iconographic method in new world prehistory · this book provides an overview of iconographic...

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IconographIc Method In new world prehIstory

This book provides an overview of iconographic methods and their application to archaeological analysis. It offers a truly interdisciplin-ary approach that draws equally from art history and anthropology. Vernon James Knight, Jr., begins with a historiographical over-view, addressing the methodologies and theories that underpin both archaeology and art history. He then demonstrates how iconographic methods can be integrated with the scientific methods that are at the core of much archaeological inquiry. Focusing on artifacts from the pre-Columbian civilizations of the New World, Knight shows how the use of iconographic analysis yields new insights into these objects and civilizations.

Vernon James Knight, Jr., is Professor of Anthropology and College of Arts and Sciences Leadership Board Fellow at the University of Alabama. He is a recipient of research grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation, among others. He is the author of numerous books and articles, and his book Mound Excavations at Moundville: Architecture, Elites, and Social Order was the winner of the 2011 Society for American Archaeology scholarly book prize.

Iconographic Method in new world prehistory

Vernon James Knight, Jr. University of Alabama

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication dataKnight, Vernon J. Iconographic method in new world prehistory / Vernon James Knight, Jr. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-1-107-02263-8 (hardback) 1. Indian art – America. 2. Art, Prehistoric – America. 3. Archaeology and art – America – Methodology. 4. Social archaeology – America – Methodology. 5. America – Antiquities. I. Title. e59.a7k65 2013 700.93–dc23 2012007840

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v

contents

List of Illustrations page vii

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xvii

1 Preliminaries: An Iconography of Prehistoric Images . . . . . . . 1

2 Style. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

3 Form and Referent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

4 Configurational Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

5 Ethnographic Analogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

6 The Logic of Iconographic Method in Prehistory . . . . . . . . .158

Glossary 175

References Cited 179

Index 195

vii

Illustrations

1 Petroglyph tableau near Millsboro, Pennsylvania . . . . . . page 5

2 Birch-bark scroll drawing of the Ojibwa Midéwiwin medicine society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

3 The relationship between iconographic, semasiographic, and glottographic systems of visual communication . . . . . . . 10

4 Drawing used by social psychologist William Hudson to test pictorial depth perception among Africans . . . . . . . . . . . 29

5 Engraved Mississippian shell gorgets from the southern Appalachian region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

6 Northwest Coast horn spoons with representational carvings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

7 Rollout drawing of a Coclé polychrome painted ceramic design, Panama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

8 Conventional layouts used in engraved Mississippian marine shell gorgets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

9 Olmec colossal head of basalt, La Venta site, Veracruz, Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

10 Maya ceramic whistle from Jaina Island . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

11 Reductive depiction and split representation in Northwest Coast imagery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

12 Engraved pottery vessel with in-the-round design layout, Moundville site, Alabama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

13 Two engraved depictions of the winged serpent theme on pottery, Moundville site, Alabama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Illustrationsviii

14 Detail from a pottery vessel engraving of the “crested bird” theme, Moundville site, Alabama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

15 Duck or rabbit? An exercise in the psychology of perception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

16 Aggressive fauna depicted in Coclé ceramic art, Panama . . . 62

17 Carved wooden club depicting a killer whale, Tlingit, Northwest Coast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

18 House-front painting representing a killer whale, Kwakwaka’wakw, Northwest Coast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

19 Two potential examples of personal reference (phantasmagoria) in prehistoric material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

20 Northwest Coast filler motifs cataloged by George T. Emmons for the Tlingit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

21 Maya filler motifs on the borders of a painted cylindrical vase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

22 Use of similarly formatted prints of images on card stock, sorted on large tables, to explore distributions of suprastylistic features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

23 Relationships among suprastylistic formal units, arranged by analytical level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

24 Tableau of Olmec jade figurines as discovered in situ at the La Venta site, Veracruz, Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

25 Host figure of earthenware from Teotihuacán . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

26 Identifying attributes in two images: The Raimondi Stela and a female figurine from Tennessee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

27 Conventional hand gestures in Moche fineline painting on pottery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101

28 Two images of the Teotihuacán Storm God . . . . . . . . . . . . .102

29 Pars pro toto Storm God in stone sculpture, Teotihuacán . . 103

30 The “four element group” in Teotihuacán mural imagery . 105

31 Warriors parading captives who are naked and bound: A scene from the Warrior Narrative in Moche fineline painting on pottery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

32 Obverse panel of the Thruston Tablet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Illustrations ix

33 Narrative condensation without repetition of characters: Painting from a Spartan cup and the Potter gorget from southeast Missouri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

34 Narrative condensation with repetition of characters: Detail from Benozzo Gozzoli, The Feast of Herod and the Beheading of St. John the Baptist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

35 Narrative condensation with repetition of characters: Wrinkle Face combats marine monsters, Moche fineline painting on pottery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

36 Moche stirrup-spouted bottle with painting depicting a marsh plant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

37 Partial clay figurine wearing a large pectoral bearing the conventional “owl and weapons” emblem, Teotihuacán . . . 114

38 Block color textile design from the Paracas Necrópolis, south coast of Peru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

39 Depiction of a raptorial bird on a carved stone cornice, Chavín de Huantar, Peru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .123

40 Pottery animal effigies used in ritual, Weeden Island culture, Florida . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .135

41 Marine shell gorget design of the Cox Mound group, eastern Tennessee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .152

42 An iconographic workshop setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .161

xi

preface

Perhaps more so than other works, one that professes to draw from divergent disciplines – in this case art history and anthropological archaeology – rec-ommends more than the usual measure of disclosure from its author. So let us begin with the fact that this volume has its origins in the classroom. Since 1993 I have taught a graduate seminar on the topic, from which comes the basic set of notes on principles of method, concepts, and associated con-crete examples developed in these pages. From the beginning, the readings assigned for discussion in this seminar have been deliberately balanced between those written by art historians on the one hand and those written by anthropologists on the other. They have not been pitted against one another. On the contrary, my rationale in offering the course has been that each has its distinctive insight; that humanities and social science perspectives offer usefully complementary visions. Rather than dwelling inordinately on the disciplinary origins of ideas, the seminar’s overriding question has been this: Is it possible to extract from these divergent authorities a set of methodolog-ical principles and definitions that lead to results that are both persuasive and logically coherent? In this book, given its origins in mining the works of authorities in search of gems, the reader therefore will not find much that is genuinely new. I am not the author of any new system for iconographic anal-ysis. Yet I perceive a pressing need for a synthesis of this material – one going beyond a historical review to fill the wider need for a body of middle-range concepts useful to anyone who might tackle such material as a novice.

The iconography of ancient images is a peculiar area of scholarship, and not one with a stellar reputation. Its literature is relatively disorganized. Its important concepts are published in scattered places.1 At the moment,

1 The scattered nature of the key literature results, inevitably, in a certain amount of “rein-venting the wheel.”

prefacexii

the field has no primary journal.2 “Poorly done,” Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus (1998:37) have written, “it results in some of the worst archaeology on record.” In a particularly stinging passage, these archaeologists further note that “no approach has greater potential for dilettantism, flights of fancy, charlatanism, and intellectual laziness” (1998:46). On the basis of what has found its way into print, it is hard to disagree with this harsh assessment, as much published work is long on assertions and short on proof. However, at the opposite end of the spectrum, the best published work in this genre is rigorously done and reasonably persuasive. What is heartening, given the genesis of this book in the classroom, is that ordinary graduate students can easily tell the difference without any special coaching. Students know clar-ity and real analysis when they see it, and no amount of apparent erudition or breadth of reading can hide the lack of it.

The intellectual history of this domain is characterized by a divide between art-historical and anthropological approaches. This divide, while fundamental, has never been absolute. Aby Warburg, who is in many ways the father of modern iconographic method in art history (Forster 1999), also did fieldwork among the Navajo that was essentially ethnographic, in which course he came into contact with such founding figures in American anthropology as Jesse W. Fewkes, F. W. Hodge, James Mooney, Frank Hamilton Cushing, and Franz Boas (Steinberg 1995). For his part, Alfred Kroeber, in compiling Anthropology Today as his “encyclopedic inventory” of mid-twentieth-century anthropological method and theory, invited art historian Meyer Schapiro (1953) to author the entry on “style.” However, the contrasts of emphasis between the two approaches are unmistakable. Iconography in the art-historical mode, from Warburg through Erwin Panofsky and a host of subsequent writers, viewed individual works as sources of information to be unpacked by exegetical procedures. Working in a humanistic tradition and inspired by semiology and the psychology of perception, iconographers of the twentieth century appealed to methods they developed to decipher, as thoroughly as possible, the pictorial content of works of art, generally considered one at a time. Works of art constituted problems to be solved (Bann 1996:87). In contrast, for the twentieth-century anthropologist, the “meaning” of works of art was something best eluci-dated by attending to the background conditions under which such works

2 The journal Visible Religion, an annual edited by Hans Kippenberg and others and pub-lished by the Institute of Religious Iconography, University of Groningen, seemed to have good potential as a venue for contributions to ancient iconography. Unfortunately, it had only a short run, from 1982 to 1990.

preface xiii

were produced. Meaning could be understood by situating groups of cog-nate forms in their broad social and cultural contexts.

The divide has been much more than a struggle over turf. The distinc-tion has been fundamentally philosophical, one between humanists and social scientists. The recent history of the field of study of pre-Columbian art is illuminating in this regard. Almost from the beginning, art histo-rians who worked with pre-Columbian materials defined themselves in diametric opposition to the goals of science-oriented processual archae-ology. Where processual archaeology of the 1960s and 1970s, with its strongly materialist foundations, seemed to abandon any interest in pre-Columbian “high art” other than as a symptom of sociopolitical rela-tions, art historians found a niche. In describing the style, aesthetics, and iconography of pre-Columbian art, art history seized for itself top-ics that anthropological archaeology had seemingly abandoned. But as Cecilia Klein, herself an art historian, described the situation as of the early 1980s, pre-Columbian art history remained a narrow field with an identity crisis. Having walled itself off from the interests of mainstream archaeology, it risked being marginalized as atheoretical and irrelevant. At that juncture she recommended a healing of the divide and a merging of concerns (Klein 1982).

Interest in looking for common cause between these two traditions has been building by increments over time. To choose among many illustra-tions of this trend, art historian Esther Pasztory, in her book Thinking with Things (2005), writes much as a social scientist might. In framing the evo-lution of imagery as an aspect of social evolution, very much in an anthro-pological vein, she recommends that images be viewed as documents encoding social structure more than aesthetics (Pasztory 2005:117–118). In turn, since the 1970s a large segment of the archaeological community has diverged from strictly materialist approaches in favor of attention to cog-nitive phenomena and meanings. In their work with the iconography of ancient images, archaeologists have borrowed, explicitly and often, from concepts developed by art historians (e.g., Brown 2007:61–63; Graham 1998:203; Phillips and Brown 1975–1982, 1:103–106; Quilter 1996). Further, collaborations between art historians and anthropologists have yielded pathbreaking results (e.g., Freidel, Schele, and Parker 1993; Schele and Freidel 1990). Nonetheless, the philosophical, theoretical, and meth-odological gap between these two traditional approaches, though often breached, remains far from closed. It is a gap fostered by an old academic segmentation, grounded in Western European categories, that insists on hard boundaries between fields and fixed styles of research to which

prefacexiv

scholars are advised to adhere if they wish to get published or credentialed.3 Would-be iconographers of ancient imagery must come to terms with that gap in one way or another.

There is yet another and evidently growing divide between Americanist and European/Orientalist approaches to ancient iconography. Perhaps there is no better illustration of this divide than Richard Bradley’s recent book Image and Audience: Rethinking Prehistoric Art (2009), which I take to be typical of current Europeanist work. In it we find a bibliography of authorities that is almost mutually exclusive from the one that is central to this book; there is no mention whatever, for example, of Boas or Holmes on the subject of art, nor of Panofsky, Kubler, Hermerén, Kippenberg, or Pasztory. The purpose of Bradley’s book is to integrate studies of prehis-toric art with modern archaeological theory and practice. Its focus is on the intrinsic properties of images and their settings and on what these might tell us about ancient artists, their audiences, and their motivations. There is almost nothing ethnographic about it, and little discernible regard for the verification of the “readings” being offered. According to the author, “it is rarely possible to infer the meanings of ancient images without the help of written evidence, but it may be possible to investigate the relationships between the designs that were created and displayed and the audiences who encountered them” (Bradley 2009:vii). In being mostly unconcerned with the referents of ancient images, this is, of course, not iconography strictly speaking. The work suggests an extraordinary divergence of intellec-tual traditions, leading lights, and modes of thought in relation to prehis-toric art that I cannot hope to bridge.

This leads to my second authorial disclosure, which is that my primary training is in Americanist, anthropological archaeology rather than in art history. Although I have tried to maintain a balance of source materials, if there is a bias to be discerned in the present work it is no doubt in favor of Americanist social science approaches. This potential bias, however, is only partly a matter of training. In many ways, we are here addressing a field of study that is still in search of academic respectability. In such an environment, the fact that I think a book of this nature, focusing as it does upon consensus of method, is at all possible reveals a distinctive attitude about the business of “authority.” This attitude is that there is a legitimate scientific, or at least science-like, mode of doing prehistoric iconography, one that appeals to common procedures of data gathering, methodologi-cal consistency, and verification by well-formed argument. Some will no

3 I am grateful to John Pohl for his observations on this point.

preface xv

doubt argue that this attitude is misplaced, that any emphasis on ultimate verification is illusory and out of step with postmodern notions. They might well believe that argument by weight of erudition or other modes of author-ity is more appropriate. Further, some may be put off by such a pedestrian approach to method, when it is theory that is so obviously at stake. But a choice has to be made (see Boyer 2003; Bruner 1986:11–43), and mine sinks or swims on how well (or poorly) the methods espoused herein enhance discipline-wide confidence in iconographic conclusions.

In my view, what is needed, at this point, is a methodological summary of the domain of prehistoric iconography that ideally meets the follow-ing criteria: first, that it incorporates the most fruitful concepts that come down to us from both traditions of scholarship – the art historical and the anthropological; second, that it places emphasis on unambiguous defini-tions of these concepts; third, that it is theoretically sound, both in being non-self-contradictory and in being true to a brand of modern culture the-ory agreeable to the topic; and, finally, that it reflects in its bibliography the best of modern scholarship within the domain. To the degree that this work can measure up to these criteria, the result should be a useful foundation for students who are just beginning to delve into these matters. They are the intended audience.

What is called for, in my opinion, is a renewed focus on systematic method in this field. I place emphasis not on the sources of ideas in one tradition or another but instead, pragmatically, on what works. I will not attempt to give a history of ancient iconography, nor have I found the need to wander very far into the terrain of formal semiology.4 Instead, I will try, primarily, to establish two things: first, a consensus vocabulary, and second, a set of core principles, drawn from both art-historical and anthropological approaches, that will constitute, if you will, a body of middle-range theory allowing the kind of structured analysis backed by a richer descriptive lan-guage that I believe is critical to our success. I will stress the methodological importance of keeping the domains of style, meaningful form, and ethno-graphic correlation analytically separate and will cite examples in which doing so was the key to success. In the concluding chapter, I will propose a logic for integrating these into a larger research framework. Perhaps above all, I hope to show that iconographic interpretation of prehistoric images does not necessarily take us into unknowable domains of belief, religion, and worldview, as some seem to think.

4 A minor exception to our avoidance of semiological terminology lies in our discussion of “substitution sets” in iconographic research, in Chapter 4. For an explicitly semiological approach, see Martin (2006) and references therein.

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acknowledgments

In the preparation of this work I am indebted, in the first place, to my grad-uate students over many years whose insightful debates have helped me considerably to form and refine my own opinions.

The book took its shape during a sabbatical leave granted by the University of Alabama during 2010. During that time I was the beneficiary of a stipend from the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collections in Washington, D.C., which afforded me access to its impressive resources and an environment wonderfully free from distraction. I am grateful to Joanne Pillsbury, Director of Pre-Columbian Studies at Dumbarton Oaks, to her staff, including Emily Gulick and Bridget Gazzo, and to the Fellows in residence at that time for their many kindnesses and helpful suggestions.

Finally, I wish to record my gratitude to Richard Diehl for his assis-tance in navigating the literature on pre-Columbian iconography; to my colleagues from the annual Mississippian Iconographic Workshop in San Marcos, in particular Kent Reilly, George Lankford, James Brown, and Vincas Steponaitis, for their many hours of useful discussion; and to John Pohl for his careful reading and commentary on a preliminary draft.

1

Chapter 1

Preliminaries: An Iconography of Prehistoric Images

This book concerns principles and methods used in the practice of iconog-raphy in prehistoric contexts. It therefore addresses a limited domain within a broader field. In being confined to prehistoric, nonliterate societies, it is a branch of iconography whose special characteristic is that any form of con-temporaneous written record is completely denied to it. In it, there is no access at all to the kinds of texts, either generated internally by the people who made the images or externally by foreign observers, that other forms of iconography take for granted. The practice of a prehistoric iconography in a nonliterate setting, then, differs significantly from that of other kinds. It is the distinctive set of concepts, procedures, and problems posed by this branch of iconography that we aim to address here in detail.

In a New World context, such a focus draws us to the visual imagery of such peoples as the Mississippians of the North American Southeast, the Mimbres of the North American Southwest, the Taíno of the Greater Antilles, the Olmec, Teotihuacán, Izapa, and Preclassic Maya of ancient Mexico, the Coclé of Panama, the Marajoara of the Amazon basin, the Chavín and Moche of Peru, and many others. Each of these extinct peoples left a marvelous record of meaningful images that iconographers have been busily interpreting for decades without contemporaneous texts to guide their interpretation. These ancient peoples have something else in com-mon: they were organized as what most archaeologists would call “complex societies,” meaning simply that their people were socially differentiated to some degree and their communities politically organized. In this book we will confine ourselves to images produced by such complex societies. Just as the concepts appropriate to the archaeological study of food produc-tion, social interaction, trade, warfare, and politics in complex societies differ from those used to study simpler hunters, foragers, and fishers, so too the principles and methods appropriate to their iconographic study differ

Iconographic Method in New World Prehistory2

(Pasztory 2005). One obvious distinction is that in complex societies, much of the expressive culture that survives in materialized form is functionally related to the existence of a political economy (Brown 2007). That is, much durable imagery in these societies was devoted to broadcasting the political and economic interests of elites.

The examples used herein are drawn primarily from New World archae-ological settings, for little reason other than because that is the hemisphere with which I am most familiar. But the concepts to be discussed are appli-cable to a broad range of prehistoric complex societies worldwide that were either nonliterate or had writing systems that are still undeciphered. Old World examples are Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe, the early Minoans of the Mediterranean basin, the Scythian peoples of south Asia, Harappan civilization of the Indian Subcontinent, Jomon period Japan, and Easter Island in Polynesia. All are rich fields for iconographic research.1

Despite recent statements among archaeologists that criticize or decon-struct the distinction between historic and prehistoric archaeologies (see, e.g., Funari, Hall, and Jones 1999), the difference between the iconography of a nonliterate complex society and one that is text-aided is decisive. There can be no better illustration of this than what has happened over the course of the past several decades in the field of Maya iconography. The ancient Maya had a sophisticated hieroglyphic writing system that was used exten-sively in conjunction with representational images on stelae, palace facades and lintels, altars, cylindrical vessels, folding-screen books, and many other genres. But only the most recent generation of Maya epigraphers has had much real success in reading these hieroglyphs. Translations by these epig-raphers have been nothing short of revolutionary in our understanding of Maya images (Houston, Chinchilla Mazariegos, and Stuart 2001:14; Schele and Miller 1986). What we now know of Classic Maya iconography is a world apart from the interpretations of such distinguished Maya scholars as George Kubler and J. Eric S. Thompson of an earlier generation, who were laboring without translated texts. Indeed, the introduction of writing systems brings into existence entirely new kinds of visual communication, such as what Janet Berlo (1983) calls “conjoined texts,” compositions that combine figural depictions with written commentary in which the bur-den of communication is shared between image and text. There are still other novel forms of visual communication in which linguistic information is thoroughly embedded in figural images (Berlo 1983; Kubler 1969:6–7;

1 Despite the terminology still found among art collectors and in some museum settings, this is by no means “primitive art.” For a witty and charming rebuke of that Western concept, see Sally Price’s (1989) Primitive Art in Civilized Places.

Preliminaries: An Iconography of Prehistoric Images 3

Martin 2006:91; Miller 1975:26; Reents-Budet 1989:195–196). As images change character in the presence of writing, there can be no doubt that the “rules of the game” in the absence of texts are qualitatively distinct (Martin 2006:58; Pasztory 2005:78–79; Trigger 1996:517, 527).

The Domain of Iconography

In iconographic research on archaeological materials, the division of labor between those whose academic training lies in the field of art history and those trained in the anthropological tradition has not been kind to stu-dents who would wander into this terrain for the first time. The literature is unusually scattered. There is not only a lack of agreement as to proce-dures but also a lack of any real consensus on the meanings of even a basic vocabulary: “themes,” “motifs,” “symbols,” and so forth. That being the case, in this work we will pay very close attention to the precise definition of concepts, drawing from both the art-historical and anthropological tradi-tions, but doing so in a way that is both internally consistent (i.e., avoiding self-contradiction) and theoretically coherent. And we might as well start with the term iconography itself.

Iconography as an academic discipline is concerned with the relation between visual imagery and its meaningful referents.2 We see immediately that the field is not about a single thing but rather is about defining a rela-tionship between two different domains (Graham 1998:194). Both of these domains can be, and routinely are, studied separately. Representational imagery, for its part, can be studied as forms that undergo change through time completely aside from attention to its meaningful subject matter (Kubler 1962). Likewise, the potential referents, which might be legends, myths, texts, events, real-world people, real-world things, or abstract con-cepts, can be studied apart from any images depicting them, by disciplines such as folklore or history.3

2 In the literature, there is a tendency to use the terms iconography and the adjectival form iconographic in a different way, to refer to phenomenal images or sets of them. For exam-ple, one may encounter such a usage as “the iconography at Teotihuacán” (e.g., Earle 1990:74, 80–81), or a reference to the “iconographic art” at that site, by which is simply meant the set of representational imagery there. Using these terms as synonyms for “repre-sentational imagery” may find some support in an obsolete seventeenth-century definition found in the Oxford English Dictionary: “a pictorial representation, delineation” (OED Online, 2nd ed., 1989), but in a modern context such a usage is merely confusing and is best avoided. One of our primary aims is to offer a set of useful terms avoiding, wherever possible, alternative meanings.

3 In this book we consistently use the word depict in the following sense. Image X depicts Y if image X was or could be seen as Y according to the iconographic cultural model relevant


One will note that the word art does not appear in our definition of ico-nography. That is deliberate. In this book we will not usually be shy about defining things, but what is and is not art is a hoary debate and one to which we are unlikely to add much clarification. For us to engage in it here would take us down an uncertain path where we need not go. Suffice it to say that for many scholars, things that qualify as art do so partly because they evoke a subjective aesthetic sensibility, whether that be a mastery of line, of surface and texture, of color, of symmetry, or something else. Certainly the definitions of art provided by Erwin Panofsky (1955:11–12) and Franz Boas (1928:10), early masters of art history and anthropology, respectively, both insist on this aesthetic dimension in art.4 In that sense, not all visual representations qualify as art (Gombrich 1977:6; Layton 1991:6–7). But to illustrate the point of our avoiding this word in a definition of iconogra-phy (and thus in the book generally), let us refer to a specific example, an archaeological case. Figure 1 depicts a petroglyphic tableau from near Millsboro, Pennsylvania (Mallery 1893:fig. 76). The tableau shows several of the characteristics of shamanic imagery; a palimpsest of crude drawings placed one on top of the other apparently at different times, with little or no regard for the finished image (Pasztory 1982). Whatever else one may wish to say about it, there is arguably little trace of an aesthetic concern in the drafting of the figures. They are rudimentary in the extreme. Thus whether these petroglyphs are, or are not, art is debatable, but that one can speak of their iconography – the relation of their imagery to their ritual referents – is clearly not.5

Principle #1. Because not all representational imagery is art, the domain of iconography is broader than “art.”

to the image. Göran Hermerén (1969) has spelled out in great detail how art historians traditionally have distinguished among depict, portray, represent, illustrate, symbolize, and exemplify. These terms are far from interchangeable, and we will try to be precise.

4 See, however, Gell (1998) for a vigorously anti-aesthetic definition of art.5 Franz Boas, for his part, used a comparable ethnographic example, pictographic represen-

tations of incidents in the life histories of Plains Indians of North America, to argue that this kind of representation should not be considered art: “The figures are in no way orna-mental and bear no relation to the object on which they are depicted. They are made for the purpose of representation only. They are not art in the rigid sense of the term. Judging from the character of the figures and their use we may safely say that the artistic interest is entirely absent” (Boas 1928:67–68). Layton (1991:6–7) illustrates a comparable example of crude figurines used in East Africa entirely for didactic purposes. More recently, Esther Pasztory (2005:13) has remarked on how the Western category of “art” has become increas-ingly unsatisfactory for talking about material images and their referents.


It goes without saying that the kind of imagery referred to in our defi-nition is representational imagery only – that which stands in relation to some external referent.6 Thus we exclude by fiat an enormous realm of ornamental, decorative, and purely formal designs, although distinguish-ing what is representational from what is merely ornamental from our dis-tant point of view is by no means straightforward. We will come back to that issue in due course.

Our definition implies that the academic business of iconography is that of making a connection between visual images and their associated subject

figure 1. Petroglyph tableau near Millsboro, Pennsylvania (Mallery 1893:fig. 76, p. 111).

6 Some may prefer substituting the term “figural art” for Boas’s “representational,” especially where the subject is animate. For a philosopher, to say that an image “represents” an object or an event is not a straightforward claim (Ziff 1966:75–84).


matter, and doing so correctly. Ultimately, it is a matter of identification (Panofsky 1939:6). Moreover, especially in our particular case, this identifi-cation is necessarily done at a distance in space and time, from an external, analytical point of view. We begin the exploration of these connections much in the role of the anthropologist, from the outside looking in (Martin 2006:57). As H. G. Kippenberg (1987:7) puts it, iconography is “a descrip-tion of how other cultures read their images” (emphasis added). Moreover, while we are attending to our definition of iconography, we should also note that it says nothing about context or function. For the moment, we must not allow that fact to mislead us. Most iconographers understand that a consideration of context and function is absolutely essential to icono-graphic method; we will have occasion to elaborate on that question later on. The point here, instead, is simply to alert ourselves that as soon as the gaze of the analyst shifts to one of determining the function or use of images rather than the referents of those same images, the investigator has stepped across an analytical line and is now engaging in something other than iconography strictly speaking (Lesure 2002).

Our sphere of activity is, of course, considerably narrowed by limiting it to the products of prehistoric, nonliterate complex societies. Iconographic research in this arena involves pondering the intended subject matter of numerous familiar categories of material culture. Among the classes of two-dimensional representations we deal with are painted murals, stone tab-lets, engravings on bone and ivory, basketry, mosaics, and painted and incised designs on pottery vessels. Three-dimensional forms range from monumen-tal stone sculptures to diminutive figurines and adornos of fired clay. There are, of course, many more archaeologically preserved genres than these few, most of them readily acknowledged as “art” by all concerned.

Much of this material, too, is recognizably of a religious character, either depicting things, personages, and events from the supernatural realm or occurring on objects plainly meant for ritual use. But acknowledging this connection reveals a common trap. Because of the religious character of much of the material, there is a tendency to equate the iconography of pre-historic images with the iconography of ancient religion. This is a mistake. In the first place, there is no warrant to assume that all prehistoric imagery susceptible to iconography is of religious character, as images can belong to secular domains (Langley 1986:11; Pasztory 2005:56). But the more signif-icant, and the more subtle, issue is this. Prehistoric representations, espe-cially in complex societies, were generated by a variety of distinct kinds of institutions. Only some kinds of institutions generate representational images of a permanent character, so we need to devote considerable thought


to which kinds of institutions tend to do so (Borhegyi 1956; Pasztory 1982:9). Given a corpus of prehistoric visual imagery, one of the central problems facing the analyst is to identify the general class of institution that produced it. Were they guilds, priesthoods, sodalities, social houses, shamanic cults, political offices, ordinary households, or none of these? Whatever the case, in traditional societies we are obliged to consider that the production and use of such imagery occurs in the context of what Marcel Mauss (1967) termed “total social facts.” That is, these events are never merely religious but have, in the words of Lévi-Strauss (1969:52), “a significance that is at once social and religious, magic and economic, utilitarian and sentimen-tal, jural and moral.” We might add that there is often a political dimension to these “total” social realities (Helms 1993:69–77).7 Now, the domain “reli-gion” may be carved off analytically from these social realities. That is per-fectly justifiable and at times it may suit our purposes to do so. However, it has been anthropology’s burden to show that the social, the utilitarian, the religious, and the political are all thoroughly intermeshed in events that produce and manipulate visual imagery in traditional societies. To use a vocabulary that implies that religion in these societies constitutes a discrete social institution is both perilous and ethnocentric.

Principle #2. Only some kinds of social institutions generate represen-tational imagery of a permanent character. Not all such institutions are primarily religious.

Representational imagery in the absence of writing is often thought of as a kind of visual communication system. It cannot be only that, for there are cases in which artisans deliberately hide portions of their work from the view of any potential beholders (e.g., Boas 1928:27–28) and other cases, as in shamanic art, where any communicative intent of the final product is subordinated to the act of creation (Pasztory 1982). Moreover, especially in religious philosophies, there are entire visual traditions that consider imagery as esoteric, metaphoric, the language of the divine, a mystery only partly to be understood by the devout (Gombrich 1972:13–15). In some cases, visual imagery may be deliberately obscure as to its referent (Knight 1989). As Gombrich (1972:2) expresses it, iconographic models occupy a

7 Robert Layton (1991:92–93) argues that art and ritual are complementary modes of expres-sive culture that lie at the core of social and political interaction, having many of the same functions.


peculiar space somewhere between language, which aims to express a defi-nite meaning, and the visual forms given by nature, to which meaning can only be ascribed by the beholder.

Nonetheless, one can readily admit that much representational imag-ery does have a communicative purpose, much as writing systems do. But there is an important third category, between pure representational imag-ery and language-based writing, that we must be careful to distinguish from both. These are systems of formal notation that have been called semasiographic (Greek semasi[a] “meaning” + -o + graphos “writing”). Semasiographic systems include such things as Mixtec and Aztec “pic-ture writing” (Boone 1994a, 1994b), Plains Indian pictographic records (Blish 1967; Mallery 1893), and Ojibwa bark scrolls used as mnemonic devices in medicine lodge ritual (Hoffman 2005) (Figure 2). Although these systems possess both orthographic and syntactic conventions, they are not tied to spoken language. In this aspect, semasiographic systems contrast with what many would call “full writing,” or glottographic sys-tems, which do convey, if only imperfectly, the sound values of specific spoken languages and reflect the language’s syntax and grammar (Martin 2006:63–64). Because glottographic systems are inextricably linked to a spoken language, an understanding of that language is required to decode the text. Maya hieroglyphic writing is glottographic in this manner, in

figure 2. Birch-bark scroll drawing of the Ojibwa Midéwiwin medicine society, used as a mnemonic device for ritual performance (Hoffman 2005:pl. 4, facing p. 171).


contrast to the highland Mexican notational systems that could be under-stood across linguistic boundaries.8

Figure 3, adapted from Simon Martin’s (2006) exposition of the topic, conveys the relationship between iconographic, semasiographic, and glot-tographic systems of visual communication. The overlap shown between the circles suggests not that their boundaries are conceptually indistinct but instead that there are known systems that include some elements of the adja-cent type. Thus Teotihuacán mural painting (Langley 1986, 1991; Pasztory 2005:134) and Moche fineline painting on pottery (Martin 2006:68–75) are primarily iconographic but contain some clear semasiographic conven-tions as well. Similarly, Mixtec codices are primarily semasiographic but contain some phonetic information as well (Boone 1994b:55; Monaghan 1994:87). In the diagram, no evolution or ranking of systems is implied; they are simply different in the way they communicate.9 Toward the icono-graphic pole, signs tend to be more iconic (i.e., more veristic relative to the referent) and less discrete. Toward the glottographic pole, signs tend to be both more arbitrary relative to the referent and more discrete.

That these distinct realms of visual communication convey information very differently is central not only to defining the contours of our topic but also to determining how we talk about iconography. Iconographers are prone to think of their realm of visual communication as language-like when in fact it is not (Hermerén 1969:59; Layton 1991:148–149; Martin 2006:60–61).10 Thus there is a perilous tendency for iconographers to use linguistic phrasing: they would “decode” their images as “texts,” learn to

8 There is an active debate on whether to expand the definition of “writing” so as to include semasiographic systems (Boone 2009) or instead to continue to confine that term to glot-tographic systems linked directly to languages. The urge to expand the domain of “writ-ing” comes from the historically implicit tendency to denigrate semasiographic systems as “proto-writing” or in some sense failed writing systems, whereas they are more properly viewed in neutral terms as simply specialized, in the manner of musical notation. Either way, the distinction between semasiographic and glottographic systems is both valid and important.

9 The fact that semasiographic systems need not be viewed as developmentally intermedi-ate between iconographic and glottographic systems is nowhere better illustrated than in Mesoamerica. There, semasiographic pictography flourished in the Postclassic period as a means of international communication, having mostly supplanted glottographic writ-ing in importance by the time of European contact (Pohl 2003:26). This sequence shows that an evolution of sign communication completely contrary to that seen in the ancient Mediterranean and Europe is possible.

10 In addressing Mesoamerican visual communication, Elizabeth Boone (2009:58–59) adopts a point of view virtually the opposite of that espoused here. She advocates treating Meso-american iconographic, semasiographic, and glottographic systems as part of a historically unique, unified whole, to be understood using linguistic tools.


“read” them, “decipher” them, learn their “grammar,” become “visually literate,” produce a “glossary” of them, and so forth. These are metaphors at best (cf. Conkey 1990:10–11). The problem is not so much that visual signs are “multivocal,” it is rather that they are not vocal at all (Gell 1998:6). In general, linguistic metaphors as applied to iconographic topics are always misleading.

Principle #3. Linguistic terminology as applied to nonlinguistic visual expression is misleading at best.

Is an Iconography of Prehistoric Objects Possible?

We come now to a central question to which we must find a convincing way to answer affirmatively, else we have no book! Like most modern concep-tions of iconography in the fields of both art history and anthropology, our own definition is ultimately descended from that of Erwin Panofsky (1892–1968). Although recognizably modern concepts of iconographic research can be traced to the works of Renaissance scholar Aby Warburg (1866–1929) (Forster 1999), it is Panofsky’s systematization of the subject in his Studies in Iconology (1939) that underlies most modern scholarship. Therein, it is stated in the very first sentence that “iconography is that branch of the his-tory of art which concerns itself with the subject matter or meaning of works

Figure 3. The relationship between iconographic, semasiographic, and glottographic systems of visual communication (adapted from Martin 2006:63).


of art, as opposed to their form” (Panofsky 1939:3). Two minor objections to this formula have already surfaced in our brief survey to this point: first, that art history should be specified in the definition as its academic home (since individuals trained as anthropologists have for many decades been among its practitioners as well), and second, that the representational imag-ery it addresses is always necessarily “art.” But we may now set these minor quibbles aside and take notice of another aspect of Panofsky’s conceptual scheme that would seem to question the validity of our subject.

As is well known, Panofsky (1939:3–17) proposed three strata of inter-pretation: (1) pre-iconographical description, whose focus is on “primary” or “natural” subject matter; (2) iconographical analysis, whose focus is on “secondary” or “conventional” subject matter; and (3) iconological inter-pretation, whose focus is on “intrinsic meaning.” Because correctness of interpretation is not self-evident within any of these strata, Panofsky pro-posed “corrective principles” corresponding to each, of which we are now concerned only with the second as it relates to iconographic analysis. Our quandary lies in Panofsky’s (1955:11–14) claim that correctness of icono-graphic interpretation emphatically depends on prior knowledge of, and intimate familiarity with, the concepts, and especially the literary sources and their history, to which the images potentially refer. He notes, for exam-ple, that familiarity with biblical texts is essential to correctly grasping the subject matter of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting The Last Supper. In a vivid illustration, he imagines that “[an] Australian bushman would be unable to recognize the subject of the Last Supper; to him it would only convey the idea of an excited dinner party” (Panofsky 1939:11). The logic of this seems impeccable, for how else can one correctly correlate imagery with subject matter if information is not readily available on both sides of the equation? As Gombrich (1972:6) puts it, the job of the iconographer is to use the knowledge of images together with a knowledge of texts to build a bridge between the two, looking for a goodness of fit (see also Hermerén 1969:56). However, in prehistoric iconography, intimate knowledge of texts, myths, legends, abstract concepts, or other potential sources contemporaneous with the images is precisely what we lack. So Panofsky’s claim, taken at face value, would seem definitely to imply the impossibility of an iconography of prehistoric visual images. It would put the would-be iconographer in the helpless position of that Australian bushman, who, without knowledge of the appropriate narrative source, has no hope of understanding the subject of the image before him.

During the 1960s, Panofsky’s student George Kubler (1912–1996), whose work focused in part on pre-Columbian Mesoamerica from the


art-historical tradition, struggled with precisely this question. While Kubler generally embraced Panofsky’s nomenclature, he dissented from Panofsky’s undue emphasis on stable traditions of meanings as expressed in litera-ture or oral tradition. Kubler argued not only that representational images can and should be studied separately but also that an iconography of such images was possible in the absence of any contemporaneous readable texts. He advocated an approach to archaeological material in which the sub-ject matter, as “motifs” and “themes,” could be extracted from the images alone in a limited way. Thus, in the case of Classic Maya art, “if such pictures consist of recognizable motifs that represent objects, events, and expressions, then the grouping and relation of motifs should correspond to the undeciphered literary text adjoining the picture” (Kubler 1969:4). During the late 1960s, Kubler published successive iconographic studies of Teotihuacán mural painting (Kubler 1967) and Classic Maya sculp-ture (Kubler 1969).11 His method in each case was to laboriously assemble the entire available corpus, to decompose each image into “graphemes” (those elementary units assumed to carry meaning), to recognize “factual” meanings wherever possible, and to make a systematic, detailed analysis of configurations and associations, both within and across images. In this way, a number of stable “themes” emerged from the analysis that were assumed, following Panofsky, to be “the pictorial equivalents of concepts, stories, and allegories” (Kubler 1969:3–4). To the degree that the meaning of these image clusters could be specified, it was seen to arise from the general sense made by the conjunctions of motifs, which could in turn be cross-checked and potentially falsified by adding to the analyzed corpus. Thus in his iconography of Teotihuacán, while proclaiming in the very first sentence that “the detailed meaning of the art of Teotihuacán remains a mystery,” Kubler (1967:6–9) was nonetheless able to conservatively suggest graphic conventions for fire, water, and earth; for abstract concepts like “value” and “rank”; for a number of distinct deities defined by motif clus-ters and their manner of presentation; and, distinguished from these dei-ties, for human celebrants, priests, and god-impersonators. Speaking of the whole corpus, he was able to infer that the content was largely “liturgical,” referring to a sequence of ritual, and that “every mural or decorated vessel is a prayer exalting the elements of nature” (Kubler 1967:12).12

11 Both of these studies by Kubler were greatly influenced by the publication in 1960 of Panofsky’s Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art (Kubler 1975:760n8).

12 Kubler’s (1967) brief Teotihuacán study also featured an experimental “linguistic model” that he subsequently abandoned. Convinced that Teotihuacán art was moving in the di-rection of a true writing system, Kubler attempted to classify each image as a nominal,


Terence Grieder (1975:849) later referred to Kubler’s adaptation of Panofskyan ideas to pre-Columbian imagery as the “configurational school.” Chapter 4 of this book is devoted to a detailed exploration of the possibilities and limitations of this configurational approach. For now, we can agree that such an approach, applied systematically to a corpus of representational art, under the right conditions, can by itself allow us to describe and discuss the subject matter being referenced in an intelligent way – in other words, it allows an iconography as we have defined it.

But Kubler (1967:11–12, 1970:140–143) was adamant in his distrust and dismissal of another potential window into the referents of ancient art. This window was ethnographic analogy, the use of colonial-era and later ethnographic sources projected backward in time to illuminate the past. Because these objections are important, we will discuss them at length in the chapters to follow, but we will also explore a potentially rigorous role for ethnographic analogy in the iconography of ancient art. It is disagree-ment over this issue that has, in the past, worked most forcefully to divide the theoretical and methodological attitudes advocated by art historians on the one hand versus anthropologists on the other. In this book we will advocate both a systematic version of Kubler’s configurational analysis of visual forms and a carefully controlled application of ethnographic anal-ogy, together with an integrated analysis of style, to answer the question proposed in the heading above. As will be seen, inferences about subject matter can indeed be drawn from configurations of formal elements alone, and ethnographic analogy can often be applied to these configurations in relatively robust ways that open the door to new insights.

So our preliminary answer is yes, an iconography of prehistoric visual images is possible, and the burden of this book is to demonstrate a logically and theoretically consistent way to do a credible job of it. Valid icono-graphic inferences can be made of archaeological material that do not take us into unknowable domains of belief, religion, and worldview. It is true that we will never be able to reconstruct anything like the complex narra-tives, and especially the esoteric meanings, that once existed. But with a bit of analytical clarity, coupled with the application of a number of principles that are known to be fruitful, at least the simpler and limited identifications of subject matter are within reach.

adjectival, or verbal expression. Finding that “verbal” expressions (e.g., images indicative of action or motion) were quantitatively uncommon, he was led to the conclusion that Teoti-huacán artistic expressions were repetitive, “grammatically poor,” and thus more evocative of ritual “litany” than of the much more active commemorations of conquests and kingly succession found in other Mesoamerican cultures.


Character of the Work

As we are here surveying the boundaries of the study, it is appropriate to ask, how might the work be categorized? To address the art historian one might say that it is a study in “iconology.” To the anthropological archae-ologist one might answer that it is a study in “cognitive archaeology.” It is both, but we should not make these claims without clarifying what the terms mean for our limited purposes.

As already noted, iconology was the name Panofsky gave to his third and highest stratum of interpretation in art. The word was not his own; he revived it from prior usage and redefined it. For Panofsky (1955:32), iconol-ogy was “an iconography turned interpretative.” Where iconography was primarily descriptive and analytical in nature, iconology was interpretive and dealt in synthesis. The distinction was explicitly parallel to that between “ethnography” and “ethnology” in the anthropological sciences, where the first refers to the description of specific peoples and the second to their comparative and theoretical study. But here is where the going gets muddy (as indeed Panofsky himself predicted it might), as he laid out the terrain of iconology by referring rather abstrusely to the “intrinsic” meaning of art, to the emotional attitudes of nations, to “general and essential tenden-cies of the human mind,” to “symbolical values,” to histories of “cultural symptoms,” to the expression of these in the personality of the artist, and to the intuition necessary to subjectively grasp it all (Panofsky 1939:7–8, 14–16). To be fair, the general sense of it is clear enough; the iconology of a work of art is apprehended by subjectively synthesizing as many other historically related “documents of civilization” of different kinds as one can comprehend, thus relating the work to its broader social context, while simultaneously determining how that context was condensed by the artist into a single expression (Bann 1996:89; Panofsky 1939:16). Panofsky appears to be groping here for an adequate vocabulary to describe how a single work of art can be seen as expressing certain shared cultural values of the society or social group that produced it, above and beyond merely point-ing to specific texts that let us identify its manifest subject matter (which is iconography).13

13 For bibliographic reference, the material cited here from Panofsky’s 1939 Studies in Iconol-ogy: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance on pages 3–17 appeared as expanded and substantially rewritten in his 1955 Meaning in the Visual Arts: Papers in and on Art History on pages 26–41. The latter, generally speaking, is the more accessible volume. As Stephen Bann (1996) points out, there is a curious tension in Panofsky’s notion of iconol-ogy, both in his programmatic statements and in its practical application. Iconology, on


This is where the analogy with ethnography/ethnology breaks down. Panofsky appears to be of two minds in speaking of iconology, for on the one hand he wants it to be a subjective meditation on the social and cul-tural milieu of one or more works of art and how the artist materialized that milieu, but on the other hand he seems to want iconology to be something broadly comparative and synthetic, like ethnology. Thus, whereas Panofsky clearly envisions the iconology of a specific work of art, one generally does not speak of the ethnology of a specific society or social group, much less a single person. It seems both inelegant and counterproductive to have it both ways. However, if we may be allowed to rehabilitate the original anal-ogy for the tasks at hand and think of iconology more simply as the theory of inferring the referents of representational images, used in a broad, com-parative sense, then this is a work of iconology.14

Our work is also, almost by definition, of the genre “cognitive archaeol-ogy.” The representational imagery that holds our interest is mainly a form of symbolic display, and its referents, those narratives and concepts to which the imagery alludes, are also cognitive, mental phenomena. But there is no agreement on what cognitive archaeology is, or should be. Prior to the 1980s, with the dominance of processual archaeology on both sides of the Atlantic, there was very little interest in mental phenomena in archaeology, for two reasons. Many believed that access to prehistoric mental life was basically denied to a scientific archaeology, such that any attempts along these lines would necessarily be baseless speculation. Others were more simply uninterested in the realm of human ideas, due to a materialist phil-osophical posture that deemed all mental life as epiphenomenal to subsis-tence, technology, and other basic means whereby human groups interact systemically with their natural environment.15

By the 1980s, however, there was growing dissatisfaction with the narrow concerns of processual archaeology, and out of that dissatisfaction emerged

the one hand, was only partly about contextualizing a work in view of the broader society that produced it; on the other hand, and in a diametrically opposite way, it was also about subjectively intuiting the innermost thoughts of the artist.

