Spearthrower Owl - Biography

Biography

Maya inscriptions at several sites describe the arrival of strangers from the west, depicted with Teotihuacán-style garments and carrying weapons. These arrivals are connected to changes in political leadership at several of the sites.

Inscriptions on the Marcador monument at the Petén Basin center of Tikal record that Spearthrower Owl ascended to the throne of an unspecified polity on a date equivalent to 4 May 374. Monuments at El Peru, Tikal and/or Uaxactun describe the arrival of a personage Siyaj K'ak' somehow under the auspices of Spearthrower Owl in the month of January 378. The exact date of his arrival in Tikal is identical with the death of the Tikal ruler, Jaguar Paw. Tikal Stela 31 describes that in 379, a year after the arrival of Siyaj K'ak' at Tikal, Yax Nuun Ayiin, described as a son of Spearthrower Owl and not of the previous ruler Jaguar Paw, was installed as king of Tikal. His rule saw the introduction of Teotihuacán-style imagery in the iconography of Tikal. Stela 31 was erected during the reign of Yax Nuun Ayiin's son Siyaj Chan K'awil and describes the death of that ruler's grandfather, Spearthrower Owl, in 439 AD. Spearthrower Owl was mentioned in later texts; for example, on a door lintel of Temple One where the Tikal ruler Hasaw Chan K'awil celebrated the anniversary of Spearthrower Owl by "conjuring the holy one."

The connection of Spearthrower Owl to Teotihuacán as well as the precise nature of Teotihuacán's influence on the Maya has been a hotly debated topic since the hieroglyphic texts first became fully readable in the 1990s. The controversy is related to the general discussion of central Mexican influence in the Maya area which was sparked by the findings of Teotihuacán-related objects in the early Maya site of Kaminaljuyú in the 1930s. The controversy has two sides. The internalist side argues for limited direct contact between Teotihuacán and the Maya area. This side has been represented by epigraphers such as Linda Schele and David Freidel who have argued that the Maya merely had friendly diplomatic relations with Teotihuacán which caused the Maya elite to emulate Teotihuacano culture and ideology. The externalist side argues that Teotihuacán was an important factor in the development of Maya culture and politics in the Classic period. This viewpoint was first associated with archaeologist William Sanders who argued for an extreme externalist viewpoint. But as more evidence of direct Teotihuacán influence in the Maya area surged at Copán and new hieroglyphic decipherments by epigraphers such as David Stuart interpreted Teotihuacán incursion as a military invasion, the externalist position was strengthened. In 2003, George Cowgill an archaeologist specialising in Teotihuacán who had formerly espoused a mostly internalist perspective on Teotihuacán-Maya relations, summarised the debate, conceding that Teotihuacán had probably exercised some kind of political control in the Maya area in the early classic period and that left an important legacy into the late and epi-classic periods.

In 2008 an interpretation of Spearthrower Owl-related iconography at Teotihuacán suggested that Spearthrower Owl was an important military god at Teotihuacán that had his given name to both a place known as "Spearthrower Owl Hill" and to the ruler mentioned in the Maya hieroglyphic texts.