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Shortly after the discovery of Kaminaljuyu Stela 10 late in 1955, a publication was planned in which Edwin Shook would discuss its excavation, Suzanna Miles would discuss its sculpture and Heath-Jones would discuss its glyphs. Sadly, Heath-Jones tragic death in the early 1960's prevented her from producing much more than an abstract of her discussion of Stela 10's glyphs. Miles published a terse description and discussion of the carving in 1965 as well as collecting and collating various notes on the excavations and ceramics before her own premature death in 1966.
Although, work on the original manuscript ceased with the deaths of these two eminent scholars, they succeeded in preparing the primary documentation on the monument for publication. Perhaps more importantly, they both proposed and facilitated the several excavations which established the present stratigraphy and context of both Stela 10 and its companion in the grave, Stela 11.
My own involvement with Stela 10 began during Fall of 1978 while I was still completing my B.A. in the History of Science at Antioch University. During an off -campus semester oft couch surfing the Bay Area, I approached Professor John Graham of the University of California at Berkeley about a tutorial in Maya glyphs. He was not particularly interested and responded that he was not teaching Maya glyphs that semester. After a thoughtful pause, he told me he was directing an archaeological project at the Guatemalan Piedmont site of Abaj Takalik. I had read about the strange carvings unearthed at that site before this meeting, but until that moment, I had not connected the man to the project.
Recognizing the opportunity to participate in a major excavation, I immediately informed Professor Graham of my drawing skill andoffered my services as draftsman. At this point he looked at me directly for the first time, recorded my name and the telephone number where I was staying. When a month had passed without word from him, I returned to Berkeley with samples of my work. Within days I had been designated Staff Artist and was completely absorbed in recording and reconstructing some of the most ancient and unusual Maya sculptures known. It was never a job to me --- travel and expenses, no salary. My life as a Mayanist had begun.
During the 1978-9 field season our crew visited Guatemala City several times to renew our 30 day visas. During one of these visits I made the first of many pilgrimages to the Museo Nacional de Arqueologia y Ethnologia de Guatemala. I had seen drawings and photographs of Stela 10 before, but nothing prepared me for my first encounter with the actual monument. It was immediately apparent that published drawings and photographs did not do it justice, either as a work of art or as a cultural document, and I was determined to record and study its exquisitely carved scene and enigmatic glyphic text.
During the following decade I revisited Guatemala several times to produce a series of rubbings, photographs and drawings of both the monument's carving and its text. To gain a better understanding of the background and context of Kaminaljuyu Stela 10 and its text I also began a program of rubbings, photographs and drawings of related sculptures. A great deal of care and energy has been devoted to recording these Early Maya sculptures and glyphs. Much of the past ten years has been spent in critical reading and in close analysis of the burgeoning literature on these two fascinating subjects. Indeed, my own program of study became something of a monomania, causing me to ocasionally skip food and sleep and to utterly fail in the kind of social skills which are so crucial to success in any primate organization. Despite these personal failings, I sincerely hope that my devotion to both craft and science has resulted in text and drawings which will continue to hold value to scholars and art lovers long after any contentious assertions made therein, may have been rendered moot.
In the spring of 1988, while leading a UC Berkeley Alumni association tour through Guatemala, I looked up Edwin Shook to show him my materials on Stela 10. On May 3, of 1988 I met with Shook at his converted convent in Antigua and we discussed completing the publication of Stela 10 by combining my work on the iconography and glyphs with his data on the excavations and ceramics. Shook generously opened his archives, enthusiastically sharing the information and materials which he had carefully husbanded for so many years. Because conventional wisdom had it that the excavations of Stelae 10 and 11 were not well recorded, I was astonished at both the amount and the quality of the material in Shook's hoard. These treasures included original photographs of Stela 10 and 11 in situ Before this trip my own advisor had assured me that no in-situ photographs of Stela 10 existed., detailed excavation notes by Espinoza and Shook and original drafts of studies by Heath-Jones, Miles and Vivian Broman. Shook permitted me to make duplicates of some of this material and I returned to Berkeley with plenty of food for thought.
The week of my 35th birthday I presented a paper on Palenque Throne 4 at the Seventh Palenque Round Table, which facilitated a short bus trip to Antigua for another meeting with Shook. After a harrowing night bus ride through the Guatemalan highlands from La Mesilla to Antigua, a slim first draft of the present study was left with Shook at his new house on June 25, 1989. Again, Shook was most helpful, permitting me to photograph and take notes of his original materials, including the detailed field notes he and Espinoza had made while excavating Stelae 10 and 11.