14 As for the complementary aspect, that of ascertaining how images function in a social en-vironment or embody a broad cultural milieu, that may well call for different terminology, which is, however, beyond our present scope (for a survey, see Lesure 2002).

15 Processual archaeology’s disinterest in cognitive phenomena was in spite of the early opti-mism of that movement that all aspects of ancient life left material evidence susceptible to scientific study. Indeed, the primary architect of processualism, Lewis Binford (1962:218–220, 1964), spoke early on of the importance of studying the “ideological sub-system” of extinct total cultural systems. But as is well known, Binford was an ardent materialist and later (Binford 1965:204) spoke derisively of normative, historical approaches as requiring an implausible “paleo-psychology.”


new attempts to engage cognitive aspects of ancient life. These emergent approaches can be thought of as separated into two camps.

In the first camp, ancient beliefs could be grasped through a humanis-tic and interpretive framework drawing at first on structuralist and later on phenomenological, hermeneutic, and critical theory. Incorporated within a broader “interpretive” archaeology, adherents disavowed what they saw as the processualists’ narrow and outdated ecological functionalism, their adherence to a materialist philosophy that denied relevance to human mental activity, and their strict faith in positivistic science. In contrast, a focus on mental life, for the interpretive archaeologists, was not merely possible but obligatory. All material culture, they asserted, is “meaningfully constituted.” In the past, not only were artifacts infused with symbolism, but they played an active rather than a passive role in constituting and reproducing the social lives of people (Hodder 1982).16

As to the problem of exactly how to extract meaning from ancient objects and events, one answer was to point out that archaeologists of all stripes habitually do it all the time. That is, even basic archaeological descrip-tion makes use of interpretive terms (axe, arrowhead, house) that consti-tute working assumptions about the significance of things without which it is impossible to work. Thus the intellectual father of the movement, Ian Hodder (1986:79), provocatively stated that “it is only when we make assumptions about the subjective meanings in the minds of people long dead that we can begin to do archaeology.” A second and more illuminat-ing answer is that the meaning of objects from the past can be “read” by a gradual process of reconstituting their context. Much like Panofsky’s char-acterization of iconology as a subjective synthesis of as many “documents of civilization” as one can comprehend, one grasps the meaning of ancient things “by seeing the particular fact more and more fully in context, among other facts structurally related to it” (Hodder 1986:84). By using the histori-cal imagination reflexively in a progressive question-and-answer mode, the “spirit” of other times ultimately can be discerned and relived in the pres-ent – an approach harkening back to Wilhelm Dilthey’s (1833–1911) call to understand the social-historical world of the text by reexperiencing it, the method of which is hermeneutics (Palmer 1969:104–105).17 In keeping with

16 Here I am using “interpretive archaeology” as a synonym for what was once more widely called “post-processual” archaeology. For reviews of the key concepts, see Hodder (1986, 1991).

17 The stronger advocates of an interpretive archaeology follow Dilthey in insisting on the utter inapplicability of the methods of the natural sciences (Naturwissenschaften) to the autonomous humanities and social sciences (Geisteswissenschaften, literally the “sciences


this hermeneutic approach, the role of the observer in creating narratives of the past is decisive. And in the narratives that emerge from this incre-mental mastery of “context,” one can expect neither robustness nor proof, only incessant debate (Hodder 1986:94).

In the second camp, cognitive archaeology is fundamentally different in that it seeks to incorporate the subject within an expanded processual archaeology, and thereby to preserve for it a methodologically exacting, explicitly objective, science-driven agenda. One such approach is that of Colin Renfrew, who says that it is enough to explore the functions of ancient symbols. In contrast to the interpretivists, Renfrew maintains that the meanings of these symbols, although not to be entirely avoided, generally cannot be established by normal scientific procedures. Such an approach to ancient imagery would therefore seek to determine the ways in which images were used rather than their meaningful referents.18 In this manner such phenomena as the origins and development of human cognitive fac-ulties among the early hominoids can be studied. A different approach to embedding cognitive archaeology within the broad processual tradition has been espoused by Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus (1998). Instead of dis-avowing an interest in meaning and content in favor of function alone, they see interpretation as a matter of the ethnographic richness of the immedi-ate record from which meanings might be inferred in a scientific manner. For them, cognitive archaeology is not, and should not become, a separate branch of archaeology but rather is “something that subsistence-settlement archaeologists do to make their work more holistic, and something that they do only when the data are sufficient” (Flannery and Marcus 1998:37). Flannery and Marcus also conceptualize the domain of cognitive archae-ology much more narrowly than do Renfrew and his colleagues, viewing it as chiefly concerned with cosmology, religion, ideology, and iconography,

of Mind”). Thus documents of the past, as products of a human experience of the world, are to be experienced and understood in their particulars, rather than explained in their generality (for a summary of Dilthey’s hermeneutics, see Palmer 1969:98–123).

18 Renfrew and Bahn (2008:40–41, 478; Renfrew 1994:3) go further in making the bold claim that the whole of processual archaeology has been transformed by the new interest in cognitive phenomena. In this view, the early years of the movement were characterized by a “functional-processual” phase, whereas that emphasis has now been replaced by a “cognitive-processual” phase that remains broadly scientific in its outlook. However, judg-ing from the scope of archaeology in the scientific tradition now being published (Hegmon 2003), any argument for the current dominance of a “cognitive-processual” archaeology seems overstated. Trigger (1996:435) notes that Renfrew “does not appear to have evolved a clear theoretical position about how cognitive abilities relate to other forms of human behavior,” leaving the status of cognitive-processual archaeology uncertain relative to other approaches.


these four domains being the primary “aspects of ancient culture that are the product of the human mind” (Flannery and Marcus 1998:36).

Prehistoric Iconography as Cognitive Archaeology

Although we have already said that the principles and methods to be advo-cated in this book have to do with a cognitive archaeology in some sense, none of the conceptions just reviewed are adequate for the project at hand. The interpretivists’ retreat to the old attitude that there is a deep chasm between the procedures of natural science and those appropriate to human subject matter is simply not sustainable. While certain specific postures of early processual archaeology have been justifiably critiqued, the more general success of the rational scientific approach toward advancing our understanding of the past is undeniable. Nor is it in our interest as pre-historic iconographers to disavow, as the interpretivists would have us do, the possibility of methodological discipline and robust inference. On the contrary, these qualities are precisely what iconographers need to embrace if they are to be taken seriously, as in their absence the topic is wide open for dilettantism and unrestrained speculation.

That said, the programmatic statements that have aimed to corral cognitive archaeology into the fold of processualism cannot be fully embraced either. Renfrew’s call to only address how ancient symbols were used at the expense of what they meant would seem to deny us a true iconography, which, as we have defined it, is precisely about the association between images and their meaningful referents and conversely not about how they were used. Nor can we agree with Flannery and Marcus that prehistoric iconography, as a component of cognitive archaeology, can never develop into an autonomous endeavor and is forever destined to play the role of an occasional adden-dum to traditional fieldwork. Moreover, the primacy they assert for cosmol-ogy, religion, ideology, and iconography as the proper “mental” domains of culture falls prey to a peculiar tendency to see these domains involving the human imagination as somehow more central or more representative of cog-nitive faculties than other aspects of human culture. It is more productive to view culture as a strictly ideational phenomenon that provides humans the tools for understanding and successfully navigating their entire social uni-verses, not just in their imaginary aspects but also in their material realities, from the religious veneration of a god to the planting of maize seeds, from the recitation of a chartering myth to the making of a fish spear.

This observation brings us within sight of the theory that undergirds this work. It begins with the identification of culture as an ideational order and


proceeds to an account of how culture relates to consensus and compe-tency in social life, and of how material domains such as images should therefore be studied. All of this can be sketched in short order.

Definitions of culture are notoriously legion, but here we will direct attention to that of Ward H. Goodenough (1996:293): “Culture in the ide-ational sense . . ., being a product of human learning, consists of what the members of a human group have to know in order to function acceptably as members.” Thus culture consists simply of knowledge (not “rules” or “values,” nor symbolic interaction, nor patterns of behavior). Development of this basic idea by cognitive anthropologists has preserved the traditional emphasis on culture as something learned, shared, and uniquely human, while avoiding the common critiques of the culture concept in anthro-pology: that it is totalizing, essentializing, homogeneous, static, strictly bounded, possessed uniformly by members of a society, and so forth (for a review see Brumann 1999). Despite the ideational nature of culture in this sense, it also manifests itself socially in ways that are plainly susceptible to systematic inquiry, and for us that is a key feature.

Further, culture is learned, shared, and used as models, schematized understandings of what things are important in a given domain, how they go together, and how they work. Because cultural models are schematic, they are open ended and flexible, providing members of social groups the resources to correctly classify and respond appropriately to a host of novel situations. Although they are internalized in individual minds, they are also publicly shared and thus have an external, social existence as well. As guides to practice, they result in constrained behaviors that are externally objectified as patterned, normative enactments, providing an outsider with empirical evidence of their existence (Shore 1996:42–71).

Although many cultural models are broadly shared within a given society, it is critical to note that sharing of cultural knowledge is uneven (Goodenough 1996:293). Neither every cultural domain nor every conven-tional model within these domains is equally relevant to everyone. Some cultural models have only a narrow bearing within relatively small social groups or social categories. It is therefore proper to focus on the distributive character of each cultural model in a society (Sperber 1994). In addition, not all members are equally competent in the cultural models of a given domain.19

19 For details of this orientation in cognitive anthropology, see D’Andrade (1987, 1995); Rom-ney, Weller, and Batchelder (1986); Shore (1996); Sperber (1994); and references cited therein. It is significant for our vocabulary that “culture,” defined as variably distributed


How does this theoretical outlook translate into an iconography of pre-historic images? While a full answer must await our detailed presentation of principles and methods in the chapters to follow, we can begin with an outline.

Both the forms of images (the study of which is style) and the choices •made in depicting various referents (the study of which is iconogra-phy) are governed by conventional cultural models and can be defined in terms of these models.The goal of a prehistoric iconography is, then, to reconstitute elem- •ents of native cultural models governing the depiction of referents in a given domain. This content is initially revealed by means of an analy-sis of stable configurations representing a kind of consensus analysis (Kubler’s configurational analysis).Such an iconography must begin by identifying the cultural domains •in which the images mattered. As analysts attempt to reconstitute the models to the best of their ability, they must humbly recognize that their competency in these models will be minimal and can never approach that of the artists or their audiences, especially in the eso-teric referents of the images.Iconographic models built up from configurational analysis alone will •always be of limited power. Thus we need a second source of data to give us, in essence, a triangulation on trial models of the referents of imagery. This second source of data must be a systematic application of ethnographic analogy.If we expect our results to be taken seriously, our procedure, start to •finish, must not only be theoretically coherent but must also be basi-cally scientific in outlook, founded on empirical analysis and explica-tion of concepts and principles.

Up to this point we have used the term iconography as an academic enter-prise, but there is a second sense in which the term is significant. If ico-nography is concerned with the relations between visual imagery and its meaningful referents, then it may also connote the original cultural mod-els, the knowledge learned and shared by ancient artisans and beholders, that established those relations. From this point forward we will therefore speak of iconographic models in this native sense – the indigenous mod-els we would hope to partly resurrect by means of our methods. These

among social groups and differentially inculcated by individuals, renders meaningless any notion of bounded “cultures.”


iconographic models will be distinguished from the models generated through iconographic analysis in the academic arena. In this regard the models of image and referent inferred through academic research in the field of iconography – and this point deserves emphasis – are of the same species as cultural models once held in the minds of ancient peoples and employed by them to interpret images in their own cultural contexts. They differ only in that the two will never match. The analyst can never experi-ence reality as a native might. Analytically derived models in the present will always be tentative, partial, approximate, and subject to correction. The goal is to gradually construct iconographic models that will reso-nate with salient characteristics of the originals of the distant past, and to approach the topic systematically in ways that minimize bias. And that is a tall order.

22

Chapter 2

Style

To plunge into a discussion of style at this juncture might seem an odd departure from our topic. After all, stylistic study aims to account for the forms of images while iconographic study, as defined in the previous chap-ter, aims to identify their referents. The omission of any mention of style in our definition of iconography was deliberate. Style and subject matter are conceptually distinct, and it is a common mistake to muddle the two in practice. For that reason alone, it is worth our while to clarify this concep-tual distinction and to set stylistic study apart as a separate domain before proceeding. However, that is not the only reason for engaging the subject here. It is our intent to show that the two subjects, the study of style and that of iconography, are intertwined practically. One cannot proceed very far without the other.

We can state the matter as a paradox. The referents of images cannot be understood without a prior command of style, and yet a command of style in representational imagery cannot progress in the absence of some comprehension of subject matter. Fortunately, as we shall see, this paradox is not of the debilitating catch-22 kind that would render our whole sub-ject impossible.1 What it does mean is that the practice of iconography is complicated by its intersection with at least one other whole subject area that it is perilous to ignore. Numerous attempts at iconographic study of images have wandered down the wrong path for lack of understanding of

1 In Joseph Heller’s 1961 novel Catch-22, the term “catch-22” refers to a no-win situation. For the novel’s World War II bomber crews, the catch was that one had to be crazy to fly more missions, but as soon as a crew member asked to be grounded due to insanity, the doctor would declare him rational for not wanting to go, thus requiring him to fly more missions.

Style 23

key stylistic distinctions in the material.2 In contrast, iconographic studies that have made style a central focus of concern have succeeded admirably. It is no accident that two of the most impeccable studies of the iconogra-phy of New World prehistoric complex societies, that of Philip Phillips and James A. Brown (1975–1982) on engraved shell artifacts from the Spiro site and that of Christopher B. Donnan and Donna McClelland (1999; McClelland, McClelland, and Donnan 2007) on Moche fineline painting on pottery, from North and South America, respectively, are both, at base, stylistic studies, whose concrete stylistic conclusions allow unprecedented windows into the iconographic referents of the images. It is not surpris-ing that Tatiana Proskouriakoff (1960, 1963, 1964), who early on reached foundational understandings about the historicity of the referents of Maya sculpture (Coe 1992:167–184), devoted herself initially to an understanding of their stylistic development (Proskouriakoff 1950).

So although this book is not about style per se, style nonetheless matters a great deal to those who would pursue iconographic studies. Let us state the matter, which we might call the “principle of the priority of style,” as follows. The understanding and control of style in a corpus of images is an essential prerequisite to an adequate iconography of those images. What this means for iconographic procedure, then, needs to be spelled out in some detail.

Principle #4 (principle of the priority of style). Iconographic model-ing of a corpus of related images cannot go far absent an adequate understanding of their style, conceived as the cultural model govern-ing their form.

Definitions of Style

What is “style”? We will define it simply for our purposes, following the general conception of culture given in the previous chapter, as cultural models governing the form of all things artificial. Franz Boas (1928:144–145) puts it more simply: style is fixity of form, where it is understood that “fixity” is due to cultural convention. Similarly, Schapiro (1953:287) defines it as

2 Elizabeth Boone (2009:58) argues that in Mesoamerica, the study of style, while important, has taken a back seat to the study of iconography. She claims that the “methodological workhorse” in the study of Mesoamerican art is iconography as opposed to stylistic study and that all students of Mesoamerican art engage in iconography to some degree.


“constant form”; our own concept follows in that normative tradition. Here, of course, we confine ourselves to visual style, a point implied in all that follows. Two things are implicated in this definition. First, as style relates to images, the cultural models referred to are shared among a commu-nity of interacting beholders. Thus the models are restricted to relatively small geographic spaces occupied by these communities (e.g., Knight and Steponaitis 2011:201; McClelland et al. 2007:10). Second, as these models are inevitably in flux over time, it is most appropriate to characterize them synchronically. This is because at any given moment, a cultural model of style is made up of a collection of distinctive features, each of which has its own history and tempo of change (Boas 1928:175–177; Kubler 1970:140, 1987:167–168). This characterization does not mean ignoring the reality of stylistic change, but it does mean capturing these cultural models, so to speak, in flight. As a practical matter, it means periodizing long stylistic continuities into arbitrary, brief, style phases within which it will be possi-ble to speak of the canons or distinctive features that together determine a style of a given period. Thus, when it becomes necessary to define and name distinct “styles” as opposed to “style” in the abstract, “a style” will really always mean an arbitrarily defined style phase, an analytical moment tightly bounded in space for which it is reasonable to spell out the stylis-tic canons that governed the formal properties of images at that analytical moment. Styles, then, are collective, low-resolution cultural phenomena comparable to the styles of art history. It is possible, of course, to expand our frame of reference in either space or time, or both. Indeed, it will become necessary at times to speak of style traditions that persist over long periods of time, or of style horizons that are adopted more or less simultaneously by a number of communities of beholders across a broad geographical space but that last only a short time. Doing so, though, will always be at the expense of specificity of content – those stylistic canons – and the latter, for us, must have priority. Thus when we have occasion to expand the usage either dia-chronically or geographically, we must continually remember to ground ourselves in the brief, synchronic “styles” that were generated within spe-cific communities.

Visual style at this level of resolution, then, is specifically indexed to communities of beholders, interacting individuals who share a working knowledge of the correctness of visual imagery. Here, immediately, we risk running afoul of those who would problematize style not in terms of beholders but instead in terms of artisans. Obviously the existence of a style also implies a social group of practicing artisans who are in communication with one another and who know one another’s work. A cognitive theory

Style 25

of cultural models allows us to sort this out as follows. In addressing the iconography of images, we must distinguish among four kinds of cultural models, all simultaneously guiding experience through symbolic represen-tations, but in different domains.

Models Governing the Formal Properties of Images

The first category consists of what we mean by “style,” strictly speaking. Models governing the formal properties of images are those that dictate, for a community of beholders, what is appropriate visual form for a given representational content. Later in this chapter we will suggest a number of concrete dimensions of style, such as genres, media, decorative effects, lay-out, and so forth, that will assist in articulating exactly what it is that stylistic cultural models refer to. Artisans, then, are not the only members of a com-munity who can achieve competence in a style. Even minimally competent beholders who are not artisans can instantly recognize “correct” stylistic canons in imagery (Layton 1991:187–188). In Shore’s (1996:55–56) terms, these are “observers’ models,” broadly shared models that allow beholders to correctly categorize and make sense of their perceptions. Style, in this sense, is always visibly materialized, perceptible in the characteristics of finished images.

Models Governing the Execution of Images

Aside from observers’ models, there are also, of course, procedural mod-els that dictate, for an interacting group of artisans in a community, the practical business of how to realize images in a given style.3 Such proce-dural models presuppose that artisans, who are a small subset of behold-ers, are also all fully competent in the canons of a stylistic cultural model. Conventional procedures used by artisans in their craft are a variety of what Shore (1996:65–66) calls “task models,” recipes for performing complex routines, in this case with specific tools and raw materials. If stylistic models can be thought of as governing how to comprehend the formal qualities of imagery, these procedural models govern how to produce those qual-ities. While conventional style is always visible in the finished product,

3 The distinction made here is similar to Irving Rouse’s (1960:313, 318) distinction between “conceptual modes” (subcategory: stylistic modes) and “procedural modes.” As to the lat-ter, some progress has been made in conceptualizing the chaîne opératoire approach as a window into ancient practical knowledge as cognitive models (see Schlanger 1994).


procedural models for creating imagery take the form of practical steps, seldom witnessed by beholders, which are learned by artisans by watch-ing other artisans at work. If style is taken to consist of observers’ models in Shore’s sense, these narrowly distributed task models are very clearly categorically different, while being at the same time interdependent with observers’ models. This last point is of key importance, because among archaeologists concerned with style there is a very strong bias toward con-ceiving of it as a matter of conscious choices made by actors in the activity of crafting. This false equation of craft with style is unworkable. If craft can be considered an aspect of style at all, it is only a partial one (Kubler 1987:169) and ignores the fact that communities of beholders are fully com-petent in recognizing the correctness of styles they have no active role in creating. Style and design are two different things.

Models Governing the Significance of Referents

Representational imagery points, in a sense, to something external to itself, whether this be natural things, beings, or cultural forms such as legends, myths, or texts. Several categories of cultural models having nothing to do with imagery govern the signification of these referents. Both the distribu-tion of such models and competency in them are widely variable. For us, such models will come into play only toward the end of the process, as they include the raw materials for ethnographic analogy.

Models Governing the Correct Reading of Referents

Finally, we have the native iconographic models mentioned in the previ-ous chapter, competency in which allows beholders to correctly interpret what the artisan intended as the referent. Functionally, they are what Shore (1996:63) calls “diagnostic models,” which he characterizes as “conven-tional means of taking ‘readings’ of important phenomena.” The difference between these and stylistic models may seem subtle at times but is extraor-dinarily important to the enterprise at hand. For example, a beholder might recognize an image as correct and appropriate, picking up on conventional stylistic cues, but at the same time may be unable to correctly diagnose the intended referent. This is especially true if there are esoteric referents intended by the artisan alongside the more quotidian. Clearly, competency in native iconographic models varies, especially in complex societies, according to divisions of social class, role, and gender and the encultur-ation that accompanies each (Berlo 1983:7; Borhegyi 1956; Golte 2009:290;

Style 27

Pasztory 1976:111; Soustelle 1940:7–8). In this manner, iconographic studies are inherently studies of social distinctions of this kind, whether or not that is the intent, a fact that engages iconographic research with much that is of current interest in the social sciences and humanities.4

Of these four, then, we are here primarily concerned with the first – mod-els that govern the correctness of formal properties of images, as known by communities of beholders. Theorizing these four as different kinds of cul-tural models also determines, to a large degree, the procedural approach adopted in this book. Separate kinds of cultural models operative in past societies have separate distinctive features that demand to be separately inferred. Thus our attention is first drawn to the reconstruction of stylistic observers’ models and then, as a separate matter, to the reconstruction of iconographic models. We will less frequently need to shift our focus to procedural models for executing imagery. Again, models governing poten-tial referents of images will come into play only as we incorporate ethno-graphic analogy in interpretation.

Because of the nature of this book, our presentation in this chapter is more methodological than theoretical. There is, however, a large litera-ture on the theory of visual style in both archaeology and art history (for samplers, see the essays in Carr and Neitzel 1995; Conkey and Hastorf 1990; Lang 1987). Modern conceptions as applied to prehistoric visual genres overwhelmingly emphasize style as something intrinsically embedded in the active creation of visual things (e.g., Roe 1995:31–34), as something intrinsically linked to ethnicity (e.g., Sackett 1990), and as something that is fundamentally a mode of nonverbal communication (e.g., Wiessner 1990). Notably, the majority of discussion and debate about style is not really so much about what style is, but rather what it does, its social functions. These various emphases all differ decisively from our own characterization of visual style as observers’ models of the appropriateness of form. First, as has already been pointed out, cultural models governing behavioral choices made in the creation of things are very different from the observers’ models we wish to emphasize and those we are most interested in reconstruct-ing. Second, while in our view style arises normatively from communities of beholders, its specific linkage to ethnicities or other social categories is an empirical problem, not one to be defined a priori. Third, the degree

4 In an interesting discussion, Jeffrey Quilter (1996:313–314) has cautioned against fram-ing pre-Columbian social class distinctions in terms of a rigid dichotomy between Great and Little Traditions, viewing that dichotomy as a romanticization of more subtle social realities.


to which style communicates information is variable and depends very much on whether the medium is active or passive in this function. Finally, although the style/function dichotomy remains useful (Dunnell 1978), style is not merely what is left over when utilitarian traits are factored out. Style does not exist only in manifest decoration, nor only in consciously symbolic forms, but is also a property of the basest of unembellished util-itarian things (Sackett 1990). As our definition emphasizes, style has to do with cultural models governing the form of all things artificial.

“Naturalism” of Style

The fact that all created visual forms are governed by culturally specific stylistic conventions has large implications. It means, in practice, that all images require some “native” knowledge for a correct understanding. Thus, contrary to what may seem a commonsense view, any distinction we might draw between more or less conventionalized images is at least partly illusory, where “more conventionalized” corresponds to the more abstract or schematic and “less conventionalized” to the more veristic or faithful to nature. Even the most “naturalistic” of ancient sculptures creating the illusion of the real subject is obedient to stylistic canons. For example, early Classic Maya sculpture, normally thought of as a naturalistic style by most observers, presents some subjects in ways the modern eye finds confusing. Regarding that style, Proskouriakoff (1950:180) notes that “something of flat shape is always depicted in front view, since in side view it is less easily dis-tinguishable from other flat objects that may have different function and meaning. We, who are trained to observe visual effects in space, find this manner of presentation disturbing when it conflicts with the ‘natural’ posi-tion of the subject. Our expectation is to see things in perspective and to have all parts of the picture presented as if seen from one, and only one, fixed point of view.”5

Both Boas (1928:196) and Gombrich (1977:182–185) provide compelling arguments that mimesis, or imitation of reality, is neither the universal goal of representational imagery nor even possible to approximate. The real world presents itself to us in such infinitely rich sensory detail that it can-not be faithfully simulated. Instead, even in the most “literalistic” imagery,

5 Pasztory (1976:41) notes similar distortion in Teotihuacán mural art in the handling of certain costume elements that are shown frontally for the sake of clarity rather than in their proper perspective. The same thing occurs in Moche fineline painting (Donnan and McClelland 1999:17) and, no doubt, in many other styles normally thought of as being “naturalistic.”

Style 29

the artisan draws on conventional schemata to render what is distinctive in a selective, partial way. The mind of the beholder unconsciously fills in the rest as the subject is correctly interpreted, based on a native iconographic model. This is what Gombrich (1977:155) calls “the beholder’s share.” Naturalism as a universal property is therefore an illusion, and there are no cross-culturally valid means to recognize it in stylistic data (Layton 1977).

A study by the South African social psychologist William Hudson (1960) illustrates this point. Figure 4 is one of six drawings shown to rural Bantu subjects to test their pictorial depth perception. All pictures were deliber-ately set up to emphasize combinations of relative scale, overlap, and dimin-ishing perspective as visual cues of depth. Subjects were asked a number of questions about the pictures, most importantly, in this case, “Which is nearer, the man, the elephant, or the antelope?” and “Is the man aiming at the elephant or the antelope?” “Incorrect” responses, which were common among some subgroups, were taken by the researcher to indicate a gross deficiency in perceiving pictorial depth. Hudson concluded that among the “illiterate and isolated sub-cultures in Africa . . . 2-D perception [instead of 3-D] was characteristic” (Hudson 1960:207). Commenting on this study, Deregowski (1972) assumed that the perspective style of depiction used in Hudson’s tests was objectively “correct,” thus the African subjects truly lacked the ability to perceive and integrate depth cues.

But these conclusions are patently ethnocentric and fallacious. In Hudson’s pictures, although the subject matter is African, the outline style of depiction is plainly of a Western tradition. In the history of Western depic-tion, the depth cues on which the study relies became fully developed only

Figure 4. Drawing used by social psychologist William Hudson to test pictorial depth perception among Africans (Hudson 1960:186).


during the Renaissance. As Layton (1977:36–38) notes, those depth cues are also selective; not only are there other means of communicating depth in Western art but also there are other non-Western ways of communicating a third dimension in the imagery of traditional societies. Hudson’s Bantu subjects did not pick up on the depth cues in his pictures because the style, though “naturalistic” to the Western eye, was unfamiliar to them and the depth cues explicitly chosen for the study were probably unimportant in the traditional two-dimensional imagery to which they were accustomed. The style of Hudson’s drawings is just as schematized and culture-bound as any other.

Engagement of Style and Subject Matter

Style, in a set of related representational images, can be and should be studied apart from questions of reference. As Boas (1903:497) understood it a century ago, “idea and style exist independently, and influence each other constantly.” The study of style is the study of conventions of pure form, of how a subject is rendered rather than what is depicted. It is fun-damentally important to get this distinction right. In 1996, Jeffrey P. Brain and Philip Phillips published a massive corpus of 1,017 shell gorgets from the late prehistoric and protohistoric southeastern United States. These gorgets are generally circular forms cut from the outer whorl of a large marine shell, marginally perforated for suspension, and engraved on the interior or exterior surface with a wide variety of representational designs. Brain and Phillips organized this corpus by assigning the gorgets to forty-nine named styles, mostly new to the literature. In reviews of this work, Jon Muller (1997, 2007), himself accomplished in the stylistic study of southeastern shell gorgets, criticized the Brain and Phillips classification by pointing out that the named “styles” are not styles at all in any conven-tional sense.6 This is because the material is divided first by subject matter and then only secondarily by criteria such as design layout. According to this critique, Brain and Phillips’s categories actually inhibit stylistic study by failing to recognize that a variety of different subjects can be realized using common stylistic canons. Figure 5 illustrates three gorgets from the Etowah site in Georgia and the Hixon site in Tennessee that according to Muller (1989:figs. 6–7, 2007:33) are executed in the same local style, which he calls Hightower, accentuating canons involving the use of cutout space and the character of parallel line elements, among other things. The Brain

6 For a related critique, see Hally (2007:186–189).

Style 31

and Phillips classification, by employing subject matter as a first criterion, results in three “styles” for the three gorgets, joining each with broader the-matic groupings that crosscut the stylistic commonalities judged as primary by Muller. In this debate it is Muller’s conception of style that corresponds more closely to our own. Styles are cultural models whose simplified fea-tures allow for the recognition of “correctness” in works depicting a variety of subject matter.

But it is also true that within styles so construed, there are very often canons that are specific to particular subjects or aspects of subjects. Thus in Muller’s Hightower style, whenever human personages are shown, there are specific canons that dictate how heads, hands, and feet are correctly depicted. When paired birds are shown, a conventional layout is invoked that does not apply to other subjects. In such cases, the stylistic model at work gets more specific by invoking additional distinctive features nested within the more general model, features that are linked to subject matter. It is this engagement of style with subject matter that at times can confuse the analyst into thinking that they are aspects of the same thing. They are not. Style always and only consists of schematic models of form that are generative in their ability to incorporate different subjects and that tend to embody specific subject matter in conventional ways that involve specific formal conventions.

Style is, then, inescapably engaged with subject matter. To return to the paradox mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, one cannot, therefore, adequately study style in representational imagery without some grasp of the subject matter, but we have already said that stylistic study is prior, in a fundamental way, to adequate iconography, for reasons we will explore fur-ther on. Fortunately, short of a full analysis of configurations of meaningful

Figure 5. Engraved Mississippian shell gorgets from the southern Appalachian region, illustrating variable subject matter rendered in the same local Hightower style: (a) Birdman; (b) paired birds; (c) spider.


elements, it is usually possible to recognize such things as the heads, hands, and feet of personages and to tally common themes such as paired birds, even if we have no idea what they more specifically reference externally, and even if we are mistaken in thinking that the personages are really human or that the birds are really birds. Thus in a stylistic study is it nor-mally best practice to employ neutral, descriptive names or even arbitrary codes for the subject matter. Having done this, and having recognized the stylistic canons that organize the work generally, we can usually proceed to describe those canons that relate more specifically to the depiction of indi-vidual subjects in a way that is not problematic.

Method of Study

The task before us, then, is to infer, using a comparative method, those stylistic properties that signaled appropriateness of depiction in groups of related images, such that groups of native beholders could make sense of them. Again, the stylistic models we wish to emphasize are observers’ mod-els rather than the procedural models used by artisans to create objects. As analysts, our inference of these native stylistic models is done at a consid-erable handicap, as much here as in our determination of iconographic referents. That handicap is our cultural distance from the original behold-ers. How far we can go in partially reconstructing stylistic canons held in the minds of ancient beholders depends upon readily perceived distinctive features of visual forms. If the explicitly taxonomic mode assumed by our style formulations is a far cry from the tacitly learned originals, we trust that we are at least paying attention to the same distinctive features, manifested in the objective variability perceived in a set of objects.

Assembly of the Corpus

The first task in a stylistic study is the same as that for an iconographic study: assembly of the largest possible corpus of related works and their organi-zation by genre and chronology (e.g., Golte 2009:298; Langley 1986:7–8; Sharp, Knight, and Lankford 2011:178). This task typically is by far the most time consuming of the entire process. Seldom is a corpus already published or otherwise available in its entirety, and even when it might be nearly so, the accessible illustrations frequently are not up to the task of a new analysis. Assembly of a corpus from photographs and line drawings is some-times adequate for a preliminary study. However, recourse to the physical objects, with notebook, camera, and sketch pad in hand, is desirable for

Style 33

trustworthy results. Photographs of an object taken from numerous angles and under different lighting may be necessary to capture all details of inter-est, especially of sculptural objects, and it is often necessary to translate three-dimensional images into two-dimensional counterparts for adequate comparative study. A physical object conveys a sense of scale that is difficult to convey in published photographs or drawings; it is often remarked that a published object, when first encountered in person, seems either much larger or much smaller than imagined from photographs. The material of manufacture and its textures, color qualities, thickness, and relative weight or delicacy likewise often escape the most meticulous reproduction in pic-tures. Objects in museums are often creatively restored in places that might go undetected in illustrations on the published page. Assembly of one’s own database of photographs, line drawings, or rubbings done according to the same protocols, then, is vastly better than collecting someone else’s images of objects. A high-resolution digitized version of the image database is important not only for study purposes but also for long-term preservation. It is often wise to renumber or otherwise recode the specimens for the pur-poses of a given study.

This process of data gathering may take months or years to accomplish, depending on the size of the corpus and its degree of dispersal across mul-tiple collections, often on different continents. The task may be sufficiently daunting that it is best done by teams of scholars working together. Two studies already cited in this chapter as worthy of emulation illustrate what can be involved. Donnan and McClelland’s (1999:17) study of Moche fine-line art on pottery was based on a photographic archive of thousands of images documenting more than 2,300 vessels collected from museums and private collections worldwide over a period of thirty years. Notably, they consider this sample “small” (Donnan and McClelland 1999:289). As many as twenty to thirty photographs of each vessel were taken (Donnan 1976:10). Because these paintings were most often done in the round, the photo-graphed paintings were converted for analysis into inked two-dimensional rollouts. Their database also contains the field notes documenting all known controlled excavations of this material done over the three decades prior to 1999.7 Phillips and Brown’s (1975–1982, 1:23–25) study of engraved marine shell artifacts from the Craig Mound at the Spiro site, Oklahoma, brought together images from some 409 cups, 211 unmatched cup fragments, 109

7 Donnan and McClelland’s collection of data on fineline art is only a part of a much larger archive encompassing over seven thousand Moche objects in several genres, for which there were, in 1976, already some seventy thousand photographs (Donnan 1976:10–11).


gorgets, 48 unmatched gorget fragments, and 14 other artifacts. The data-base in this case consisted of mounted rubbings on thin paper, subsequently photographed with full-scale prints mounted on cardboard. The rubbings were done by four artists trained in the work and were collected over a five- or six-year period by visiting numerous repositories and collections across the United States. The study presenting the analysis was originally published in six folio volumes presenting the rubbings in full size (Phillips and Brown 1975–1982). These databases have already facilitated a number of subsidiary studies and will continue to do so for some time.

While these efforts at data collection may seem extraordinary, it cannot be emphasized enough that anything short of assembling a database includ-ing, within reason, the entire available corpus of related works or images is an invitation to slipshod analysis and dubious results. This is because sam-ple size means everything in a comparative analysis of conventional forms. Even in large databases of images such as these we are often left wanting for more examples of this or that combination of form and subject matter.8 What has come down to us archaeologically is already diminished greatly by the vagaries of recovery, breakage or wear, and loss of provenience infor-mation in the case of nonprofessional collectors. In dealing with archaeo-logical material, in the vast majority of cases we will never have access to more than a quite small fraction of what once existed.

Organization of the Corpus by Genre

Together with the data gathering and its collation into an appropriate data-base, a sorting by genre is necessary. In many cases this is a moot point, as the entire corpus is explicitly concerned with only one genre. But where it is not, a preliminary categorization by genre is a decisive step. By “genres,” we mean categories of artifacts or architecture devoted to different purposes. Archaeological examples might include such categories of portable objects as carved shell pendants, pottery water bottles, or pottery figurines. Architectural examples might include the distinction between imagery on the exterior facade of a temple or palace versus the imagery in the inner spaces of the same

8 Christopher Donnan’s (1976:11) comments on the quantitative dimensions of his Moche sample are highly illuminating: “When the sample included approximately 2,000 speci-mens, it seemed that there were many unique pieces, thus giving the impression that the art had almost limitless variation in the scenes and objects represented. As the sample size approached 5,000, however, many of the seemingly unique pieces were duplicated many times. . . . With our present sample of more than 7,000 specimens, we find almost no unique pieces, and the art is clearly limited to the representation of a surprisingly limited number of themes.”

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structure (e.g., Pillsbury 2009; Quilter 2001; Rowe 1967). As archaeologists are accustomed to categorizing objects by materials of manufacture, we must take care to distinguish genres from “media,” which concern the physical materials from which objects are made, such as carved wood or engraved ivory.

Art historian E. H. Gombrich (1972:5) has most forcefully made the case for what he calls “the principle of the primacy of genres.”9 He was speaking of their primacy in iconographic rather than stylistic analysis, and for this reason we will have cause to return to his critique in the following chapter. As applied here, however, we need to point out that stylistic models change as genres change. Just as stylistic models respond to specific subject matter by generating equally specific conventions of form, so do styles respond to the different formats and structural fields presented by objects in different genres. A convenient ethnographic example lies in the horn spoons of the Northwest Coast of North America, in which the underside of the bowl is carved with zoomorphic figures. An array of these is shown in Figure 6, in which most of the designs are seen to emphasize the heads of creatures. These designs are instantly recognizable as conforming to the general style of carving indigenous to that area in the nineteenth and twentieth centu-ries, showing standard Northwest Coast conventions for ears, eyes, mouths, beaks, and decorative filler. Beyond this, however, new and specific conven-tions have been introduced to adapt to the oval field presented by the genre. Not only is the subject made to conform to the field in its outline but also, relative to carved work in other genres, faces are collapsed, ears are exagger-ated, and mouths and beaks are abbreviated depending on the subject.

Principle #5. Stylistic models change as genres change.

Turning to an archaeological example, Esther Pasztory (2005:118, 179–188) has forcefully made the point that style responds to genre by pointing to two distinct, contemporaneous styles in Olmec representation. Olmec monolithic heads of basalt, which are believed to represent actual rulers, are carved in a style that is true to perspective, but this contrasts greatly with images of deities, which are carved in a very different style that exaggerates the identifying attributes of their masklike heads.10 Her example illustrates

9 Gombrich in turn credits E. D. Hirsch’s (1967) Validity in Interpretation for his methodo-logical insight about genres.

10 Another excellent example of style shifts according to genre is Layton’s (1991:159–161) dis-cussion of head representations in Yoruba sculpture.


a second point nicely as well, that more than one style can emerge simulta-neously from a single community (Layton 1991:151; Schapiro 1953:300).

It may seem a relatively simple matter in prehistoric imagery to name the relevant genres in any particular case as functional categories of things. However, that simplicity is an illusion. As Gombrich (1972:21) understood, from our remote vantage point it is easy to misinterpret the social uses of images; to assume that subtly different forms had the same use. For exam-ple, there may be a decisive difference between ceramic figurines used in household ritual and ceramic figurines used in collective cult ritual, although that distinction may not be at all self-evident (Lesure 2002). Thus

Figure 6. Northwest Coast horn spoons with representational carvings: (a) sea monster; (b) hawk; (c) beaver (?); (d) raven; (e) killer whale; (f) raven; (g) dlia (?); (h) sun (Boas 1928:fig. 288).

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to know the genres means to know the social institutions that produced them, and that requires a study of everything archaeologically available concerning the social institutions of the time and place. In short, even so basic a matter as listing the genres comes at a heavy price, that of appre-hending, to the extent possible, the social archaeology of the setting.

A study of stylistic conventions in a large corpus of work must, then, pro-ceed in stages. In the first, evidence of consensus in depiction is used to infer the distinctive features contributing to a general stylistic model. In the second, specific conventions are inferred both for specific subject matter and for differing genres, a knowledge of which requires a thoroughgoing familiarity with the cultural context.

Chronological Organization of the Corpus

In accord with our methodological restriction of styles, in the plural sense, to cultural models at a scale of resolution indexed to communities of beholders, and limited in time to a more or less synchronous expres-sion, control of the dimension of time is essential (Rowe 1967:72). We have said that, for our purposes, the styles we aim to define are equivalent to short-lived style phases. In most cases these style phases will be carved out arbitrarily from longer style traditions. The information needed to create them draws upon all the chronological tools available to the archaeologist: stratigraphic superposition, intrusion and construction sequences, correla-tion with pottery periods, radiocarbon dating, thermoluminescence dating, other techniques of “absolute” dating, and methods of seriation based on internal evidence of change.

Periodization by the creation of style phases is standard procedure in the study of ancient representational imagery in the Americas. Proskouriakoff (1950) ordered Maya sculpture by arbitrary periods referenced to dated monuments. Muller (1966:37) organized a corpus of engraved shell gorgets depicting rattlesnakes in the southeastern United States into named early and late style phases. Rowe (1967:76–77) ordered Chavín sculpture in the Peruvian Andes according to a series of style phases labeled A through F, based partly on internal evidence and partly on correlation with the pottery sequence of the neighboring Paracas style. Pasztory (1976:98–102) delineated “formal” and “ornate” style phases for Teotihuacán mural painting, which were correlated with already defined ceramic phases. Phillips and Brown (1975–1982, 1:35–37) ordered the engraved shell cups from the Spiro site in Oklahoma first into two distinct stylistic “schools,” each of which was then seriated into three style phases labeled A through C. Donnan and McClelland


(1999:20–21) seriated Moche fineline painted pots from the Peruvian coastal plain into five style phases labeled I through V, based in part on a seriation of stirrup spout morphology. Many other examples could be added to these.

Of the available tools, chronological ordering by seriation has played a large role up to the present in stylistic and iconographic studies of ancient images. This is true in part because many of the objects and collections available for study were originally looted or otherwise displaced from their original contexts and therefore lack a useful archaeological provenience. Any ordering of such materials, short of using laboratory dating of the objects themselves, must then be done based on internal evidence of sty-listic and thematic change, together with cross-referencing by the objects’ similarity to well-dated materials elsewhere. There are several distinct methods of seriation, most of which are basically quantitative. Some quan-titative methods measure the similarity of each object to all other objects in a set, ordering the set chronologically on this basis. “Occurrence” and “frequency” seriation refer to families of quantitative methods that order sets of objects found together (e.g., grave lots or assemblages of artifacts from a given stratum) rather than individual specimens, based on the math-ematical similarity of each set to all other sets. A widely employed non-quantitative method is phyletic seriation, which orders objects based on the discernment of trends in decorative effects (e.g., increasing simplification or increasing elaboration over time) and the arrangement of objects rela-tive to those trends. All of these techniques have been used to order archae-ological objects for the purpose of creating style phases in the interest of stylistic analysis. Which technique is most fruitful for a given corpus has to be judged on a case-by-case basis.11

What seriation accomplishes is the arrangement of objects or assem-blages into what may (or may not) be a chronology, based on the idea that things most similar are likely closely related in time. What seriation can-not do is to tell us which end of the resulting order is early and which is late. There is a distinct possibility of getting things backward by inverting

11 For an accessible introduction to dating methods in archaeology, see Renfrew and Bahn (2008:121–174). For a clear exposition of the methods of seriation using the terms adopted here, see O’Brien and Lyman (1999:59–137). Seriation-based chronologies, because they are grounded in specific style traditions, may apply to surprisingly narrow geographic rang-es and may be invalid beyond the boundaries of those specific traditions (see, e.g., Donnan 2007:199). Thus where object collections may be of mixed origin, either due to ancient exchange or to the modern absence of reliable provenience information (or both), such a mixture will have a confounding effect on the development of a valid chronology. Some means of independently sourcing the objects, for example by chemical or geological char-acterization, can be important to the goal of sequencing in these circumstances.

