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Maya armies fought to capture kings
The famous battle mural at Bonampak fills a huge room with about 60 fighters in a pitched battle, and every spear points down. They stab each other in the legs and the back. Not a single person is dead or taking a kill shot. The aim was to disable warriors so they could be hauled back to the winner's city and sacrificed there, with the proper words and ceremony. The captives were warriors and elites, not women and children.
A conquered city could keep flying its own flag. What the winners wanted was that city's king and his bloodletting ability, its real power and its access to the gods, put to work for their side. The alternative was wiping out the bloodline entirely. Sometimes the victors installed a person from their own bloodline, sometimes the city died out, and sometimes they married the city's princesses into their line.
Why did captive kings matter so much?
A captured king could be displayed, humiliated, and sacrificed in a ceremony that tied his bloodline to the winner's. Monuments show Maya rulers standing over bound captives, who are often named in the glyphs. Some hieroglyphic stairways at Maya cities show captives on the steps, where the winners walked over them. The practice made the winner's triumph visible to the whole city.
How was Bonampak's mural found?
The Bonampak murals were brought to Western attention in 1946, when the photographer Giles Healey was guided there by Lacandon Maya. The paint survived because a film of calcite, deposited by seeping water, sealed it. Artists made copies of the murals in the following years, as the original colors faded. The three rooms show a battle, the presentation of captives, and a celebration.
Why did warriors wear quilted cotton?
Quilted cotton, often soaked in salt brine, stopped stone-tipped weapons and arrows well. Mesoamerican fighters wore it in battle for centuries. Spanish chroniclers record that the conquistadors adopted the same armor, called escaupil, because it was lighter than steel in the tropics. The Bonampak mural shows warriors dressed in animal-skin costumes.
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