After returning to Berkeley, I renewed the tasks of assembling and editing the material while seeking an appropriate venue for the finished monograph. This final task proved so daunting that I eventually set aside the original project in favor of three fascicles treating the excavations, the sculpture and the glyphs under separate covers. On April 20, 1990 I wrote Shook to inform him of the change in plan and began preparing portions of my completed fascicle on the glyphs for publication.
At the 1989 round table George Stuart had asked for a copy of my drawing of Stela 10's text, and we discussed publishing the glyph fascicle in his periodical Research Reports on Maya Writing. Unfortunately, the illness and death of Mrs. Stuart left Stuart unable to fulfill his professional commitments. Given this experience, the monolithic nature of Maya Epigraphy and the warm reception traditionally accorded alternative views by the New Orthodoxy in Maya epigraphy, I decided to seek a venue elsewhere. The editorial staff of Mexicon had done such an excellent job of publishing a previous study of another Early Maya text, that I sent the new manuscript to Mexicon's Anton Saurwein on September 19, 1992. Still uncertain if the characteristic of the New Orthodoxy had infiltrated international venues, I submitted an abstract of the paper for presentation at the Eighth Mesa Redonda de Palenque scheduled for June of 1993.
Concerned that I had not heard from the Mexicon reviewers, I faxed a note to Dr. Saurwein on December 12 1992 which did not produce a response. I then began an expensive telephone search for Gordon Whittaker, Mexicon's editor, who was in the process of changing his residence. During telephone conversations with Whittaker, continuing through January and February of 1993, he persuaded me that I should press on and prepare the entire study as a monograph. Shortly thereafter I received word that my abstract had been accepted for presentation at Palenque and notified Whittaker, who graciously permitted the pre-release of materials from the monograph for presentation. At the conference Victoria Bricker very kindly scheduled the presentation on Stela 10's glyphs as one of the first papers delivered at the Eighth Palenque Round Table (Porter 1993).
The paper's cool reception by some proponents of the New Orthodoxy was almost as gratifying as was its warm reception from the more diverse majority of Mayanists attending. This reception at Palenque, inspired me to begin the new draft, including all the material on this remarkable cultural treasure under a single cover. This new draft was also sent off to Whittaker, only this time for inclusion in Acta Mesoamerica, as a monograph. The kind encouragement and infectious enthusiasm of the Mexicon reviewers persuaded me to add new material on the astonishing corpus of theoretical papers regarding Precolumbian Mesoamerica. Much of this new material addresses an academic belief system which I identify as "New Orthodox" (Porter 1996), because it is so rigidly circumscribed. Although this review of previous works proved Augean, in both scope and character, the resulting material may encourage further empirical studies.
Throughout spring and summer of 1994 I continued to refine the manuscript and was again invited to guide a tour group through Guatemala. On Sunday, November 20, 1994 the group arrived in Antigua and I was able to deliver an expanded draft of the manuscript to Shook for his editorial comments and approval. Later during this same tour, I was fortunate enough to meet Lee Parsons at Copan. I told Parsons that some reviewers were concerned, that I accept Kidder, Jennings and Shook's artifactual evidence for Kaminaljuyu as a Maya site. Parsons responded that he wrote his own book, The Origins of Maya Art, specifically to show how the site's art history supported the artifactual evidence for a Maya Kaminaljuyu. I was aware that all three primary researchers working on Stela 10, Heath-Jones, Miles and Shook, found that Stela 10 bears Maya Style relief Sculpture and that Stela 10's inscription is an early version of Classic Maya writing. Nonetheless, it was reassuring to know that everyone who had actually examined the piece saw the same cultural markers that I found.
Thus encouraged, I returned to Berkeley on November 28 and discovered that I had been hired to instruct Anthropology at Laney College in Oakland. This appointment provided both the free time and the mental stimulation required to complete the present monograph on Stela 10.
The strange beauty and fascinating mystery of Stela 10 and its inscription has sustained me throughout the vicissitudes of the past k'atun. Yet, there have been many times I recalled the muggy Cambridge summer afternoon I spent discussing Maya sculpture and glyphs with Tatiana Proskouriakoff -- and her perceptive professional advice.
"Don't write books, someone else will just publish your results first".
Completed Christmas Day, 1995, Orcas Island, WA.