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a seriation, and this has happened in the history of archaeology with disas-trous results (see, e.g., Knight and Schnell 2004). An independent source of data is needed, therefore, to affix the early and the late ends correctly and to affirm that the ordering is in fact chronological.

Are there general trends in the phyletic development of art styles to which we might appeal? In the late nineteenth century, as evolutionary thinking worked its way into art history, two broadly antithetical schools of thought emerged on the evolution of representational art styles. For those whom we might call the “technical determinists,” the argument was that techniques of manufacture of utilitarian objects determined the character of the earliest forms of geometric decoration. These geometric forms, at later stages of development, acquired meaning by a process of “reading-in” (see Chapter 3) and were thereby gradually transformed into identifiable representations. In the second, “degenerationist,” school of thought, artis-tic impulses evolved in the opposite direction. In this approach, which was greatly influenced by the discovery of Paleolithic cave paintings, the ear-liest imagery was imitative of life and naturalistic, degenerating over time to more geometric and abstract forms. Champions of both schools posited lawlike evolutionary sequences of developmental stages into which they assumed all art styles could be fitted (Jonaitis 1995:7–9; Pasztory 2005:48, 50–51). But in one of his most profound statements on art history, Franz Boas (1908) set out to combat both forms of evolutionary thinking and the grand narratives they inspired of rigid developmental sequences in art. He took as his subject Alaskan Eskimo needle cases of bone, which in their ancient form featured projecting knobs that invited decoration. In an exhaustive analysis of a large corpus of needle cases, Boas showed that there were examples of abstract geometric forms, seemingly lifelike ani-mal carvings, and a wealth of intermediate forms. Indeed, these could be arranged in a “seriation” from the one extreme to the other, but there was no evidence that the resulting arrangement was chronological. Boas’s key finding was that the artistic tendencies toward abstraction and toward per-spective verism are simultaneous. They can and do coexist in traditional societies (just as they do in our own). Thus the direction of development either toward or away from greater visual perspective and proportion rela-tive to the subject matter is completely unpredictable and entirely due to historical contingencies.

Principle #6. The direction of stylistic development, toward or away from perspective view and fidelity of proportions, is unpredictable.


No doubt because there are numerous published examples of style tradi-tions that seem to “devolve” from a more perspectival or baroque phase to style phases that are less perspectival or simpler, there appears to be a strong bias toward assuming that this is the normal course of things. Even so great a figure in art history as Kubler (1969:47) fell prey to the opposite assump-tion. Speaking of the whole of New World archaeological imagery, and influenced by the specific case of the pre-Columbian Maya style tradition, Kubler spoke of the “latent,” poorly articulated character of “early” mate-rial as opposed to the well-articulated but “elliptical” character of “late” material. Such global generalizations as this, founded on a bias introduced by the study of particular cases, must therefore be alertly guarded against.12

Categories of Stylistic Canons

Those features of cultural models that govern the depiction of subject mat-ter in representational imagery can be grouped into a small number of general categories. Such categories as these are a practical means of orga-nizing comparative stylistic study of a corpus of related works.13 The follow-ing twelve domains are not meant to be exhaustive, as their relevance will vary from case to case, but will serve to illustrate some possibilities in the analytical description of styles.

Generally, in the definition of styles within these or other domains, the more specific, explicit, and objective the criteria, the better the style catego-ries. Inexplicit or ambiguous criteria leave the analyst open to the criticism that assignment of individual specimens is a subjective matter, dependent on connoisseurship and personal opinion. Clear, intelligible criteria are always easier to defend.

1. Genres

Representational styles are restricted to a limited range of functional artifact forms or kinds of architectural space on which imagery may be executed. As already noted, it is essential to make an inventory of these and to analyze the corpus genre by genre, inferring and cataloging those canons that are specific to functional types. It is reasonably common for stylistic canons to

12 In Kubler’s defense, elsewhere he recognized that “evolution” in art is more historically contingent than driven by a necessary rule (Kubler 1987:165).

13 Our presentation of classes of stylistic canons is indebted to that employed by Donnan and McClelland (1999:25–185) and secondarily to that by Phillips and Brown (1978:39–102). See also Knight and Steponaitis (2011:204–205).

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be worked out first for one or two dominant genres and then extended to others in the course of further study, as formal connections become more apparent. For example, Phillips and Brown’s (1975–1982) Craig style, indig-enous to the trans-Mississippi South in late prehistory, was initially defined for engraved shell cups and gorgets but was later extended to sheet cop-per repoussé plates (Brown and Rodgers 1989). Similarly, the Mississippian Hemphill style of the North American Southeast was first defined for engraved pottery bottles and cup-shaped bowls (Brown 2004; Steponaitis and Knight 2004) but was later extended to sheet copper pendants, tabu-lar stone pendants, marine shell gorgets, and stone palettes (Knight and Steponaitis 2011).

2. Media

What is the permissible set of raw materials from which imagery in a given style may be fashioned? For each genre, it is desirable to infer preferences manifested in colors, textures, reflective surfaces, weights, or other proper-ties inherent in raw materials. Different materials have different potentials that have a decisive bearing on visual outcomes, to which artisans skilled in working with these materials are strongly attuned. John Pohl (personal communication, 2011) suggests that analysts might benefit from a greater sensitivity to non-Western aesthetics in their considerations of media. It is ethnographically common for traditional artisans to express their work as a kind of dialog with the life force of their material, a process in which the material itself expresses how it wants to be crafted. Such an appreciation can highlight features that may be otherwise puzzling to investigators.

3. Decorative Effects

The broad category of decorative effects covers a wealth of potential stan-dards for organizing visual effects in particular ways, in particular genres and media. Although this category would seem to transgress on the pro-cedural models of “technique,” involving the tools used and the conven-tional sequences of manipulating media that are employed by artisans, we have taken care to differentiate “task models” from aspects of style per se, which we characterize as “observers’ models” having to do with recogniz-able effects rather than tasks. Such tasks as the preparation of background, carving, drilling, brushwork in painting, or modeling in pottery are manip-ulated in specific ways to achieve the desired stylistic effects in the finished product. These effects are often what gives a style its instantly recognizable


character, even to an outsider. For example, in the prehistoric Coclé ceramics of Panama, designs are realized in distinctive patterns of curvi-linear, abruptly angular and acuminate linework, infilled with polychrome painting in a palette of bright colors (Figure 7). Mary Helms (1995:9–13) relates Coclé chromatics to a more general cultural order also embodied in mythology, in which a mythic rainbow serpent figures as the original “Owner of Designs.” A broad cultural order such as this, which organizes a family of special-purpose models including that of pottery decoration, is an example of what Shore (1996:53–54) calls a “foundational schema.” Sackett (1990:41–42) has discussed this phenomenon as “deep style.”

4. Layout

Layout refers to design structures, conventional modes of arranging subject matter within design fields. Often these design structures take the form of foundational schemas as just described; simple, culturally salient forms such as concentric circles or a cross within a circle that organize multiple domains in a given cultural setting. Symmetry is often encoded, as elements may be rhythmically repeated in horizontal bands, or elements may alter-nate in series. Single-axis symmetry is most often bilateral, like the human body. More rarely the axis is horizontal with the elements repeated above and below, or they are organized on a diagonal line. Double-axis symmetry usually combines vertical and horizontal axial doubling. Radial symme-try is often adapted to finite circular design fields, in which the element

Figure 7. Rollout drawing of a Coclé polychrome painted ceramic design, Panama, with color key (Lothrop 1942:viii, fig. 192a, p. 102. Copyright 1937 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted courtesy of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.).

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is repeated within pie slices converging on the center. A somewhat more complex variant of the radial format has been called court-card symme-try, wherein a principal element is rotated 180 degrees around a point but without regard for symmetry across any linear axis intersecting the point of rotation (Phillips and Brown 1975–1982, 1:67–68).14 Some layouts are nonoriented, with the subject matter fitted randomly within a design field. Styles often make use of several conventional design structures concur-rently. Figure 8 shows a range of conventional layouts used in the corpus of engraved marine shell gorgets from the North American Southeast. A simi-lar catalog of conventional layouts used in Mimbres black-on-white painted pottery designs from the southwestern United States is presented by Brody (2004:128). These examples show how representational content is charac-teristically adapted to a small number of simple conventional layouts.

5. Use of Positive and Negative Space

Styles use contrast for emphasis in a number of ways and to different degrees. What is to be lighter and what is to be darker – and how dark-ening is to be achieved, by coloration, hachuring, cross-hatching, and so forth – are governed by conventional canons. In an impressive number of styles there is an imperative to fill all void space in the design field, a horror vacui, either by adjusting the subject matter cleverly or by the addition of meaningless, but still conventional, filler motifs (see Chapter 3). Yet again, some styles strive for an aesthetic balance between positive and negative space. In still other styles there is no such imperative, and subjects are placed, medallion-like, in the center of design fields with no evident regard for the space left over.

6. Scale

Styles, especially as adapted to particular genres, tend to depict images at conventionalized scales. For example, in Moche fineline imagery of the Peruvian coastal plain, Donnan (1976:22) notes that the vast majority of

14 Boas (1928:32–34) posited that the dominance of bilateral symmetry on a vertical axis is physiologically determined, not merely by the symmetry of the human body but also most importantly by the symmetrical left and right movements of arms and hands in typical craft work. The studies of Dorothy Washburn during the 1970s and 1980s (Washburn 1977, 1983; Washburn and Crowe 1988) took symmetry analysis in art to an entirely new level of sophistication, and her precise terminology is recommended for detailed analysis. Axial symmetries are called “reflection” by Washburn, while rhythmic repetition along an axis is called “translation” and radial symmetry, “rotation.”


representational figures are depicted between five and twenty centime-ters high and that this is true regardless of the size of the decorative field, whether on small pottery vessels, larger vessels, or much larger textiles. In larger fields, either figures are placed with greater vacant space around them or the field is filled up by adding more figures. That is, in Moche fineline depiction, smaller than life-size figural depictions are not upwardly scalable.

The scale of imagery is closely related to its function. Moche fineline painted images generally appear on small portable items such as pottery

Figure 8. Conventional layouts used in engraved Mississippian marine shell gorgets, eastern United States (Brain and Phillips 1996:7. Copyright 1996 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted courtesy of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.).

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bottles designed to hold beverages. These designs are meant to be appreci-ated intimately at close range by the user. In contrast, Moche palace walls were decorated by large-scale paintings and reliefs that were brightly painted, boldly executed, and simplified in detail. This public art was designed to be seen at a distance from public spaces (Quilter 2001:40). In other times and places, imagery meant to publicly commemorate the acts of great chiefs and kings is often shown at greater than life size. Monumental Olmec heads of basalt illustrate this tendency toward the hyperbolic in public visual state-ments (Figure 9). These are obviously extremes on a continuum.

In an important study of Puebloan pottery decoration of the North American Southwest, Barbara Mills (2007) sheds much light on the cultural

Figure 9. Olmec colossal head of basalt, Monument 1, La Venta site, Veracruz, Mexico (Stirling 1943:pl. 42a).


determinants of scale. She demonstrates that the size of exterior designs, together with boldness of slip colors and use of contrast, correlate positively with changes over time in the size of the performance spaces – plazas – in which serving vessels were used during feasts. The larger the plazas and the greater the public participation in ritual events, the bolder the exterior designs become on the pottery used in those rituals. Thus the scale of the designs and their visual impact respond in a highly direct and straightfor-ward way to the scale of the social contexts in which they are important. Generally, then, the scale of images can be a profound clue to the social contexts of use and especially to group size.15

7. Relative Size

When multiple animate figures appear in the same composition, it is con-ventional in some styles to show them at a different relative scale, but for different purposes. In Moche fineline painting on pottery, relative size is often used to indicate status distinctions, as in ceremonial scenes in which the central participants are depicted as the largest, warriors are shown slightly smaller, food bearers still smaller, and background figures small-est (Donnan 1976:23). But in this style, relative size has other uses as well, for example, on bottles painted in a spiral layout in which both ends of a ribbonlike design field narrow to a point, forcing figures at both ends to be smaller than in the center. Finally, the small size of background figures in the upper part of a composition is also used as a depth cue, to give the illusion of a third dimension (Donnan 1976:23; Donnan and McClelland 1999:100). On late Classic period Maya stelae, kings and noble warriors are often juxtaposed with captives about to be (or already) sacrificed. On these public monuments erected in the plazas of city centers, captives are commonly shown at a smaller scale than the nobles. But in a different late Classic Maya genre, mural painting on a more private stuccoed interior space, the captives presented to a young king are shown at the same scale as everyone else (e.g., Schele and Miller 1986:fig. 6; Villagra Caleti 1949:57).16 In Chimú palaces of coastal Peru, interior wall spaces are covered with mud plaster relief friezes that feature repetitive subject matter in a style

15 In a similar mode, Lesure (2002:590) argues that the size of Mesoamerican figurines is a reflection of the size of the social groups who used them.

16 The late Classic Maya convention of showing captives at a small relative scale has its an-tecedents in earlier style phases, as in the early Classic Leiden Plaque of jade, a portable piece (Schele and Miller 1986:pl. 33b), and still earlier in Preclassic Olmec public sculp-ture.

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derived from textiles. Since all subjects are rendered in a similar way and at a similar relative scale, the eye is not drawn to any particular thing. The emphasis, rather, is on the entire composition, which served as a backdrop to palace ritual (Pillsbury 2009). These examples show that as a matter of method, for each style phase and genre in which relative scale comes into play, one must infer its determinants from the specific context of display.

8. Depth Cues in Two-Dimensional Representation

In the course of this chapter, several conventional cues used in two-dimen-sional imagery to convey the illusion of depth have already been mentioned. Hudson’s (1960) study of depth perception in Africa used drawings showing convergence of lines to a vanishing point, diminishing size of objects with greater distance, and overlap with closer objects blocking the view of more distant ones. These are all well known in Western art, as are others: shad-ows falling from objects, patterns of light and shade on curved surfaces, and density gradients such as the smaller size of bricks in brickwork as it recedes into the background (see Layton 1977:36). Moche fineline paint-ing, already frequently cited herein, uses only two of these, diminishing size of background objects and overlap (Donnan and McClelland 1999:100). It is therefore useful in an analysis of a two-dimensional style first to deter-mine whether depth is being indicated at all (and in some styles even the use of overlap is rare or nonexistent) and, second, if it is, to inventory those conventions that come into play. Analysts must be especially alert to depth cues that are not common in Western art, such as simultaneous multi-ple points of view and conceptual folding of objects outward or downward (e.g., Reilly 1995:32–33); these are of course culturally relative and can be properly understood only if we have independent information about the three-dimensional character of what is being depicted.

9. Conventions of Perspective and Proportion

Although in this chapter we have already established that “naturalism” is illusory and cannot be judged cross-culturally, as outsiders we can still readily perceive the difference between styles that aim to capture the proportional outlines or contours of a subject much as the eye perceives them at a glance versus styles that yield to no such pretension and show us precisely those traits of the subject matter the beholder needs for comprehension, regardless of perspective or proportion. Boas (1928:73–79) thus distinguished “perspec-tive” art, for which he used carved Koryak figures from northeastern Siberia


as an example, from “symbolic” art, which, as in Northwest Coast carving, emphasizes the salient features at the expense of everything else. Boas’s term “symbolic art” for the latter is unfortunate, as examples are readily at hand of masterful “perspective art” from the Maya realm that are also richly symbolic, as shown by clay figurines from Jaina (Figure 10). Nor is there any need for a dichotomy, as the difference is really one of a continuous scale from one to the other (as Boas fully understood). We shall therefore retain the former term only, and simply refer to the degree to which a style does or does not emphasize visual perspective and relative proportion among its canons (as

Figure 10. Maya ceramic whistle from Jaina Island (photograph by Bruce M. White, courtesy of Princeton University Art Museum).

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long as we do not confuse “perspective” in this sense with conventions for depicting depth).17 In this chapter we have already made the point, with ref-erence to the idea that style responds to genre, that multiple styles can coexist in the same society that both do and do not honor visual perspective. As for styles that tend to ignore perspective (and are therefore harder for Westerners to fathom), there appear to be at least two major categories, both very well illustrated by Northwest Coast depiction. In one, the artisan emboldens the salient features and diminishes, or omits, the rest. A good example is a spoon handle representing a dragonfly (Figure 11a), completely unrecognizable to an outsider without knowledge of the cultural model, in which we have a large generic avian head shown with a downcurved beak, a segmented body sprouting upward from the head, and two tiny ovals below the jaw line repre-senting wings. A second major variety appears to be the “split representation” famously analyzed by Claude Lévi-Strauss (1963a). Here, as in the Haida painting of a shark shown in Figure 11b, rather than showing less, the artist shows more than the eye can take in of the natural prototype at a glance. The creature is shown as split at the head, with both sides of the body splayed out to the left and right, the undersurface of the snout above the brow line, and the ventral fins below the jaw.18

Figure 11. Reductive depiction and split representation in Northwest Coast imagery: (a) carved spoon handle representing a dragonfly; (b) Haida painting representing a shark ([a] Boas 1928:fig. 174, p. 193; [b] Mallery 1893:pl. 25, facing p. 403).

17 If “naturalism” of style is an illusion, then, as the other side of the same coin, so is “degree of abstraction.” Both notions are best avoided.

18 For archaeological examples of split representation, see Linares (1977:51–55) and Roe (2008:197).


10. Dimensionality

Between the extremes of fully three-dimensional sculpture in the round and such two-dimensional effects as painting or incising on a smooth surface, there is a range of essentially two-dimensional techniques that provide the sensation of depth by actually adding a shallow third dimen-sion. In durable media this effect can be accomplished by simple shallow excising around figures at one extreme, ranging to fully developed sculp-tural bas-relief. In thin, tractable sheet metal such as gold or copper, the same effect is achieved through repoussé work. The negative variant in durable media is intaglio. What is otherwise two-dimensional work can also be given added dimensionality by adapting it to the surfaces of three-dimensional genres. For example, in the engraved Hemphill style in the late prehistoric North American Southeast, potters occasionally created in-the-round versions of familiar life-form subjects by engraving a head in profile on one side of a vessel, a tail on the other side, and wings on the sides in between. In such cases the vessel itself tacitly sub-stitutes for the torso, giving us the full creature (Figure 12). These well-known technical effects are worthy of special attention for one reason: styles do not usually stray far from a single mode of dimensionality. This is because the canons that govern a style are normally so closely tied to conventional techniques and media that they do not readily transfer to other modes of dimensionality involving completely different tech-niques and media.

11. Degree of Elaboration

Not all stylistic models are equally elaborated. This is true in two distinct senses. For one thing, styles integrate greater or lesser amounts of informa-tion, more or fewer modes of variability, and are more or less prescriptive in any of the categories cataloged here. The content of the more elaborated models in this sense is more difficult for an observer to comprehend than that of the simpler ones. Another, quite different sense in which we may speak of degree of elaboration lies in the extent to which the style tends toward imagery that is busy with detail at one extreme or, on the other, abbreviated and simple. Within long stylistic traditions, it is common for successive styles to become either more or less baroque over time. As we have already established, the distinction between intricate versus sparing has nothing to do with a scale of schematization. The most baroque images can sometimes be reduced to a few simple conventions repeated at a fine

Style 51

Figure 12. Engraved pottery vessel with in-the-round design layout, Hemphill style, Moundville site, Alabama (photograph and drawing by Erin E. Phillips).

scale relative to the field, whereas, as we saw with Hudson’s drawings, sim-ple outline drawings that seem factual and “naturalistic” are in fact fully schematized.

12. Aesthetic Quality

Unlike all the other dimensions of stylistic variability sketched above, aes-thetic quality is impossible to objectively describe because what is “aes-thetic” is culturally relative (Layton 1991:11–17). And yet we sense when it is there, because many of the objects of prehistory we are accustomed to calling “art” have some of the same properties long admired in Western art. For example, admitting that there can be no universal ability to rec-ognize “beauty” (Pasztory 2005:195), it is easier to think we can recognize technical virtuosity, the skill and training needed to produce evenness of line and texture, the skill of successfully adapting a difficult subject to a rigid design field, or the dexterity and patience needed to successfully imi-tate complex natural forms in media that yield with great difficulty even to modern tools. And we sense when it is not there, too, as in the petroglyphic tableau illustrated in Chapter 1 (Figure 1). Thus, although aesthetic quality is subjective, we need not dismiss it from our vocabulary on that account.


At the same time, we must guard against the biases that can attend such judgments.19

How Style Informs Iconography

The primary contention of this chapter is that stylistic and iconographic analyses are separate but interdependent endeavors. It has been argued that a grasp of the stylistic canons governing a corpus of related imagery is a fundamental prerequisite to any successful iconographic analysis of that corpus. To further drive home this point and bring our discussion to a close, let us consider three things essential to a prehistoric iconography that a study of stylistic conventions can tell us: what is what, what is contempo-raneous with what, and what is local.

What Is What?

Consider the two images in Figure 13, both taken from the corpus of engraved pottery in the Hemphill style from the Moundville site in Alabama. Arguably they depict the same theme, a winged serpent. Of these, the first image (a) is well known, having been illustrated by Clarence B. Moore in 1905 and occasionally reproduced in publications ever since. At times this particular snake has been referred to in figure captions as a “plumed serpent,” with the objects on the head viewed as feathers (e.g., Fundaburk and Foreman 2001:pl. 34), the unspoken comparison being with the “feath-ered serpents” of Mesoamerica. The second image (b) is most commonly understood as “horned,” with the corresponding objects on the head seen as deer antlers.20 The question is, does the first configuration really depict plumes or, instead, is it merely another convention for antlers? A compara-tive stylistic study of all known winged serpent depictions from Moundville reveals the answer (Schatte 1997). This study allows the confident conclu-sion that all such configurations on the head are to be interpreted as the same thing, deer antlers, which show a full range of schematization from fully to barely recognizable. Viewing images in isolation leads to incor-rect conclusions, but systematic stylistic study of an entire corpus reveals a

19 Esther Pasztory (2005) has been vocal in attempting to purge Western aestheticism from what she envisions as a global art history that would include prehistoric works. For this rea-son, she finds the term art itself a hindrance, a position with which we sympathize.

20 The excavator of the first of these engraved vessels, Clarence B. Moore (1905, 1907), was himself ambivalent on the question of horns versus plumes on the heads of these and other winged serpents from Moundville.

Style 53

continuous range of conventional depiction. Even when the analyst cannot identify the natural referent of the subject matter, stylistic analysis can still allow us to make informed choices about what is the same subject versus what is something else. Style informs the critical same/different distinctions that make iconography possible.

What Is Contemporaneous with What?

Stylistic seriation, as already discussed, is an indispensable tool for arrang-ing images in a chronology. The creation of style phases within traditions grants us “analytical moments,” synchronic units within which we can pro-ductively capture the local relation between images and their referents. Further, recognition of style horizons allows us to link up contemporane-ous works across greater geographical spans, in order to consider whether

Figure 13. Two engraved depictions of the winged serpent theme on pottery, Hemphill style, Moundville site, Alabama ([a] Moore 1907:fig. 59, p. 374; [b] drawing by Erin E. Phillips).


their referents are the same or are different. Conversely, lack of attention to these details can only lead to jumbled comparisons of images drawn from different times and places, leading to false assumptions about continuity of forms and referents. Iconography is meaningless without the control of time, and style is a major contributor to the building of chronologies.

What Is Local?

Prehistoric complex societies were not isolated systems. In these societies, skillfully crafted goods were often sought from afar, or brought as gifts by emissaries seeking alliance. Nonlocal goods were distributed especially among elites, during feasts, marriages, funerals, and other social events of consequence. As a result, the total assemblage of portable imagery at any given site, particularly at large civic-ceremonial centers, is a mix of goods produced and consumed locally and goods manufactured elsewhere. Among these nonlocal goods typically reside images that are not only for-eign to the local style but also bear subject matter that would have had no particular salience in the local context. In any effort to isolate local systems of images and referents, as a practical matter it is necessary to win-now out the nonlocal “noise,” generally simplifying the universe of images and eliminating from consideration much that would otherwise confound the analysis (Brown 1989:186–188; Knight and Steponaitis 2011:202; Langley 1986:8; Steponaitis and Knight 2004:170). Among the key tools for accom-plishing this winnowing of the foreign is stylistic analysis (another being the chemical or geological sourcing of raw materials).

55

Chapter 3

Form and Referent

Having focused attention in Chapter 2 on the distinction between stylistic and iconographic analysis, let us now return to iconography as the investi-gation of relationships between representational images and their referents. Often this relationship is differently stated as the relationship between form and meaning.

Style and Meaning

One of the overriding concerns of cognitive archaeology to date has been a search for the connections between forms and their meanings. But how productive is it to speak of the meaning of a form? Panofsky (1939), in his original programmatic statement on iconography and iconology, steered clear of “meaning,” and for good reason. E. H. Gombrich (1972:2) called meaning a “slippery term.” Meaning for whom? The artist, the patron, or the beholder, and under what conditions? Visual objects tend to “mean” more than they actually show, and clearly any given work can express mul-tiple meanings simultaneously. The art historian Göran Hermerén cata-loged some possibilities, formally distinguishing among

• standard meaning, where “X is seen as an apple by normal beholders contemplating X under standard conditions”

• intended meaning, where “the artist intended normal (informed, . . .) beholders to see X as an apple”

• hypothetical meaning, where “if a specified group of persons were to look at X under specifiable conditions, they would see X as an apple”

• modal meaning, where “it is (easily, . . ., with great difficulty) possible to see X as an apple”


• normative meaning, where “X ought to be seen as an apple, or to see X as an apple is the proper or best way of looking at X” (Hermerén 1969:42)

One could easily add to this list. Gombrich devoted his engaging book Symbolic Images (1972) to demonstrating the limits of inferring mean-ing from Renaissance painting. And if the situation is so equivocal with Renaissance painting, in which the tradition is Western and the styles are relatively well understood, how much more equivocal must it be with pre-historic imagery?

It is this obvious multivalency of “meaning” (Lesure 2002:588) that has led many students of ancient imagery to despair of any hope for an ico-nography of their subject. Phillips and Brown (1975–1982, 1:104–105), for example, note that “if ethnographers, witnessing a ritual and discussing it endlessly with participants and onlookers only to discover that it has many meanings depending on who holds them, end up in a rather dejected state, how can we expect to find answers to the puzzling scenes depicted in the art of a people who have never been seen by Europeans, ethnographers or no, let alone asked about the scenes in question? But it seems that archae-ologists are expected to do just that – and sometimes they attempt to com-ply.” These writers are correct. Meaning is a complex issue, and it is naive to address it as merely “a package whose contents need only be unwrapped” (Martin 2006:59).

In this book the intractable puzzle of multivalent meaning is set aside altogether, the word avoided in favor of the much more concrete “refer-ent.” Thus a conservative prehistoric iconography only asks “what is the referent?” and not “what does it mean?” But even this subtle shift in phras-ing does not fully come to grips with the problem. As we shall see further on, in addition to the assorted meanings an image may have or acquire, its referents, as understood by beholders, can and do undergo transformation as well, especially as the image is displaced in time or space. Following Gombrich’s (1972:4) lead, however, it is methodologically justifiable to give primary weight to the notion that the referent of an image is, at least ini-tially, whatever it is the artisan wished to depict.

“It Seems to Me” Iconography

How are we, as analysts distantly removed culturally and chronologically from our objects of study, to grasp these referents? This question lies very much at the root of the business at hand, and would-be iconographers

Form and Referent 57

have not always handled it well (Cordy-Collins 1977:422). James Langley (1986:24) cites the case of a mural painting at Teotihuacán that has been “interpreted variously as the frontal figure of a god, his rear view, a goddess, a priest, an idol, a god impersonator and a ruler.” Consider the image in Figure 14, taken from engraved pottery in the Hemphill style of the south-eastern United States. When shown to a lay audience of persons who are asked to tell what they see, most will answer “a bird with something in its mouth.” But a minority will insist with equal conviction that the subject is an aquatic creature, a fish, swallowing something large. The latter view-ers understand the hachures at the boundary between the “bird’s” beak and face as the teeth of a fish. And looked at in that manner, a fish with a large dorsal fin is indeed easy to see. Fortunately, this is a question that is decided definitively by following the methodological rule of laying out the entire available corpus showing this subject in this style. There are twenty-four known whole vessels and another twenty-eight fragments that clearly depict the same subject (Knight 2007; Lacefield 1995). In considering the whole corpus, the fish interpretation immediately recedes into implausi-bility and the bird interpretation is sustained. This is not to say, however, that the exercise by itself allows us to go any further, to claim, for example, that the subject is a bird deity, a mythical bird monster, or an ordinary woodpecker.

Our concern is with those iconographers who not only would see the referent as a fish based upon a meditation on this particular specimen but also would proclaim that identification as a fact unworthy of further

Figure 14. Detail from a pottery vessel engraving of the “crested bird” theme, Hemphill style, Moundville site, Alabama (Moore 1905:fig. 9, p. 138).


comment. This is merely a variant of the common perceptual game of visualizing the man in the moon or the subject matter of cloud shapes.1 To borrow a favorite illusion from the psychology of perception (Figure 15), a deliberately ambiguous image is used to show that it is possible to see either a duck or a rabbit (but not simultaneously). There are ico-nographers of ancient images who would, every bit seriously, insist not only that the figure is a rabbit but specifically Lepus americanus, and would move from there to a discourse on the importance of snowshoe hares in ancient society X or Y. Needing a name for this phenomenon, let us call it the “it seems to me” school of iconography.2 Working from a handful of images or even just one, such writers are content to proffer identifications of subject matter as though they were self-evident, their method nonproblematic, and the identifiers universal, with little evi-dence of analysis or attention to context or genre, moving thence to bela-bor the reader with all manner of further insights and comparisons all dependent on the original identification. Naturally, such habits as these lend an air of flimflammery to our subject. All care must be exercised to distance systematic, conservative, comparative analysis from this sort of presentation.

The Problem of Analytical Distance

Our intent is not to be dismissive, however, for these considerations bring us back to a quite serious central question. Is there such a thing as “natural” or “factual” subject matter in imagery that can be recognized accurately, in a straightforward way, without any cultural foreknowledge? Panofsky believed so. The first of his three strata of interpretation concerns “fac-tual” subject matter whose recognition requires only practical familiarity and expressly does not require any special knowledge of cultural conven-tions; its interpretation is “pre-iconographical” (Panofsky 1955:26–27). Is it

1 For a discussion of the “man in the moon” problem in prehistoric iconography, see Muller (2007:24–25), who quotes from Sagan (1980:110): “Lowell always said that the regularity of the [Martian] canals was an unmistakable sign of their intelligent origin. This is certainly true. The only unresolved question was which side of the telescope the intelligence was on.”

2 The name is borrowed from an assertion by Panofsky (1962:xii) deciding whether an ani-mal depicted by Michelangelo in the Medici Chapel was a cat or a bat: “[I]t still seems to me and others that the distinctive features of Michelangelo’s animal’s head . . . suggest a bat rather than a lynx.” This quotation is admittedly not a good illustration of the kind of discourse under discussion, for at least Panofsky gave his reasons!


therefore possible, as Ruskin (1888:22) had claimed in the previous cen-tury, to see with an “innocent eye”? But Panofsky also qualifies his state-ment: “While we believe that we are identifying the motifs on the basis of our practical experience pure and simple, we are really reading ‘what we see’ according to the manner in which objects and events are expressed by forms under varying historical conditions. In doing this, we subject our practical experience to a corrective principle which may be called the his-tory of style” (Panofsky 1955:35). Thus Panofsky clearly understood that, as emphasized in the previous chapter, all styles conventionalize and “what we see” is at least subject to these stylistic conventions.

Recognizing that human perception is routinely filed and categorized by learned and shared cognitive schemata and that styles of representation are themselves cultural models casts doubt on the whole idea of “factual” recognition of subject matter (Martin 2006:65). When Hudson’s (1960:197) African subjects, mentioned in the previous chapter, were shown a “natu-ralistic” outline drawing of an elephant on a hill (see Figure 4, in Chapter 2), as many as 35 percent of one of his participant subgroups did not rec-ognize the subject as an elephant, nor did many others discern that the animal was meant to be understood as standing on a hill. Thus art histo-rians since the 1950s have tended to blur or dismiss Panofsky’s distinction between factual and conventional subject matter. Gombrich (1977:251) was blunt: “The innocent eye is a myth.” Kippenberg (1987:5) agrees: “Seeing is an active process, not a passive one . . . the likeness between drawing and object is of minor importance . . . When we read a drawing we are looking for stereotypes we have in mind already. . . . Reading images mainly involves

Figure 15. Duck or rabbit? An exercise in the psychology of perception (Jastrow 1899).


the recognition of conventional schemes. Different cultures develop dif-ferent schemes for identical objects; thus, we believe that we recognize likeness, but in fact we only recognize stereotypes well known in our own culture.”

Our problem, then, is irrevocably one of cultural perspective. We can never hope to see things from a native point of view (Martin 2006:57). Using Marvin Harris’s (1980:32–41) well-known anthropological distinction between “emic” and “etic,” where emic refers to the participants’ point of view and etic to the outside observers’, we would seem to be confined for-ever to an etic mode of analysis. If this were strictly true, the idea of recon-structing lost cultural models governing the depiction of referents would seem hopeless.

But is it strictly true that we are confined to an etic perspective? Clifford Geertz (1976:223–224) elected to put the distinction differently. By rephras-ing emic and etic as “experience-near” versus “experience-distant,” Geertz emphasized that the difference is really a sliding scale. Outsiders can figure out, to some degree, what natives think they are up to, not by becoming natives themselves or trying to commune with someone else’s spirit, but by immersing themselves in the natives’ environmental and social contexts well enough to grasp some – but never all – of the main features of their cultural models. By being alert to the right details, but never giving up the privilege of shifting back to broader analytical scales, observers can in this sense gradually infer more experience-near concepts as they apply them-selves to learning the environmental and social contexts ever more fully. In so doing they can budge their position along the scale in the direction of experience-near, even if never completely (cf. Pasztory 1976:111). To the degree that this internalizing can be done objectively and systematically, we will argue that in a like manner, progress can be made toward recon-stituting some elements of extinct cultural models from distant times. Let us try to be clear about what we mean by “reconstitution.” Although we, as analysts, can never hope to enter into the interpretive community in which native iconographic models were once shared, we nonetheless trust that our own (discursive) iconographic models of ancient visual forms can come to harmonize with some of the key points of those original, native models in ways that make interpretation less a matter of observer bias.

An obvious place to begin this immersion is with the details of the nat-ural environment. For subject matter, prehistoric peoples drew from what they saw intimately around them. An iconographer thus becomes, for this purpose, a natural historian. What animals and plants were native to the natural environment at the time the imagery was created? What precisely


do these animals and plants look like, and what was their range of habitats? How common or how rare were they? Which animals have natural traits that, in Lévi-Strauss’s (1963b:89) words, are “good to think”? Which are sociable, brightly colored, nocturnal, aggressive, dangerous, or fleet? Which show unusual mating behavior? Among the plants, which are edible, sweet, aromatic, poisonous, bitter, or thorny? What were the main cultigens, and what is their anatomy?3 In the social and political domain, as learned from field archaeology, what was the nature of households, communities, and polities? What was the nature of complexity, social stratification, speciali-zation, trade, and warfare?

The potential payoff of such an immersion is nicely illustrated by Linares’s (1977) study of representational imagery on painted pottery from Sitio Conte and Coclé-related sites in central Panama at a.d. 500–1500. She begins with a detailed ecological discussion of biotopes in the cen-tral provinces, moving from there to an account of the emergence of riv-erine agriculture, chiefdom development, and funerary ceremonialism. Polychrome pottery vessels, deposited by the hundreds in high-status graves, were expertly crafted as display goods, designed to be seen from above. The animal forms depicted are closely attuned to details of species from riverine and coastal environments, and even where the subjects are fan-ciful composites, the component parts are generally identifiable. Linares notes the virtual absence of plant imagery and the mismatch between the animals depicted on pottery and those that were economically impor-tant. The animals chosen for depiction have behavioral characteristics that were especially salient in the rank-competitive social environment of local chiefdoms. Subjects such as sharks, crabs, stingrays, curassows, croco-diles, and leopards are aggressive, toxic, or otherwise dangerous to humans (Figure 16). Conversely, animals with soft body parts that were commonly eaten are not shown. Linares (1977:70) concludes that this is a system of metaphors expressing the values of warriors and competition for social rank in tropical chiefdoms. As she puts it, “the central Panamanian art style was centered on a rich symbolic system using animal motifs metaphorically to express the qualities of aggression and hostility that characterized . . .

3 In teaching iconographic exercises, I have found it invaluable to borrow specimens from the local natural history museum and to have them ready on the table when the discussions of natural prototypes arise. Few students, for example, have ready knowledge of what the dentition of a caiman or the brow ridges of a crocodile look like relative to other crocodil-ians, nor is this as easily communicated by pictures as it is in the presence of the real thing. As for the loci where imagery is recovered, needless to say there is also no substitute for a personal exploration of the site environs.


social and political life” (Linares 1977:70). While carefully reasoned and conservative in its judgments, Linares’s ecological and sociopolitical frame of reference has allowed her to tap into the kind of cognitive significance normally thought of as, in Geertz’s terms, experience-near.4

4 Peters’s (1991) iconographic study of Paracas textiles of coastal Peru dating to the first century b.c. notes a strong contrast between economically important animals and those depicted on textiles. She notes that the animal elements selected for depiction favor the

Figure 16. Aggressive fauna depicted in Coclé ceramic art, Panama: (a) curassows; (b) crabs; (c) ticks; (d) hammerhead shark (Lothrop 1942: [a] fig. 48b, p. 31, [b] fig. 66, p. 42, [c] fig. 69, p. 43, [d] fig. 485, p. 247. Copyright 1937 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted courtesy of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology).


As Linares’s study illustrates, while immersion in the natural history of a region is critical to apprehending the subject matter of imagery, that by itself is not enough. The natural setting must be sufficiently under-stood in tandem with a comprehension of the social setting as known archaeologically. In the previous chapter we observed that stylistic analy-sis requires an accurate knowledge of the genres of visual forms but that to grasp those genres accurately requires some degree of grounding in the minutiae of the regional archaeology. Iconographic studies that base themselves on an intimate familiarity with field archaeology are always the better for it.

Representational scenes from complex ancient societies often show supernaturals in the garb and regalia of real high-status humans (e.g., Peters 1991:310). Conversely, real human actors in ancient societies often legitimated their social and political statuses by assuming the roles of super-naturals in ritual dramas chartered by myths (e.g., Pohl 1994). In so doing, they dressed as supernaturals, using headgear, items of personal adorn-ment, emblems of office, symbolic weapons, and so forth that we see faith-fully reproduced in imagery depicting supernaturals in action.5 Thus items depicted in images that function as identifying and classifying attributes of figural characters often have physical counterparts, used in ritual reenact-ments and sometimes buried with the dead (e.g., Alva and Donnan 1993; Marceaux and Dye 2007).

Such understandings about what things are in the experiential world and how humans related to them in the past are essential to the process of identifying themes. Although iconography, which is concerned with what is depicted, is analytically distinct from a concern with how things functioned, it is nonetheless true that iconographic interpretation always

top predators of the Peruvian coastal environment. These predators are normally anthro-pomorphized, dressed as humans and given attributes symbolic of high status. Peters inter-prets this as a symbol system in which human social power was symbolized as predation. In a directly comparable manner, Roe (2008:190) notes that the base forms of Chavín deities in highland Peru are top predators of the land (jaguar), water (caiman), and air (harpy eagle). Further New World examples of insights afforded by detailed biological understandings include Davidson’s (1982) examination of the widespread symbolism of Spondylus molluscs in South American prehistory based on the curious biology of that genus; Milanich and colleagues’ (1997:163–184) analysis of the choice of sacred animals in the Weeden Island culture of northern Florida; and Samson and Walker’s (2010) examina-tion of the Antillean bared-teeth motif in view of the evolutionary biology of facial expres-sion in primates.

5 High-status Moche burials from coastal Peru provide an exceptional example of this phe-nomenon. Based on their burial attire and accompaniments, a number of them can be linked directly to supernatural and ritual roles depicted on Moche fineline painted pottery (Alva and Donnan 1993; Bourget 2006:47).


benefits from a knowledge of the functions of artifactual and architectural genres (Martin 2006:96; Pohl 1998).

Recognition of Natural Prototypes

We still have a question on the table, in that we will not get very far at all in iconographic analysis if we cannot tell the difference between a bird and a fish. Understanding that all imagery is both generated and understood through the cultural filter of style, we still need a warrant to recognize, whenever possible, the natural prototypes depicted by images.6 We need a workaround, a foot in the door. Hermerén (1969:43–44) suggests a stan-dard that we might paraphrase as follows. An analyst is entitled to infer that an image depicts some specific thing if the image resembles that thing more than anything else known to the artisan. Let us examine this proposal, which we may call “Hermerén’s principle of recognition,” in detail.

Principle #7 (Hermerén’s principle of recognition). An analyst is entitled to infer that an image depicts a specific referent if the image resembles that referent more than anything else known to the artisan.

In the first place, the statement assumes that the analyst is familiar with the range of possible subjects known to the artisan. That is to say, the ana-lyst has already assumed the role of natural historian as just discussed and, by means of that immersion in the context, has become incrementally more experience-near to the subject.7 Second, the principle rests on the idea of “resemblance.” Understanding that we cannot know a priori what the visual cues are in a style, is there any sense in which resemblance can be objectively judged? In the previous chapter we have already rejected the idea that the universal goal of representational styles is mimesis, the direct imitation of nature. But although the search for “naturalism” is in

6 By “natural prototype” we mean any basis found in the visual world for a form in represen-tational imagery, not necessarily for a composition as a whole but for any part of one. The term is Boas’s (1928:88). In calling a prototype “natural,” we do not mean to distinguish these from social things. Nor do we fail to appreciate that all “objects” portrayed are really mental constructs themselves (Layton 1991:102).

7 Layton (1991:169) suggests that our ability as outside observers to correctly identify the subject matter of images is related to the notion that “there is a finite population of objects, or situations, that are likely to be depicted in any tradition of artistic or graphic representation.”


vain, as outside observers we can nonetheless recognize how specific styles work. As already noted, we can judge to what degree a style depends, for the recognition of its subject matter, on perspective view and proportion of forms on the one hand versus the magnification of salient features on the other. This was Boas’s (1928:73–79) distinction between “perspective” and “symbolic” art. And the process of coming to understand how this works in a given style, through a comprehensive stylistic analysis, is an important means of moving a notch or two further in the direction of experience-near. If, in a given style, perspective contours and proportion are used as pri-mary cues to recognition, that fact works in favor of the modern analyst, for traditional Western styles from the Renaissance through the nineteenth century function in much the same way. Thus we are already accustomed to “seeing” images in that manner. If, however, a style is more dependent on the accentuation of culturally determined salient features, our success in recognition is much more at risk, depending on two things: (1) whether the individual salient features of the subject chosen for amplification are, or are not, themselves depicted in perspective/proportional view and (2) the likelihood that the landmarks chosen for emphasis in the style do, or do not, correspond to those an analyst might think are the best candidates a priori. That is to say, success depends on whether the stylistic conventions and the analyst’s expectations are attending to similar properties – the large fan-shaped wings of the butterfly, the tall dorsal fin of the killer whale, the long toothy snout of the crocodilian, or the large incisors and flat tail of the beaver – through a convergence of judging salience in appearances.

Further, it seems obvious that any judgment along these lines will be less risky the more general or categorical the identification. By recourse to naked resemblance, generic identifications of a personage, fish, or quadru-ped will always be on firmer footing that those of a female dancer, a speck-led trout, or a black panther.8

All told, we must conclude that there is some basis for accepting Hermerén’s principle of recognition as a working standard, but only by way of the analyst’s humble admission that the “entitlement” mentioned in the principle is far from absolute, that any such recognitions are provisional, and that they depend rather profoundly on a thorough command of the subjects known to the artisan and a thorough command of the operative stylistic canons in the case.

