Dragons in the Sky: The Maya Cosmos, Place, and Power as Expressed through Skybands2021

Ancient Maya artistic traditions are distinct in how visual, narrative information is so often conveyed through an interplay of image and text which does not draw firm lines of distinction between the two. Found across time and geography in the Maya world, skybands are a visual tool used to communicate a celestial quality of a narrative space. Representing the body of a cosmic bicephalous serpent, these bands use glyphs as snake scales to reference the sky, stars, and broader cosmos. This study seeks to understand skybands through a variety of approaches. Studies of the bands’ origins, symbolism, and narrative functions present a basic understanding of what constitutes a skyband and how they function in conveying visual meaning. These foundational definitions are applied to the structure of the cosmos, situating the skyband within Maya universe structure. Finally, skybands and their imagery are considered as visual tools through which Maya rulers communicated their relationships with the universe and their own divinity. Analyses of skyband examples are used throughout, most notably with a frieze at Chichen Itza’s Las Monjas, a painted mortuary bowl, a polychrome vase, and the carved lid of K’inich Janab Pakal’s sarcophagus.