from tula chico to chichén itzá: implications of the epiclassic

The debate over the nature and timing of thecontact between Tula and Chichén Itzá asreflected in the architectural and artistic

parallels between these widely separated centershas been a perennial fixture of Mesoamericanarchaeology and art history for over a century anda quarter since Désiré Charnay’s days. In a cycli-cal pattern, consensus concerning the mechanismsunderlying the similarities between the sitesrepeatedly emerges, only to be challenged anewevery few decades. The energy, and sometimesthe vitriolic nature, of the controversy occasion-ally seems to reflect subtle-to-blatant posthumouspartisanship on behalf of the long dead, champi-

oning the originality of one Mesoamerican sub-region at the expense of the other. Frequently,either central Mexico or the Maya is awarded theprimary credit (or blame, as in mid-twentieth-century models disparaging the aesthetic of“Toltec” Chichén Itzá as barbaric) for the sharedfeatures of these “twin Tollans” (Kowalski andKristan-Graham 2007).1

Inextricably bound up with these polarizingpositions regarding the direction of the influencesinvoked are questions of the relative chronologyof the two sites. Kowalski and Kristan-Graham(2007:37–38) classify the spectrum of opinionson the temporal relationship between Tula and

FROM TULA CHICO TO CHICHÉN ITZÁ: IMPLICATIONS OF THEEPICLASSIC SCULPTURE OF TULA FOR THE NATURE AND TIMING

OF TULA-CHICHÉN CONTACT

Keith Jordan

In the last four decades, a number of archaeologists and art historians have posited that “Toltec” Chichén Itzá (Yucatán,Mexico) flourished during the ninth and tenth centuries A.D. They argued that because the “Toltec” style in Yucatánpredated the Tollan phase at Tula (Hidalgo, Mexico), most of the style features shared between the cities originated withthe Maya. Here, I examine the relevance of the Epiclassic relief sculpture of Tula Chico for the timing and nature of contactbetween Tula and Chichén Itzá. The presence of reliefs of reclining figures in clear “Toltec” style at Tula Chico in contextspredating their occurrence at Chichén Itzá suggests that claims for a predominantly Maya origin for that style stand in needof revision. Such a rethinking is supported by other fragmentary images from Tula Chico (eagles and Venus symbols), aswell as by new studies of ceramic materials and chronology at Chichén Itzá. It is clear that Tula was an active participantin whatever interactions led to similar visual arts at Chichén Itzá, and at least some of the shared iconography has temporalpriority at Tula.

En las últimas cuatro décadas, un número de arqueólogos e historiadores del arte han propuesto que el estilo “Tolteca” deChichén Itzá (Yucatán, México), floreció durante los siglos nueve y diez A.D. Estos investigadores argumentaron que, dadoque el estilo “Tolteca” en Yucatán precedió a la fase Tollan en Tula (Hidalgo, México), la mayoría de los rasgos compartidosentre las ciudades se originaron de los Mayas. En este trabajo se examina la relevancia de la escultura relieve de Tula Chicopara el tiempo y la naturaleza del contacto entre Tula y Chichén Itzá. La presencia de relieves de figuras reclinadas de estiloclaramente “Tolteca” en Tula Chico, en contextos anteriores a su existencia en Chichén Itzá, sugiere que las afirmacionesacerca de que el origen del estilo fue predominantemente maya necesitan ser revisadas. Este replanteo es apoyado por otrasimágenes fragmentarias de Tula Chico (águilas y símbolos de Venus), así como también por nuevos estudios de la cerámicay la cronología de Chichén Itzá. Es claro que Tula fue un participante activo en cualesquiera que hayan sido las interaccionesque llevaron a las semejanzas del arte visual en Chichén Itzá. Además, al menos una parte de la iconografía compartida tieneprioridad temporal en Tula.