8 It is noteworthy that iconographers have an unfortunate tendency to be too liberal in their attempts at the recognition of natural prototypes, often guessing at genus and species even when it is clear that the referents are not literal but instead mythological, archetypal, or otherwise supernatural.


Reductive Style Systems and Their Referents

Both in the previous chapter and in the discussion above, we have called attention to style systems that do not depend upon perspective mimicry of the outlines or contours of subjects, nor on the relative proportions of their features as they are captured in view. Instead, such style systems tend to reduce subjects to a few conventional identifiers that we have for the moment called “salient features,” amplifying these in the imagery and abbreviating or eliminating the rest.9 In many cases only the salient fea-tures are shown, standing for the referent pars pro toto.10 Abandoning a perspective view means that elements of an image can be displaced to posi-tions that look quite unnatural to the Western eye. It means that elements can be added that have no counterpart in reality as visually experienced. These elements need not be based at all upon similarity to the subject, but may be based upon analogies that are potentially very difficult for an experience-distant observer to penetrate (Hermerén 1969:80). Finally, it means that multiple vantages – left, right, frontal, inside, and outside – can be shown in simultaneous view.

Although twentieth-century modern art experimented greatly with a similar abandonment of mimesis in representation (famously, in cubism; see Gombrich 1977:301–303), such styles remain difficult for a novice to fathom, lacking the code key embedded in mental models of representa-tion and their local histories. For this reason it is fortunate that Franz Boas and his colleagues devoted much ethnographic attention to eliciting the referents of Northwest Coast imagery from native informants during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for Northwest Coast styles of carving and painting exhibit precisely such a system, from which much of value can be learned and applied to the study of prehistoric art.

Boas (1928:183–298; see also Jonaitis 1995) devoted most of the second half of his seminal book Primitive Art to an explication of Northwest Coast visual symbology. Let us briefly review several of his key points. Boas (1928:219–251) gives numerous examples showing how Northwest Coast artisans often go to extremes to adapt the subject to the decorative field. This adapta-tion often requires peculiar distortions, including split representation (see Figure 11b, in Chapter 2). The wooden club shown in Figure 17 depicts a killer whale. Because an upright dorsal fin would have adversely affected

9 The term is Boas’s (1928:72).10 The Latin term pars pro toto (“part for the whole”) seems to have more traction in the icon-

ographic literature than the rough equivalent “synecdoche.”


the utility of the club, the artisan shows it wrapped downward around the middle part of the body, overlapping a lateral flipper. Similarly, because the flukes of the creature, if depicted in perspective view, would interfere with the handle, the artisan has folded them forward where they drape flat against the back and sides. The prehistoric iconographer must expect, and learn to correctly understand, distortions such as these.

In complex designs such as totem poles, the visual cues can be suf-ficiently ambiguous that different beholders, even though competent in the native iconographic model, can interpret the subject very differ-ently. Presenting an example of two divergent understandings of the same object, Boas concludes that “obviously in this case the symbolism is not clear enough to enable an Indian who does not know the artist or who does not know the meaning of the carving, to interpret it correctly” (Boas 1928:212; cf. Gombrich 1972:3). There can be no better illustration that representational imagery is not entirely about visual communication, as already noted in Chapter 1. The image’s ability to convey any stable mes-sage may be quite limited, and the artisan’s intent may be quickly lost upon beholders.

Objects such as the Kwakwaka’wakw house-front painting shown in Figure 18 (Boas 1928:239–240) present a profound conundrum for the ico-nographer. The subject is a killer whale shown in conventional split rep-resentation, with the head unfolded along a vertical axis, the flippers laid out to the sides, the flukes centered atop the head, the dorsal fin shown split into left and right halves, emerging from the top of the head, and a blowhole similarly split and shown in animate form as two small faces. The body of the whale, the largest part of the real creature, is eliminated altogether.

If the iconographer can grasp this much from knowing the style, there is a further puzzle that goes unremarked upon by Boas. His informant states that the small crescents shown on either side of the mouth are gills (Boas 1928:240). But as every Kwakwaka’wakw artisan and outside observer alike is fully aware, killer whales are sea mammals. They have no gills! Nor do

Figure 17. Carved wooden club depicting a killer whale, Tlingit, Northwest Coast (Boas 1928:fig. 211, p. 219).


real killer whales have ranges of squared teeth, as the artisan chose to show. Now, escaping the realm of ethnography and entering that of prehistory, iconographers are constantly confronted with composite creatures made up of body parts from more than one natural prototype. Their strong ten-dency in such cases has been to interpret these composite creatures as visu-alizations of the supernatural, where ordinary appearances do not apply (e.g., Knight 1989; Knight, Brown, and Lankford 2001; Roe 2008:182; Urton 1996:241). But here, in the ethnographic case, we have no such testimony. The subject is just a killer whale.

The governing convention is not difficult to discover through compar-ative study of Northwest Coast images. There are different levels of signi-fication, visual conventions for broad and narrow categories of beings. In the chapter to follow we will define these salient features as “classifying attributes.” The squared teeth merely indicate an animate creature. Bears, beavers, wolves, and humans have them, but so do hawks, sculpins, and halibuts, in ways largely defying visual reality. Similarly, upright mamma-lian ears such as are found on beavers and bears indicate not only nonhu-man mammals but also birds (but not sea creatures), and thus are found

Figure 18. House-front painting representing a killer whale, Kwakwaka’wakw, Northwest Coast (Boas 1928:fig. 248, p. 239).


on depictions of hawks, flickers, and ravens.11 The gills on the killer whale, then, are hardly anomalous in this system but merely identify the depiction as one of an aquatic creature. The fins and flukes are more specific identifi-ers of sea mammals (Boas 1928:205), while the large head with broad round nostrils, blowhole, and dorsal fin combine to narrow the specification to killer whale. In comparable systems of depiction, the iconographer must therefore be alert to categorical salient features that crosscut narrower clas-ses and recognize that these features may indeed contradict visual reality in ways that seem anomalous only to the experience-distant observer.

Having shown that Northwest Coast styles of representation are reduc-tive in amplifying a few salient features of each subject, Boas (1928:202) provides a useful summary list of these features for twelve common sub-jects, as follows:12

1. Of the beaver: large incisors; large, round nose; scaly tail; and a stick held in the fore paws

2. Of the sculpin: two spines rising over the mouth, and a continuous dorsal fin

3. Of the hawk: large, curved beak the point of which is turned backwards so that it touches the face

4. Of the eagle: large, curved beak, the point of which is turned downward5. Of the killer-whale: large, long head; elongated large nostrils; round eye;

large mouth set with teeth; blow-hole; and large dorsal fin6. Of the shark or dogfish: an elongated rounded cone rising over the fore-

head; mouth with depressed corners; a series of curved lines on the cheeks representing gills; two circles and curved lines on the ornament rising over the forehead representing nostrils and wrinkles; round eyes; numerous sharp teeth; and heterocerc tail

7. Of the bear: large paws; and a large mouth set with teeth; protruding tongue; large, round nose; and sudden turn from snout to forehead

8. Of the sea-monster: bear’s head; bear paws with flippers attached; and gills and body of the killer-whale, with several dorsal fins; or other mix-tures of bear and killer-whale type

9. Of the dragon-fly: large head; segmented, slender body; and wings10. Of the frog: wide, toothless mouth; flat nose; and lack of tail

11 Variation in the type or absence of dentition or ears can diagnose specific creatures, but not in a way strictly corresponding with nature. Sea monsters are the only marine creatures with mammalian ears, as these are envisioned as true monsters, being strictly “sea bears.”

12 What we are calling “salient features,” Boas (1928:202) called “symbols.” There is ample reason to steer clear of the term symbol in this context, as much because it is a reserved concept with a technical meaning in semiology as because of its relatively freewheeling usage in many other contexts.


11. Of the personified snag: like a bear with mouth depressed at the corners like that of the dogfish

12. Of the snail: long snout with a sudden downward turn

By poring over museum catalogs of Northwest Coast artifacts, one finds there is no doubt that these contrastive features as given by Boas are cen-tral to the indigenous cultural models for recognizing the subject matter of images. It is as though, by simply memorizing these and a few additional conventions for other common creatures, our eyes are opened to a whole world of representation that becomes instantly intelligible. One can imag-ine the difficulty of discerning a set of diagnostics as complete as this from the comparative analysis of a large corpus of prehistoric imagery rendered in a reductive style.

The subject matter of impressively large quantities of Northwest Coast representations can be correctly interpreted using these simple contrastive features, especially by bearing in mind the strong tendency for distortion in adapting designs to objects. But in applying these criteria, it becomes immediately apparent that not all features are of equal value and that not all depictions of a given creature show all the features listed by Boas. There are many exceptions, even in the illustrations Boas presents himself in Primitive Art. We have already shown one: the house-front painting of a killer whale in Figure 18 does not have the round eyes listed as a diagnostic of this creature. Boas strongly hints, without saying it in so many words, that this slippage is at least partly a matter of genre. As noted in the previ-ous chapter, salient features change as genres change. Without being able to prove it, we can hypothesize that it may also be partly a matter of small differences in local styles between communities. Boas (1928:183) speaks of men’s art on the Northwest Coast as belonging to one overarching style, but given our preference for limiting the resolution of the concept to com-munities of interacting artisans (Chapter 2), we prefer to speak of local styles, plural, united in this case by a strong style horizon.

There is also a strong sense in which one can tell that there is more to the matter than simply a slight variability by genre and style. This becomes apparent by asking the following question: In this visual system, what is necessary and sufficient to correctly diagnose the subject? By asking this question relative to a large corpus, we quickly discern that there are very few things in Boas’s list that are absolutely necessary for any given subject. The spines of the sculpin are perhaps necessary, and the large incisors of the beaver are nearly so, although we have seen examples in which the size of the incisors is much abbreviated due to distortion. Not even the promi-nent dorsal fin of the killer whale is an absolutely necessary determinant,


as there are specimens clearly identified by informants as killer whales in which it is missing (or contrariwise, in which there are two!) (see, e.g., Boas 1928:fig. 179h). So, if there are few necessary determinants, what is suffi-cient to successfully depict a subject? Here we find that artisans very clearly mix and match in choosing their salient features. Where, on a beaver, the incisors must be abbreviated due to distortion, the artisan gives us sufficient additional clues, such as the ears, limbs, and paw forms of a terrestrial quad-ruped plus an especially clear indication of the beaver’s scaly tail. Many depictions of killer whales omit Boas’s mouth set with teeth, round eyes, blowhole, or elongated nostrils but make up for the lack by accentuating other characteristics such as a bulbous head, the flippers and flukes of a marine mammal, and a large dorsal fin, so that in each case the beholder has enough information for a correct diagnosis. It appears to be a principle of this system that the artisan is free to add or delete salient features at will, so long as the final combination cumulatively allows recognition of the subject. We may call this the “principle of cumulative sufficiency,” and we will see, further on, that prehistoric artisans in other times and places made their choices according to this same principle.

Principle #8 (principle of cumulative sufficiency). In some icono-graphic systems, the native artisan has considerable liberty in includ-ing or excluding salient features of referents. It is sufficient only that the features included cumulatively allow for unambiguous recogni-tion of the subject.

Disjunction

As art historians and anthropologists alike have emphasized for decades, form and subject matter are obedient to separate systems of convention, to separate cultural models, although at any given time and place these mod-els are cross-referenced in specifiable ways conducive to analysis. It follows that models of form and of subject matter change independently. It is facile to expect a one-to-one correspondence between image and subject matter, especially a stable correspondence, as though the one is a mere reflection of the other (Gombrich 1972; Kubler 1962, 1970). In speaking of this indepen-dence of the image in relation to texts they might reference, Hermerén notes the paradox that imagery conveys both more and less information than a text to which it corresponds. He says, “two opposing tendencies seem to be at work here. On one hand, the artist simplifies the text and omits parts of it. He


does not try to represent everything that is mentioned in the text, and in this sense his picture ‘says’ less than the text. On the other hand, he always adds to the text, and in that respect his picture ‘says’ more than the text” (Hermerén 1969:59). A visual image referencing a text, or indeed any subject, always “says” more because the subject can be imagined in innumerable ways, and the artisan has a certain freedom – agency if you will – to specify and supple-ment for dramatic purposes subject to stylistic constraints.

Thus, although visual systems of representation do communicate by link-ing up with cultural models of subject matter, those visual systems always remain separate and not fully dependent on whatever it is they represent. Linkages between image and subject matter are real enough, but they are easily broken and subject to reformulation. With the passage of time, images demonstrably tend to get disjoined from their original referents and are rejoined to others in new, local cultural contexts. In 1960, Erwin Panofsky named this phenomenon the “principle of disjunction,” and he, and subsequently Kubler, claimed great importance for it in the study of art history. Indeed, to the degree it is valid, it must be profoundly important to the prehistoric iconographer. For if true, one cannot assume that iden-tical images found in two adjacent time periods or two neighboring social contexts have the same external referent. So let us explore further what is meant by this principle of disjunction, with attention to its history.

As formulated in Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art, Panofsky’s version of the principle of disjunction states that “whenever in the high and later Middle Ages a work of art borrows its form from a classic model, this form is invariably invested with a non-classical, normally Christian, signif-icance; wherever in the high and later Middle Ages a work of art borrows its theme from classical poetry, legend, history, or mythology, this theme is quite invariably presented in a non-classical, normally contemporary form” (Panofsky 1960:84). This is slightly rephrased from an earlier con-tribution to the Kenyon Review (Panofsky 1944) where, however, it was not yet codified as a principle. Its scope in Panofsky’s hands is thus narrowly confined to the relation between works of classical antiquity and those of the Middle Ages.13 According to George Kubler (1975:760), who studied under Panofsky at the Institute of Fine Arts in New York during 1936–1938, Panofsky’s views on disjunction were then already under discussion, being stimulated principally by the line of thought developed by the French art historian Henri Focillon in his Vie des formes (1934).

13 Art historian Kurt Forster (1999:2) argues that Panofsky oversimplified the phenomenon of the reuse of visual models from classical antiquity in later centuries.


It was Kubler (1969:47–48) who widened Panofsky’s principle of dis-junction to pre-Columbian New World art and ostensibly far beyond. He stated, as a working hypothesis, that “figural systems having durations on the order of a millennium are independent configurations owing their identity to definable symbolic values. Christian symbols thus differ from Moslem symbols and from Greco-Roman symbols. In ancient America, the evolutionary nomenclature now in use separates formative, classic, and post-classic periods. Their figural systems and iconographic repertoires occupy a time-scale not unlike that of Europe and its Mediterranean fore-runners” (Kubler 1969:47–48). Or more simply, “continuous form does not predicate continuous meaning” (Kubler 1970:143). Thus not only did Kubler globalize the principle, but he also added a specific duration – a millennium – in which one should expect disjunction of forms from their original referents. Kubler (1975:762) later stated that he was moved to intro-duce the art-historical concept to his anthropologically trained Americanist colleagues as a palliative against their excessive use of ethnographic anal-ogy in interpreting pre-Columbian images, adding that such a warning is especially appropriate to the prehistoric era for which literary sources are unavailable (Kubler 1970:144).

That such a concept would need to be introduced to American anthro-pologists as late as the 1960s via the discipline of art history sounds a curious note. No less an anthropologist than Franz Boas had clearly articulated the idea of disjunction, though not by that name, as early as 1903. Arguing against unilineal evolutionary sequences in art, he stated that “the idea which a design expresses at the present time is not necessarily a clue to its history” (Boas 1903:497). Boas illustrated the process by tracing the history of a simple geometric motif consisting of an isosceles triangle enclosing a small rectangle, at the base of which there was often a series of short spurs. Boas inferred that this design was earliest in the Pueblo area of the Southwest, where it appeared on archaeologically excavated painted pot-tery, and had diffused from there northward and eastward into the Plains and ultimately the Eastern Woodlands, where the design occurred mainly in embroidery on ethnographically collected specimens. But whereas in the Southwest the overwhelming association of the motif was with “rain cloud,” in the Plains it had lost the rain cloud attribution and had acquired a variety of new associations, such as “tepee with doorway and tent pegs.” The operative cultural mechanism was what Boas called “reading-in.”14

14 Boas later repeated this illustration of the process of reading-in in his Primitive Art (1928:120–123).


Representational designs, he emphasized, are selectively borrowed by successor peoples, and when the successors do so, they reinterpret them, reading-in new referents according to their own cultural preferences. Those designs that are accepted must resonate with concepts already present in the culture of the recipients; the rest are ignored (cf. Kubler 1969:48). He concluded that where form was removed from its original context, “the explanation of designs was secondary almost throughout and due to a late association of ideas and forms” (Boas 1903:497).15

There is no doubt that here expressed is the same concept articulated as the “principle of disjunction” by Panofsky and Kubler. Boas clothed it in a specific conception of culture, where culture is viewed as a poorly inte-grated accident of history, characterized famously by his student Robert Lowie (1920:441) as a planless “thing of shreds and patches,” a melange of borrowed traits inherited by peoples through contact with their neighbors.

There are some differences in how the concept is framed in the two instances. Whereas the principle as articulated by Panofsky and Kubler is descriptive of what happens, Boas provides a cognitive mechanism in his “reading-in.” Kubler tended to think of disjunction as something that hap-pens discontinuously, at distinct moments of rupture between major periods of relative stability, and mainly in elite culture (Quilter 1996:303); by con-trast, Boas conceived of reading-in as a low-level, continuous process impli-cated in ordinary cultural transmission. Moreover, Boas’s understanding emphasizes the transmission of forms by diffusion whereas that of Panofsky and Kubler does not. One might therefore distinguish between chronologi-cal disjunction, in which the emphasis is on the passage of time, versus spa-tial disjunction, in which it is diffusion among neighboring peoples that is emphasized. However, the passage of time is implied either way, and there can be no absolute distinction between the two possibilities. Indeed, the examples of disjunction provided by both Panofsky and Kubler in almost every case involve a spatial as well as a chronological displacement.

15 Boas’s ideas on these topics are strongly prefigured in the work of William H. Holmes on Native American imagery. Although evolutionary and broadly degenerationist in outlook, early on Holmes (e.g., 1888, 1890) repeatedly made note of cases of the disassociation of forms from ideas. Holmes realized that the association of referents with forms could be secondary, and through a purported animistic impulse of early humans, simple technical forms could acquire novel “ideographic” associations (cf. Hamlin 1916:24–25). Later, in a volume dedicated to Boas, Holmes indicated substantial agreement with Boas on the mat-ter of disjunction: “The ideas associated with ornament are . . . subject to profound changes with lapse of time . . . [and ideas] may be attached or read into [motifs] at any stage of their utilization . . . The ornament of one tribe acts upon that of a neighboring tribe . . . and the motifs with or without their associated significance pass from one to the other, undergoing changes more or less radical” (Holmes 1906:186, 188).


It is hardly surprising that we find the same concept independently dis-covered in the humanities and the social sciences. By the early twentieth century, the academic disciplines were already quite deeply entrenched and increasingly protective of boundaries. If Panofsky read the anthropolo-gists Boas, Haddon, or Holmes on the history of art, there is no evidence of it in his citations. Conversely, although Boas discusses Reigl, we find no mention of Warburg, Goldschmidt, or Wölfflin. For his part, Kubler was openly disparaging of the attempts by anthropologically trained archaeolo-gists to interpret pre-Columbian imagery, at one point stating that archae-ologists could not grasp disjunction in their materials without acquiring special training in the humanities (Kubler 1975:760). It was left to subse-quent Americanists to attempt to bridge this divide, which, by and large, they have done with success. We shall defer that discussion, however, to Chapter 5, where we take up the issue of ethnographic analogy.

What, then, should the iconographer make of the “principle of disjunc-tion”? There is no doubt that the phenomenon is real. Art historians and anthropologists are both correct to emphasize that representational imagery is more than just symbolic communication of ideas. Our cognitive theory dictates that stylistic cultural models are already disjoint from iconographic models for the interpretation of referents. And visible stylistic conventions stimulate the imagination, providing raw material ripe for borrowing across ethnolinguistic lines or for reading-in by successor peoples. The only real question is how prevalent the phenomenon is and how often it is to be expected. In this regard it is difficult to accept Kubler’s one-millennium guideline, based as it is on a single well-documented example. Nor is it easy to agree with the archaeologist Terence Grieder (1975:851) when he says that “[a] change drastic enough to divorce meanings from their traditional forms may be expected to show up in a pottery sequence.” Disjunction as portrayed by Grieder, as for Kubler, has the character of something isolated and rare, something that takes place during periods of cultural upheaval and that can therefore be predicted archaeologically by evidence of social and environmental change (Grieder 1975:853). On the contrary, there is abundant evidence that reading-in happens all the time, subtly and tacitly, without any major disruption in other domains of culture (see Gombrich 1972:1–7).16 This seems to be what Esther Pasztory (2005:103) means when she uses the term translation for the constant reinterpretation of visual

16 Among the numerous archaeological examples of reading-in, seen as the local reinterpre-tation of diffused forms, see Knight and Steponaitis (2011:236–237) and Peters (1991:249). Readers can no doubt supply their own examples.


forms, comparing that process to the translation of a text from one language to another with all the innovations and unintended changes that entails. Again, the image’s ability to convey a stable referent is limited, and the link between image and referent is always fragile, dependent on the distribution of changing models of interpretation on the part of beholders.

Principle #9 (principle of disjunction). The link between image and referent is fragile and unstable. Where imagery is borrowed across communities and ethnolinguistic boundaries, or is transmit-ted intergenerationally, it is subject to constant reinterpretation, or “reading-in,” based on current, local cultural models.

Prehistoric iconographers often have a sense that the broadly diffused forms with which they are working have been reinterpreted in the local context. That this sensation is a familiar one suggests that it is not par-ticularly difficult to detect when and where disjunction has taken place. Motifs may be renewed wholesale over long spans of time or borrowed intact across ethnolinguistic boundaries, but with reading-in, artisans are free to recombine these motifs in new compositions that make no sense at all in their original, distant context, when interpreted according to the originally intended referents. It is in these changes of configuration, where older interpretations become confused, that we can be reasonably sure that the cause of the confusion is the inexorable workings of disjunction. Above all, iconographers would do well to heed the conclusion of William Henry Holmes in the late nineteenth century (Mark 1980:149) that traditional visual imagery is far from something that is static unless acted upon from outside, but on the contrary is in constant flux.

The Primacy of Genres in Reference

In the previous chapter we had occasion to mention, if only in passing, some-thing called the principle of the primacy of genres. This is the idea as artic-ulated in art history by Gombrich that the correct identification of subject matter is only possible by way of correctly understanding the functional cate-gories of things on which, or by which, the imagery is expressed (Kippenberg 1987:6–7). Thus a knowledge of genres is fundamentally important to ico-nography, because subject matter tends to change as genres change. For each functional genre there are cultural models that specify a limited repertoire of appropriate subject matter. Thus for the culturally competent beholder, the


functional category indexes not only the appropriate stylistic conventions but also the appropriate interpretation of the referent.

Principle #10 (principle of the primacy of genres). Iconographic refer-ence changes as genres change.

As already emphasized for the understanding of style, this knowledge of genres comes at the price of learning as much as possible about the social contexts in which imagery was used. In our case this means a mastery of the details of local archaeological contexts. The risk of ignoring the linkage between the functional contexts of things (or kinds of architectural space) and subject matter in representational imagery is great. As Gombrich (1972:5) puts the matter, “an initial mistake in the category to which the work belongs, or worse still, ignorance of possible categories will lead the most ingenious interpreter astray.” What appears to be the same subject matter as expressed in two different genres may not be the same at all. The image of a crouching nude male at the base of a public monument may be interpreted as a prisoner awaiting execution, with associations bearing on the political legitimacy of leaders. But the image of a similar crouch-ing nude male as fashioned into a smoking pipe may depict a shaman in a trance posture, with associations of private vision seeking in the context of achieving standing in a religious cult.17

Referents at Personal and Collective Scales

Mental models associating visual imagery with subject matter are not always cultural, which is to say, they are not always shared conventional

17 The primacy of genres and the key importance of disjunction bear on the urge by ico-nographers, already mentioned in Chapter 1, to construct glossaries or dictionaries of vi-sual forms vis-à-vis concepts, where images and their supposed fixed glosses are set down side by side, much as a key intended for the reading of a visual code. Visual glossaries of “symbols” and their “meanings” have been published since the Renaissance. Perhaps the most famous of these is Cesare Ripa’s (1603) Iconologia, first published in 1593, which lists concepts in alphabetical order illustrated by their corresponding visual allegories. Ripa’s symbology is limited to a single genre, the “emblem books” popular at the time, but mod-ern counterparts such as Cooper’s (1978) Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols claim universal acceptance for many of their glosses. Although the purpose of such glossa-ries may well be primarily didactic, by now it should be evident that there are great perils inherent in any such endeavor. Even where the cultural and spatial context is quite narrow, the forces of disjunction across ethnolinguistic boundaries, and shifts in reference across genres, conspire mightily against “standard” glosses of motifs.


schemata. The cognitive propensities of humans lead them to symbolically represent their worlds in private as well as public ways. An unusual rock formation may call forth the visage of one’s grandfather; a cosmogram on a pendant might have a private association with the idea of safety; visual images may be invoked in private strategies for remembering things. These private references are what some semiologists call “nonce symbols” (Leach 1976a:15). All humans create them routinely (Shore 1996:46–47).

Although in a suitably large corpus of images it is not only often possi-ble but also highly fruitful to detect “personal style” (see, e.g., Donnan and McClelland 1999:187–287), it is only occasionally that iconographers have the impression that personal referents, in the sense above, are being deliber-ately invoked by artisans in their imagery. These impressions come from the contemplation of works whose content seems to deviate markedly from the conventional, verging on the surreal. Thus Phillips and Brown (1975–1982, 1:143–145), in their work on engraved shell artifacts from Spiro, Oklahoma, describe a small handful of specimens using the term phantasmagoria: “The designs in question are not just original; they are one feels intensely per-sonal, even private . . . They make no sense whatever to us, even on a factual level, but are executed with skill and assurance, completely ruling ineptness out of consideration” (Phillips and Brown 1975–1982, 1:143). Figure 19a is an example of such a design engraved on a shell cup. Describing a comparable motif on a stone palette from the Moundville site, Alabama (Figure 19b), they note that “the essential feature is the stringing together of seemingly unrelated elements into a complex figure that defies description – like noth-ing so much as skillful doodling” (Phillips and Brown 1975–1982, 1:143).

In any such judgment there is a danger that the subjective impression is merely one of unfamiliarity, the product of an insufficient sample; that the designs are in fact conventional and the subject matter perfectly intelligi-ble to a beholder competent in the appropriate stylistic and iconographic models for that genre. Thus it is instructive that the Moundville palette design in Figure 19b, a paragon of Phillips and Brown’s category “phan-tasmagoria,” in recent years has been recognized as a conventional type after all. The form has cognates in a related style, where it is intelligible as a supernatural mothlike creature with a segmented body, fan-shaped wings, and a curled proboscis (Knight and Franke 2007). As a rule, given the fragmentary, partial status of almost any corpus of prehistoric imagery, it seems likely that many such impressions are mistaken; that the seemingly unconventional material would be revealed as well within the scope of the iconographic model if a larger sample were available. The safe course, then, is to avoid such speculation.


Reflections such as these upon personal models of image referents would seem to provide an opening to considerations of agency, bringing us close to the act of creating and interpreting imagery on the part of an active agent. In fact, however, such would not be iconography in the strict sense. Personal models, though no doubt real and conducive to systematic study, are nonetheless out of bounds in relation to the contours of an iconography defined in relation to cultural models. In the approach advocated in this book, cultural models have a great deal to do with consensus (Romney et al. 1986). The method of study is comparative and the mode of inference

Figure 19. Two potential examples of personal reference (phantasmagoria) in prehistoric material: (a) engraved design on a shell cup, Spiro site, Oklahoma; (b) design element from the Willoughby Disk, a circular stone palette, Moundville site, Alabama ([a] Phillips and Brown 1975–1982, 3:pl. 95; [b] Phillips and Brown 1975–1982, 1:fig. 208, p. 143. Copyright 1975 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted courtesy of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.).


largely normative.18 As in much of the rest of archaeology, iconography “works” at a collective scale, and the concepts developed for it scale down poorly to the level of the individual. Moreover, as we have further narrowed the domain in Chapter 2, iconography is less concerned with the proce-dural cultural models shared by artisans than with the more general stylis-tic and interpretive models shared by artisans and beholders alike.

Reference and Ornament

From an experience-distant point of view, it is often unclear in ancient imagery what is representational and what is not. Two distinct problems are manifested. In the first, what appears to be simple geometric ornamenta-tion may well have had representational significance. In the second, simple graphics derived from life forms and that are, in that sense, representa-tional are sometimes added to compositions as mere filler motifs, contrib-uting no further significance to the composition. These phenomena were well known to early writers on the history of art such as Holmes, Hamlin, and Boas.

Simple graphic designs can be imbued with representational significance through a process in which stylistic canons gradually change over time from more perspectival to geometric. In a process first fully documented archae-ologically by Holmes (1888:184–185) for prehistoric Panamanian imagery, there is a general stylistic trend away from life forms and toward geometri-zation. Because several different life forms could be shown to converge on the same geometric pattern over time, Holmes inferred that the formerly significant designs gradually had lost all external reference. Importantly, though, the point at which external significance was lost was not registered in the style – it was unknowable.

Conversely, simple geometric patterns such as are common in basketry and textiles tend to acquire significance through reading-in, even where the patterns bear no obvious resemblance to the referent. Boas and his

18 Perhaps the most provocative recent work concerning agency theory as applied to the an-thropology of art, Alfred Gell’s (1998) Art and Agency is beginning to be cited in works of prehistoric iconography (e.g., Oliver 2009). Despite the insightfulness of Gell’s remarks about the potential “personhood” of images, his approach runs flatly counter to my own in two key respects. For him, the concept of culture has no more importance than as a reified abstraction, a byproduct of social interaction, a position consonant with the long-standing attitude of British social anthropology but completely antithetical to cognitivist culture theo-ry. Thus, for Gell, the only legitimate anthropological theories are those that concern social relationships. Second, Gell disavows any interest in the symbolic communication of images, being interested only in the role of objects in mediating the social agency of individuals.


students collected numerous ethnographic examples of this phenome-non from traditional societies around the world (Boas 1928:88–113). Thus simple diamond and triangular designs on painted pottery from Brazil are called “bats,” “bees,” and “fish,” whereas square, meander, and zigzag basketry patterns from Guyana are called “centipede,” “savannah grass,” “periwinkles,” “butterflies,” and “snakes.” In many cases these are mere pattern names having little significance other than as conventional terms for distinctive designs. A good analogy would be the pattern names given to early American quilt designs such as “double wedding ring,” “grand-mother’s flower garden,” and “hovering hawks.” In other cases the external reference is more sentimentally attached to the pattern, but there is typi-cally a marked lack of consensus about what the pattern represents and a marked variability in patterning called by the same name. Boas (1928:103–104) suggested that the association between form and referent in geometric designs could sometimes be detected through a consideration of the set-ting in which a motif is found, as in a strong color contrast between motif and field, but short of access to informants it seems hopeless that any such observations might translate into cross-culturally valid criteria for assessing this (Layton 1991:100).

Ethnographically documented Northwest Coast styles provide a good baseline for discussing filler motifs, graphic elements that, despite their der-ivation from life forms, are nonetheless meaningless in the compositions in which they appear (Figure 20). Many of these motifs in Northwest Coast imagery are given pattern names such as “eye,” “double eye,” and “nos-tril”; others are derived from animal faces, paws, feathers, or fins. These associations bear no relation to where they are used in designs – “eyes,” for example, typically appearing at the joints of animals and others appearing randomly in a larger composition together with the salient features that permit recognition of the subject. Filler motifs are added within the small circular, oval, or rectangular spaces of a composition in obedience to the general convention that otherwise void spaces be filled wherever possible (Boas 1928:251–257).

Recognizing that filler motifs occur in ancient Maya imagery as mere decorative devices (Figure 21), Kubler (1969:5–6) considered how they might be identified by context alone in the absence of written sources. The criterion arrived at by Kubler was one of extended context: if a motif occurs in too great a variety of distinct contexts depicting obviously dif-ferent subject matter, the iconographer may consider the motif as merely ornamental. However, as applied to the ethnographic case of Northwest Coast imagery, where we can verify the referents, this criterion yields a


mixed result. On the one hand, such well-known fillers as the “eye” motif are freely distributed among different animal subjects, but consistently in the same relative place – at the joints of animals, for example. Without ethnographic documentation these would be difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish from salient motifs such as mammal ears, which also are very widely distributed among different animal subjects but in the same relative place. Other kinds of filler motifs not only distribute freely among subjects, but their placement in compositions is for all practical purposes random (Langley 1986:15). Thus it is possible to modify Kubler’s criterion slightly. What we might call the “principle of extended context” is as follows. The likelihood that a simple geometric motif is an ornamental filler is high to the degree that it is freely distributed across many kinds of subject matter and that its placement within compositions approaches randomness.

Figure 20. Northwest Coast filler motifs cataloged by George T. Emmons for the Tlingit (Boas 1928:fig. 266, p. 253).


Principle #11 (principle of extended context). The likelihood that a simple geometric motif is an ornamental filler is high to the degree that it is freely distributed across many kinds of subject matter and that its placement within compositions approaches randomness.

In sum, other than the principle just articulated, which has limited applicability to certain kinds of styles, as analysts we are mostly at a loss to

Figure 21. Maya filler motifs on the borders of a painted cylindrical vase. What appear to be hieroglyphs are merely decorative and are not readable (photograph K1490, courtesy of Kerr Associates, © Justin Kerr).


discern whether a given geometric motif does or does not have an external referent. As Gombrich (1972:18) puts it, the iconographer must humbly “realize the impossibility of ever drawing an exact line between the ele-ments which signify and those which do not.”

85

Chapter 4

Configurational Analysis

In the first chapter we noted that art historian George Kubler diverged definitively from the program of his mentor Panofsky by advocating some-thing he called “configurational analysis.” For a collected corpus of ancient imagery, such an analysis was to be conducted using internal evidence alone, completely apart from any relationship to contemporaneous texts. By extracting the “themes” and “motifs” of the imagery and being alert to any “factual meanings” they might convey, the subject matter could be interpreted in a limited way. By assuming that the themes and motifs expressed narratives, myths, stories, or other “texts” now lost, configura-tional analysis would constitute something that Panofsky’s scheme would deny, an iconography of ancient images of nonliterate peoples. For Kubler, the use of ethnographic analogy in interpreting such a corpus was to be avoided, because images are prone to the disjunction of forms from their referents over time.

This chapter explores the principles, methods, and limitations of con-figurational analysis as an analytically distinctive phase of prehistoric ico-nography. Insofar as the outcome of this phase of study is the identification of meaningful referents of imagery, special attention will be paid to how these inferred referents stack up against what was perhaps intended by the ancient artisans.

In some ways explicitly and in other ways tacitly, Kubler’s practice of configurational analysis for ancient Teotihuacán (Kubler 1967) and for Classic Maya sculpture (Kubler 1969) reinforces three key principles already expounded in this book. First, Kubler was careful to assemble the entire available corpus of related images prior to study. For example, his Classic Maya analysis was conducted in a classroom setting with the assis-tance of eight students over the course of two academic terms. He says, “the design of our studies could not have been more simple: in the fall term all


hands prepared inventories of the iconographic repertory at the principal Classic Maya sites, and during the spring we made iconographic studies” (Kubler 1969:iv). Second, the studies paid careful attention to genres and to the difference those genres might make to interpretation. The Teotihuacán study, for example, almost exclusively examined painted mural art on the interior of rooms, largely setting aside a wide variety of other genres of portable objects from the site. And within the corpus of mural art, close attention was paid to where in the interior of rooms the images occurred: on broad wall panels, along border panels, and on doorways. Third, citing as a precedent the work of Tatiana Proskouriakoff on Classic Maya sculpture, Kubler (1969:47) stressed as indispensable a corresponding study of style, and periodization by style.

Where to Begin?

Having assembled the corpus, where then to start? Kubler’s (1969:47–48) study of Classic Maya sculpture hints at a rule of thumb when he says that configurational relationships are more easily perceived in the material that shows the most variable and complex subject matter. One can intuitively grasp that those genres with the most articulated imagery, in the most artic-ulated style phases – and within such categories, those images revealing the most connections among formal elements – will always tell us more than the simpler expressions. Thus according to Kubler we are much better off iconographically with the late Classic Maya mural paintings of Bonampak than we would be with all of early Classic Tzakol style painting on pottery combined, because at Bonampak we have articulated scenes. As Pasztory (1976:109) puts it with reference to Teotihuacán, “it is obvious that com-plex, multifaceted compositions contain more explicit information than simple ones and that therefore the analysis of a dwelling unit covered with murals will be more rewarding than the study of a single mask or statue.” Or, in Graham’s (1998:195) words, speaking of west Mexican imagery, “the correct identification of a complex version of a subject allows the recogni-tion of epitomized or abbreviated versions.”

It is not accidental that among the great wealth of Moche imagery, Donnan and McClelland chose to focus upon fineline painted pottery with its magnificent complexity of scenes and that these authors’ early thematic studies centered on images from Phases IV and V, the most intricately com-pounded of the fineline style phases (Donnan 1975, 1976:117–129; Donnan and McClelland 1979). Nor is it an accident that amidst the profusion of representational artifacts in many genres from the Spiro site, Oklahoma,

Configurational Analysis 87

Phillips and Brown (1975–1982) chose engraved shell cups as the nucleus of their study. It is in the shell cup engravings that we find the most elaborate conjunctions of graphic elements. Similar statements apply to the targeted study of Coclé painted pottery among the varied artifact genres from Sitio Conte and related sites (Helms 1995, 2000; Linares 1977; Lothrop 1942). What we are discussing may best be stated as the “principle of complex-ity of corpus.” Elaborately articulated genres, style phases, and individual images tend to communicate more information than simpler ones and, therefore, provide the most suitable points of entry to a configurational analysis.

Principle #12 (principle of complexity of corpus). Complexly articu-lated genres, style phases, and individual images tend to communicate more information than simpler ones and therefore provide the most suitable points of entry to a configurational analysis.

Units of Form or of Reference?

The analytical concepts of “theme” and “motif” were fundamental to Panofsky’s program and have been central to the work of a subsequent gen-eration of iconographers. But we have already seen that in relation to the analysis of prehistoric images, Panofsky’s scheme has been judged by sub-sequent art historians as needing refinement in at least two important ways. First, whereas Panofsky tended to conceive of representational images as simple visual communications of their referents, or alternatively as depen-dent reflections of underlying texts, more recent art historians have rec-ognized the relative independence of the image as something having, so to speak, a life of its own, whose “messages” are inherently different from those of any narrative to which it adheres. Second, there is no such thing as “factual” subject matter that can be intuited independently from cultural convention, since all imagery is conventionalized and relies on conven-tional cues for its correct interpretation (Kippenberg 1987:5).

A configurational analysis of a corpus of representational works calls on us to depart from Panofsky’s original scheme in yet another way. Panofsky viewed two key analytical units, motifs and themes, as residing in two dis-tinct strata of interpretation. For him, motifs were “pre-iconographic” units of form; the study of combinations of motifs was “formal analysis” (Panofsky 1955:28–30). Themes, in contrast, were not formal units but were units of content, having to do with referents. They were the concepts – images, stories, and allegories – that representational images conveyed.


Thus for Panofsky, motif and theme lay on either side of the equation form:referent.1 No combination of salient features or motifs could ever add up to a Panofskyan theme because for him, theme is not a unit of form.

For the analysis of works in a Western tradition, Panofsky’s construction will perhaps do, as we have independent access to images and texts and can work to establish relationships between them. But it cannot do for a configurational analysis of images from prehistoric, nonliterate societies as Kubler conceived it and as we envision it here. At this stage of the game, we will need an evolved vocabulary for suprastylistic forms – forms in which we are interested precisely because they are attached to referents that lie outside of themselves. In seeking such a vocabulary, one that allows us to relate parts of images and whole images to one another, we will find, as Kubler did, that we are forced to conscript the term theme to do its duty on the formal side of the equation. Motif and theme will thus become asso-ciate concepts in configurational analysis – at different scales but nonethe-less of the same order of phenomena.

This conscription of theme as a formal but suprastylistic unit opens up yet another problem, in that it leaves us wanting for a language to talk about and classify referents. Recognizing that there is merit in respecting the more traditional usage of theme in the Panofskyan sense, to use exactly the same term for both formal classes and external referents would cause certain confusion. A solution suggested by James Brown (2007:71) is the one we will adopt here. We will distinguish between “visual themes” and “themes of reference.”2 The one is internal and the other external to the imagery. Visual themes are classes of images believed to represent the same subject matter on the basis of configurational analysis alone (cf. Donnan 1975). Themes of reference are themes in the Panofskyan sense, units of subject matter – concepts, myths, narratives, and so forth – to which images refer. In this sense, an immediate object of configurational analysis is the discovery and verification of visual themes based on internal evidence

1 Panofsky (1955:30, 33–35; see also Kubler 1969:5–6) also spoke of the condition wherein a motif acquires conventional meaning, thereby moving up to his second stratum of icon-ographic interpretation. The motif concept would, in so doing, straddle our distinction between stylistic and suprastylistic units. But this theoretical aspect of his program remains undeveloped and to some degree ambivalent, because of Panofsky’s weak comprehension of the role of culture in perception. Panofsky clearly believed that a beholder’s “practical experience” could operate at a cognitive level beneath that of cultural convention and uncolored by it, except for a minor role played by cultural understandings as a “corrective” to one’s practical knowledge.

2 What Brown (2007:71) calls “conceptual themes,” we are calling here “themes of refer-ence” for better clarity.


alone, whereas the ultimate object of a prehistoric iconography is the dis-covery and verification of relations between groups of images and themes of reference. Further discussion of the concepts of motif and theme will be deferred, for now, to be resumed further on.

Analytical Procedures

With a suitable corpus of images in hand, configurational analysis begins by decomposing images into potentially significant formal elements, using what we here term “suprastylistic” units of analysis.3 It is not really neces-sary at this point to have any idea about the referents of these elements. In fact, there may be good reasons to set aside all earlier interpretations of them (Langley 1986:174), although investigators at this stage may well form preliminary hypotheses to be tested subsequently. Formal elements, once identified, will then be sought in related works, their relative position noted in each composition, until the full distribution is mapped. It will be especially important to examine contrasting distributions of elements. Depending on the number of elements to be traced and the number of images, it is worth assessing whether to take advantage of quantitative tech-niques and computers to do any of the following: to construct and maintain a database, to organize digital imagery, to cross-tabulate the co-occurrence of elements, to construct simple indices of similarity among images using these data, and to group closely similar images using suitable multivariate techniques. Among the latter, the investigator may want to consider various forms of cluster analysis, multidimensional scaling, and correspondence analysis.4 For those who regard themselves as relatively innumerate, or who insist that quantification inserts a false sense of certainty or, worse, scientism into what is really a process of trial and error, one should remember that it is perfectly legitimate to use any of these as exploratory devices – useful tools for detecting patterning that can then be filled out and examined

3 Decomposition of images into their formal elements is apparent as early as Eduard Seler’s (1990–1998) work a century ago with Aztec imagery (Baird 1993; Nicholson 1997).

4 See Shennan (1997) for a good summary of the multivariate techniques. Each of the tech-niques listed herein has been profitably employed in the comparative analysis of images. My students have benefited greatly from applying quantitative methods to stylistic and iconographic problems. Lacefield (1995), for example, created a database of salient fea-tures and then used a combination of dichotomous correlation coefficients with multidi-mensional scaling to successfully seriate crested bird imagery on engraved pottery from the Moundville site, Alabama. For an example of a hierarchical computer database used to detect clustering of elements in a configurational analysis, see Langley’s (1986) study of visual signs at Teotihuacán.


more fully in more qualitative terms. There is no need to invest the results of exploratory work with a cloak of precision where none is warranted.

Virginia Smith’s (1984) configurational analysis of late Preclassic Izapa stone monuments from the Pacific coast of Chiapas provides an accessible example of how such a quantitative analysis might proceed. Smith first identified fifty-four “visual traits” from twenty-four of the best-preserved Izapa-style monuments, coding these traits as variables. Treating each var-iable as dichotomous (present or absent on a given monument), she then calculated a simple correlation coefficient suitable for this type of data (Jaccard’s coefficient), resulting in matrices quantifying the correlation of each trait with all other traits and each stela with all other stelae. These similarity matrices were then subjected to complete-linkage cluster anal-yses, in which the output is “tree diagrams” yielding, in the first analysis, eleven trait groups, and in the second, seven groups of associated stelae.5 In her ensuing discussion, rather than accepting these quantitatively gen-erated groups at face value as the thematic associations in Izapa art, Smith instead uses the groupings as a guide to establishing these associations, also drawing into the analysis comparative material from related Mesoamerican style systems.

