Abstract

PARPAL CABANES, Esther. Portraits of Women in Mayan Art. Sixty Years after Proskouriakoff. Estud. cult. maya [online]. 2025, vol.65, pp.85-117.  Epub Sep 08, 2025. ISSN 0185-2574.  https://doi.org/10.19130/iifl.ecm.2025.1/0q27r1v053.

This article is based on a systematized analysis of the representations of women in classic Maya art, with the aim of revising and expanding the area of research initiated by Tatiana Proskouriakoff sixty years ago. That is, it addresses one of the few aspects of this author’s contributions that had yet to be re-examined. Thanks to the advances in the study of Maya culture since that time, we have been able to study a larger corpus of images, which has allowed us to expand the original list of attributes in female representations created by Proskouriakoff in 1961. Likewise, the analysis and iconographic interpretation of the images, adapted to the particularities of Maya art, has allowed us to transcend formal and stylistic analysis, and go deeper into the meanings of each of these elements. This has permitted us to identify new gender markers, such as the ceramic vessel with instruments for self-sacrifice or the wrapped ritual bundle, leading us to reflect on how the Maya conceive gender and reaffirm theories on fluidity and complementarity. To this end, we have also incorporated the perspectives of recent works on gender theory, which grant us to better discern how these portraits can be understood in relation to power, status and other aspects of identity that determined their creation.

Keywords : gender; iconography; noble women; monumental art; Classic period.

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