian Archaeology 1, nos. 1–4: 1–42.

Chavín

Chavín is thought to have been a dominant culture in ancient peru between about 900 and 200 b.c. It was comprehensively defined by julio tello in the 1930s, but the nature and extent of the Chavín culture continues to be hotly debated. Although the core of Chavín culture can be discussed without difficulty at the type site of Chavín de Huantar, it now seems likely that Chavín art styles (particularly textiles) and larger-scale urban sites (found in the initial period and early-horizon deposits of sites in the northern highlands and the coastal areas of Peru) may have developed prior to the foundation of Chavín de Huantar. Thus, Tello’s original conception of Chavín as being the progenitor culture of civilization in the Andes is now questionable.

Tim Murray

References

Burger, Richard L. 1992. Chavín and the Origins of Andean Civilization. London: Thames and Hudson.

Moseley, Michael E. 1992. The Incas and Their Ancestors. London: Thames and Hudson.

Chichén Itzá

Chichén Itzá, one of the largest and most important of the Maya ruins, is located on the low, broad plain that forms the northern part of mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. This peninsula is composed of limestone (it is an ancient, shallow seafloor), and there is little surface water in the region: the rain soaks through the thin soil and forms caves below the surface. If the roofs of these caves collapse, sinkholes (cenotes in Spanish, from the Maya word tz’onot) are formed. Chichén Itzá has several of these sinkholes within the confines of the site. The term Chichén Itzá, which means “the mouth of the well of Itza,” is derived from the name of the largest of these sinkholes—the so-called Sacred Well. Chichén Itzá has been the source of considerable controversy over the years, largely involving the ethnic identity of the “Itza” and the two rather distinct architectural and art styles that exist at the site. Even the chronology of the site has long been in dispute. Traditionally, Chichén Itzá’s history has been divided into two major phases. In the earlier phase (ca. a.d. 800–1000) the site was purely Maya, and its buildings were in a regional style called Puuk (Puuc). Then, around a.d. 1000, the site was taken over by a group whom some identified as the “toltecs,” from the site of Tula some 70 kilometers north of Mexico City. The Toltec foreigners (according to this traditional view of Chichén Itzá history) gained control of the site through conquest, and they controlled much of the northern part of the Yucatán Peninsula until shortly after a.d. 1200.

There are several problems with this reconstruction, which is still common in popular literature. For example, the dedication date (carved in Maya hieroglyphs) of the Great Ballcourt at Chichén Itzá was 18 November 864—impossibly early for a building argued to be one of the sites’s quintessentially “Toltec” buildings. Additionally, “Maya” architecture and art at Chichén Itzá are not as clearly separated and consistently overlain by “Toltec” architecture and art as was once thought. The current view is that there is considerable overlap between the two styles, although how much overlap is still a source of dispute, as is the absolute chronology of the site. It has been argued by some that Chichén Itzá may represent a kind of “cosmopolitan style” of art and architecture, borrowing freely from several areas for inspiration. Further, the art and architecture of Chichén Itzá seems to reflect a different order of government at this northern Yucatán site. There are none of the grandiose portraits of individual kings that are the hallmark of the kingdoms to the south. Rather, the hieroglyphs of Chichén Itzá describe a multiplicity of contemporary individuals, and the site’s art shows parades of lords: it appears that the site may have been ruled by some sort of council rather than a single succession of kings.

Who were the Itza, the people who are said to have ruled Chichén Itzá? Later descriptions