Under simpler circumstances involving, for example, smaller corpora with less than sufficient sample sizes for quantitative analysis, tactics that have proven useful include printing images onto photo paper at the same scale and mounting these onto card stock for purposes of sorting on a large table (Figure 22). Otherwise, rolls of white easel paper can be mounted temporarily to the walls of a workroom, providing large spaces for image prints to be arranged and rearranged using tape, with space left over for recording impressions, notes, and relationships. In short, any similar expe-dient allowing the investigator to arrange and rearrange images for simulta-neous review on a sufficiently large workspace will be satisfactory and will be ultimately better than procedures in which images have to be examined sequentially. Such manual exercises are not, of course, mutually exclu-sive with quantitative analyses, and the two can be productively employed together.

5 Smith’s use of agglomerative cluster analysis as an R-mode technique, that is, in specifying the relations among variables, is atypical. Cluster analysis is normally used as a Q-mode technique, that is, in specifying the relations among cases (as Smith does in her second analysis that results in grouped stelae). If these analyses were to be redone today, correspon-dence analysis might be called for, in that it simultaneously expresses the relations between both variables and cases.


Figure 22. Use of similarly formatted prints of images on card stock, sorted on large tables, to explore distributions of suprastylistic features.


Suprastylistic Analytical Concepts

Having already discussed the role of salient features in the recogni-tion of subject matter in Chapter 3, and having differentiated between visual themes and themes of reference, we are in a position to define and discuss the fuller repertoire of concepts to be used in decompos-ing images for a configurational analysis. It will be helpful to refer to a chart (Figure 23) that shows these relationships among concepts. On the left-hand side of the chart is a hierarchy of suprastylistic formal units arranged according to different analytical levels, which are given in the right-hand column. We will first attend to the three analytical levels shown on the right.

Compositions, Larger Compositional Configurations, and Subcompositional Elements

Up to this point we have spoken generically of images, but now we must be more specific. A “composition” is the practicable, intelligible unit of imag-ery with which iconographers normally deal. When one collects a corpus for study, generally this means making a collection of compositions. With special reference to representational imagery, a composition is something that con-veys a coherent visual impression, whether in two-dimensional graphic works,

Figure 23. Relationships among suprastylistic formal units, arranged by analytical level.


sculpture, or architecture.6 In two-dimensional works, compositions are often limited to a single planar design field, meant to be taken in by the eye from a single vantage point. There are, however, many exceptions, as when the design field follows the surface contours of three-dimensional objects. A good example of the latter is Maya painted cylindrical vases, for which the roll-out photographs of Justin Kerr have made it possible to capture the composi-tions for transfer to the printed page (see photos in Schele and Miller 1986). Three-dimensional works, such as sculptures, are often conceived as inte-grated compositions but are not necessarily so, as in tabular objects on which obverse and reverse sides reveal analytically distinct compositions.

The boundaries of compositions are commonly evident even to the experience-distant observer. However, given that compositional boundar-ies may be ambiguous, as a practical matter the decision as to what counts as a composition has to remain to some degree arbitrary and flexible. It is obvious that such things as sculptures, figurines, mural paintings, and architectural elements were often arranged, and sometimes rearranged, in larger tableaux (Figure 24) or designed architectural spaces that are, or once were, intelligible as a whole (e.g., Lesure 2002:589; Pasztory 1976:223–224). Where we have knowledge of these broader contexts, it is of course necessary to take them into account in any interpretation (Rowe 1967:72). In other cases, however, these larger contexts are now lost to us as their elements have been displaced from their original settings. In those cases, as a practical matter the representations expressed by the individual elements must be counted as compositions.

If the primary unit of comparative study in iconographic research is the com-position, then comparisons of these must proceed by identifying subcomposi-tional elements and tracing their occurrences throughout a corpus of related compositions. The foregoing, then, are the analytical levels to which our for-mal units, to the left-hand side of the chart (Figure 23), apply. We now turn to the suprastylistic formal units themselves, beginning with visual themes.

Visual Themes

We have defined visual themes as classes of images within a broader corpus for which it is reasonable to infer a common subject matter. We can now

6 In Western literature a distinction is generally made between the graphic (two-dimensional) and the plastic (three-dimensional) arts, although these terms are sometimes defined differently.


further specify that visual themes are expressed at the level of the composi-tion. That is to say, each representational composition generally has as its referent one dominant idea, and such ideas are commonly expressed visu-ally by conventional forms. The empirical set of compositions that expresses a common visual theme is called the “iconodrome” of that theme (see Kubler 1969:48). Joralemon’s (1976) study of the “Olmec dragon” theme in Preclassic Mesoamerican imagery, for example, results from an assembly of its iconodrome in order to define it and examine its associations. Brown (2007) does the same for the “Birdman” theme in Mississippian imagery.

This alignment of the concept of visual theme with the level of the com-position is to a degree arbitrary and is certainly debatable. One might claim

Figure 24. Tableau of Olmec jade figurines as discovered in situ at the La Venta site, Veracruz, Mexico (Diehl 2004:fig. 36, p. 73).


that a grouping of compositions within an architectural setting expresses a single broader idea that is itself thematic. Conversely, a single composi-tion may easily include more than one identifiable subject. Consider the Teotihuacán clay figurine shown in Figure 25. This is what is called a “host figure,” a large figurine that comes apart to reveal a set of smaller ones embedded within it (Séjourné 1966a:293–297). Assuming for the moment that the smaller, differently clad figurines are iconographically identifiable figural characters, does this assemblage represent one theme or a combi-nation of several? Since host figures of this kind are evidently found with some frequency at Teotihuacán, it seems most productive to consider the host figure itself as representing a visual theme corresponding to a singular idea.7 In the end, however, aligning theme with the level of the composi-tion is as much tactical as it is theoretical. It is a means to rein in the con-cept of theme so that the overall conceptual apparatus and its vocabulary are as clearly delineated as we can make them.

7 Esther Pasztory (1997:171–176) believes that the clay host figures represent a womblike aspect of the Teotihuacán Goddess, while the smaller figurines inside represent humans of different statuses.

Figure 25. Host figure of earthenware from Teotihuacán (Séjourné 1966a:fig. 193, pp. 296–297).


The identification of visual themes is central to configurational analysis.8 In a large and diverse corpus, it is often the case that the majority of depic-tions are related to a surprisingly small number of themes. These dominant themes bring considerable unity to what may seem at first to be quite het-erogeneous material (e.g., Donnan 1975:147, 162; Knight 2007:152).

Salient and Nonsalient Features

Moving down a level, it is apparent that compositions can be decomposed into multiple elements, only some of which are salient in the sense of contributing to the visual identification of the subject on the part of the beholder. Other features may be of stylistic importance but carry none of the burden of reference or identification; they are involved in the stylistic but not the iconographic cultural model for a given theme. In the previous chapters we have repeatedly called the identifying traits “salient features,” but we will not use that term as a formal unit of analysis, because that status is conferred upon four of its subdivisions.

Discrete and Nondiscrete Salient Features

Salient features that contribute to the identification of subject matter can be further subdivided into those that are discrete versus nondiscrete. Discrete salient features are those that can be added or subtracted from a composition as distinct graphic or sculptural elements. They are, in a sense, conceptually removable if not always detachable. Such discrete features would include the spots of the jaguar, the scaly tail of the beaver, or the crest of the harpy eagle. In contrast, especially in those art styles that depend more on perspec-tival and proportional cues, we can also point to many nondiscrete features that are nonetheless clearly salient in contributing to the identification of the subject. Such nondiscrete features would include the length and narrowness of the crocodilian snout, the characteristic bipedal stride of a personage, the relative proportion of ears and head of a bat, or the upward curl of smoke. As with the preceding terms, these distinctions need not be used as formal ana-lytical units, unlike their subdivisions discussed from this point forward.

8 During the 1970s, Christopher Donnan (1975) developed what he termed the “thematic approach” for Moche iconography, the goal of which was to define visual themes based on internal information and to assign individual compositions to their respective themes. In more recent works, that term has been quietly set aside, as the great importance of narra-tive in interpreting the Moche corpus has come to dominate the discussion (Donnan and McClelland 1999; Golte 2009; Quilter 1997:113).


Motifs

The concept “motif,” despite its centrality to art-historical study, is often used as a generic, all-purpose graphic unit at the subcompositional level. Panofsky (1955:30), for example, cites Wölfflin in saying that compositions are made up of combinations of motifs and that “formal analysis” consists of the study of motifs, by which he means units of style. However, Panofsky himself allowed greater scope to the term by turning motifs into supra-stylistic units carrying the additional burden of reference. Thus a horse, a knife, or a column in a painting are all motifs. For Panofsky, compositions are composed of such motifs and evidently of nothing else, as composi-tions can be completely described in terms of motifs. These usages are too broad for our purposes; we need more fine-grained concepts that not only differentiate stylistic from suprastylistic phenomena but also refer more specifically to discrete salient features and not to the various other kinds of identifiable things found in compositions.

Our own definition, derived ultimately from that of Waring and Holder (1945:3), refers to a particular kind of discrete salient feature at the sub-compositional level. As adopted by Phillips and Brown (1975–1982, 1:105), this notion of motif is “a relatively simple form that stands on its own; its meaning does not depend on some larger organization of forms (theme) of which it is a part.” To this definition we should only substitute “referent” for “meaning,” for the reasons discussed at the beginning of the previous chap-ter. Motifs, then, are discrete, suprastylistic units of form that, like visual themes, are carriers of signification but are in a sense quantitatively differ-ent in doing their work of reference at the subcompositional level (Phillips and Brown 1975–1982, 1:104). Motifs, for us, have the further trait of relative independence; they and whatever reference is attached to them are transfer-able among distinct themes. Motifs can appear as integrated parts of objects or beings to which they add information, or they can appear apart from objects or beings, imparting some other significance to a composition. This is a narrower conception than is usually seen for the term and, in our esti-mation, a more practical one. In this conception, visual themes cannot generally be analyzed into combinations of motifs, and motifs are in no sense the building blocks of themes.

Identifying and Classifying Attributes

In traditional art history, “attributes” are kinds of suprastylistic identifiers of subject matter. In Classical and Renaissance depictions of personages, they


were often things carried in the hand, as in the knife of St. Bartholomew, or items of dress, associated objects, or animals. In this specialized sense, the helmet, shield, spear, and owl are attributes of Athena that, when added to a standing or seated female personage, allow the goddess to be recognized. We owe the distinction between “identifying” and “classifying” attributes to Hermerén (1969:100). Whereas some attributes allow one to specifically name the subject, others point only to a certain category, class, or rank to which the subject belongs. Thus in Christian art a personage shown with a grouping of stones about the head is St. Stephen, but a personage shown with a bishop’s miter, a crown, or a halo merely indicates a category of indi-vidual. The latter are classifying attributes.9

The same distinction, extended beyond the identification of personages, is highly useful in configurational analyses of ancient works. It is similar to Kubler’s (1967) attempt to distinguish between “nominal” and “adjec-tival” usages in Teotihuacán mural imagery. For our purposes, identify-ing attributes are salient features that, alone or in combination, allow the identification of a specific subject. They occur in both discrete and non-discrete forms. The emphasis is on identifiers, not on any and all salient features that may contribute to recognition. Thus in Chavín stone carving a life form with four limbs, an upright posture, and a certain proportion of torso to limbs is a personage; that this personage wears a zoomorphic belt and has elaborated conventions for hair assists in its recognition as a deity, but not which one. However, once still other forms are added – two staffs held in the hands – we now have the figural character Rowe (1967:85) calls the Chavín Staff God (Figure 26a). On a Mississippian figurine from Tennessee (Figure 26b), conventions of hairstyle, breasts, skirt, and kneel-ing posture allow us to classify the figure as female, but the addition of a negative-painted shawl in a specific pattern allows a much narrower iden-tification. This patterned shawl identifier links the figure to a larger set that arguably depicts a female deity (Sharp et al. 2011). Spotting the iden-tifying attributes and discriminating them from the more generic classify-ing attributes can routinely be done, given a sufficient sample size, from within the corpus alone without venturing outside of it. Discrete versions of identifying attributes may also indicate the subject in a pars pro toto manner. Finally, because all identifying attributes frequently need not be present simultaneously for correct identification of a subject, identifying attributes may be included or omitted in an image according to the princi-ple of cumulative sufficiency (Chapter 3).

9 John Pohl (1998:190) uses the related term “qualifying attribute.”


From a configurational analysis the investigator might also discover where to look for identifying attributes. On personages or other animate characters, attention is often drawn to the head area, where facial charac-teristics, coiffure, or headdress elements commonly serve as identifiers.10 Clothing and adornment on personages, bodily embellishments on zoo-morphs, and conventional postures on both often serve this purpose as well (Pohl 1994:14–17).

Classifying attributes, in contrast, are forms that convey categorical information. Because many are discrete forms that crosscut specific themes

Figure 26. Identifying attributes in two images: (a) the Raimondi Stela, a carving showing the Chavín Staff God, a deity identified by staffs held in the hands; (b) female figurine from Tennessee with torso painted to indicate a fabric shawl bearing a specific pattern ([a] Raimondi 1913:29; [b] photograph by David H. Dye).

10 Langley (1986:32) speaks of the common Mesoamerican practice of classifying and identi-fying animate beings by means of graphic attributes included in headdresses.


and therefore are independent of them, they are a subcategory of motifs, whereas discrete identifying attributes that are theme-bound are not. There are several kinds of classifying attributes, starting with those that indicate categories of things or animate creatures. In the previous chapter, for the ethnographic case of Northwest Coast imagery, we have already spoken of several conventions for broad and narrow categories of living things. In that iconographic system, the upright mammalian ears that indicate some kind of mammal or bird and the gills that indicate some kind of aquatic creature are classifying attributes. Other, similar kinds of classifying attributes are indicative of the location of the subject in space or time. These “locatives” might indicate the realm of the cosmos in which the subject or action resides, such as crocodile feet in Izapa stonework as a locative for water (Smith 1984:13) or a petaloid motif in Mississippian images as a locative for the celestial realm (Reilly 2007).11 Yet other classifying attributes indicate actions of the subject. These tend to be nondiscrete features of pose and ges-ture, such as conventions for walking, running, dancing, salutation, and so forth. For example, Donnan and McClelland (1999:63, 108–109) illustrate several distinctive hand gestures in Moche fineline painting (Figure 27), the significance of which is unknown.12 Sexes are often differentiated by attri-butes of coiffure, clothing, personal adornment, and pose. In Mississippian stone statuary, for example, males are depicted as seated cross-legged or with one knee raised, whereas females are depicted kneeling (Smith and Miller 2009:20–31). In the same region, in smaller ceramic effigy figures, younger females are depicted with straight backs whereas older females are depicted with humpbacks (Sharp et al. 2011). Social or political status is often indicated by attributes of clothing, headgear, items of personal adorn-ment, and items carried in the hands, but it is also commonly indicated by relative size. In Moche fineline painting, for example, high-status persons are shown larger than those surrounding them, they have more elaborate dress, and they are shown either being carried on litters or standing on platforms (Donnan and McClelland 1999:58, 62).

11 For the term “locative” in iconographic research, see Berlo (1983:13).12 Regarding the interpretation of these Moche hand gestures, Donnan and McClelland

(1999:109) perceptively comment as follows: “We suspect that the same hand position prob-ably had various meanings depending on the context. This is similar to contemporary cul-ture, where an extended index finger may be used to point, give directions, scold, select, or accuse. Which of these meanings is intended depends on the activity and the individuals involved. In order to interpret what is signified by Moche hand positions, we would have to know how context determined meaning.”


Iconographers of ancient images have handled what we here call classi-fying attributes using a variety of nomenclature. In his rather experimen-tal and not altogether successful linguistic approach to Teotihuacán mural painting, George Kubler (1967) attempted to classify images and their ele-ments as nominal, adjectival, and verbal expressions. His two categories of “modifiers,” including the “verbal” ones that express action, are kinds of classifying attributes in our terms. In a like manner, for Moche fineline painting, Donnan and McClelland (1999:60–63, 104–109, 176–177) distin-guish among what they call “artistic modifiers,” such as conventions for capture, death, speed, or high status; “locators” (our “locatives”), such as those for scrub forest, marsh, or ocean; and the hand gestures already men-tioned. Langley (1986:14–15) speaks of “attributive symbols” in much the same way. All of these, as translated into our nomenclature, convey cate-gorical information about the broader theme and are varieties of classifying attributes, some being discrete motifs and others nondiscrete.13

How these two kinds of units work together to simultaneously identify and classify a thematic subject is well illustrated by Figure 28, which com-pares two images of the Teotihuacán Storm God, the first from a mural at the Tepantitla compound and the second from a ceramic vessel. These two images represent two readily recognizable “aspects” of the Storm God, the first evidently more benign and the second having martial associations

Figure 27. Conventional hand gestures in Moche fineline painting on pottery (Donnan and McClelland 1999:fig. 4.62, p. 108).

13 Donnan and McClelland’s “locators” are equivalent to our locatives. Their categories are, however, somewhat ambiguous. It is, for example, unclear why their “locators” and “hand positions” are not also “artistic modifiers.” Moreover, they include the motif of dust clouds, an indicator of intense action, as a “symbol” rather than as an “artistic modifier,” while the hummingbird motif, which is said to convey roughly the same idea, is not a symbol but an “artistic modifier.” For the use of “symbol” in this context, see Chapter 3, note 12.


(Langley 1986:75–84; Pasztory 1974). As in virtually all Storm God depic-tions, they share “goggle” eye surrounds and a fanged mouth, although the fangs are different. In the first version, a prominent upper lip is upturned at the ends, the fangs are curved, a water lily hangs from the mouth, a bow surmounts the forehead at the base of a large headdress, and the hands grasp two effigy vessels featuring the same goggle eyes, lip shape, and fangs as the main figure (in other, similar depictions, the Storm God grasps a sin-uous rod). In the second version, there is a buccal mask curled at the ends, in a moustache-like form known (in Spanish) as a bigotera; the fangs are large, straight, and grouped; there is a bifurcated tongue; and the headdress features three distinctive tassels.

These attributes are largely classificatory, either shared with personages other than the Storm God or serving to specify the version depicted. This situation is common: identifying attributes are surprisingly few in relation to classifying attributes. For example, the tasseled headdress is classifica-tory, shared with other themes of a martial character. Even the goggle eye surrounds that invariably accompany Storm God depictions may be clas-sificatory; they occur on apparent humans as well and may also associate with a martial aspect (Langley 1986:72–74, 176). As to whether a fanged mouth alone is sufficient to specify a Storm God, we can appeal to one of the most abbreviated versions known (Figure 29). This pars pro toto stone sculpture has only the straight row of fangs, the bigotera form of buccal mask, and the bifurcated tongue of the “martial” version (Figure 28b). Thus the work of identification is done not so much by unique identifiers as by recurring combinations of attributes that are themselves mostly classificatory, which may be considered as “identifying” only in the

Figure 28. Two images of the Teotihuacán Storm God: (a) from a Tepantitla mural; (b) from a ceramic vessel ([a] Pasztory 1974:fig. 4, p. 5; [b] Séjourné 1966b:fig. 41).


aggregate, assembled according to the principle of cumulative sufficiency (see Chapter 3).

Ideographs

There are two varieties of low-level figural units that have all the character-istics of motifs but that merit special attention because their referents are more precise and relatively invariant. These are “hieroglyphs” (or more simply, “glyphs”) and “ideographs.” The two are distinguished in that hiero-glyphs refer to specific words or morphemes, whereas ideographs merely refer to specific ideas or things.14 Hieroglyphs, being language-bound, belong properly to glottographic writing systems (see Chapter 1) and there-fore need not concern us further, except to emphasize that the term glyph

Figure 29. Pars pro toto Storm God in stone sculpture, Teotihuacán (Biart 1887:fig.10, p. 125).

14 Another common distinction is between logographs (or logograms) and ideographs. Logo-graphs refer to any sign that represents a word or morpheme, which unlike hieroglyphs need not be figural. Langley (1986:12) refers to ideographs as “notational signs,” while Lay-ton (1991:135) calls them “ideograms.” See Monaghan (1994:87) for a critique of the con-cept of ideograph as a problematically vague residual category.


is out of place in an iconographic discussion (cf. Langley 1986:12) and is consequently absent in Figure 23. Ideographs, in contrast, are not bound to any spoken language and clearly do appear, if sometimes sparingly, in iconographic visual systems. Martin (2006:72), for example, points to the ideographic role of hummingbirds painted in the margins of Moche fine-line scenes on pottery, where they are not intrinsic to the scene and appear to convey very specifically the idea of swift, intense action (Donnan and McClelland 1999:62, 107). A systematic search of Teotihuacán mural paint-ing similarly reveals a number of probable ideographs, including simple graphic conventions for numerals, calendrical ideas, specific places, and perhaps specific persons (Langley 1986:174).15

In speaking of ideographs we are now at the boundary between icono-graphic and semasiographic visual systems (Chapter 1, Figure 3), for both kinds of systems possess them. Here we must be careful to distinguish between true semasiographic systems, on the one hand (Martin 2006:75–76), which are nonlinguistic notational systems in which ideographs are combined to convey potentially novel information, and iconographic systems, on the other hand, that merely employ ideographs without combining them (as in the Moche case just noted). There are two aspects of semasiographic systems that we may treat as diagnostic in making this distinction: they feature both conventional orthography and syntax (cf. Langley 1986:12–13). That is to say, in semasiographic systems, self-contained ideographs, which can be divorced from their surroundings without loss of reference, are stan-dardized to a “correct” appearance and are combined according to fixed syntactic conventions (see Boone 2009:63–69). By this standard, according to Langley (1986:13, 30, 173–174), there is some systematic use of ideographs in Teotihuacán murals (Figure 30). In this largely iconographic context it is difficult to say conclusively that ideographs were combined to encode novel, intelligible messages in the manner of a writing system. The practi-cal discrimination of ideographs from other kinds of low-level formal units using internal evidence alone is, in the end, problematic.

15 For Teotihuacán ideographs, see also comments by Langley (1991), Pasztory (1974:18, 1997:167), and Taube (1983:137). Using an Aztec analogy, Cowgill (1992) supports the idea that certain compound motifs infixed on images of flowers and trees at Teotihuacán ac-tually name these plants, in which case there is a genuine, though minor, glottographic component in Teotihuacán mural art. Taube (2002) goes much further, claiming that nu-merous graphic elements at Teotihuacán are true hieroglyphic expressions with linguistic content. He especially points to certain “appellative” glyphs that appear to name individ-uals. For a breakthrough study of place signs in Mesoamerican pictography, see Smith (1973).


Filler Motifs

Nonsalient features concern us very little in configurational analysis, pre-cisely because they are nonsalient, consisting of all of the formal, stylisti-cally governed elements in a composition that do not contribute to the identification of the thematic subject matter. In the previous chapter we have already encountered filler motifs, those graphic elements that have the peculiar characteristic of being connected in some way with external referents, and yet that contribute nothing to the identification of themes. They are used as filler, particularly in style systems featuring horror vacui. Our only need to revisit them here is to verify that, according to our classi-ficatory scheme, they are indeed motifs and not something else. They are discrete subcompositional forms that are transferable among themes, but any signification to which they may be attached has no bearing on the spe-cific themes in which they appear.16

Narratives and the Passage of Time

Focusing attention now above the level of the composition, we come to organizations of forms that may be called “narratives.” These are in a sense superthemes, born of the recognition that certain compositions belong

Figure 30. The “four element group” in Teotihuacán mural imagery, an apparent syntactic use of ideographs in what is otherwise largely an iconographic system (Kubler 1967:fig.33).

16 For discussion and examples of apparent filler motifs in the mural painting of Teotihuacán, see Langley (1986:9) and Pasztory (1976:187–188).


together as parts of a greater whole. With narratives, the complexity of the referent seems to demand of the artisan a greater scope, often surpassing the visual capabilities of individual compositions. Here the compositions tend to become snapshots, episodes, stations of the cross. Even where there is no indication of a correct order, compositions may register the definite impression of the passage of time. However, the existence of an identified sequence or the lack of one is unimportant to our definition.17

We may speak of at least three kinds of visual expressions of narrative in this sense. One results from the archaeological discovery of in situ arrangements of thematic material that evoke a broader narrative princi-ple, as is found, for example, in deliberate organizations of monumental architecture in public spaces (e.g., Schele and Freidel 1990:70–73), sets of articulated mural compositions covering the interior walls and ceilings of buildings (e.g., Pasztory 1976:223–224; Reents-Budet 1989:189), ritual caches of objects laid out as cosmograms, and the like. A second kind of narrative results from finding evidence that a single composition alludes to or implies the passage of time (e.g., Reents-Budet 1989:192). A third variety results from identifying the same animate figural character, or set of figural characters together, engaged in what seems to be a distinctive series of sep-arate guises, tasks, encounters, ritual episodes, or transformations across multiple compositions (e.g., Reilly and Garber 2011). In the latter case we assume that there is a linear sequence corresponding to selected scenes, necessarily condensed from a unitary story line of reference.18

Moche fineline painting from coastal Peru has long been known as pro-viding fertile ground for exploring the possibilities of visual narratives in ancient imagery. There are several reasonably clear narrative sequences in this material (Bourget 2006:191–210; Golte 2009:329–412; McClelland et al. 2007:96; Quilter 1997:123). In one, called the Burial Theme, the chamber

17 Jeffrey Quilter (1997) speaks of a “narrative approach” to analysis that is a logical exten-sion of Donnan’s earlier “thematic approach” to Moche iconography. In this narrative approach, Quilter claims that static images correctly arranged actually allow the retrieval of ancient mythology without necessary recourse to ethnographic sources. He ends with a curious and rather daring presentation of a Moche myth recast as a narrative of reference.

18 Just as there is no broad agreement as to how theme and motif are to be defined, not all iconographers speak of narrative as something quite this broadly construed. For example, when McClelland et al. (2007:96) discuss the convention of “narrative” as something that developed in the southern Moche region, they seem specifically to mean the condensation of multiple narrative moments into single storyboard compositions that show the passage of time. This a different construal from that implied by individual compositions that allude to a broader narrative framework or to analytical combinations of images representing distinct moments in a story line without necessarily ever being visually combined.


section of stirrup-spouted bottles is divided into four irregular fields, each of which depicts a separate scene: burial, assembly of individuals with staffs, exchange of conch shells with a high-status individual, and a human sac-rifice. Because two figural characters, named Wrinkle Face and Iguana, are present in each scene, it is reasonable to suppose that the scenes are sequential (Donnan and McClelland 1999:166–167, 182). In the more elab-orate Warrior Narrative (Figure 31), there are seven contributory scenes: (1) warriors in battle dress, (2) warriors fighting the enemy, (3) warriors causing their defeated foes to bleed from the nose, (4) warriors parading captives who are naked and bound, (5) presentation of captives to an unarmed per-son, (6) sacrifice of captives with their blood consumed by priests, and (7) dismemberment of the bodies. Pottery vessels normally show these scenes separately or combine two to three of them in larger compositions. In the most ambitious compositions, the lowermost register shows scenes of com-bat, and above that are scenes of parading defeated captives. Moving upward on the vessel, the arch of the stirrup spout shows the sacrifice of a captive while the spout itself depicts a priest holding a goblet as the culmination of the sacrifice ceremony (Donnan and McClelland 1999:69, 130–136).

This illustration of the multiple possibilities of combining conventional scenes into narratives shows the absence of any strict, qualitative distinction between visual theme and narrative. As with themes, we must carefully dis-tinguish between the visual narrative, which is necessarily static, and the external narrative of reference. We must assume that both the artisan and the beholder knew not only the full repertoire of conventional visual scenes but also the full narrative of reference, in this case probably consisting of

Figure 31. Warriors parading captives who are naked and bound: a scene from the Warrior Narrative in Moche fineline painting on pottery (Donnan and McClelland 1999:fig. 4.100, p. 130).


elaborated myths themselves conjoining strings of mythic motifs. Insofar as any particular scene alludes to the whole narrative, the artist may be con-tent to depict a moment in time, but there are also cultural conventions for showing the passage of time.

For this purpose, Moche fineline painters used a “storyboard” technique, such as is used in modern newspaper comic strips, in which an object is divided into frames or fields, each of which contains a momentary scene (Martin 2006:67). The frames may or may not be bounded, and may be oriented horizontally, vertically, or spirally. In the case of the Moche Burial Theme just described, the fact that the same figural characters are repeated in adjacent scenes is prima facie evidence of the passage of time. The story-board technique is not uncommon. A Mississippian incised stone slab from Tennessee (Figure 32) shows three pairs of characters in interaction, in each case evidently the same pair due to the presence of common identify-ing attributes. The tableau is best interpreted as a storyboard depicting sev-eral mythic episodes in the career of a single pair (Steponaitis et al. 2011). The imagery from the well-known Mixtec screenfold books is presented in the manner of a storyboard (Pohl 1994:13). A “paneled style” among some Maya stelae, identified by Proskouriakoff (1950:161, fig. 88) as divided into

Figure 32. Obverse panel of the Thruston Tablet, an example of a visual narrative in storyboard format from Tennessee (Steponaitis et al. 2011:fig. 7.6, p. 150).


rectangular panels stressing “actions rather than persons,” is probably a sto-ryboard format.19

There are other conventions for the passage of time with which we are less familiar, but to which an iconographer must nonetheless be alert (Weitzmann 1970:12–33). In one, the passage of time is condensed into a single image without repetition of characters. A Spartan cup from the sixth century b.c. (Figure 33a) illustrates the Homeric encounter between Odysseus and his companions and Polyphemus the Cyclops. Polyphemus, seated at the right, holds the legs of one of Odysseus’s companions, having just devoured him. Odysseus offers a cup of wine to the giant in order to intoxicate him, but Polyphemus has no hands free to accept it. Moreover, Odysseus, with his other hand, together with his remaining companions already points a staff at Polyphemus’s single eye, to be used in blinding him. Thus three moments of the story are shown simultaneously (Weitzmann 1970:13). This mode of condensation is perhaps used in the Mississippian engraved marine shell gorget shown in Figure 33b. When oriented properly,

19 See Golte (2009:339–341) for an additional unbounded storyboard case from the Moche fineline corpus. It is intriguing that, according to Weitzmann (1970:17), the storyboard technique in the Mediterranean basin was invented as late as the Hellenistic period.

Figure 33. Narrative condensation without repetition of characters: (a) painting from a Spartan cup showing Odysseus’s encounter with the Cyclops; (b) the Potter gorget from southeast Missouri, a Mississippian marine shell gorget ([a] Weitzmann 1970:pl. 1; [b] Phillips and Brown 1975–1982, 1:fig. 229, p. 176. Copyright 1975 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted courtesy of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.).


as shown by the suspension holes, the main character is supine, either lying upon, emerging from, or descending into a conventionalized jar. But in a separate action, best envisioned by turning the gorget ninety degrees coun-terclockwise, the same character now seems to be striding, in view of the leg positions. In his right hand he holds a striped pole that has a (solar?) disk at one end and a fringed finial at the other. The pole appears to be thrust through the back, and out of the mouth, of a detached human head held by the left hand of the main figure (the pole is offset at the detached head to accommodate the circular design field). As the latter action makes little sense in the supine position, which must be in some sense primary given the location of the suspension holes, at least two moments in a nar-rative may be indicated.20

A second mode of condensation is illustrated by a Renaissance painting by Gozzoli (Figure 34) that depicts the biblical figures Herod, Salome, and St. John the Baptist. Here the characters of Salome and St. John are both duplicated. At the right-hand side, Salome dances before Herod, and in the rear she presents the head of St. John to her mother. At left, St. John is seen (with his head) at the moment of his death. The beholder who knows the story line (that is to say, is competent in the narrative model of reference) immediately makes sense of this duplication by realizing that the painting depicts three distinct moments in the story.21 Figure 35 shows a potential archaeological example of the technique of condensation with duplication. In this Moche fineline composition, the figural character called Wrinkle Face is repeated on the same pottery vessel in a scene of supernatural con-frontation, first with an anthropomorphized fish and second with a circular creature.22

In all three techniques, storyboard, condensation without duplication, and condensation with duplication, the artisan attempts to transcend the limitations of the visual medium by incorporating multiple narrative moments (Hermerén 1969:57–59).23 Certain condensed scenes become conventional, well-recognized prompts to a narrative referent known to

20 Dorie Reents-Budet (1989:190–191) points out that Maya vase painting frequently uses the technique of condensation without duplication, where several moments from a Classic cognate of the Popol Vuh myth are depicted as parts of a single composition.

21 For a late medieval example of condensation with duplication, see Pächt (1962:15).22 In the illustrated case, however, it must be noted that the two scenes are on opposite sides

of the pottery vessel, so that only one can be seen at a time.23 Weitzmann’s (1970:12–33) comparable discussion of methods of conveying the passage of

time in representational imagery is often cited. The categories and terminology used in this book differ somewhat from his.


Figure 34. Narrative condensation with repetition of characters: detail from Benozzo Gozzoli, The Feast of Herod and the Beheading of St. John the Baptist.

Figure 35. Narrative condensation with repetition of characters: Wrinkle Face combats marine monsters, Moche fineline painting on pottery (Donnan and McClelland 1999:fig. 4.81, p. 119).


the beholder (Martin 2006:66).24 From the modern analyst’s point of view, short of knowing the external narrative referents, the status of these scenes as prompts to narrative are difficult to detect iconographically unless iden-tifiable figural characters are repeated in an obvious way, or a character is made to perform two or more plausibly asynchronous actions in a single scene. It follows that visual allusions to narrative are probably far more common in the material available to us than is readily recognizable. It is likely that many of the visual themes one can isolate and describe are actu-ally related to other themes in ways that escape notice because of our utter unfamiliarity with the narratives of reference. But narratives that do not emerge from configurational analysis alone may still be revealed, upon fur-ther study, by the judicious use of relevant ethnographic material, a subject that must await the following chapter.

The Problem of Shifting Frames of Reference

A set of classificatory concepts like that elaborated in this chapter can be highly useful in describing visual forms in the service of a configurational analysis. However, especially as applied to the more complex iconographic models, taxa like these will at times seem to clash with the realities of spe-cific systems. These apparent problems most often have to do with the hier-archical compounding of elements or, more generally, with shifting frames of reference. We have already called attention to one such case, that in which discrete versions of identifying attributes are used by themselves, pars pro toto, as compositions alluding to broader themes. But according to our rules, if the attribute is used at the level of the composition, does that not make it a visual theme in its own right? Can we have themes within themes? Let us review a few such issues and then suggest a strategy to han-dle them.

Kubler (1969:5) spoke of isolated motifs elevated to the level of themes in Classic Maya pictorial representation. What did he mean? We can speak more generally of any kind of discrete salient feature, whether motif, ideo-graph, identifying attribute, or classifying attribute, that can be used by itself at the level of the composition. An excellent example is the stirrup-spouted Moche bottle shown in Figure 36, which depicts a marsh plant. Because the marsh plant is the composition, should we find that idea duplicated in other works, the marsh plant by our criteria would constitute a visual theme

24 Referring to conventionalized visual scenes that prompt narratives, Martin (2006:66) uses Roland Barthes’s term “nuclei.” Quilter (1997:116), by contrast, calls them “key scenarios.”


in Moche iconography. But we also know that the marsh plant is used elsewhere in Moche depiction as a locative, a kind of classifying attribute employed at the margins of active scenes to specify that the action is taking place in a riverine delta (Donnan and McClelland 1999:104–105). When used alone like this, however, it is reasonable to suppose that the plant is a reference to some more specific idea. If so, what in other instances is a locative has become in this context an ideograph. In general, subcomposi-tional elements may be used at the level of composition, either as pars pro toto allusions to a scene more fully expressed visually in other works or as an ideograph expressing a particular idea.

Motifs and other subcompositional elements can also be hierarchically compounded within themes. Figure 37 shows a pottery figurine from Teotihuacán wearing a large circular pectoral suspended from a necklace. The pectoral combines several motifs: an owl, crossed darts, a shield, and a human hand. Von Winning (1984), among others, views this heraldi-cally arranged assemblage on the pectoral as a martial insignia of office. Be that as it may, of interest to us is that the elements that constitute the

Figure 36. Moche stirrup-spouted bottle with painting depicting a marsh plant (Donnan and McClelland 1999:fig. 4.56, p. 105).


insignia contribute to the identification of the pectoral. This “owl and weapons” emblem, in fact, appears in a variety of other contexts. Thus the specific motifs that comprise it contribute to the identity of the personage wearing the pectoral only indirectly. The subcompositional elements of interest here are nested below the level of the composition (the figurine), but within a specific configuration of high external importance.25

Animate subjects also are often compounded, both nonhierarchically and hierarchically, at various levels of resolution. In some cases, icono-graphically identifiable subjects appear at the level of the composition

25 A well-known example of this sort of hierarchical compounding of elements in Maya rep-resentation is found on Stela 31 at the site of Tikal (Schele and Freidel 1990:fig. 4.25). One of the subsidiary figures representing the father of the main subject of the stela is shown carrying a shield on which there is a deity image with Teotihuacán attributes: a tasseled headdress, goggle eye surrounds, and a rectangular nose bar. Only in an indirect way do these elements contribute to the identification of the subject of the stela considered as a whole.

Figure 37. Partial clay figurine wearing a large pectoral bearing the conventional “owl and weapons” emblem, Teotihuacán (Séjourné 1966b:fig. 50).


and are thus, in our terms, thematic, possessing their own identifying and classifying attributes by which we may readily isolate them across compo-sitions. We have already mentioned two such figures in Moche fineline painting, which have been named Wrinkle Face and Iguana. But if these figures can be called, at one level, thematic, it is also clear that they are frequently combined within larger compositions, together with other actors and agents. Consider also the Paracas textile design shown in Figure 38. Here we have a complex central character to which are literally attached no fewer than five subsidiary characters, all manifesting identifying and classifying attributes that allow us to recognize them in other compositions. We are assured by Peters (1991:306) that the subsidiary figures in some tex-tile compositions are the primary figures in others. Within the composition we can point to multiple levels of salient features doing their work of iden-tification and classification hierarchically, but this hierarchy is not fixed across compositions.

In this book we call these identifiable animate subjects “figural char-acters”; they are the dramatis personae that inhabit the complex icono-graphic worlds of Paracas textiles, Moche fineline painting, and many other iconographic systems. The point of interest here is that if we insist on the theme being held to the level of the composition, the same figural character is sometimes thematic and sometimes not, depending on the level of specificity chosen for the image. The problem is exacerbated in the case of visual narratives, as in the Moche fineline case, wherein arti-

Figure 38. Block color textile design from the Paracas Necrópolis, south coast of Peru (Peters 1991:fig. 7.86, p. 307).


sans varied considerably the level of resolution of the scenes they elected to show.

The effect of such cases of pars pro toto allusion, hierarchical and nonhi-erarchical compounding, and shifting frames of reference is that our taxon-omy of units is quickly pushed beyond its limits. By forcing our definitions upon certain complex systems, we are faced with impossible decisions: what is here a motif is there a visual theme, what is here a visual theme is there a figural character within a theme, and so forth. There are iconographic systems – and Moche fineline painting is a perfect example – in which the imagery is so tightly bound to narrative that the concept of visual theme as something pinned to the level of the composition breaks down almost completely. What then is to be done? If our units are not attached in some manner to definite analytical levels, how else are we to define them?

The goal of a configurational analysis is to describe the formal proper-ties of a corpus of related visual works in a way that sheds the most light on their subject matter or external referents. As with any analysis in which the units are largely imposed by the investigator, how that goal is achieved is less important than arriving at a satisfactory model. Bearing that in mind, there is nothing sacred about taxonomic definitions; new classifications are often necessary to account for the entanglements of real data. Creation of new classifications is therefore to be encouraged. A rule of thumb can be expressed as follows. If an iconographic system is nonproblematic in that it can be described using conventional taxa like those suggested in this chap-ter, with traditional concepts like theme and motif securely fixed to spe-cific analytical levels, well and good. To use the taxonomy in such cases is beneficial because it fosters communication: when we use the word motif, for example, others will know exactly what we do and do not mean by it. However, where circumstances force new classifications, the new taxa must also be framed in ways that favor communication. In this business there are two kinds of common mistakes. The first kind is to invent idiosyn-cratic terminologies that are either so odd or so cumbersome that nobody else is likely to ever adopt them. The second kind of mistake is to redefine common terms such as theme and motif in ways that are so nontraditional that they can hardly fail to result in confusion. But wherever one values clarity and simplicity, one can hardly go wrong.

Describing Configurations

Having now defined a range of formal units at distinct analytical levels, let us return to an account of how the analysis of a suitable corpus of related


works, in a given style and genre, actually proceeds. It is helpful at the outset to sort the compositions into groups that simply “look alike” by sub-jective standards. Any such groups will no doubt subsequently be altered according to the analysis, but an initial subjective grouping is likely to facil-itate the work by juxtaposing works that already have at least some things in common. Starting, then, with an appropriately complex composition that conjoins a relatively large number of features (the principle of complexity of corpus), the analyst must begin to decompose it into discrete and nondis-crete elements, in a search for those likely to be suprastylistic in the sense of contributing in a nontrivial way to the identification of the visual theme of the work. Candidate salient features are then traced through the corpus by means of a distributional analysis, quantitative or otherwise. Once iden-tified and their roles tentatively established, features may then be reclas-sified by trial and error as the analysis proceeds, in search of a best fit. Final decisions as to which features are indeed salient and, among these, which are motifs, ideographs, identifying attributes, or classifying attributes are based ultimately on arguments of distribution. Identification of visual themes results from the general sense made by recurring, relatively stable elements at the level of the composition, bearing always in mind how the principle of cumulative sufficiency works in some styles to alter and vary what is sufficient for a beholder to correctly interpret a theme. Isolation of visual themes, in turn, allows the definition of iconodromes and the pre-liminary search for evidence of visual narratives.

It is at this point that we must acknowledge the contribution to a con-figurational analysis of what Kubler and many others, following Panofsky, have called “primary” or “factual” subject matter – things we think we rec-ognize. In Chapter 3, however, we cautioned that art historians subsequent to Panofsky, such as Gombrich, Hermerén, and Kippenberg, have doubted the independent existence of such a level of interpretation uncolored by knowledge of cultural conventions. They have concluded, correctly, that there can be no “seeing with an innocent eye.”

If the analyst cannot depend on likeness, the analyst’s only recourse is to what we have chosen to call Hermerén’s principle of recognition, which, as we have modified it, makes recognition a matter of two things: first, the degree to which the style of the work employs perspective and relative pro-portion among its conventions, and second, a knowledge of the natural prototypes available in the artisan’s world. In a large sense, then, recog-nition becomes a matter of exposure to contextual knowledge that draws the analyst incrementally more experience-near to the artisans and their audiences. We have used the word immersion, invoking a comparison to


language immersion, to describe the ideal process by which an iconog-rapher works to apprehend the details of the natural and social environ-ments, as revealed by field archaeology, in which the subject images were originally produced. If an analyst’s vision can neither be fully innocent nor fully experienced, immersion in these details at least changes that dynamic in our favor.

On Naming Motifs and Themes

There have been two opposing tendencies in the naming of themes and motifs in the iconography of ancient images. At one extreme, there is the borrowing of names from ethnographic or ethnohistoric sources when these are thought to apply – Itzam Na, Cociyo, Amaru, Piasa, Uktena, Red Horn, and the like – and projecting these backwards into precontact times. This is commonly done (e.g., Marcus and Flannery 1994; Pasztory 1974; Pauketat 2004:116–117; Taube 1992:131–196; Thompson 1970:209–233; Urton 1996:241). At the other extreme, the names applied are entirely arbi-trary, as in Peter David Joralemon’s (1971) designation of the Preclassic Olmec gods as Gods I through X, or Jeffrey Quilter’s (1997:114) advo-cacy of a lettering system for Moche deities. The latter practice follows an old precedent. Paul Schellhas (1904; see also Taube 1992:11–119) des-ignated the Maya deities found in the codices as Gods A through P, each of which was also given a descriptive name.26 Many investigators follow a sort of middle road, employing descriptive nicknames for supernaturals such as “Birdman,” “Rayed Figure,” “Demon Fish,” “Intermediator God,” or “Bean Feline” (Brown 2007; Donnan 1975; Donnan and McClelland 1999; Golte 2009; Peters 1991), sometimes in combination with lettering systems.27 Descending to the level of salient features, Langley (1986:18, 24) advocates objective, descriptive names for these, so as not to prejudge the outcome of any analysis.

The very idea of configurational analysis, as a procedure confining itself to ancient imagery without recourse to more recent ethnographic sources, recommends strongly in favor of neutral names in order to avoid ethno-graphic bias. If not entirely arbitrary designations like numbers or letters,

26 In addition to identifying fifteen deities, Schellhas (1904) also identified six “mythological creatures” that were designated by using common animal names such as moan bird, ser-pent, dog, and so forth.

27 See Urton (1996:245) for an objection to this use of nicknames.


appropriate names should be, at most, simple descriptive devices without interpretive weight. In practice, however, the avoidance of ethnographic names for deities and other supernaturals has been a very difficult pill to swallow. Mesoamerican iconographers, for example, historically have been persistent in using the name of the goggle-eyed Aztec rain god Tlaloc in reference to goggle-eyed figures seen at Teotihuacán and elsewhere a millennium earlier than the Aztecs. Indeed, by the 1970s through the writ-ings of Alfonso Caso (1942) and others, supposed Tlalocs were everywhere to be seen, as the use of Aztec names for Teotihuacán supernaturals was commonplace. As to the alternative of using neutral, descriptive names, early in her career Esther Pasztory found that option disagreeable. She stated, “in order to avoid cumbersome descriptions for Teotihuacán dei-ties whose names are forever lost to us, there is a practical value to using the name of a corresponding Aztec deity when such a correspondence is established, although the reference must be qualified as being to the Teotihuacán version of the deity” (Pasztory 1973:152; see also Pasztory 1974). Subsequently, this practice only proved awkward. A major super-natural that Caso (1942:131) had identified as Tlaloc was reinterpreted by Pasztory (1973:149–150) as a completely different, contrasting female deity, a position most scholars now accept (Berlo 1992; Pasztory 1997:85–87). In retrospect, it has taken much time and effort to wrest the iconographic interpretation away from the prejudices introduced by uncritical use of Aztec sources, a process of distancing in which Pasztory herself played a major role (Pasztory 1997:9, 19, 25–27). The male “Tlalocs” at Teotihuacán are now almost universally called by the more neutral term “Storm God,” while other water-associated divinities are subsumed under a “Goddess” construct.

There is no getting around it: the Aztec names with all their connota-tions are profoundly biasing, whether or not their use is qualified by say-ing that they are an ancient “version.”28 It is a fundamental principle of the method espoused here that visual themes detected by configurational analysis, however named, be held categorically separate from ethnographic themes of reference, removed in time, space, or context. Relations between the two, which must be assumed to be partial, are precisely what need to be tested. They should not be defined a priori.

28 Kubler, the most adamant of the opponents of ethnographic analogy in interpreting an-cient imagery, did not use the name Tlaloc for the goggle-eyed Teotihuacán supernatural but did call it “the raingod” (Kubler 1967:6).


Principle #13 (principle of safety in neutrality). Only when visual themes detected by configurational analysis are defined entirely with-out reference to ethnographic models can the potential, necessarily partial, relation between the two be properly evaluated. Thus con-figurational themes and motifs should not be given ethnographically derived names.

What, then, of potentially less misleading names like “maize god,” “death god,” or “rain god”? In the case of the “Teotihuacán Tlaloc,” Terence Grieder (1975:852) sees little difference: “Whether we refer to the rain god by an Aztec name or call him ‘raingod’ in English is not significant, for the meaning remains the same.” Moreover, “naming subjects must always be regarded as an exercise in creativity, but a plausible guess is so much more useful than such cautious designations as ‘Motif A’ that I think that the risk is better taken. ‘Rain God’ set down next to ‘Maize Plant’ gives rise to considerations which will never be aroused by ‘Motif A’ with ‘Motif B’” (Grieder 1975:851–852). One may object, however, that both “Rain God” and “Maize Plant” themselves will be, in most cases, not merely descrip-tive but inferential. Style systems are few in which it is perfectly obvious to an outside observer what is or is not a rain god or a maize plant. Thus, to name them in this manner and proceed to speak of their meaningful con-junction is to heap inference upon inference, starting the analyst down a road best avoided. The risk of unchecked bias in “creative” naming of this sort is far too great.

Iconographies of prehistoric images are full of references to subjects all too casually named runners, warriors, priests, officiants, attendants, rulers, and the like. These terms are commonly applied without com-ment, as though the identifications were sufficiently obvious to any observer. But all such names are problematically inferential. They are no more “factually” perceived than “Rain God” or “Maize Plant,” and have exactly the same status. It is not that their use is always unwar-ranted, but rather that explicit stylistic and iconographic cases need to be built up for each. That some iconographers have no patience with such cautions in the naming of subjects, seeing them as frustrating and unnecessarily conservative, is evidence of a failure to come fully to grips with the issue of the “innocent eye”; that is, to understand that what we see as analysts really are stereotypes that we are conditioned to see,


stereotypes provided by cultural models lying tacitly in the background of our interpretation.29

These considerations do not force us to retreat into unpalatable and difficult-to-remember alphabetizing or enumeration, like the “Motif A” and “Motif B” disliked by Grieder. Descriptive, yet neutral epithets are perfectly acceptable naming conventions, and iconographers routinely use them for both visual themes and discrete salient features. Nicknames such as “Birdman,” “Rayed Figure,” “Demon Fish,” and “Bean Feline” are not taken seriously as native constructs but serve as useful, memorable labels for figural characters that can be systematically compared, in iconographic research, with any ethnographic themes of reference believed to be rele-vant to them.

If many of the figural characters in need of labeling are supernaturals, depictions of animate powers from a normally unseen realm of the cos-mos, how do we know that? Can any assumptions be made about other-worldly realms? There are those who would point to the work of Durkheim and others in claiming that in many traditional societies, particularly those with so-called animistic beliefs, there is no clear-cut distinction between the world of everyday experience and that of the supernatural. If such were commonly the case, there would be no warrant for insisting on a distinc-tion between depictions of a god and the human impersonation of a god, as such a depiction could easily make reference to both simultaneously. For clarification of this matter, we would do well to call on the empir-ical, cross-cultural study of traditional religions. Ǻke Hultkrantz (1983), the doyen of Native American religions, concludes emphatically that tra-ditional peoples make a near-universal, categorical distinction between two simultaneous orders of existence, one natural and the other supernatural, believed to have originated differently (cf. LaBarre 1970:42).30

Following Hultkrantz’s view of the matter, it follows that artisans and their audiences are probably seldom confused about which of these realms

29 These powerful schemata are, according to the typology laid out in Chapter 1, iconograph-ic models in the native sense, in this case referring to those tacitly held by the analyst, which are, of course, ethnocentric and which require a self-conscious, critical reflexivity to overcome.

30 As Hultkrantz (1983:245–247) points out, in the distinction natural:supernatural, the su-pernatural is very often the only linguistically marked category, its opposite being only im-plied. He also notes that this distinction is not to be confused with that between the sacred and the profane, which both refer to social and ritual states of being in the visible world and not to the mysterious and invisible otherworld (Hultkrantz 1983:242).


is being depicted in a given situation. But if the supernatural order is an invisible, partly incomprehensible dreamworld of shape-shifting gods, ani-mated powers, and ghosts, the unspecified appearance of these powers seems to pose an intractable problem. In the oral tradition, the lack of specification can be handled by cultural models that call for professions of mystery and different orders of esoteric understanding. But not so for the artisan working in visual genres. There, not only do choices have to be made about the appearance of supernaturals, but they cannot be left up to the imagination of the artisan if the audience is supposed to recognize the subject. Thus iconographic models in the native sense come to govern appearances.31

The history of religions provides us with a potential vocabulary of nomi-nal god-terms, some of which are as follows:

god (varieties major, minor)deitydivinitysupernatural (as a noun)demiurgedemigodavatarangeltheophanic form (of a deity)apotheosis (of a former human)tutelary god

Of course, the supernatural realm can be inhabited by a number of spirit-beings who are not gods, including such denizens as attendants, monsters, therianthropes, demons, ghosts, hero figures, and other agents belonging to the creation-time.

Many of these names require making fine distinctions of rank, role, or origin, which makes them ill suited for application to imagery in which such distinctions are unknowable. An instructive case is Rowe’s (1967) icon-ographic treatment of images in the temple complex at Chavín de Huantar in the Peruvian Andes. There, on temple monuments, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures are covered with extra fanged faces and protruding snakes where hair and cat whiskers should be (Figures 26a, 39). Are these creatures really the monstrous composites they seem at first glance? Our

31 How this puzzling process works – that of conventionalizing the appearance of the theoret-ically invisible – is underreported in the ethnographic literature and is consequently badly undertheorized at present.


previous encounter with Northwest Coast classifying attributes in which sea mammals have gills and squared teeth (Chapter 3, Figure 18) advises caution on this score and, indeed, Rowe says these extra body parts are not to be taken literally. Nor are they merely filler motifs. They arise from a style in which the torsos of creatures and bodily appendages are com-pared metaphorically with something else. Torsos become long mouths set with fangs. The legs and feet of humans and the tails, wings, feet, and beaks of birds become tongues or necks. Each “neck” demands a fanged head, and each “tongue” demands another fanged head from whose mouth it protrudes. Human hair, feline whiskers, and small feathers are turned into snakes. The head of virtually any creature is rendered as a snarling jaguar. Rowe calls these substitutions “kennings” and says that once one learns the style, and thus learns to see through these kennings, “a surprising proportion of them turn out to be representations of natural bird, animal, and human forms” (Rowe 1967:82).32 Nonetheless, because Rowe main-tains that the jaguar mouth is a classifying attribute of divinity, those figures

32 Filler motifs are also present in the Chavín style, as abstract designs in later phases are transformed into snake and eye elements by a process of reading-in (Rowe 1967:81–82).

Figure 39. Depiction of a raptorial bird on a carved stone cornice, Chavín de Huantar, Peru (drawn after Rowe 1967:fig. 13, p. 101).


so equipped are said to be supernaturals, as their position as sculptures in a temple complex with highly elaborated kennings would support. So, according to Rowe they are divinities, yes, but not monstrous ones.33

As admirable as Rowe’s iconography of Chavín sculpture is in recom-mending many of the things advocated in this book – close attention to context, detailed understanding of the style, and consideration of the corpus by style phases, all preliminary to considerations of external refer-ence – his study nonetheless exhibits a potential minor blemish that is, for our purposes, instructive. Rowe believes he can detect the ranking of the deities from their contextual positions. The figures carved onto functional architectural features, such as on the columns flanking exterior portals, cannot be “cult figures” like the freestanding monolithic sculptures in the interior that seem to be the primary gods. To Rowe (1967:84), the exterior carvings must instead reference lesser supernaturals “stationed to guard the entrance to the temple, ‘angels’ in the original sense of the word; that is, supernatural messengers and attendants of the gods.” Possibly, but is there not a danger in this conclusion? One need only compare the Parthenon in Athens for a counterexample. The interior housed an enormous statue of Athena, the temple’s principal object of devotion much like the “Great Image” at Chavín, but the much smaller sculptures on the Parthenon’s exterior pediments are hardly subordinate to Athena, as they include Zeus himself! Rowe’s potential mistake is in not recognizing that the freestand-ing interior sculptures at Chavín de Huantar, hidden away from public view, and the outward-facing figures placed on exterior facades and portals are two different genres, and as we have pointed out, significance tends to shift with changes in genre as it does at the Parthenon.34

33 See Roe (2008:182) for the opposing view that all Chavín depictions in stone are mon-strous. Rowe’s use of “kenning” for the pattern of substitution at Chavín de Huantar is borrowed from Old Norse poetry, whose conventions demanded elaborate metaphorical substitutions, for example, “whale road” for the sea or “Odin’s mead” for poetry (Rowe 1967:79). The term is not entirely apt, for Old Norse kennings were judged for their novel-ty and creativity, whereas the Chavín substitutions are anything but that. While surprising to the Western eye, the Chavín metaphors are actually highly repetitious and narrowly conventionalized. Much more unfortunate is Mary Helms’s (1995) use of kenning for pars pro toto substitutions in Coclé imagery that are not metaphorical, such as snake markings for serpent qualities. Urton (1996:239–240) rejects the kenning concept in iconography, in our view correctly, pointing out that various kinds of literary substitutions may look exactly alike in their visual manifestations.

34 In a more recent work on Chavín iconography, Peter Roe approaches the corpus from the perspective of structuralist dualisms in a rather incautious, freewheeling, and speculative piece drawing primarily from Amazonian myth and belief. Roe agrees that the portal im-ages that Rowe called “angels” are indeed subordinate to the figures inside the temple (Roe 2008:205).


Of the god-terms listed above, the more generic are the safer from spec-ulation. In this book we have tended to favor the relatively neutral term supernatural. This principle of safety in relative neutrality can be general-ized to other subjects. Low-level, generic names like “personage” are pref-erable when the difference between a god and an ordinary human is less than certain (e.g., Pasztory 1982:14; Quilter 1997:122). If the subject is a the-rianthrope with some animal traits, “anthropomorph” may still be called for. Almost anything, of course, can be anthropomorphized. With increas-ing levels of confidence, increasing levels of specificity may be appropriate: is the subject merely a zoomorph, or can we call it a quadruped, a canid, or even a fox? Is it a snake or merely snakelike? Muller (1986:56) suggests “herpetomorph” for the latter. Others have used avimorph, theriomorph, and so forth. Although some of these are admittedly hard on the tongue, the historical trend of recent years in prehistoric iconography has been away from incautious or ethnographically derived naming conventions and toward the use of more neutral, nonprejudicial names.

Limits of Configurational Analysis

One of the more obvious sources of variability to be accounted for in a configurational analysis is the phenomenon of motif substitution, in which a set of two or more motifs can be found in the same graphic slot across compositions. A parallel phenomenon exists in hieroglyphic translation. In that linguistic context, similar glyphic substitutions routinely draw attention, the idea being that freely substituted forms are likely to be pho-netically equivalent allographs (see, e.g., Schele and Fahsen 1991). So, in iconographic as opposed to linguistic analysis, if we can establish a motif substitution set, what does that substitution tell us? Does it suggest that the substituted motifs are likely to have the same referent (Reilly 1996:416)? Or does it tell us the opposite – that the substitution implies a shift in reference (Peters 1991:252)? As before, any concept directly borrowed from a linguis-tic setting and applied to iconographic research should raise an immediate red flag, as visual imagery in iconographic as opposed to semasiographic or glottographic systems is not codelike in how it references things external to itself (see Chapter 1). But motif substitution must mean something.

In this book we have chosen to keep formal semiology at arm’s length, but here is a case in which such a detour may be helpful. In speaking of the asso-ciation of signs and symbols, scholars since Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913) have made a distinction, in different ways and using different terms, between metaphor, which depends on similarity, and metonymy, which


depends on contiguity (Jakobson and Halle 1956).35 Claude Lévi-Strauss (1966:215–216) and Edmund Leach (1976a:15), who have perhaps done the most to draw linguistic models into other realms of expressive culture, both use the term “paradigmatic series” for a set of items that can be substituted in the same structural slot. The single point of interest to the iconographer in all this is as follows. The items in a paradigmatic series can be there either because of the affinities of the elements or because of the differences – or both, just as the items listed in a restaurant menu under “appetizers” are all alike, in that they are all appetizers, and simultaneously all different, in that they are appetizers of distinct kinds. The fact of substitution by itself tells us nothing at all other than that a relationship of some kind holds among the elements in the same slot (see Langley 1986:21). To know what kind of rela-tionship is involved requires a knowledge of the surrounding iconographic cultural model in which the contrasts are embedded.36 In configurational analysis, the only additional source of information to which we might turn that is not entirely relational in nature is the limited kind of apprehension of subject matter that we have discussed in Chapter 3 under the name Hermerén’s principle of recognition.

Configurational analysis, which depends upon finding regular associ-ations between subcompositional elements in the search for stable themes, seems often thwarted by an evident lack of stability in associations of forms and by frequent substitution of a variety of salient features in the same slot. These considerations lead us to ask, how far can configurational analysis take us in an iconography of ancient images? Let us consider this question in the light of a case that historically has been rather inscrutable, that being the identity of the supernaturals in the mural paintings at Teotihuacán. Among these supernaturals, clusters of salient features are clearly present at the subcompositional level, yet no two portrayals are alike. The vari-ability in these images is so great that Pasztory (1973:147) was once led to ask whether new supernaturals at Teotihuacán might have been routinely invented for momentary needs.

It was at one time routine to interpret Teotihuacán mural painting within the context of the later Aztec pantheon of gods, making rather free use of Aztec names like Tlaloc, Xochiquetzal, and Chalchiuhtlicue. Whatever

35 For a discussion of the development of this terminology, see Leach (1976b:46–51).36 For example, in Teotihuacán mural painting, Langley (1986:58) notes two motifs, evidently

both associated with liquids, that have mutually exclusive distributions. Langley concludes that they are either alternative ideographs for the same thing, with their usage determined somehow by the broader context, or they are instead ideographs representing somewhat different ideas, such as liquids that are “flowing” versus “foamy.”


the merits of doing that, James Langley’s (1986) study, already cited sev-eral times herein, represented a departure from that practice in attempting perhaps the most thorough pure configurational analysis of this corpus in the post-Kubler era. For Langley, “interpretation” was not a goal, and eth-nographic sources were carefully avoided by him. This makes his work a valuable case study of exactly what can and cannot be concluded by reference to internal configurations alone, using only minimal identifica-tion of visual elements along the lines of what we have discussed herein as Hermerén’s principle.

Langley’s study has a number of features that may be considered lauda-tory in view of the approach advocated in this book: (1) he explicitly avoids earlier interpretations in an effort not to be biased by them; (2) he makes an exhaustive attempt to assemble the largest possible corpus of works for analysis; (3) he uses neutral, descriptive names for subcompositional elem-ents to avoid prejudging the outcome; (4) his analysis is both thorough and rigorous, making use of a computer database for judging associations; (5) he is sensitive to the distinction between salient features that are classify-ing attributes and those that are identifying attributes relative to the major themes; (6) he makes a deliberate attempt to isolate ideographs whose clus-tering might indicate a semasiographic component in an otherwise icono-graphic system; and (7) he is cautious and conservative in his conclusions.

In contrast to the well-populated Aztec pantheon, nowadays iconogra-phers generally acknowledge only five major supernaturals in early Classic period Teotihuacán: a Storm God, a Goddess, a Fat God, a Flayed God, and an Old God (Pasztory 1997:179; Von Winning 1977). Of these, only the first two are shown in mural painting. In this chapter we have already dis-cussed the distinction between two “aspects” of the Storm God first dem-onstrated by Pasztory (1974), one relatively benign and beneficent and the other martial in character. Langley’s subsequent configurational analysis basically verifies this distinction but qualifies it: there are depictions with traits cumulatively sufficient to identity them as the Storm God, with water/fertility associations like the rest, but that cannot be clearly assigned to either aspect. They possess “hybrid” collections of attributes. However, nothing holds these hybrid images together as a third category (Langley 1986:77). Teotihuacán artisans, it appears, used classifying attributes to modify the character of individual images in ways that defy a clean dichotomy but that were nonetheless probably quite well understood by competent beholders (Pasztory 1997:104). The same thing is true of murals of the Goddess com-plex, which are also highly variable; there are, in fact, images that seem to combine traits of both Storm God and Goddess (Pasztory 1997:85–87,


179–180). Studies such as Langley’s lend clarity to what seems a perplex-ing variability by showing that most of it can be reduced to the manipula-tion of classifying attributes rather than the much rarer identifiers. Finally, Pasztory (1997:87) reminds us that the visual themes to which names are given, such as the Goddess, have the status of externally imposed analytical constructs.

This is perhaps as far as one can go with configurational analysis. Clearly, visual themes can be identified, and where there are supernaturals, that fact can reasonably be supported along with a rudimentary discussion of their gender and roles. Variations can be explained by discriminating between classifying and identifying attributes, by assessing the role of cumulative sufficiency, and by examining how pars pro toto depiction works within the corpus. By knowing the genre, the style, the natural environment, and the archaeological context, natural prototypes of elements often can be reasonably identified. Additionally, the role of ideographs and narrative in the system potentially can be established, all without significant reference to ethnographic sources.

It is probable that some corpora will remain inscrutable and will con-tinue to exhibit a bewildering variability resistant to this sort of analysis. Failure to solve such puzzles may result from a combination of factors. Foremost among these is sample size, for only with a relatively large corpus can an outsider expect to fully grasp the workings of cumulative sufficiency, or contrasting aspects or guises of the same theme marked by different combinations of classifying attributes. Another inhibiting factor will be the inability to restrict the analysis to the products of a synchronic commu-nity of interacting artisans at a small scale, in which we can safely assume that artisans and audiences shared the same cultural iconographic models. Finally, we must anticipate cases in which artisans were working within much more highly specialized iconographic models that were shared at an even narrower scale by intelligentsia or priesthoods, in which layers of eso-terica may be manifested that could not have been correctly interpreted by ordinary rural audiences of the time, even though they might have shared more general visual models (see, e.g., Knight 1989; Muller 1986:64–66; Proskouriakoff 1950:182; Roe 1991:320; Walker 1993:399). It must be remem-bered, in the latter case, that the purpose of visual imagery is not always clear communication, which is a more than sufficient reason to purge linguistic translation models from our iconographic vocabulary.37

37 Thus, in place of the increasingly popular notion of “visual literacy,” we would substitute “competency in the cultural iconographic model.”


Because Kubler claimed that a limited form of iconography can be done via configurational analysis alone, let us now ask, what is the iconographic status of visual themes? In this chapter we have distinguished between these empirical units, recognized as organizations of forms revealed by internal configurations, and their external themes of reference – themes in the Panofskyan sense. Nonetheless, few analysts, even of the most conserva-tive bent, are content to develop visual themes purely as forms, without any labeling of referents. Instead, analysts commonly recognize and label things. Visual themes are thus populated by birds, serpents, and cats; mountains, water, and plants; spears, shields, and masks; personages and supernaturals, all labeled as such. Recognition of natural prototypes of visual forms, as we have said before, although subject to powerful bias, is nonetheless very profitably informed by a knowledge of style, by a knowledge of the natural environment, and by a knowledge of the field archaeology. Thus, while we have advocated for conservative labeling at this level, we have hardly disavowed any labeling at all. Remembering that iconography only asks, “What is the referent?” we can now agree with Kubler that we can not only define actors and agents in these visual configurations but also say some limited things about their roles and interactions. Configurational analysis does, then, result in a kind of iconography. Returning to Panofsky’s dis-dainful example of a bushman interpreting The Last Supper as “an excited dinner party” (Chapter 1), Panofsky actually manages to convey our own standing with some accuracy. The bushman’s crude diagnosis may very well resemble our own efforts in its lack of specificity. Nonetheless, one must remember that Panofsky’s bushman is not mistaken. He has made a valid iconographic interpretation, one that might be improved by a config-urational analysis of related paintings in the same style.

We are still a far cry from any defensible reconstruction of native icono-graphic models, those “diagnostic models” shared by the original beholders relating images to themes of reference. If the ultimate goal of a prehis-toric iconography is to go beyond this point in apprehending native icon-ographic models and their themes of reference, we will have to consider one additional kind of evidence, ethnographic analogy. Only then can we assess, in a fuller sense, how far one can expect to travel along this road.

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Chapter 5

Ethnographic Analogy

Ethnographic analogy, as noted in Chapter 1, is the use of colonial-period and later ethnographic sources (the “source side” of the analogy) projected backward in time to illuminate the past (the “subject side”). Perhaps no topic in the history of ancient iconography has been so fraught with dis-agreement as this one. Its advocacy or its dismissal has given rise to diver-gent schools of thought, and it was once the tip of the wedge in a rift between art-historical and anthropological attitudes about the interpreta-tion of ancient images. In this chapter we will explore what ethnographic analogy is, more precisely, and where it might fit in a program of research, with special attention to the limitations that have led numerous scholars to keep it at arm’s length.

Despite the typically fragmented, incomplete nature of the sources, eth-nographically known texts, beliefs, and mythology are almost irresistible as vivid source material for interpreting ancient imagery. It is common-place, in the history of iconographic interpretation in a given region, that early efforts simplistically overrely on these sources, going through a phase in which ancient images are treated more or less as illustrations of eth-nographically known material. In these early efforts, antiquity tends to be assumed for historically known systems of belief and ritual practice that are uncritically transferred, wholesale, into ancient contexts. Such was the case in pre-Columbian iconography prior to the 1960s, leading George Kubler to throw down a gauntlet, accusing his coworkers in Mesoamerica of ignor-ing the phenomenon of disjunction (see Chapter 3). It was in reaction to this uncritical use of postcontact source material that Kubler devised his configurational approach, intended to proceed without ethnographic analogy.

Kubler’s critique was biting: “However lucid they may be, foreign texts of late date should not be forced to explain matter beyond their own

Ethnographic Analogy 131

scope without painstaking calibrations. When Thomas Aquinas explained Aristotle, he explained his own mind more than the Stagyrite’s. When Sahagun codified the reports of many Aztec informants [in the sixteenth century], they were no more concerned with classic Maya life than St. Thomas was with pharonic Egypt” (Kubler 1969:48). Elsewhere, Kubler (1970:144) wrote, “The idea of disjunction . . . makes every ethnological analogy questionable, by insisting upon discontinuity rather than its oppo-site whenever long durations are under discussion.”

Kubler was struggling against a vision of Mesoamerican history cast as a great unified cultural tradition with a single basic religion, hav-ing ancient roots in an Olmec “mother culture” (Coe 1973:8).1 Kubler’s vision of Mesoamerican history was very different, more like that of the old Mediterranean, punctuated by cultural upheavals, regional differ-ences in elite culture, and rapid change (Quilter 1996:303). When called upon to answer this challenge, Gordon Willey (1973) reiterated his belief in the unity of Mesoamerican basic culture, but at the same time called for a more responsible approach to using analogy in the interpretation of images. He called for attention to evidence of not only continuities but also discontinuities in the general technological, demographic, and ecological forms of the societies being compared and in the specific social, political, and religious institutions that generated visible images in each.

Iconographers have since staked out a variety of positions that tend to occupy a middle ground. Broad claims of unity of belief across centuries and millennia are not nearly so facile as they once were, while at the same time even Kubler’s most dedicated followers admit that he overstated his case against analogy (e.g., Pasztory 1976:110). Moreover, representatives of both the humanities and the social sciences have sought rapprochement on the issue (e.g., Grieder 1975; Klein 1982; Pasztory 1973). Generally speaking, cultural continuity is still the basic model in Mesoamerica, though now in a somewhat muted guise, while disjunction and avoidance of ethnographic analogy is currently the basic paradigm in Andean studies (Quilter 1996). While there has been no real resolution of the issue nor an emergent con-sensus, configurational analysis and ethnographic analogy are no longer seen as radically different, competing schools of thought. They are instead

1 It seems common sense that ethnographic analogy is enhanced where there is evidence, as there is in Mesoamerica, of broad and chronologically deep unity of basic culture and belief. Such reasoning may get to be dangerously circular, however, where historical homologues (from, for example, the sixteenth-century writings of Bernardino de Sahagún) are routinely invoked in demonstrating that basic unity in the first place.


viewed in methodological terms as approaches that are to some degree complementary and compatible.

Distinct Roles of Analogy

Since Kubler and Willey faced off on this issue nearly forty years ago, there has been much productive rethinking of the theoretical status of ethno-graphic analogy in archaeology. One of the most profound outcomes of this rethinking is the realization that virtually all archaeological reasoning is inescapably analogical (Wylie 1985). It is easy to understand why this must be so. Ancient artifacts or structures do not directly tell us what they are, or what they were for. The only frame of reference we have for talking about them is one derived from the documented present, from a basically ethnographic knowledge of human potentials for existing in the world. We draw on this known range of possibilities all the time, without much thought or comment. When archaeologists call flaked triangular flints “spear points,” when they identify circular or rectangular patterns of post molds as “houses,” or when they identify aggregations of these as ancient towns and villages, such identifications are so deeply ingrained in our rep-ertoire of concepts that it is easy to forget the ethnographic origins of each (Hodder 1983:11–12). In iconography, all talk of cultural models, of systems of beliefs, of mythic referents, of communities, of artisans, of elites, and of ritual is thoroughly grounded in ethnographically framed possibilities. It follows that the projection of ethnographic sources onto antiquity is not simply a methodological tool to be brought to bear or put back in the tool belt as the case requires. It is invested already in every part of our vocabu-lary, in our unspoken knowledge of how humans relate to one another and to their environment.

In the previous chapters, emphasis was placed on the indispensability of an immersion in archaeological field data, both for comprehending style and for analyzing suprastylistic forms. Recognizing visual themes and salient features demands a knowledge of the material culture of the time and place. But insofar as recognizing and naming such things as thrones, weapons, masks, or incense burners is in part analogical, as just described, then configurational analysis, despite the intentions of Kubler, is already infused with ethnographic analogy.

In the light of these observations, when we speak of the methodolog-ical virtues or shortcomings of “ethnographic analogy” in iconographic research, we really mean something much more specific. We need to dis-tinguish, in fact, between certain logically separate operations that may not


be well served by that covering term. Most writers on the topic of ethno-graphic analogy seek to define “types” of analogy, which vary either accord-ing to the specific nature of the ethnographic source or else according to the formal properties of the source:subject equation. For our purposes, we need only distinguish between two things: general comparative analogy and historical homology.

General Comparative Analogy

General comparative analogy relies for its “source side” on generaliza-tions drawn from a large number of historically unrelated societies. These generalizations may be of the type routinely investigated by cross-cultural, or holocultural, research (Ember and Ember 1998). Typically, these are statistically evaluated correlations tested against a worldwide sample of traditional societies. Or they may be generalizations based on more infor-mal surveys, such as the role of representational art in legitimating polit-ical office in chiefdoms (Earle 1990); the relations between craft making, exchange, and political power (Helms 1993); the nature of the supernatural in traditional religions (Hultkrantz 1983); or the functions of shamanic art (Pasztory 1982). The value of these analogies as applied to specific prehis-toric contexts lies in the authority of a broad base of comparison, together with the possibility of directly investigating why certain social, technolog-ical, and demographic variables tend to go together (Wylie 1985:93–105). Thus one common recommendation for strengthening analogical infer-ence is to restrict it to societies of similar economy, technology, and demog-raphy (Ascher 1961; Willey 1973). It is this quasi-evolutionary outlook that underlies Pasztory’s approach in her book Thinking with Things: Toward a New Vision of Art (2005). One of its basic ideas is that, since visual expres-sive culture is the handmaiden of society, visual forms undergo fundamen-tal, qualitative transformations from village-level societies to states and empires.

What does a general comparative analogy look like in a specific icono-graphic application? For an example, let us turn to an ethnological gener-alization having to do with animal symbolism. As early as 1905, Durkheim and Mauss pointed out that in small-scale traditional societies, peoples’ systems of classification of the natural world are closely coordinated with social classifications. In this manner, social categories in these societies are justified and reinforced by comparing them to distinctions made in the natural world. Later symbolic anthropologists followed up on this insight by suggesting further ways in which animal categories and ritual attitudes


toward animals are related to social distinctions. Based on her work among the Lele, a central African tribe, Mary Douglas (1966) proposed that in any indigenous system of animal classification, the criteria for category mem-bership will marginalize some species. These marginal species, being nei-ther one thing nor another, become prime candidates for special religious status and food taboos. Thus the Lele’s reverence for the pangolin, or scaly anteater, was due to the fact that it was anomalous relative to their native intellectual system of categorizing animals. Stanley Tambiah (1969), who worked among northern Thai villagers, and Ralph Bulmer (1967), who con-ducted research among the Karam of New Guinea, both concluded that animals attracting special ritual attention were used as metaphors for rules regulating appropriate marriage, relations among kin, and proper social distance. They found that ritually important animals could be anomalous in ways other than appearance, for example, by exhibiting behaviors seen as violating key social values among humans. Such animals were invari-ably the objects of food prohibitions. Do ethnological generalizations such as these help explain specific archaeological cases of animals selected for iconographic representation in ritual?

Milanich and colleagues (1997:163–184) think they do. In the Weeden Island culture of northern Florida (ca. a.d. 400–700), pottery animal effi-gies were used in connection with mortuary practices in which the dead were first deposited in charnel houses, with the bones redeposited later in earthen burial mounds (Figure 40). These animal effigies were used only in ritual, perhaps displayed for a time at the charnel houses and then bur-ied in caches with the dead; fragments do not occur in ordinary household refuse. They are hollow and made like pots but are not functional vessels since they often have holes cut deliberately into the sides and bases. The style is such that specific species from the natural environment can often be identified. Most common are water birds, including spoonbills and ibises, owls, and turkey vultures, sometimes juxtaposed with dogs. Importantly, comparison with an extensive species list of vertebrate animal remains from a contemporaneous habitation site in northern Florida shows that none of the above were ever used as food; they were perhaps tabooed. All are conceivably “anomalous.” In historic southeastern Indian belief, sky and water were cosmologically opposed categories and creatures from these two realms are often depicted in myth as in conflict. But spoonbills and ibises are wading birds that feed in shallow water, crossing this boundary routinely. Unlike other raptorial birds, owls are nocturnal hunters and are often startling to humans with their large, front-facing eyes. Vultures and dogs could be anomalous for behavioral reasons. Both are indiscriminate


in their food habits, often offensively to humans, both cavalierly violate human boundaries, and dogs are notoriously incestuous. Except for the food bone evidence, all this is speculative, of course, but plausible, and the same animals have ritual roles in other traditional societies, sometimes demonstrably for these reasons. If Weeden Island culture ritual animals were selected for their marginal appearance or behavior, they would have been suitable symbols of the difficult and protracted rites of passage and taboo surrounding human funerals (see Leach 1976a:33–36). But, however plausible the model may be, it highlights the problem of verification. The strength of such analogies rests almost entirely on the breadth of the com-parative ethnographic base. The model is compelling only to the degree that it can be shown that ritual animals are selected for their anomalous properties as a principle of traditional classification systems in general, globally.

Historical Homology

General comparative analogy provides excellent examples of analogical reasoning, subject to all its advantages and pitfalls. However, most of the

Figure 40. Pottery animal effigies used in ritual, Weeden Island culture, Florida: (a) dogs and vulture; (b) owl (photographs courtesy of the Collections of the Anthropology Division, Florida Museum of Natural History, Cat. Nos. A-10952, PN2008.4.358).


discussion, and most of the rhetorical heat, surrounding the issue of ethno-graphic analogy in prehistoric iconography has been generated by a differ-ent and more common mode of inference. In it, the investigator establishes that the source ethnographic material belongs to the same cultural tradi-tion as the subject to be interpreted. Source and subject here need not be in a direct ancestor-descendant relationship of peoples, which is in any case difficult to demonstrate, but more generally they must be linked by a line of cultural transmission of some kind. The key assumption is one of historical continuity, whether direct or indirect, in which source and sub-ject traits belong to the same cultural “lineage.” As Berlo (1983:3) correctly points out (see also Lyman and O’Brien 2001:318; Trigger 1996:510), the claim is therefore one of homology rather than analogy strictly speaking, since the traits being compared on the source and subject sides are not merely analogous but are aspects of the same thing, sharing a common ancestry historically transmitted through time and space. The logic of adequacy in establishing homologies in the service of iconographic infer-ence relies almost entirely on establishing how relevant the ethnographic source is to the subject. Let us review four dimensions by which this rele-vance might be judged.

Proximity in Time

Iconographers (and archaeologists generally) have long understood that the demonstration of historical homologies to infer past conditions is strongest when the chronological gap is small between the ethnographic source and archaeological subject. In cases in which source and subject come demon-strably from the same ethnolinguistic group captured at two moments, one late prehistoric and the other fully historic, and there is accordingly some definite grasp of any intervening disruptions, the situation favors more robust iconographic modeling based on the ethnography. In con-trast, as archaeological subjects descend into the more and more remote past, confidence quickly diminishes in keeping with the greater length of the cultural connection and the potential unknowns in cultural trans-mission (Freeman 1968:263; Grieder 1975:853–854; Lyman and O’Brien 2001:317–318). It is impossible to offer specific chronological guidelines (in centuries, for example) beyond which the risks of disjunction are too great, because the real issue is not really remoteness in time directly but rather the increasing likelihood, over time, of changes in the social institutions that generate representational imagery.


Principle #14. Confidence in a historical homology diminishes with greater chronological distance between the ethnographic source and the prehistoric subject to be interpreted.

Breadth of the Comparative Base

In cases in which ethnographically derived source traits are very broadly shared across a culture area, the relevance of historically homologous traits may be said to be enhanced. Such a breadth of sharing, where it can be demonstrated, compensates, if only in a small way, for the usual spotti-ness and fragmentary nature of our ethnographic sources. Extraordinarily broad and uniform distributions of cultural traits suggest the antiquity of those traits – although recent diffusion of some traits due to panregional phenomena like the historic Ghost Dance of the late nineteenth century (Mooney 1896) cannot be dismissed. Some basic cosmological schemes are very widely shared among traditional societies across areas of nearly continental scope. The antiquity of these cosmological models in the same regions is normally unquestioned. Their use as historically homologous sources is, to that extent, justified and their use has resulted in insightful iconographic modeling (e.g., Lankford 2004, 2007).

Goodness of Fit

The greater the similarity between the details of source and subject, and the greater the complexity and integration of the matching traits, the more relevant historically homologous connections can be said to be.2 A proper assessment, however, cannot be one of merely adding up the total similar-ity. In judging goodness of fit, it cannot be emphasized strongly enough that a systematic comparison of source and subject must weigh conflicting traits in the ancient subject against any similarities found with the ethnographic source, as well as those traits that lack any counterpart in the source (see Wylie 1985:97–98). Nor is goodness of fit simply a matter of finding similar traits and assessing these against dissimilarities. Iconographic inference is

2 See Cowgill (1992) for an example of the application of an Aztec source to a Teotihuacán motif that seems compelling precisely because of the specificity and complexity of the comparison. A Teotihuacán mural image featuring a flowering tree infixed by a red-painted bone motif has a highly specific counterpart in a sixteenth-century Aztec liturgical chant that uses the term “red bone flower.”


far more compelling if it can be demonstrated that the underlying configu-rations of these similar traits are the same in the source and subject – in other words, that their interrelationships are also intact.

Generative Quality

Historical homologies that are compelling, in the sense that a strong case can be established for any of the dimensions of relevance discussed above, also tend to have a generative quality that goes beyond the value of any immediate inference. Well-established homologies not only stand the test of time but also exhibit a kind of momentum leading to unanticipated discoveries in closely related domains. They have a generative quality in pointing to unforeseen cultural connections in a manner that would be highly unlikely if the comparisons were fundamentally flawed.

The Direct Historical Approach

From a methodological standpoint, we need to make a careful distinction between the approach advocated in this volume, on the one hand, and what is known as the direct historical approach on the other, which have in common that they both take advantage of historical homologies to make inferences about the past. The direct historical approach, also known as “upstreaming,” is a venerable method in archaeology, formally named in the 1930s but having a long prior history (Lyman and O’Brien 2001; Wedel 1938). It begins with abundantly documented ethnographic or eth-nohistorical data, the idea being to trace these phenomena backward into antiquity, from known to unknown, as far as the archaeological record will permit. Perhaps most notably, the approach has been adopted in efforts to infer ethnicity among prehistoric groups. This noble, but difficult, goal is attempted by establishing material culture patterns for a historically docu-mented group and thence tracking these specific, ethnically linked pat-terns through progressively earlier contexts into the prehistoric past.

The direct historical approach thus begins with expectations developed from ethnographic documentation and asks to what degree prehistoric phe-nomena, believed to be homologous, conform to these expectations. This retrodictive approach is explicitly advocated by Marcus and Flannery (1994) for reconstructing ancient Zapotec ritual and religion in Oaxaca, Mexico, where the approach is said to be justified by the richness of Zapotec eth-nohistorical sources and their extraordinary degree of continuity with the prehistoric past. In favoring this approach, Marcus and Flannery do not


shrink from using historic Zapotec names for prehistoric objects, including temples, pottery figurines, and representational depictions of blood, ser-pents, and the Lightning God. Similarly, Pasztory (1974) employs the direct historical approach (although without using that term) in her study of what is now known as the Teotihuacán Storm God. Starting with the observation that many of the images at Teotihuacán have been indiscriminately labeled Tlaloc, the name of the much later Aztec rain god, she sets out to icon-ographically identify the true ancient version, the “Teotihuacán Tlaloc,” by retrodicting its characteristics from an Aztec manuscript. In her words, “taking the Codex Borgia representation of Tlaloc as a typical Post-Classic example, an attempt [is] made to find the closest iconographic parallel to it” (Pasztory 1974:6–7).

The approach is open to the charge of presentism, in which the prehis-toric past comes to be seen, if only inadvertently, as a mere “version” of the historic horizon, a somewhat altered variant of what is already known. By beginning with the ethnographic materials and developing from them a series of expectations about the past based on assumed cultural continuity, later configurations are privileged. Adherents of the method routinely apply historic, ethnolinguistically derived labels to more or less remotely prehis-toric phenomena, including ethnonyms (sometimes qualified as “proto-[people X]”), names for items of material culture, and, perhaps especially pertinent to the case at hand, the names of supernaturals (again sometimes qualified as “the [earlier culture period] version of [God X]”). Thus, for example, the existence of an elaborated origin myth or pantheon of deities leads inexorably to a search for the ancient “versions” of these, the assump-tions being not only that direct early counterparts exist but also that any alterations of these homologues over time should be readily identifiable.

This privileging of the historic record is precisely where early attempts to make use of homologies often foundered, in that the profound bias inher-ent in such an approach leads to a past that comes to look invariably like the historic horizon. “For this reason,” says Brown (2007:63), “classic appli-cations of the direct historical approach fall short by rarely focusing on the telling discontinuities.” It is precisely this bias in favor of cultural continu-ity that configurational analysis was designed to overcome, a “bottom-up” approach allowing past configurations a degree of independence to which later ethnographic realities may or may not conform. We have stressed, in reference to prehistoric iconography, that the constant process of dis-junction between forms and their referents confounds the assumption of continuity over long periods (Trigger 1996:510–511). In the previous chapter we have already advocated for neutral labeling of prehistoric motifs and


themes in contrast to using names extracted from specific historic contexts and applied anachronistically to much earlier materials.

The Role of Cognates

The question is not whether to use historical homologues in informing pre-historic iconographic models but how to use them as a matter of method. What is the best way to think about homologues? As just reviewed, to begin with a cultural model from the historic horizon and survey the archaeolog-ical record for matching details is to invite an undesirable presentism that overwhelms the past subject. Instead, it is helpful to bear in mind that an ethnographic source, established as homologous to an ancient native cul-tural model of the same domain, has no necessary priority over the older model. All that is implied is that the two, removed from one another in time, are mutually related in sharing a common cultural ancestry. That is why past configurations are better established independently, using supra-stylistic formal units in a configurational analysis. Only then should poten-tial homologues be brought to bear, with equal attention to correlations, contradictions, and elements missing in each manifestation relative to the other.3 One, then, establishes cognates in the two horizons rather than pre-historic identities founded on the fuller knowledge of the ethnographic present. The two horizons are not merged into one. Respect must be shown to visual features that may not correspond to anything known in the ethno-graphic present, features that may reference beliefs and narratives that have not survived in any form. These mismatches are not to be dropped from the analysis, but rather put to use in evaluating the overall goodness of fit and relevance of the homology.

This difference in perspective can be illustrated by reference to the Popol Vuh, a document that has had extraordinary importance in understanding Classic Maya religious belief and iconography. The Popol Vuh pertains to the ruling house of the Quiché Maya of highland Guatemala, south of the lowland Peten region where many Classic Maya city-states flourished before a.d. 900. It is believed to have been written around the year 1550 and was discovered and copied by a Spanish priest in the seventeenth century.

3 Marcus and Flannery (1994:56–57) claim to avoid the presentism inherent in the direct historical approach by closely attending to archaeological evidence that is contradicted by the ethnohistoric sources as well as to evidence that confirms their expectations. More generally, they insist that the direct historical approach is not inherently compromised, because its practitioners have consistently been concerned with change as well as with cultural continuity.


One of the most important parts of the document is an elaborate Twins nar-rative (see Radin 1950) that describes the tricking and defeat of the Lords of Death in the otherworld land of Xibalba by one of two different sets of hero twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, who afterward ascend to the sky to become solar and lunar deities.

The close, homologous relationship between certain scenes depicted on Classic Maya cylinder vases and episodes of the Popol Vuh was first set forth explicitly by Michael Coe (1973), who hypothesized that the painted, incised, and carved scenes on funerary pottery had mythic referents and that the visual setting was the Maya otherworld, called Xibalba in the Popol Vuh. Granting this, it would be an easy, exciting jump from here to say that the Maya cylinder vases illustrate episodes of the Popol Vuh and that the twin protagonists depicted thereon are Hunahpu and Xbalanque. But that would be a mistake; the vases do not illustrate the Popol Vuh. Their proper relationship is best explained by Schele and Freidel (1990:428n23): “It is important to bear in mind . . . that the Popol Vuh does not register direct transmission of the Classic Maya cosmology or theology any more than the Old Testament registers directly the beliefs of the Sumerians. In both instances, we are dealing with long and complicated literary and theo-logical traditions. Ultimately, our interpretations of the Classic Maya real-ity must be anchored in the contemporary Classic period texts, images, and archaeological record.” Coe (1973:12–16), in fact, shows ample respect for the cultural distance between the scenes on Classic Maya vases and colonial-period sources in Mesoamerica, using words like cognates and cor-respondences to indicate relations between the two. In a manner consistent with a strict configurational analysis, as outlined in the previous chapter, he identifies recurrent graphic figures in the imagery, including two sets of nearly identical young gods who are sometimes shown in confrontation with grotesque old gods. To these configurational sets (and others) he gives neutral names: the Young Lords and the Headband Gods, only then sug-gesting that these are cognate with the two sets of hero twins named in the Popol Vuh, just as certain other divinities (Gods L and M in the Schellhas [1904] nomenclature) are cognate with the Lords of Xibalba in the his-toric Quiché text.4 In this exercise, clearly two things are true: the Popol

4 Although, in this seminal work, Coe does honor the relative independence of the Maya vase corpus and shows many signs of wanting to keep the ethnohistoric sources at arm’s length from a configurational analysis of that corpus on its own terms, at the same time he is a strong advocate of the concept of a single unified Mesoamerican religion (Coe 1973:8). In keeping with that conviction, he states that the Twins myth related in the Popol Vuh “must have been known to all Mesoamericans” (Coe 1973:13). In his text and captions,


Vuh Twins narrative contains numerous episodes that are not depicted on any known Classic Maya cylinder vases and, conversely, the Classic funer-ary vases depict numerous scenes of evident otherworld confrontation that have no counterpart in the Popol Vuh (Coe 1973:16).

The interpretive breakthrough established by making this connection is, however, undisputed. The adorned vases are funerary vessels, their subject matter is mythic, the setting is the Maya otherworld, and the protagonists include two different sets of hero twins. The Classic Maya vision of the oth-erworld in the southern lowlands, moreover, must have been roughly com-parable to the richly described Xibalba of the sixteenth-century Popol Vuh (and, judging from the vase scenes, more complex than is described in the historic text). If the main task of the hero twins, to defeat death and live on as venerated ancestors, is a widespread narrative motif in time and space, as seems likely, then it is reasonable to think that a similar afterlife journey was expected of those humans buried with vessels carrying this imagery. Moreover, the insight is generative, in the sense described earlier in this chapter. It leads to otherwise unanticipated discoveries, as that of Mary Miller’s (1975) interpretation of late Classic Maya pottery figurines from Jaina Island as also cognate with characters described in the Popol Vuh. If true, this further insight tells us much about the purpose of the well-known figurines at the Jaina necropolis (see Chapter 2, Figure 10). The homology, in the cases of both Classic Maya cylinder vases and Jaina figurines, reveals new information about the genres of the objects to be interpreted.

Disjunction and the Social Contexts of Production

The point of Kubler’s indictment of ethnographic analogy for interpret-ing ancient images was that visual homologues often survive in the face of profound structural disruption that alters the contexts in which imagery was produced. Thus, in evaluating any homology, it is not enough merely to point out forms that are cognates. Especially in the New World, where early European colonization was accompanied by severe depopulation and rapid reorganization of indigenous social, political, and religious life, a sufficient demonstration of relevance must include not only the criteria already discussed but also a consideration of what has changed, and how, relative to the production of expressive or aesthetic culture of all kinds. In

he occasionally slips into language suggesting that Classic Maya vase scenes do in fact illustrate episodes from the Popol Vuh, using the names of the protagonists not merely as cognates but as identifiers (e.g., Coe 1973:14, 17, 44, 53, 93, 124).


other words, disjunction must be explicitly taken into account. General observations about cultural “continuity” in some domains must not be used to gloss over the fact that social contexts of image and myth produc-tion have long and textured histories, histories that are inevitably ones of change and difference. Brown (2007:62–71), for one, recommends casting such an investigation in terms of changes in political economy. In complex societies, privileged political statuses are legitimized by chartering myths, ritual performance, and visual imagery that tie these statuses to sacred propositions. Because sacralized political statuses in chiefdoms and early states are underwritten by aspects of expressive culture, the social frame-works that accompany these statuses are especially fertile ground for pro-ducing visual imagery. In communally organized societies in which power is broadly shared rather than centrally concentrated, political relations and the distribution of power tend to be chartered by myth as well. Rights and obligations are given a supernatural sanction, and the whole is reinforced by ritual performance. What is critical in either case is that the call to trans-late oral traditions and ritual performance into visual imagery, particularly of the costly, skillfully crafted kind, tends to be narrowly confined to spe-cific kinds of institutions, as noted in Chapter 1. Understanding these con-texts of production is requisite to properly identifying the genres in which the works are conceived, which is in turn a necessary component of the study of style. Such questions as these, of course, are not iconographic; they lie well beyond the business of identifying subject matter. They are questions, ultimately, of organization and function, and they return us to the necessity of an immersion in the contextual record of archaeological field investigations.

Myth as a Source of Iconographic Interpretation

Historically collected mythic texts are especially favored as sources for inter-preting representational imagery of the remote past.5 This is because it is widely believed that myth has some sort of immunity to other-than-superficial change, an inherent conservatism that is not shared by other domains of culture (Dundes 1962:1034). As Keyes (1994:106) puts the matter, myth tends to be “perceived as a timeless thing that can be lost through acculturation but which is, as long as it exists, absolutely conservative. This assumption is so deep-rooted that many scholars use nineteenth- and twentieth-century

5 For a useful definition of myth as a category of folklore, as distinguished from legends and folktales, see Bascom (1965).


mythology and ceremony to interpret thirteenth-century iconography with-out the slightest hesitation.”6 Let us examine this notion of the special sta-tus of myth as a timeless, conservative source.

At first glance, the idea seems contrary to almost everything else we know about the cultural contexts and oral transmission of narratives. Like all other cultural domains, myth is historically contingent, generated and regener-ated in changing social circumstances where it meets immediate needs. Anthropological approaches to the study of myth have been especially keen to portray it in its living context, as a kind of performance akin to ritual, an “uttered rite” emanating from specific social institutions that exist in con-crete historical circumstances that come and go. The purpose of myth has been said to be the provision of a stable dogma to undergird a status quo of pragmatic behavior (James 1957; Malinowski 1954:144–148). Especially in an oral environment without materialization in written texts, myth would seem just as prone to reformulation over time as any other aspect of expres-sive culture. But the idea of myth’s timelessness is not completely without basis, because within the geography of myth lie some extraordinary facts.

For reasons that are not well understood (Dundes 1962:1036), some mythic motifs and even complex mythic structures have pancontinental geographic distributions that suggest considerable antiquity. An excellent example has already been introduced in this chapter. The Twins myth in the Popol Vuh of the Quiché Maya of Guatemala is part of a much larger myth complex found in northern South America, Mesoamerica, and the North American Southwest, Plains, and Eastern Woodlands (Lankford 1987:160–175; Metraux 1946; Radin 1950).7 This sprawling distribution is not just an accident of independent invention; a number of specific motifs are readily seen as cognates, including such elements as unusual birth, deadly trials, a ball game, and the apotheosis of the protagonists (all present in the Popol Vuh text). If that geographical distribution were to be consid-ered a product of diffusion sometime within approximately the past two millennia, it would fly in the face of the archaeology: there is no archaeo-logical evidence of long-distance contact at anything remotely comparable to that scale. One might counter that there is archaeological evidence of much smaller interregional connections between parts of that distribution that might add up to the sum, but the archaeological reality is that these far-flung culture areas were mostly insular, the evidence of interchange

6 Note the use of “iconography” in this quoted passage as a synonym for “representational imagery.” See Chapter 1, note 2.

7 So ubiquitous are Twins tales in the northern hemisphere that Radin (1950) calls the Twins complex “the basic myth of the North American Indians.”


is mostly slim, and by no means is the level of interregional interaction commensurate with the distributional scope and degree of similarity of the mythic material. The alternative explanation is that the Twins complex in these areas comes from an ancient, common substrate, so little altered by transmission that it is still plainly recognizable across two continents.

It is not merely mythic imagery but also relatively complex plot lines that have extraordinary geographic distributions. Consider the myth of two hunter companions who, when away from their village, encounter unusual food. One companion warns the other of the danger of eating the food, but the other ignores the advice and eats it anyway. The offender of the taboo gradually finds himself transformed into a huge horned water serpent, whereupon he is led to water. Family and neighbors come to visit the victim, and thereafter a flood engulfs the place. This myth of the Snake-man, with little variation in detail, is geographically concentrated among American Indian groups in the Eastern Woodlands and Plains of North America, with apparent cognates extending to the Southwest. However, the same myth was also collected, in precisely the form described above, as far afield as the Sumu living on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua (Lankford 1987:83–105; Rands 1954). Again, something other than diffusion by direct or even indi-rect culture contact, for which archaeological evidence is nonexistent, has to be involved in this extraordinary distribution. The myth is, again, pre-sumably ancient, traceable to the Archaic origins of all these peoples.

A third example will drive home the point. The cosmogonic myth of the Earth-Diver, in which a lesser being dives beneath the waters of the primor-dial sea to recover a bit of mud that is then magically expanded to become the present earth, has a geographic distribution that is said to be circumbo-real and beyond. Earl W. Count, who collected 230 versions, calls it “easily one of the most widespread single concepts held by man. It stretches from Finland across Eurasia – roughly, over the USSR, the Balkans, Mongolia, and Turkestan; it even appears in India and southeastern Asia; and it cov-ers most of North America, excepting the Eskimo, the Northwest Pacific Coast, the Southwest, and most of the Southeast” (Count 1967:55). No folklorist, even if unconvinced of the Old World–New World continuity, could possibly doubt the great antiquity of this myth.

But such durable phenomena as these introduce a quandary, for as we have also claimed, myths respond to immediate social and political needs. If myths charter political statuses and rituals tied to social institutions, they must change as these statuses and institutions appear and disappear histor-ically. A rare insight into how this works is given in a study by Greg Keyes (1994) of a charter myth of the Apalachee ball game, collected by a Spanish


priest in 1676. At that time, the Apalachee of Florida were still politically organized as a hierarchical chiefdom with hereditary offices. The myth tells of the illegitimate great-grandson of an old Fire God who prophesy ordains will cause the death of an old Lightning God. The old Lightning God attempts to kill the young man by a series of deadly trials, which the young man nonetheless survives using the advice of his great-grandfather. The old Lightning God then invents the single-pole ball game, hoping to defeat the young man’s protector, but in the ensuing game, the young man reveals his divine identity, defeats the opponent’s team, and assumes the name and role of an upstart Lightning God. As there are now two rival Lightning Gods, the elder challenges the younger to a one-on-one game of chunkey, but loses, forfeiting his life. Eventually, the newer Lightning God ascends to the sky to take up his role there, leaving instructions for humans on how to achieve the highest war grade and thus accede to an earthly role as an avatar of Lightning, entitled to be so called and to exercise supernat-ural power.

In this form, the Apalachee ball game myth accomplishes three things. In the first place, it establishes a pantheon of gods and their interrelation-ships: an old Fire God; his rival, an old Lightning God; an unnamed male Solar deity and his wife, who is the granddaughter of the old Fire God; an unnamed Beneath World power whose son is entitled to be called Baron of Waters; and a younger Lighting God in whose honor the ball game is perpetuated on earth. Second, it charters an elite human status, asserting its divine origins and granting it alleged powers. Third, it has the etiological function of establishing a social institution, the ball game, together with its rules, elaborate ritual prescriptions, and material expressions, whose purpose is to honor the Lightning God (and by implication, his earthly avatar).

For comparison, Keyes searched the collected southeastern North American myth texts from later, descendant tribes, which had become pro-foundly egalitarian by the nineteenth and early twentieth century, look-ing for cognates. He found them; most of the mythic motifs present in the earlier Apalachee myth had survived. What had not survived was their status-chartering function – the notion of elite, sacralized political posi-tions whose occupants were believed to be the earthly avatars of gods. As Keyes (1994:114) puts it, “legitimizing ideologies of the elite vanish when the elite vanish. The stories may persist, but stripped of the special context and details that made them what they were. The motifs, informed by a new society with new needs, are reshuffled and restructured.” Indeed, the com-


ponent mythic motifs, the durable building blocks, probably predate the historically constituted Apalachee chiefdom.

While this account helps us understand how the function of mythic structures changes in response to social change, in precisely the way one might predict, it begs the question of why the motifs themselves are so dura-ble. Moreover, as we have seen, it is not only the motifs but also certain far more complex structures that persist in the face of social change. How old are they? In general, folklorists, though mostly stalwart diffusionists, tend to be more interested in myth geographies and inferred localities of origin than they are in the histories of myths per se. Although folklorists as myth cartographers have often enough proclaimed the ancient origin of broadly distributed motifs, very little work has been done along the lines of seriat-ing myth structures to determine their relative chronology or of trying to reconcile myth distributions with the cultural chronologies known from archaeological research.8

We are left with the contradiction between myth as something generated and perpetuated in concrete social circumstances, on the one hand, and myth as something that transcends historically situated needs, on the other. Present-day theory of myth is unfortunately as scattered as ever. Lévi-Strauss (1963c) viewed mythic beliefs as sophisticated intellectual systems of broad geographic reach, whose logical structures are open to analysis. His method, however, is ultimately ahistorical and is thus of little value to the project of a prehistoric iconography. Psychological approaches, whether Freudian, Jungian, or otherwise, address the historical durability of myth by appealing to unconscious universals. Thus we have Alan Dundes’s (1962) well-known explanation of the extraordinary range of the cosmogonic Earth-Diver myth as a product of womb envy among males. But however appealing or unap-pealing such universalistic models might be, they do nothing to bridge the gap between the universal unconscious and the situated ethnographic real-ities in which such myths are recounted and transmitted. We cannot hope to do anything here to resolve this long-standing contradiction, much less do more than allude briefly to what is an enormous literature.

It is perhaps enough to stress two things that seem pertinent to our present goals. First, mythic motifs, as phenomena of broad geographic scale and long-term transmission, must be subject to a process very much akin to Boas’s notion of “reading-in” in visual culture. By transmission, or “translation,” to use Pasztory’s term, local peoples or new generations

8 For an exception, see Lankford (1975).


will adopt those mythic forms that seem to them compelling, but they will assemble them to conform to local cultural logics and social circum-stances. Moreover, they will discard whatever seems irrelevant. Second, in thinking about the relationship between ritual, myth, and visually mani-fested religious subjects, we must be careful not to assume that these are closely conjoined in any mechanical way. Different aesthetic systems, and thus different cultural models, apply to each. Nor, despite the biases of some researchers, can ritual claim priority in this triad. Not all myths are ritual charters and not all iconographic expressions of the supernatural the products of ritual. It is an important fact that these aspects of expressive cul-ture are often combined in specific ways to underwrite social and political structures. However, that empirical observation, where it occurs, should not conceal the fact that ritual, myth, and visual imagery express their sub-jects differently. This is what we have already maintained by claiming that iconographic models and their referents are independent phenomena and need to be studied separately, prior to examining how they may be linked in specific social, political, and religious circumstances.

Mastery of the Ethnographic Sources

Certain highly relevant historical homologues, when applied to indepen-dently discovered visual configurations, have the power to contextualize those configurations and, in many cases, to render them interpretable. In this chapter we have outlined ways to best handle such applications that are systematically responsible to the “painstaking calibrations” called for by Kubler. Not all corpora of imagery will be equally amenable. Some corpora, for example, will be too far removed in the past for historical homologues to have any reasonable application. Others will have mythic referents that are entirely lost. For some collections, then, configurational analysis as described in the previous chapter will have to do. We have claimed that configurational analysis is, of itself, a kind of iconography insofar as it addresses referents.

Once the relevance of source to subject is established, ethnographic analogies import information from the ethnographic present to the past in the active crafting of a composite analytical (as opposed to a native) icon-ographic model, as we shall see below. How much ethnographic informa-tion is imported is highly variable. It can be as simple as inferring that, in a given image of iconographic characters wielding what seem to be stone axes, what the artisan meant to depict are indeed axes and not something else. Or it can be as complex as calling upon an elaborate epic myth cycle


to relate large numbers of disparate images to one another in a single visual narrative, whose materialization had specific social or political functions. To a large extent, the amount of information imported from the present to the past is up to the investigator. As a rule, simple analogies or histori-cal homologies having simple logics are inherently more convincing than elaborate ones with numerous components or complex logics.

Principle #15. Simple analogies or historical homologies having sim-ple logics are inherently more convincing than elaborate ones with numerous components or complex logics.

In previous chapters we have emphasized that to take prehistoric iconog-raphy seriously means to achieve a mastery of two external domains, one being the natural history of the local environment and the other the field archaeology of the prehistoric communities responsible for the imagery. To these two external domains we must now add a third. The prehistoric iconographer must also master the most relevant ethnographic literature. Often this relevant literature includes information on rituals, beliefs, cos-mology, and myths – those domains we usually think of as religious – and how these are connected historically to broader patterns in culturally related societies.9 With the possibility of disjunction of form and function constantly in mind, it also means understanding how these expressive forms were used in the context of social and political institutions in historically documented times.

Principle #16. Confident iconographic interpretations of prehistoric images depend upon a mastery of three external domains: local natural history, local field archaeology, and the most relevant ethnography.

Having just invoked a series of religious domains as potential ethno-graphic sources, we must also take care to remember that not all prehis-toric representation is necessarily of a religious character. In Chapter 1 we emphasized that a variety of kinds of social institutions, religious and

9 Folklorists interested in cross-cultural comparative research have devised an international folktale classification system in which motifs are given coded designations. For valuable published motif indices incorporating a vast literature, see the works of Stith Thompson (1955–1958, 1966).


otherwise, are responsible for visual imagery. If we ask for a mastery of the relevant ethnographic material, then, that mastery must include a working knowledge of the range of social institutions operant in the most relevant ethnographic culture area.

The Status of Ethnographically Informed Iconographic Models

We have seen that analytical models concerning prehistoric images and their referents can be productively enhanced, in some cases consider-ably so, by reference to ethnographic information collected long after the images were current. We are now in a position to assess the status of these ethnographically informed models relative to certain categories developed earlier in this book: first, the classification of kinds of cultural models set forth in Chapters 2 and 4, and second, the axis of “experience-near” versus “experience-distant” considered in Chapter 3. Let us review our distinction among three concepts having to do with ancient images.

Visual themes are analytical categories developed by grouping images by apparent subject matter, in the course of a configurational analysis of forms. They are analytical categories developed by iconographers, largely (but never entirely) without reference to ethnographic information.

Themes of reference differ from visual themes in that they are native (i.e., experience-near) cultural models that govern the structure and con-tent of referents external to the imagery. Although they can no longer be fully known, valid inferences about them can be made through judicious point-for-point consideration of historical homologies, where that is war-ranted, compared to the data already given to us independently by visual themes. In other words, it is themes of reference that we seek to approxi-mate by introducing historical homologues that appear in some ways con-gruent with our analytical categories. This, then, is the entry point at which native cultural models are formally introduced into a program of prehis-toric iconography.

Iconographic models bridge the space between visual themes and themes of reference. These are central to our purpose: to arrive at compelling icon-ographic models is the goal of prehistoric iconography. They are “diagnos-tic” cultural models that govern the correct interpretation of the referents of conventional visual forms. We may recognize two modes. The first con-sists of iconographic models as proposed by iconographers, which are nei-ther experience-near nor entirely experience-distant; they lie somewhere in between. While retaining their status as constructed analytical models, at the same time they are attempts to figure out what the original artisans


and beholders were doing by taking advantage of every available method: knowledge of stylistic conventions, understanding of the natural environ-ment, mastery of the pertinent field archaeology, rigorous configurational analysis done at arm’s length from ethnographic data, and, finally, the introduction of native ethnographic models as source materials for historic homologies. The introduction of homologues to the equation, however, does something that knowledge of style, natural environment, archaeolog-ical context, and visual configurations cannot do, as the new information is often already in the form of native, experience-near cultural models. As for the other mode, iconographic models known by the original beholders, the models are, of course, no longer fully knowable. Such now extinct models included the cues by which competent viewers were capable of correctly interpreting the intended referents of images. They are what we are trying to approximate.

The two modes of iconographic models, the present-day analytical ones and the original native ones, have, in theory, the same structure and pur-pose. By means of methods that allow us toeholds into the experience-near world of the past, a central proposition is that our analytical iconographic models can come to resemble the original native ones, at least in outline. In our best solutions, the two are judged to be congruent at major points, based on a parsimonious fit between discovered patterning and “imported” ethnographic detail. In this composite picture, the ethnographic detail we choose to import often operates as a stage set, a backdrop against which our discovered patterns in the material begin to make sense.

Constructing and Testing an Iconographic Model

A concrete example will help to clarify these distinctions further. In the pre-historic Mississippian societies of the southeastern United States, a common artifact genre was the engraved shell gorget, carved from the outer whorl of a large marine shell, perforated at one edge for suspension and worn on the chest. The engraved designs, usually on the concave side of the disk, are generally representational. Of a large corpus of hundreds of known gor-gets of this kind, Brain and Phillips (1996:9–12) list twenty-three examples bearing the layout and subject matter shown in Figure 41. This subset has been labeled the Cox Mound group, after a type site in eastern Tennessee.10 Examples probably date somewhere between a.d. 1250 and 1400.

10 Brain and Phillips (1996:9) label this set the Cox Mound “style,” stating that there is “none more deserving of an independent existence.” However, the “styles” set up by these authors


In the following, we draw extensively from George Lankford’s (2007) iconographic study of this set of gorgets. A configurational analysis of the set quickly reveals that the design is a simple assemblage of four motifs arranged concentrically. To give them neutral names, these are a cross within a circle, a rayed circle, a looped square, and four identical crested birds. Although the birds bear a close resemblance to the ivory-billed or pile-ated woodpeckers of the region, Lankford is careful not to call them that, keeping in mind the possibility that they may not be ordinary woodpeckers but instead supernaturals based on woodpeckers as their primary natural prototype, in which case the specific species may be irrelevant. All of these elements are clearly motifs; each is a discrete salient feature that meets the test of independence (Chapter 4), as each element can be found in other Mississippian themes and other genres. There are, in addition, nondiscrete features of these gorgets that may contribute to the identification of subject

Figure 41. Marine shell gorget design of the Cox Mound group, eastern Tennessee (Lankford 2007:fig. 2.1, p. 9).

are sorted first by subject matter and only secondarily by traits we would readily acknowl-edge as stylistic. Thus the sorting is as much thematic as stylistic, and the possibility that other subjects might be rendered in the same style is ruled out by the classification. More-over, the stylistic coherence of this set needs further study. Thus we choose to refer to it, for present purposes, as the Cox Mound “group.”


matter. These may include the circular form of the gorget itself, the fact that the design is executed on the concave surface of the shell, and the fact that the medium is marine shell, in this case an exotic imported material – the archaeological sites where these are found are all hundreds of miles inland from the coast. Because all twenty-three examples show exactly the same assemblage of subject matter arranged in the same conventional lay-out, this is rather clearly a visual theme. Following the guideline that visual themes be given neutral names for the purpose of analysis (Chapter 4), for present purposes we may call it the “Cox theme.”

Assuming that these motifs and their association have external referents, the goal is to fashion an iconographic model that makes sense of the visual theme by relating it convincingly to a theme of reference. What, then, are these referents of the motifs? We can do little by way of identification using Hermerén’s principle of recognition; we have already pointed out the resemblance of the bird heads to ivory-billed or pileated woodpeckers. The rayed circle may or may not be a solar image. We must not be swayed by the fact that the rayed circle conforms to a conventional representa-tion of “sun” in a Western cultural frame; by actual appearance, the sun is merely a disk. Thus configurational analysis alone does not lead to a solution.

Lankford’s conclusion is that the visual theme is a cosmogram, a con-ventional depiction of elements of the cosmos. Thus, as an operation separate from the completed configurational analysis, the burden is to identify a theme of reference using historical homology, drawn from the cosmologies of the documented American Indian societies of the Eastern Woodlands. If we look to the native peoples who occupied the specific area in which the prehistoric gorgets are found, Shawnee and Muskhogean, we immediately run up against an issue of continuity. Much of the eth-nographic material on these groups was collected only very sparingly and late. Besides, there is evidence in both cases of major nineteenth-century shifts in religious beliefs due to revitalization movements. Lankford is thus forced to broaden his search for homologues to peoples who are still cul-turally connected, yet probably not in any direct ancestor-descendant rela-tion. Now drawing Algonkian and Siouan speakers to the north and west into the study, Lankford (2007:15) finds an expected variability but, lying beneath that variability, “it is not difficult to discern a great agreement on the basic structure of the cosmos among most of the peoples of the Eastern Woodlands.” Accordingly, Lankford concludes that the widespread sharing of this basic cosmology across ethnolinguistic boundaries is an indicator of its antiquity.


Across this large area there is nearly universal agreement that the cosmos is layered, structured as an Above World in complementary opposition to a Beneath World, between which the Middle World, the world of humans, floats as a flat object upon the primordial sea (Hudson 1976:122–134). Both the Above World sky vault and the dark, watery Beneath World are popu-lated by a variety of supernaturals with appearances, powers, and specific locations that vary depending on the local cultural model. A number of more specific characteristics drawn primarily from Muskhogean groups are pertinent to the interpretation.

A primary celestial power is the Sun. •The Middle World earth island is a quadripartite structure, manifest- •ing four sacred Cardinal Directions. While some see it as circular, in Muskogee and Alabama visions it is square, dropping off on four sides into the water (Swanton 1929:477).The Middle World is not stable of itself and requires some sort of •external prop or props to brace it against rocking. In some visions, four props (large snakes, ropes, tortoises) are seen as affixed to the four corners of the earth island.A Middle World relative of the celestial Sun is an earthly sacred fire, •fed by four logs pointing to the cardinal directions. This holy fire was symbolized among the Chickasaws and probably others as a cross within a circle (Moore 1988:41; Speck 1907).The Middle World manifests a variety of vertical conduits or axes •mundi uniting the distinct layers of the cosmos.The cardinal directions of the Middle World are associated with quad- •ripartite weather powers, envisioned as four Winds, or four Thunders who control the winds. Thunders are sometimes envisioned as human in form, others times as birds.

These ethnographic details supply the raw materials for a potential theme of reference, an ancient cosmology incorporating aspects of much later Eastern Woodlands cosmologies. In Lankford’s iconographic model, the visual theme is a cosmogram in which a three-dimensional cosmos is viewed in two dimensions from the top down. The distinct layers are therefore pancaked in this view. Lankford thus interprets each of the component motifs as more specifically ideographs referring to aspects of the cosmos. In such a cosmogram, one would expect to find visual rep-resentations of all three cosmic layers: Above World, Middle World, and Beneath World.


According to the proposed iconographic model, the cross-in-circle stands ideographically for the sacred fire of the Middle World and the rayed circle stands for the Sun. Their combination in the center of the cosmogram rep-resents not only the philosophical affinity of fire and sun but also a vertical conduit between the earth and sky, as a column might be seen from directly above. The cosmogram requires a symbol for the earth island itself, and the logical candidate is the looped square with the sacred fire at its center. The four birds reference supernaturals, probably either Winds or Thunders, but a careful survey of the relevant ethnographic material reveals too much ambiguity to choose between the two possibilities. Lankford (2007:27) therefore conservatively leaves the question open: “It may be the safest path to conclude simply that they are Weather powers of some type, located in and associated with the Cardinal Directions.” As for the remaining cosmic layer, the primordial sea of the Beneath World on which the earth island floats, there is no graphic motif. It is nonetheless represented in the model by the circular field itself lying in the background, whose medium is marine shell, an underwater substance. There is abundant ethnographic testimony from the Eastern Woodlands that marine shell is a substance that “belongs” to the Master of the Beneath World and that is given to humans as a token of Beneath World power.11 Lankford sums up his iconographic model as follows: “The Cox Mound . . . cosmogram thus contains the symbols for an important group of cosmic powers – Sun, Fire, Directions, Earth-supports, Winds/Thunderers. Having no engraved symbol, [the] Lord of the Beneath World is nonetheless present in the circular shell disk which underlies all the other symbols” (Lankford 2007:29).

This is a model that depends emphatically upon historical homology, so it is appropriate to judge the strength of that homology according to the standards set forth earlier. Proximity in time is neither very favorable nor excessively damning, as the corpus is late prehistoric in date, the separa-tion of source and subject being on the order of about six centuries. As in this case there can be no argument for a direct ancestor-descendant con-nection of source and subject, the breadth of the comparative base is espe-cially important. The near consensus of historic Eastern Woodlands native beliefs concerning a layered, dualistic cosmos and an earth island concept

11 Lankford (2007:29), using this datum, goes well beyond the iconographic model outlined here to claim a double reference for all marine shell gorgets regardless of the subject mat-ter engraved upon them. He suggests that shell gorgets, as a genre, due to the medium from which they are made, intrinsically reference Beneath World powers, a claim of consider-able reach and one very much worthy of further discussion.


yields a strong argument for the antiquity of those beliefs in the region of concern. Regarding goodness of fit, all components of the composition are plausibly explained by the model, and none of the specific ideographic identifications seem forced. Conversely, one would expect a cosmogram reflecting this theme to reference at minimum all three primary cosmic zones, and this it does. As for the model’s generative quality, it immedi-ately suggests that other shell gorget designs of the same period might also be cosmograms. Consequently, Lankford identifies a second design set of twenty-eight gorgets, called the Hixon group (Brain and Phillips 1996:12–16), as referencing the same three-dimensional cosmos, but from a side view rather than top down. In sum, there are few loose ends. Among ico-nographers concerned with Mississippian images, there is growing consen-sus that Lankford’s model is basically correct.

Lankford’s iconographic model provides a good opportunity to examine what it means to say that a successful analytical model partially “recon-structs” or “reconstitutes” vanished native cultural models. Throughout, we have emphasized that we can never hope to reexperience these native models in their original form. From the beginning, we have said that our goal is to build iconographic models that, while always partial and approx-imate, nonetheless resonate with experience-near models in nontrivial ways. Clearly, our units substitute for hidden native constructs at every level, from visual themes to iconographic models to themes of reference. Those original constructs, to judge from ethnographic experience, were no doubt richer in detail than our substitutes, full of signification that is forever beyond reach.12 Thus Lankford cannot claim, and does not, that he has reconstructed an ancient, extinct cosmology. But how can we hope to judge the resonance of our models against something that is hidden from us?

The key to this problem lies in the fact that neither our subjects nor our interpretations of them are closed systems. Our data sets are inherently connected to others, and our interpretations have consequences that over-reach immediate solutions. Our methods are designed to bring light to

12 In reference to interpreting ancient images, Esther Pasztory (1976:111) has expressed the view that the partial understandings available to us from historical homologies should be distilled from the lowest common denominator of all relevant source-side materials. In this view, highly specific referents are always beyond reach. She compares our iconographic understandings to those of a hypothetical peasant beholder, from the same period of the images but culturally situated as a foreigner, outside the immediate, elite settings responsi-ble for the imagery. Such an ancient beholder might grasp only the most basic, most widely shared “folk” referents, missing the details and esoterica entirely. For a similar notion, see Martin (2006:57).


specific subjects, one at a time, and we attempt to condition ourselves not to be fooled by our biases in what is revealed. However, like shining a flash-light into a dark room, no matter what the light is trained on, several other things become visible besides, if only dimly. When attention is shifted to these peripheral things, we will find that they either make sense or do not in the light of our current understandings. It is in this manner that our iconographic interpretations are testable. In the present case, in speaking of the generative quality of Lankford’s model, we have already noted that if one small set of engraved shell gorgets are cosmograms, then other gorget designs perhaps are as well; this path has already led to greater insights. Further, if Lankford is correct that each of the component engraved motifs on gorgets of the Cox Mound group are ideographs referencing specific concepts, then (controlling for disjunction) these ideographic references should be comprehensible in all the other thematic compositions in which they appear. Whether they are comprehensible or not is constrained by the data. Thus, if an iconographic model is roughly correct, incremen-tally larger domains of related data should begin to make sense. If it is not correct, the inevitable discordances will make interpretations look increasingly forced.

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Chapter 6

The Logic of Iconographic Method in Prehistory

Prehistoric iconography, as a domain of scholarship, can be set apart from other routine approaches to representational images in archaeological con-texts. In keeping with traditional art-historical conceptions of iconography, it is about inferring the referents of ancient images, and doing so in a defen-sible way – nothing more nor less. There are worthy alternative pursuits involving images that can be done completely independently, among them the study of their style and of the social contexts in which they functioned. This book has portrayed the important relationships among these domains, while at the same time arguing for clarity about what it means, and what it does not mean, to do iconographic research.

The struggle for a prehistoric iconography over the past several decades has been on two main fronts. The first of these is methodological: how to integrate concerns of style, contextual analysis of forms, and ethnographic analogy into a logically coherent program. The second is theoretical: how to verify that analytical models relating ancient images to referents are in some sense correct. On the latter front the matter is, square on, one of inferring ancient significance; one of knowing that the result is more than a “just so” story. This is the central epistemological problem confronted by the nascent field of cognitive archaeology.

Let us first review the methodological question. The greater part of this book is concerned with methodology, because that is the area in which the most progress to date has been made, and there is a need for a summary. In this connection, the history of pre-Columbian iconographic scholarship is instructive. In Chapter 3 we discussed how in the late 1960s and early 1970s art historian George Kubler forcefully insisted that disjunction between forms and their referents over the tumultuous history of Mesoamerica ren-dered it difficult, if not impossible, to use sixteenth-century ethnographic sources for interpretation. In their stead he introduced configurational

The Logic of Iconographic Method in Prehistory 159

analysis, a systematic, image-driven mode focused on tracing the occur-rences of motifs and themes through a large corpus of contemporaneous images. Kubler argued that configurational analysis could result in an ico-nography without texts. Insofar as simple identifications of subject matter could be made directly, sense could be made of their meaningful combin-ations. Kubler’s challenge, while it did not cause Mesoamerican iconog-raphers to disavow ethnographic source materials for interpretation, did nonetheless accomplish something of permanent importance. It focused attention on the inherent information potential of objects as a primary source, when analyzed systematically as sets. It was no longer satisfying to interpret ancient images merely as illustrations of already known ethno-graphic concepts. Shortly thereafter, in the 1970s and 1980s, the question shifted. At that juncture the issue became not so much whether or not to trust ethnographic sources in an absolute sense, but rather how much weight should be given them. Disjunction henceforth came to be viewed less as a roadblock and more as a possibility to be weighed in the interpre-tive balance (Berlo 1983:6; Grieder 1975). Recognizing the value of both configurational analysis and the ethnographic analogy espoused by anthro-pologically trained students, Mesoamerican iconographers sought ways to accommodate both approaches. Esther Pasztory (1973), for one, suggested a “synthetic approach” that would honor contextual analysis, motif com-parisons with other Mesoamerican cultures, use of sixteenth-century texts, and use of modern ethnography, treating each as insufficient alone but effective in combination. Pasztory, however, stopped short of proposing a logic of how to combine them. As distinctive approaches, configurational analysis and ethnographic analogy seemed, for a time, incommensurable, coming from different schools of thought about the predictability of cul-ture change. Terence Grieder (1975:851) spoke of them as complementary opposites.

This book reflects a view that was slow to emerge but is now more com-monplace. It is the view that what were once seen as divergent “approaches” are not at all incommensurable; that the various methodological avenues for understanding ancient images are in fact logically related. Various authors have suggested that the proper logic might be that of an order of proce-dures.1 For example, although we have emphasized that style, as pure form, can be profitably analyzed entirely apart from subject matter, nonetheless

1 Even Panofsky’s (1955) phrasing, in calling the study of style “pre-iconographic,” may be said to imply the notion of an analytical sequence, although that is not the usual interpre-tation of his framework.


the results of stylistic analysis have much to do with an understanding of referents. Style, as stated in Chapter 2, has the potential to inform us on what is what, what is contemporaneous with what, and what is local, all of which have a strong bearing on understanding suprastylistic configura-tions. In that sense, stylistic analysis is logically prior to configurational analysis and any considerations of iconographic reference (Cordy-Collins 1977:425–433; Pasztory 1976:71–103).2 Aspects of iconography thus have a dependent relationship to aspects of style. Similarly, we have described the goal of configurational analysis as establishing visual themes, based on internal evidence, that stand in some relation to external themes of refer-ence. These visual themes, however, may or may not have cognates in the ethnographic record; they may stand alone. Ethnographic analogy is most effective when patterns in the historic record are shown to be congruent with configurational patterns already substantiated in a subject corpus of related works. It is difficult to see how this might work any other way; con-figurational analysis is logically prior to any attempt to relate visual themes to ethnographically informed themes of reference (Joralemon 1971:7; Klein 1980:156; Martin 2006:56; Pasztory 1997). In important ways, then, the study of style is prior to the study of iconographic configurations, and the study of iconographic configurations is prior to the application of ethnographic analogy. These observations provide the warrant for an ordered, or staged, approach.

An Ordered Approach to Prehistoric Iconography

In visual representations there are logical interrelationships among the domains of style, suprastylistic configurations, and ethnographic analogy. These interrelationships suggest that the study of prehistoric iconography is most profitably viewed as an enterprise that, ideally, is a staged progres-sion. We say ideally; the outline below describes a full program that might take years to achieve with some corpora. There are surely circumstances in which the publication of preliminary studies or tentative observations is

2 It is Lesure’s (2005:245) view that the analysis of style and iconography should be pursued together, one source, in a sense, playing off of the other to enhance the overall inter-pretation. We have stated the matter somewhat differently in Chapter 2, as the paradox in which the referents of images cannot be understood absent a command of style, but a command of style cannot proceed entirely without at least some reference to subject matter. In this chapter we are emphasizing the dependent relationship of some aspects of iconography to stylistic study, for example, in the definition of style phases to determine contemporaneity.


more appropriate, or cases in which the detailed stylistic or configurational work has already been done by others. The important thing is to recognize and honor the dependent relationships on which each part of the process rests. In practical terms, prehistoric iconography as a field of research is generally of long duration, expensive, and demanding, which is why it is effectively pursued in workshop settings by teams of researchers (Figure 42). At its best, it does not dwell on the discovery and publication of isolated particulars or insights divorced from detailed analysis.

Principle #17 (principle of phased research). Logical relations holding among style, configuration, and potential ethnographic homologues dictate that an ideal research strategy relative to a corpus of related prehistoric images proceeds as a staged progression of analysis and model building.

Exemplary studies cited throughout this book, such as Phillips and Brown’s Pre-Columbian Shell Engravings from the Craig Mound at Spiro,

Figure 42. An iconographic workshop setting. A team of researchers makes maximal use of table and wall space to search for configurations in a corpus of images (photograph by Bob Wishoff).


Oklahoma (1975–1982) and Donnan and McClelland’s (1999; McClelland et al. 2007) Moche Fineline Painting, recognize, at least implicitly, the logi-cally ordered nature of research on these large corpora. Both place extraor-dinary emphasis on the collection and organization of their respective corpora as data sets; both focus on a detailed stylistic analysis and seriation of the material into style phases as a centerpiece; for both, configurational analysis follows from, and is secondary to, the work on style; and, finally, both largely excuse themselves from interpreting the configurations using sources from the ethnographic present. It is ironic, then, that some of the strongest iconographic insights derived from both corpora to date are embedded within what are mainly stylistic studies. These works, heavily loaded toward the front end of an iconographic program, continue to inspire further iconographic work that builds on earlier insights, much of it employing ethnographic analogy to a far greater degree than the original studies (e.g., Brown 2007; Golte 2009; Quilter 1997; Reilly 2007).

Following this logic, we propose an ordered approach of seven parts: (1) assembly of the corpus; (2) stylistic analysis; (3) incorporation of natural history and archaeological field data; (4) configurational analysis of supra-stylistic formal units; (5) application of ethnographic analogy; (6) building iconographic models; and (7) testing iconographic models.3

1. Assembly of the Corpus

A key inheritance from traditional art history is the concept of working with sets of contemporary, related works as sources of primary data. By assem-bling the largest possible corpus and organizing it by genre as a database, legitimate inferences can be drawn concerning stylistic conventions and conventional organizations of subject matter (Chapter 2). This assembly may be difficult, expensive, and time consuming, as the subject materials typically reside in numerous dispersed collections, access to the originals may be limited, and available published images typically are not in the same format. Ideally, collections should be revisited to gain a firsthand familiarity with materials of manufacture, forms, textures, and dimensions. Data should be collected in a common format or formats, including pho-tographs from several angles with variable lighting, sketches, line drawings,

3 Now that the sequence is expressed this concisely, its contrast with the direct histor-ical approach is perhaps the more striking. The direct historical approach begins with ethnographic data and asks to what extent certain prehistoric data conform to them (Chapter 5).


or rollouts. Data collection by teams of researchers has proved effective as a way of maximizing resources. Shortcuts, by contrast, introduce bias. Intractable problems are most often due to the inadequate sample size of the corpus.

2. Stylistic Analysis

With the full corpus assembled, stylistic analysis consists of a search for those cultural models that govern the formal properties of images within that corpus. While many stylistic studies in archaeology assume that what we seek are the models to which artisans conformed in creating objects, in this work we have focused instead on the models beholders needed to judge the cultural “correctness” of images and thus to be sure of what they were seeing. As a category, these are “observers’ models” as opposed to “proce-dural models” (Chapter 2). Because stylistic cultural models evolve over time, in the course of such a study it will ordinarily be necessary to organize the materials chronologically, by style phases, often by using some form of seriation. Having done so, the primary features of the models, called artistic canons, must be worked out. In Chapter 2 we suggested certain common categories by which these canons may be organized and described, such as conventional genres, acceptable media, decorative effects, dimensionality, and layout, among others.

3. Incorporation of Natural History and Archaeological Field Data

Already in the formulation of stylistic models we require data from at least two external sources, natural history and field archaeology. These sources become even more critical in subsequent configurational analyses. In the first place, intimate knowledge of local natural history draws the analyst into the physical environment experienced daily by ancient artisans and beholders. In prehistoric iconographic research we see repeatedly how such knowledge contributes to the correct identification of natural pro-totypes of the entities shown in the imagery. Several examples have been given in this book (Chapter 3). Among living things, their sensory and behavioral characteristics often give us prominent clues about appropriate metaphors for human social and political life. As Lévi-Strauss (1963b:89) famously remarked, certain animals (and plants) are not only good to eat but also “good to think.” We must condition ourselves as analysts to try to think in these terms as well.


Intimate acquaintance with the relevant archaeological field data, besides giving the analyst indispensable context for discussing images, pro-vides more particularly the key to discriminating among genres, or func-tional categories of imagery. As both style and referent are known to shift as genres shift (Chapters 2 and 3; Gombrich 1972:5; Kippenberg 1987:6–7), even where the subject matter is nominally the same, this information is of central importance to any program of prehistoric iconography.

We have likened this incorporation of natural history and archaeological field data in iconography to linguistic immersion, a demanding mastery of context and detail.

4. Configurational Analysis of Suprastylistic Formal Units

As formalized by George Kubler in the 1960s, configurational analysis, like the analysis of style, is suited to a corpus – the larger the better – of related, contemporary images. It is an analytical procedure designed to get at subject matter using internal evidence only. Images are decomposed into formal features that are potentially significant, in the sense that they contribute to the beholder’s identification of referents. Traditionally, the concepts “motif,” “theme,” and “narrative” have been used for this kind of suprastylistic investigation, but there is sufficient ambiguity in these terms to justify a more elaborated terminology as presented in Chapter 4 and shown in Figure 23. A neglected concept is the “ideograph,” referring to low-level figural units that refer to specific ideas or things while not being tied to a spoken language. The importance of ideographs is that they occur in iconographic systems but are foundational to semasiographic visual sys-tems – being nonlinguistic notational systems in which ideographs are combined to convey potentially novel information (Chapter 1). Once the constituent formal elements have been defined at several analytical lev-els, their relative positions and distributions through the subject corpus are traced. The outcome of analysis is the definition of themes. We have found the need to distinguish between “visual themes,” of the kind gener-ated by a formal analysis of this sort, and “themes of reference,” which are native models – themes in the Panofskyan sense – to which visual themes are indexed. Visual themes, and motifs that recur across themes, are given descriptive names so as not to bias the consideration of potential referents. Variations in visual themes are accounted for using the concepts of “identi-fying” and “classifying” attributes. Kubler meant for configurational analy-sis to be a kind of iconography, addressed to the referents of images, and it can be. Basic identifications of small-scale units of subject matter can often


be made, not because things can be apprehended directly or “naturally” as Panofsky supposed, but rather because it is possible to fathom the world of the beholder to a limited degree, through an understanding of style, an in-depth knowledge of archaeological context, and a comprehension of the natural surroundings.

5. Application of Ethnographic Analogy

Ethnographic analogy is the use of colonial-era and later ethnographic sources projected into the past in order to illuminate prehistoric data. Traditionally, and also as used here, it is an awkward covering term for two unlike operations, in one of which the reasoning is not, strictly speaking, analogical at all. One is general comparative analogy, which is truly analog-ical and relies on ethnological generalizations drawn cross-culturally from historically unrelated societies. The other is historical homology, in which the ethnological source and the prehistoric subject belong to the same cul-tural tradition, enhancing the relevance of the source.

Some assume that the application of ethnographic sources to prehis-toric images – especially historical homology – is the essential nucleus of any prehistoric iconography, around which all else must revolve. This is not the case. There are instances in which its application may neither be necessary nor appropriate (except insofar as all archaeological reason-ing is analogical – see Chapter 5). The thrust of this book is that stylistic analysis, configurational analysis, and application of ethnographic anal-ogy are best thought of as separate analytical operations. The first two may proceed, and oftentimes must proceed, in the absence of the third. If applied at all, ethnographic analogy should be introduced with a vigi-lance that counters its history of abuse and overextension. The possibility of historical disjunctions between forms and referents must be carefully weighed. That being said, there is nothing inherent about the logic of ethnographic analogy that dictates that it be shunned as an interpretive source. Chapter 5 suggests several criteria upon which to judge its rele-vance in any given case.

Such applications of analogy are dependent on configurational analy-sis, in that they proceed by means of point-for-point comparisons with already known visual configurations. This is a search for plausible cog-nate structures between present and past themes of reference. In essence, the procedure introduces abbreviated information from the ethnographic present that stands in for, and fleshes out, otherwise unknown themes of reference.


6. Building Iconographic Models

The outcome of the process we have sketched here is the construction of explicit iconographic models that relate visual configurations to inferred themes of reference. In plainer words, such models are propositions that describe the subject matter of images. Iconographic models may be rela-tively complex or very simple, depending on the greater or lesser extent of what can be reasonably inferred from the material at hand. They may be based largely on ethnographic analogies, with later ethnographic material systematically matched to earlier visual configurations, or they may not; the contribution from ethnographic sources is highly variable. As already noted, configurational analysis alone is capable of addressing itself, in a limited way, to the referents of graphic units.

Iconographic models stand between visual themes and themes of refer-ence. They are analytical and very certainly imposed by the iconographer, and yet they are not fully experience-distant either, to the extent that their descriptive units come to resonate with native worlds of experience. Here we are not speaking of any mysterious communion with the past. We are merely taking Geertz’s distinction between experience-near and experi-ence-distant concepts seriously, as a substitute for the black-and-white ter-minology of emic versus etic. From that point of view, ethnographers are capable of describing the symbolic worlds of their informants, not by trying to participate in their mental life – which is impossible – but rather by grasping certain concepts or units as the vehicles by which they perceive their worlds (Geertz 1976:224). To do so does not abandon the privilege of simultaneously using more global, comparative concepts to comprehend the material. In this respect, prehistoric iconographic research is not cat-egorically different from what cognitively oriented ethnographers do with data gathered from living peoples.

7. Testing Iconographic Models

We have talked mostly about methodology up to this point, but now it is time to face squarely the theoretical question of the verifiability of icono-graphic models. We must insist that verification is not a misplaced concern, if our subject is to assume its place in the social sciences. Aside from that, if all we are capable of telling are clever “just so” stories about our material, we have no right to expect others to believe what we say.

Throughout, we have focused on model building rather than on the more tidy scientific modes of hypothesis testing and proof. In our view,


human symbolic communication at its most general level is modular. In social contexts, humans understand and respond to what is happening around them by means of largely tacit, schematic cultural models that are learned and broadly shared (Chapter 1). In this case, however, work-ing in an analytical mode, we are actively and explicitly constructing new schematic models to comprehend our material. Such models, typically, have many component parts, and they are not easily falsified as though they were spare scientific hypotheses. Instead, “good” models mature over time and endure in the academic marketplace. They are improved by suc-cessively better formulations, or else they fade away into obscurity from a lack of support. The maturity of a good model can only come from its verifiability.

Our vision of how iconographic models might be verified was sketched briefly at the end of the previous chapter. Models of this sort can be veri-fied not only to the extent that they fit the material at hand in the best pos-sible way and with the fewest loose ends but also, very importantly, to the extent that they bear on other related domains. Models have implications, sometimes far-reaching ones. Good models not only make sense of the immediate corpus of study but also make sense of a host of other things. This characteristic explains the common experience of excitement gener-ated by a new insight and the lively discussion on several fronts following upon the publication of a model that by itself has only a limited reach. In such cases, a great deal of progress is made all at once on the understand-ing of data sets far beyond the original corpus. Good models typically also strengthen and mature over time as new data come to light and new dis-coveries are made. Conversely, mistaken models, typically resulting from the misapplication of ethnographic data, are increasingly overcome by dissimilitude over a broad range of subjects, and therefore come eventu-ally to be ignored.

Principle #18. Good iconographic models of prehistoric materials are verifiable to the extent that they not only exhibit goodness of fit but also generate expectations about related data sets and future discoveries.

In sum, in prehistoric iconography, one constructs new models of the form:referent relation in order to comprehend ancient ones. These constructed, analytical models are substantiated over time not by their verisimilitude as story lines (see Bruner 1986:11–43) but rather by their internal logic and their subjec-tion to systematic argument, further analysis, and new discoveries.


Ways of Getting It Wrong

The literature of prehistoric iconography provides ample material for show-ing ways in which conclusions can go awry. Many practitioners show little patience with the kind of program recommended in this book, preferring to take a shorter road to results. My experience in deliberately assigning published material of this kind as classroom readings is that it is almost uni-formly greeted with puzzlement, suspicion, and even derision by students who have been previously exposed to more cautious work. It is helpful to explore why this is the case. In the following, it would be counterproduc-tive to name names or give specific citations. Anyone familiar with icono-graphic literature in archaeology can supply examples of any or all of the following practices.

Identifying Subject Matter by Assertion

The practice of identifying subject matter by assertion without any evi-dence of systematic analysis or consideration of alternatives is so common that we are forced to place it first in our list. Iconographers of prehistoric materials too often behave, arrogantly, as though their visual identifications of subject matter are so patently obvious to any intelligent observer that no actual argument in favor of the identification is needed. In extreme cases, iconographic identifications by assertion have been published for individ-ual images taken entirely out of context, without any reference to the set of related images to which they belong. Such identifications are routinely made for complex representations – as when a certain quadruped in carved stone is said to be a jaguar – as well as for very simple ones – as when squiggles incised on pottery are said to be water symbols. And perhaps they are, but bare statements such as these run counter to the circumspection one expects of a nascent discipline struggling for respectability. In Chapter 3 we discussed this phenomenon under the heading “It Seems to Me” Iconography. We need say nothing further other than that such practices, which we must consider as simply lazy, are especially prone to ethnocen-trism and the biases of prior expectations.

Trait Chasing

A common alternative strategy to developing and analyzing a full corpus of related works is to choose a single motif or other visual form and to examine its occurrences in detail through space and time. By establishing


a series of (sometimes not-so-obvious) formal connections across ethno-linguistic boundaries and through time, the hope is to substantiate the standard meanings of these forms by broadening the comparative base. Certain practitioners in the field of pre-Columbian iconography are espe-cially fond of this strategy, which I here call “trait chasing.” The usually hidden assumptions are that all instances of the visual form belong to the same broad cultural tradition and that the associated meanings remain the same wherever they appear. The danger here, of course, is in ignoring dis-junction, the constant, insuperable process of “reading-in” (Chapter 3) as forms diffuse laterally across ethnolinguistic boundaries and are transmit-ted chronologically to successive generations of beholders in novel social and political contexts.

Intuitive Connection Making

A somewhat idiosyncratic and peculiar mode of presentation is one that substitutes erudition for analysis. This mode of presentation relies on con-vincing the reader by the sheer weight and breadth of knowledge in multi-ple cultural domains – images, artifact forms, beliefs, myths, and cultural practices – on sometimes continental scales. The similarities asserted as being cognate phenomena are often surprising and seem, on the surface, plausible enough. However, in the absence of real analysis, these cultural forms are inevitably plucked out of context for the purpose of comparison. The danger here is in cherry-picking the evidence to assert uniformities among cultural traits of broad distribution in space and time. One is left wondering whether a full-blown, systematic analysis of related works for each area and period would result in the same conclusion.

Misuse of the Direct Historical Approach

In the domain of prehistoric iconography the direct historical approach begins with ethnographically documented beliefs, myths, practices, or visual representations. The approach takes advantage of the rich detail of these cultural configurations, using them as starting points in seeking visual homologues in progressively older material (see Chapter 5). Upon finding apparent homologues in prehistoric contexts, it is common to apply their later, historic-era names in lieu of neutral names as is advocated in this book, either directly or in such phrases as “the [prehistoric X period] version of [God Y].” Such phrasing betrays the problem, as the past comes to be seen anachronistically as a “version” of the present. This is the fallacy


of presentism, privileging what happens to be better documented, assum-ing continuities without adequate demonstration, and above all failing to take seriously the realities of disjunction. This usually inadvertent present-ism is at the same time subtle, seductive, and powerful. Esther Pasztory thus recounts how difficult it was for Teotihuacán specialists to break free of the spell that held an entire generation convinced that the supernaturals depicted at that prehistoric site were simply early versions of well-known Aztec deities documented in the sixteenth century. Teotihuacán, she says, had come to be “seen through Tlaloc goggles” (Pasztory 1997:19), referring to the gogglelike eye surrounds of the Aztec rain god, but that grip had to be broken in order to make iconographic progress. We hardly need condemn the direct historical approach in its entirety, as it is in fact a useful frame-work for some purposes. At the same time, in this work we have emphasized the importance of defining prehistoric visual configurations independently of any prejudices introduced from the ethnographic present.

Misuse of Ethnographic Analogy More Generally

Occasionally, students of prehistoric iconography proceed as though their work must both begin and end with ethnographic material. They seem convinced that since ancient images cannot speak for themselves, there must be no other way to interpret them than by allowing texts from the ethnographic present to do the speaking. Such workers fail to comprehend the importance of a configurational analysis of the sort that George Kubler called for in the 1960s (Chapter 4), meant to ascertain the referents of a corpus of works internally, entirely without reference to distantly removed and disjoined historic sources. By failing to grasp this separation of config-urational analysis from ethnographic analogy and the logical relationship between the two, as outlined earlier in this chapter, analogy is allowed to run the show, overshadowing the ancient configurations and overwhelm-ingly biasing their interpretation.

Overinterpreting a Corpus

The approach advocated in this volume calls for restraint in modeling the referents of a corpus of ancient imagery. Not every motif, not every theme, not every visual narrative will yield to analysis, particularly with the increas-ing age of the material, and especially with styles of depiction that depart strongly from visual perspective and proportion. And yet some workers feel compelled to explain everything in a corpus of related works with which


they have an intimate familiarity. If iconographers of European medieval and Renaissance art struggle to identify the subject matter of their materi-als, and they do, how much more difficult must the task be in the com-plete absence of associated texts? The temptation to overinterpret ancient images seems often born of an overconfidence that, from our perspective, may come from misjudging the inherent limits of the interpretive process, sometimes joined with an indifference to the demands of systematic dem-onstration. Some puzzles come to us ready-made for completion with all the parts at hand, simply awaiting assembly. Prehistoric iconography is not such an enterprise. “I don’t know” is a permissible answer to many ques-tions confronting us.

Not Bothering with Style

Knowing what we do of the engagement of style with the subject matter of images (Chapter 2), it is astonishing how many iconographies of ancient imagery proceed without the slightest lip service to matters of style. In many other cases, style is treated simplistically, with pieces simply assumed to belong to the same style in the absence of any actual explication of the canons that define these styles or any consideration of the scale of the sup-posed style units. Such studies thus tend to privilege very large-scale or “international” style units that have little analytical validity. In this work we have advocated styles that are methodically defined at relatively small scales, as shared cultural models of visual form appropriate to interacting communities of beholders and artisans. To ignore style or to treat it casu-ally in favor of an immediate move to consider the referents of images is, however, misguided, lazy, or both. As we have had occasion to point out repeatedly, the dependent relationship to style of configurational analysis and considerations of subject matter is a key principle (Chapter 2, Principle #4). Understanding of style is logically prior to iconographic concerns strictly speaking, because of style’s ability to inform us on what is what, what is contemporaneous with what, and what is local. Adequate stylistic work is not easy, but the best iconographies of ancient images rest on the shoulders of well-conceived stylistic analyses.

Jumping Genres

Many iconographies of ancient materials move effortlessly from image to image with little or no attention paid to the fact that their images are expressed in different genres. Too often the switching from genre to genre


is flagrantly disturbing, as for example when moving between images taken from small items of personal adornment and others taken from enormous monuments. To do this is to ignore what Ernst Gombrich (1972) called “the principle of the primacy of genres” (Chapter 3, Principle #10), the idea that subject matter changes as genres change. To put it more plainly, the iden-tification of the subject matter of images is only possible by way of know-ing the functional categories of the objects or architectural spaces carrying those images. What often appears as the same subject matter in objects of different genre often bears upon a decidedly different set of intended refer-ents. As Gombrich (1972:5) has stated with reference to European iconog-raphy, many an iconographic study has started down the wrong path at the outset by failing to attend to the genre, and therefore to the social context, of the work. As we have said, to grasp this social context requires a thorough knowledge of the field archaeology of the setting.

Piling Conjecture upon Conjecture

We have portrayed iconographic study as an exercise in model building. Elements of such models are often explicitly conjectural or tentative in deference to future research on related collections of material. We have emphasized that this reliance on the implications of a model for related data sets is a key process by which verification takes place. Problems come quickly, however, by forgetting the status of iconographic models and beginning to treat iconographic identifications as data, facts upon which further cases can rest. The sequence is all too common. An influential investigator makes an identification of imagery, an identification that has compelling implications, which enters the literature as part of a broader model based on some original corpus of images. Later studies then take that identification for granted as a premise for further identifications of other sets of images. Results in one case are cited as evidence in the next (Gombrich 1972:21), leading, of course, to a house of cards.

A Final Thought on the Subject of Error

If there is one thread that runs through this unfortunate litany of errors, it is the mistake of perceiving an iconography of ancient images as something methodologically, theoretically, or practically simpler than it actually is. This misperception is precisely why the field has attracted more than its share of dilettantism, and why its practitioners must fight a constant battle for respect among mainstream prehistorians who view its efforts as, at best,


conjectural fluff. And it is why the most urgent methodological need at pre-sent, as is expressed in this volume, is for conceptual clarity and analytical rigor. But we must close on a much more hopeful note.

Summary

In this volume we have portrayed the iconography of ancient images as a variety of cognitive archaeology. Like other cognitive archaeologies, it pro-ceeds under the assumption that there are, in Geertz’s (1976:236) words, methods available to us by whose means it is possible to build up “accounts of other peoples’ subjectivities.” In our view, the inferences that emerge from a prehistoric iconography are not categorically unlike those of other social scientists who take cognitive domains as their subject matter.

Iconography is, at its base, about the identification of the subject matter of images. Probably even the most ardent of materialists will acknowledge that it is possible to say something about this subject matter, foreign as it is from the time and place of the analyst. We have claimed that it is not a matter of emic versus etic in Marvin Harris’s sense, but rather one of experience-near versus experience-distant, a continuous, sliding frame of reference (Chapter 3). Like social scientists in other disciplines, iconogra-phers of ancient imagery cannot legitimately pretend to know the minds of their subjects. They can never really see things from their subjects’ point of view. What they can do is make verifiable claims about the symbolic equip-ment of their subjects, characterizing not what they thought but what they thought with,4 while never conceding the necessity to shift back into a more general, comparative analytical frame. Herein we have tried to explore the limits of what can be claimed in this manner, with emphasis on systematic method, theoretical coherence, and verifiability.

Further, we have characterized our domain as a kind of model-based archaeology. Its results are not hypotheses nor are they proofs. They are not that simple; verification is not as clear-cut as these terms suggest. Iconographic models, in the analytical sense, are normally more complex than that. And yet there are reasonably objective ways to judge them and

4 While this statement may resemble Colin Renfrew’s (1994:6) portrayal of cognitive archae-ology as seeking “the way in which symbols were used” in place of trying to ascertain their “meanings” by way of interpretive approaches, that resemblance is superficial. What we advocate here is nothing less than a reconstitution of ancient mental models, if only a highly partial and provisional one. That is, at the same time, distinct from attempting to peer directly into the “ancient mind” or presuming to rethink the thoughts of ancient peoples.


weigh them against one another. In this chapter we have emphasized that some have a better goodness of fit than others when matched against empir-ical data. All have implications that will either be borne out or contradicted when brought to bear on closely related data sets, or data sets collected in further studies. In this manner, good models have traction. They are sus-ceptible to incremental improvements, and as such they mature over time while competing models fade from view.

Finally, this volume places emphasis on the critical importance of a staged methodological approach. In this approach, stylistic analysis, con-figurational analysis, and the application of ethnographic analogy are best conceived as separate enterprises, but ones that are interdependent in such a manner that some things are logically prior to others. This chapter lays out a suggested methodology that culminates in the building and testing of iconographic models concerning corpora of related visual representations of the same genre.

In our view, the hope and future of prehistoric iconography as an under-taking with legitimate standing in the social sciences and humanities lies in the publication of patient, long-term research projects with conclusions that are convincing by way of their theoretical coherence and methodolog-ical rigor. There are good extant prototypes for this kind of work. Probably the field will never be completely free of the stigma of amateurishness and unbridled speculation, as it will continue to attract individuals who are convinced that their intuition and passion for the subject are adequate sub-stitutes for the humble work of genuine analysis. Equally difficult to over-come will be the suspicions of many of our colleagues that this business amounts to clever storytelling by minor bands of aficionados marginally embedded within the fields of art history and archaeology. To fully achieve their deserved standing, prehistoric iconographers will do well to avoid the cult of the merely new that afflicts so much of postmodern theory. They must determine to produce studies that persuade by weight of systematic, long-term, authoritative analysis of carefully assembled data sets, yielding guarded but creative conclusions.

175

Glossary

canon, stylistic. A primary feature of a stylistic model.classifying attribute. A salient feature that points to a general class or category of

referent. See identifying attribute.cognitive archaeology. A broad term covering attempts to reconstruct ancient

mental models or to provide functional accounts of how symbols were employed.

composition. A bounded and self-contained work, generally by a single artisan, meant to be understood or appreciated as a unitary, coherent visual image.

condensation. A conventional method of visually conveying the passage of time by conjoining more than one visual “moment” within the same composition. This can be accomplished (a) by duplication of figural characters or (b) without duplication of figural characters, by depicting multiple actions simultaneously. See figural character.

cultural model. A schematized form of shared knowledge within a given domain.culture. Learned and variably distributed knowledge, communicated symbolically,

that individuals require to function properly in their social contexts.design field. A structural space, whose boundaries are dictated by the genre, that

places constraints on designs adapted to them.direct historical approach. A retrodictive approach that begins with well-

documented ethnographic data and attempts to trace homologous traits or con-figurations into the prehistoric past. See homology, historical.

ethnographic analogy. In prehistoric archaeology, the use of colonial-period and later ethnographic sources projected backward in time to help interpret the past.

figural character. A specific animate being identified iconographically across compositions by its identifying and classifying attributes. Figural characters may be depicted individually in compositions, as themes, or they may be shown in broader, especially narrative, contexts in interaction with other animate beings.

filler motif. A subcompositional graphic element connected in some way with one or more external referents, that is yet nonsalient in contributing nothing to the identification of themes. Filler motifs are used to fill otherwise unoccupied com-positional space, particularly in style systems featuring horror vacui.

Glossary176

foundational schema. A simple, culturally salient form that organizes multiple domains in a given cultural setting.

genre. A category of artifact or architecture devoted to a distinct functional purpose.glottographic system. A communicative system of discrete signs that conveys, if

only imperfectly, the sound values of a specific spoken language and reflects that language’s syntax and grammar.

hieroglyph. In a glottographic writing system, a discrete graphic motif whose referent is a word or morpheme. The term is out of place in a strictly icono-graphic discussion. Syn. glyph. See glottographic system; ideograph.

homology, historical. In archaeology, inference in which it is established that the source ethnographic material is linked by a line of cultural transmission to the subject to be interpreted.

iconodrome. Within a corpus of related images, the empirical set of compositions that expresses a common visual theme. See theme, visual.

iconographic model. (1) An analytical model of the relation between a corpus of related representational images and the meaningful referents of that corpus. (2) A native cultural model linking representational images to their meaningful referents.

iconography. The academic discipline concerned with the relation between visual imagery and its meaningful referents.

iconology. (1) The broad, comparative theory of how the referents of representa-tional images are to be inferred. (2) For a given work, the apprehension of its intrinsic reflection of a broader social context.

identifying attribute. A salient feature that points to a specific referent; an identi-fier. See classifying attribute.

ideograph. A discrete graphic motif that conventionally refers to a specific thing or idea. Ideographs are not bound to any particular spoken language, as distinct from hieroglyphs. See hieroglyph.

layout. A conventional mode of arranging subject matter within a design field. Syn. design structure.

locative. A discrete classifying attribute that specifies location, usually relative to cosmology.

medium. The physical material or assemblage of materials from which an object is made.

motif. A discrete graphic form at the subcompositional level whose referencing does not depend on any larger organization of forms and that meets the test of independence, being capable of appearing in more than one thematic context.

narrative, visual. A suprastylistic formal unit defined in relation to a set of related visual themes.

narrative of reference. A conventional folktale, myth, legend, or text that is directly referenced by imagery. A variety of cultural model. See theme of reference.

natural prototype. The objective physical basis or source for an aspect of a visual representation.

nonce symbol. A private, personal symbolic association.pars pro toto. “Part for the whole,” used where one or more select salient features

stand by cultural convention for a larger whole. Syn. synecdoche. See salient feature.

Glossary 177

pattern names. Conventional terms for distinctive designs having only a minimal attachment to some external referent.

representational imagery. Visual imagery that stands in relation to some specific external referent. Figural imagery is occasionally used as a rough synonym, espe-cially when the referent is animate.

salient feature. A low-level feature of an image that, for a beholder, contributes to the identification of the referent by carrying some of the burden of identification: (a) discrete salient features are bounded, self-contained elements having the property that they can be added or subtracted; (b) nondiscrete salient features are integral to the composition in ways that cannot be simply added or subtracted.

semasiographic system. A communicative system of discrete signs that operates according to a conventional orthography and syntax of ideographs used in com-bination, not bound to any specific spoken language. Plains Indian “picture writing,” musical notation, and algebraic notation are examples of semasio-graphic systems. See ideograph.

storyboard. A method of conveying the passage of time by assembling a sequence of separate scenes within a single composition, reflecting a time line.

style. (1) In the general sense, cultural models governing the form of all things artificial. (2) In the specific sense, an indigenous cultural model governing the design of visual expression within one or more genres, shared among a com-munity of interacting artisans and beholders, occupying a limited space and restricted to a brief interval of time.

style horizon. A relatively brief period exhibiting close sharing of style features across multiple communities distributed broadly in space.

style phase. A named, methodologically synchronic moment within a local stylis-tic tradition defined as a series of such moments.

style tradition. A sequence of style phases restricted to a specific region, showing basic continuity through time in formal canons.

supernatural. In the noun form, an animate being or “power” of hyperphysical or spiritual character; a term useful for its relative neutrality.

suprastylistic formal unit. A defined taxon at one of several analytical levels that permits discussion and analysis of the external referents of forms, over and above the stylistic dimensions of these same forms.

symbol. A technical term reserved strictly for semiological use. An indexed rela-tionship, which may or may not be culturally conventional, where X stands for Y entirely by arbitrary association. See nonce symbol.

tableau. An arrangement of otherwise discrete compositions in space, each com-ponent of which may be discussed thematically.

theme, visual. A suprastylistic formal unit defined in relation to an assemblage of compositions for which it is reasonable to infer a common referent. See icono-drome.

theme of reference. A discrete subject in a native cultural domain that is directly referenced by imagery. A variety of cultural model. See narrative of reference.

179

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195

Index

aesthetic sensibility, 4, 51agency, 38, 72, 79Alabama (tribe), 154Algonkian, 153allegories, visual, 77allographs, 125analysis. See configurational

analysis; formal analysis; iconographic analysis; quantitative analysis

animism, 74, 121anomalous animals, 134–135Apalachee, 146archaeology. See cognitive archaeology;

historic archaeology; interpretive archaeology; processual archaeology

Aristotle, 131art, 51

Christian, 98decorative, 5, 80definition of, 4evolution in, 40modern, 66perspective, 47, 65symbolic, 48, 65

Athena, 98, 124attributes, 97

classifying, 63, 68, 97–103, 112, 115, 117, 127, 128, 164, 175, 176

identifying, 63, 97–103, 108, 112, 115, 117, 127–128, 142, 164, 175, 176

qualifying, 98

attributive symbols. See attributes, classifying

Aztec, 8, 89, 104, 119–120, 126, 127, 131, 137, 139, 170

Bahn, Paul, 17, 38ball game, single-pole, 146Bann, Stephen, 14Bantu, 29, 30Barthes, Roland, 112Bartholomew, St., 98Bascom, William, 143bas-relief, 50Berlo, Janet, 2, 136Binford, Lewis, 15Boas, Franz, 4, 5, 23, 28, 30, 39, 43, 47,

64, 66–67, 69–71, 73–75, 80, 147Bonampak, 86Boone, Elizabeth, 9, 23Brain, Jeffrey P., 30, 151Brody, J. J., 43Bronze Age Europe, 2Brown, James A., 23, 33, 37, 40, 41, 56,

78, 87, 88, 94, 97, 139, 143, 161Bulmer, Ralph, 134

Caso, Alfonso, 119chaîne opératoire, 25Chavín, 1, 63, 98, 124Chavín de Huantar, 122, 124Chiapas, 90Chickasaw, 154Chimú, 46

Index196

chunkey, 146Coclé, 1, 42, 61, 87, 124Codex Borgia, 139Coe, Michael, 141cognates, 140–142, 144, 160, 165, 169cognitive archaeology, 15–18, 158, 173,

175complex societies, 1, 2, 6, 23, 26, 54, 143composition, 89, 93, 94, 96, 97,

105–107, 112, 115–117, 157, 175, 177definition of, 92, 175

conceptual modes. 25. See also procedural modes

condensation with duplication, 110, 175without duplication, 109–110, 175

configurational analysis, 13, 20, 32, 85–129, 130, 131, 132, 139, 140, 141, 148, 150–151, 152, 153, 158–160, 162, 163, 164–165, 166, 170, 171, 174

conjoined texts, 2Cooper, J. C., 77corpus, assembly of, 32, 57, 85, 127,

162–163cosmograms, 78, 106, 154–156, 157cosmology, 149, 153, 154, 156, 176Count, Earl W., 145Cowgill, George, 104, 137Cox Mound, Tennessee, 151, 157Craig style, 41critical theory, 16cross-cultural research. See

holocultural researchcubism, 66cultural models, 19, 24, 25, 26, 27, 31,

37, 59, 66, 71, 75, 78, 79, 121, 122, 128, 132, 148, 150, 163, 167, 171, 173, 175, 176, 177

diagnostic, 26, 129, 150native, 140, 150, 156nesting of features, 31observers’, 25, 27, 32, 41, 80, 163task, 25, 27, 32, 41, 80, 163

cultural transmission, 136culture, definition of, 18–19, 20, 175cumulative sufficiency, 71, 103, 117, 128cups, shell, 33, 37, 41, 87

D’Andrade, Roy G., 19da Vinci, Leonardo, 11data collection, 33, 163database, image, 33–34, 89, 127, 162Davidson, Judith, 63decorative effects, 41, 163degenerationists. See styles,

developmental trendsdepth cues, 47depth perception, 29–30, 47Deregowski, J. B., 29design structures. See layoutdeterminants, 71Dilthey, Wilhelm, 16dimensionality, 50, 163direct historical approach, 138–140,

162, 175misuse of, 170

disjunction, 71–76, 77, 85, 130, 131, 136, 139, 143, 149, 157, 158, 159, 165, 169, 170

chronological, 74spatial, 74

distortion, 66, 70, 71Donnan, Christopher B., 23, 33, 37, 40,

43, 86, 96, 100, 106, 162Douglas, Mary, 134Dundes, Alan, 147Durkheim, Emile, 121, 133

earth-diver, 145, 147Easter Island, 2Eastern Woodlands, 73, 144, 145, 153,

154–155emblem books, 77emic and etic, 60, 166, 173Eskimo, 39, 145ethnocentrism, 168ethnographic analogy, 13, 20, 27, 75,

112, 119, 130–157, 158, 159, 160–162, 165, 170, 174, 175

general comparative, 133–135, 165ethnographic present, 162, 165, 170ethnographic sources, 132, 136, 149, 150,

158, 159, 166, 167, 170, 175, 176ethnography, 14, 15, 159ethnology, 14, 15

Index 197

ethnonyms, 139experience-near and

experience-distant, 60, 62, 64, 65, 66, 80, 93, 117, 150–151, 156, 166, 173

expressive culture, 143, 148

factual subject matter, 58, 78, 85, 87, 117

field, design, 66, 93, 175figural characters, 107, 108, 112, 115, 121,

141, 175figural imagery. See imagery,

representationalFlannery, Kent, 17–18, 138, 140formal analysis. See styleForster, Kurt, 72Foucillon, Henri, 72foundational schema, 42, 176Friedel, David, 141

Geertz, Clifford, 60, 62, 166, 173Gell, Alfred, 4, 80genres, 34–37, 40, 41, 58, 63, 70, 86–87,

117, 122, 124, 128, 143, 151, 152, 155, 162–164, 171, 174, 175, 176, 177

primacy of, in reference, 76–77Ghost Dance, 137glossaries, visual, 77glottographic systems, 8, 9, 103, 104,

125, 176glyphs. See hieroglyphsGoldschmidt, Adolph, 75Golte, Jürgen, 109Gombrich, Ernst H., 7, 11, 28, 35, 36,

55–56, 59, 76, 77, 84, 117, 172Goodenough, Ward H., 19gorgets, shell, 30, 34, 37, 41, 43, 109,

151–157Gozzoli, Benozzo, 110Graham, Mark M., 86grapheme, 12Great and Little Traditions, 27Grieder, Terence, 13, 75, 120, 121, 159

Haddon, Alfred C., 75Haida, 49

Hally, David J., 30Hamlin, A. D. F., 80Harappan civilization, 2Harris, Marvin, 60, 173Hellenistic period, 109Heller, Joseph, 22Helms, Mary, 124Hemphill style, 41, 50, 52, 57hermeneutics, 16Hermerén, Göran, 4, 55, 64, 71, 98, 117Hermerén’s principle of recognition,

64, 65, 117, 126, 127, 153Herod, 110hieroglyphs, 103, 104, 125, 176Hightower style, 30–31Hirsch, E. D., 35historic archaeology, 2Hodder, Ian, 16Holder, Preston, 97Holmes, William H., 74, 75, 76, 80holocultural research, 133homology, historical, 131, 133, 135–138,

150, 153, 155, 156, 165, 175, 176horror vacui, 43, 105, 175Hudson, William, 29–30, 47, 51, 59Hultkrantz, Ǻke, 121hypothesis testing, 166, 173

iconodrome, 94, 117, 176, 177iconographic analysis, logic of,

159–162iconographic models, 27, 75, 78, 112,

126, 148, 150, 153, 154, 155, 156–157, 166–167

analytical, 21, 60, 148, 150–151, 158, 167, 176

native, 20, 26, 60, 67, 70, 121, 122, 128, 129, 148, 151, 176

testing of, 166–167variable competency in, 27

iconography, definition of, 3–6, 10–11, 14, 18, 20, 22, 55, 176

iconology, 15, 16, 55, 176identifiers. See attributes, identifyingideograms, 103ideographs, 103–104, 112, 117, 126, 127,

128, 154, 156, 157, 164, 176, 177

Index198

imagery, representational, 3, 5, 26, 64, 80, 158, 177

and art, 4articulation of, 86as communication, 7–10, 67, 72, 75,

80, 87, 128and institutions, 7and mimesis, 28, 66personal models, 79and religion, 7, 149

innocent eye, 59, 117, 120Institute of Fine Arts, New York, 72intaglio, 50interpretive archaeology, 16Izapa, 1, 90, 100

Jaina, 48, 142John the Baptist, St., 110Jomon period, 2Joralemon, Peter D., 94, 118

Karam, 134kennings, 123, 124Kerr, Justin, 93Keyes, Greg, 143, 145, 146Kippenberg, H. G., 6, 59, 117Knight, Vernon J., 75Koryak, 47Kubler, George, 2, 11–13, 40, 72, 74–75,

81, 82, 85–86, 88, 98, 101, 112, 117, 119, 127, 129, 130–132, 142, 148, 158, 164, 170

Kwakwaka’wakw, 67

Lacefield, Hyla, 89Langley, James, 57, 89, 99, 101, 104, 118,

126, 127–128Lankford, George, 147, 152–157Last Supper, The, 11, 129layout, 42, 163, 176Layton, Robert, 4, 7, 30, 35, 64, 103Leach, Edmund, 126Leiden Plaque, 46Lele, 134Lesure, Richard, 46, 160Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 49, 61, 126, 147,

163

Linares, Olga, 49, 61–63linguistic terminology, 9–10, 125, 128locatives, 100, 101, 113, 176locators. See locativeslogographs, 103Lowell, Percival, 58Lowie, Robert, 74Lyman, R. Lee, 38

man in the moon problem, 58Marajoara, 1Marcus, Joyce, 17–18, 138, 140Martin, Simon, 9, 104, 112, 156Mauss, Marcel, 7, 133Maya, 1, 2, 12, 40, 46, 48, 81, 85, 93, 108,

112, 114, 118, 131, 140–142codices, 118hieroglyphic writing, 2, 8mural painting, 86sculpture, 12, 23, 28, 37, 46, 85

McClelland, Donna, 23, 33, 37, 40, 86, 100, 106, 162

meaning, 55–56, 77, 88, 173esoteric, 13hypothetical, 55intended, 55intrinsic, 14modal, 55multivalency of, 56normative, 56standard, 55

media, 35, 41, 155, 163, 176Medici Chapel, 58medieval Europe, 171Mesoamerica, 9, 11, 23, 52, 90, 94, 104,

119, 130, 131, 141, 144, 158, 159Michelangelo, 58Middle Ages, 72Milanich, Jerald T., 63, 134Miller, Mary, 142Mills, Barbara, 45Mimbres, 1mimesis, 64. See imagery,

representational, and mimesisMinoan civilization, 2Mississippian, 1, 94, 98, 100, 108, 109,

151, 152, 156

Index 199

Mixtec, 8–9, 108Moche, 1, 9, 33, 45, 63, 96, 100, 106,

108, 112, 118fineline painting, 23, 28, 33, 38, 43,

46, 47, 63, 86, 100, 104, 106, 108, 109, 110, 115, 115, 162

models, cultural. See cultural models

models, iconographic. See iconographic models

modifiers. See attributes, classifyingMonaghan, John, 103Moore, Clarence B., 52motifs, 3, 12, 63, 74, 76, 82, 85, 87–88,

97, 100, 101, 112–117, 137, 139, 152, 152, 159, 164, 168, 170, 176

filler, 43, 80, 81–83, 105, 123, 175mythic, 108, 142, 144, 147, 149naming of, 118–125substitution sets, 125–126as themes, 112

Moundville site, 52, 78, 89Muller, Jon, 30–31, 58, 125Muskhogean, 153, 154Muskogee (tribe), 154myth, 3, 26, 85, 88, 108, 130, 132,

140–142, 143, 148, 169, 176cosmogonic, 145as source material, 143–148

naming conventions, 118–125, 139, 169neutrality in, 32, 118, 121, 125, 127, 129,

139, 152, 153narrative, 85, 88, 96, 105–112, 128, 164,

177oral, 144of reference, 106, 107, 176visual, 107, 117, 149, 170, 176

natural history, 60, 63, 64, 149, 162, 163–164

natural prototypes, 61, 64, 65, 68, 117, 128, 129, 152, 163, 176

naturalism. See style, naturalism ofneedlecases, bone, 39Neolithic Europe, 2nonlocal goods, 54

Northwest Coast, 35, 48, 66–71, 81, 100, 123, 145

O’Brien, Michael J., 38Odysseus, 109Ojibwa, 8Old Norse, 124Old Testament, 141Olmec, 1, 35, 45, 46, 94, 118, 131overinterpretation, 170–171

Palmer, Richard E., 17Panofsky, Erwin, 4, 10–12, 13, 14–15, 16,

55, 58–59, 72, 74, 85, 87–88, 97, 117, 129, 159, 164

Paracas, 37, 62, 115–116paradigmatic series, 126pars pro toto, 66, 98, 102, 112, 113, 116,

124, 128, 176Parthenon, 124Pasztory, Esther, 4, 28, 35, 37, 52, 75,

86, 95, 104, 119, 126, 127, 128, 133, 139, 147, 156, 159, 170

pattern names, 81, 177personage, 96, 98, 99, 114, 125personal models. See imagery,

representational, personal models

Peten, 140Peters, Ann H., 62, 75, 115petroglyphs, 51phantasmagoria, 78phenomenology, 16Phillips, Philip, 23, 30, 31, 33, 37, 40, 41,

56, 78, 87, 97, 151, 161Plains, 73, 144, 145Plains Indian pictography, 4, 8, 177plazas, 46Pohl, John, 41, 98political economy, 2, 143Polyphemus, 109Popol Vuh, 140–142, 144Postclassic period, 9postures, conventional, 99, 100presentism, 139, 140, 170Price, Sally, 2primates, 63

Index200

procedural modes. 25. See also conceptual modes

processual archaeology, 15, 17, 18Proskouriakoff, Tatiana, 23, 28, 37, 86,

108psychology, 58, 147

Freudian, 147Jungian, 147

Pueblo, 45, 73

quantitative analysis, 89–90, 117Quiché, 140, 141, 144quilt designs, 81Quilter, Jeffrey, 27, 106, 112, 118

Radin, Paul, 177reading-in, 39, 73–74, 75, 76, 80, 123,

147, 169regalia, 63Reigl, Alois, 75Renaissance, 30, 56, 65, 97, 110, 171Renfrew, Colin, 17–18, 38, 173repoussé work, copper, 41, 50revitalization movements, 153Ripa, Cesare, 77ritual, 56, 130, 132, 134, 143, 144, 148, 149Roe, Peter G., 49, 63, 124Romney, A. Kimball, 19Rouse, Irving, 25Rowe, John H., 37, 98, 122–124Ruskin, John, 59

Sackett, James R., 42Sagan, Carl, 58Sahagún, Bernardino de, 89, 131salient features, 65–66, 68, 69, 70, 71,

88, 89, 97, 98, 115, 117, 126, 127, 132, 176

discrete, 96, 152, 177nondiscrete, 96, 152, 177

Salome, 110sample size, 34, 163Samson, Alice V., 63Saussure, Ferdinand de, 125scale, 43Schapiro, Meyer, 23Schele, Linda, 141

Schellhas, Paul, 118, 141Scythian, 2Seler, Eduard, 89semasiographic systems, 8, 9, 104, 125,

127, 164, 177semiology, 69, 78, 125, 177seriation, 37, 38–39, 53, 147, 162, 163serpent, feathered, 52serpent, winged, 52shamanic imagery, 4, 7, 77, 133Shawnee, 153Shennan, Stephen, 89Shore, Bradd, 19, 25, 26, 42Siberia, 47Siouan, 153Sitio Conte, 61, 87Smith, Mary E., 104Smith, Virginia, 90sourcing, chemical or geological, 38,

54Southwest, 1, 43, 45, 73, 144, 145Sparta, 109Sperber, Dan, 19Spiro site, 23, 33, 37, 78, 86, 161split representation, 49, 67Spondylus, 63statuses, political, 143Stephen, St., 98Steponaitis, Vincas P., 75storyboard technique, 106, 108, 110,

177structuralism, 16style, 13, 20, 64, 77, 86, 97, 117, 124, 129,

132, 134, 143, 158, 159–164, 165, 171, 174

as communication, 27, 28canons, 24, 31, 32, 40, 50, 80, 163, 177deep, 42definition of, 22, 23–27, 28, 30, 177engaged with subject matter, 31and ethnicity, 27versus function, 28horizons, 24, 53, 70, 177naturalism of, 28–30, 47, 49, 64personal, 78perspective in, 28, 35, 39, 48, 65,

66–67, 117, 170

Index 201

phases, 24, 37, 38, 40, 53, 87, 124, 160, 162, 177

priority of, 31reductive systems, 66relationship to iconography, 22–23,

52–54schools, 37traditions, 24, 37, 38, 40, 50, 53,

177visual, 24

styles, 37, 65, 70, 96, 117, 123, 151developmental trends, 39–40, 74international, 171multiplicity of, 36, 49

substitution sets. See motifs, substitution sets

Sumerians, 141Sumu, 145supernaturals, identification of,

121–125suprastylistic units, 88, 89, 92, 93, 132,

140, 160, 164, 176, 177symbolic communication, 167symbols, 3, 14, 69, 77, 101, 173, 175,

177nonce, 78, 176, 177

symmetry, 42synecdoche. See pars pro toto

tableaux, 93, 108, 177Taíno, 1Tambiah, Stanley, 134Taube, Karl, 104taxonomic definitions, 116technical determinists. See styles,

developmental trendsTeotihuacán, 1, 3, 12, 85, 86, 89, 95, 101,

104, 113, 115, 119–120, 127, 170host figures, 95mural painting, 9, 12, 28, 37, 57, 86,

98, 101, 104, 126, 127, 137Storm God, 101–102, 119, 127, 139

Tepantitla, 101text, 1, 2–3, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 16, 26, 71, 76,

85, 87, 88, 130, 141, 143–144, 146, 159, 170, 171, 176

thematic approach, 96, 106

themes, 3, 12, 63, 85, 87–89, 95, 97, 100, 102, 105, 112, 115, 126, 140, 152, 159, 164, 170, 175, 176, 177

conceptual, 88naming of, 118–125nesting of elements within, 113of reference, 88, 89, 92, 119, 121, 129,

150, 153, 154, 156, 160, 164, 165, 166, 177

visual, 88, 92, 96, 97, 107, 112, 117, 119, 128, 129, 132, 150, 153, 154, 156, 160, 164, 166, 176, 177

Thomas Aquinas, St., 131Thompson, J. Eric S., 2Thompson, Stith, 149Tikal, 114total social facts, 7totem poles, 67trait-chasing, 168translation, 75, 147Trigger, Bruce D., 17twins narrative, 141, 144, 145Tzakol style, 86

upstreaming. See direct historical approach

Urton, Gary, 118, 124

visual literacy, 128Von Winning, Hasso, 113

Walker, Bridget M., 63Warburg, Aby, 10, 75Waring, Antonio, 97Washburn, Dorothy, 43Weeden Island culture, 63, 134–135Weitzmann, Kurt, 110Willey, Gordon R., 131, 132Wölfflin, Heinrich, 75, 97workshops, 161

Xibalba, 141

Yoruba, 35

Zapotec, 138Zeus, 124

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