Keith Jordan � Department of Art and Design, California State University, Fresno, 5225 North Backer Avenue, M/SCA65, Fresno, California, 93740-8001 ([email protected])

Latin American Antiquity 27(4), 2016, pp. 462–478Copyright © 2016 by the Society for American Archaeology

DOI: 10.7183/1045-6635.27.4.462

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Jordan] FROM TULA CHICO TO CHICHÉN ITZÁ 463

Chichén Itzá into a useful dichotomy. In one per-spective, the cities are viewed as largely contem-poraneous, with the florescence of Chichén Itzábeginning in the Terminal Classic but extendinginto the twelfth century and overlapping with theTollan-phase (A.D. 900–1150) apogee at Tula.Alternately, “Toltec” Chichén Itzá is interpretedas a predominantly Terminal Classic phenomenon,declining by A.D. 1000–1050, and therefore coevalwith only the beginnings of the Tollan phase. Inthe first model, the two centers are seen as engagedin intense interaction across centuries (e.g., Kepecs2007), participating as “active receptors” (Jones1995:372) rather than passive recipients of “influ-ence” from each other, actively appropriating andrecontextualizing artistic features to meet localagendas. Advocates of the second option “tend todeemphasize Chichén Itzá’s links to Tula, or sug-gest that various ‘Toltec’ traits originated atChichén Itzá prior to appearing at Tula” (Kowalskiand Kristan-Graham 2007:38). Kowalski and Kristan-Graham admit that this dichotomy is aheuristic abstraction, given the wide variationamong models and the presence of features of bothpoles of opinion in most, but it remains a usefuldevice for categorizing the range of explanationsput forward over the long controversy.

It is not my intention here to credit the jaguar’sshare of the style similarities of the two cities toone or the other. My position belongs among thosewho see these centers as largely contemporaryand engaged in a complex series of reciprocalexchanges. I intend to point out the significanceof relatively recent discoveries at Tula Chico, theEpiclassic ceremonial center of Tula. Relief sculp-tures at Tula Chico predate both the Tollan-phasemonuments at that site and, by any of the sug-gested reconstructions of chronology at ChichénItzá, the “Toltec” monuments there as well. Pub-lished by excavators almost a decade ago, thesematerials have negative implications for scenariosthat attribute the origin of all or most of the stylefeatures shared between the two cities to the Maya.The presence of reliefs of reclining figures,jaguars, eagles, and Venus symbols in clear Toltecstyle at Tula Chico, in contexts predating theiroccurrence at Chichén Itzá, suggests that suchclaims now stand in need of revision. The com-plex, multidirectional nature of interregional con-tacts and interactions in Epiclassic and Early

Postclassic Mesoamerica makes tracing the ori-gins of any given shared stylistic or iconographictrait difficult. Nonetheless, it is clear from art-his-torical evidence that at least some aspects of thestyle and iconography shared by Tula and ChichénItzá have temporal priority at Tula. At a minimum,this material indicates that Tula was an active par-ticipant in whatever interactions led to the simi-larities of its visual art to that of Chichén Itzá,rather than a provincial tail wagged by theChichén Itzá dog (cf. George Kubler 1961). Sucha rethinking is also timely in light of questionsraised by the latest studies of chronology atChichén Itzá.

A Brief HistoriographyA short synopsis of the current state of the debateis in order to briefly bring this epic of Epiclassicstudies up to date and establish the context for thesignificance of the new materials. For a greaterpart of the last century, it was enshrined in text-books that resemblances between the two citieswere the result of art styles brought to Yucatánfrom Tula as a result of a Toltec invasion in A.D.987, the date set by questionable readings of thepostconquest Books of Chilam Balam. That thisentrada left no traces in the vast expanse betweenTula and Chichén Itzá bothered few if any of itsproponents. Versions of this migratory scenariodiffered only in degree of complexity, withTozzer’s (1957) saga of repeated invasions andMaya revolts being the most intricate narrative.This consensus began to disintegrate withKubler’s (1961) seminal paper arguing for Mayaorigins for the “Toltec” style shared by Tula andits Yucatec counterpart. Although still framedwithin a story of Toltec invasions of the Mayaregion, Kubler’s controversial contributionpointed to possible Classic Maya precursors forsome “Toltec” motifs, and their alleged lack ofantecedents at Tula, to hypothesize that Tula wasmerely a crude frontier copy of a style that orig-inated at Chichén Itzá. In the words of ClemencyCoggins (2002:41), Kubler’s paper was “the shotthat was heard around the small world ofMesoamerican archaeology, resounding still.”

The traditional Tula-to-Chichén Itzá modelwas abandoned by almost all Mayanists in the1980s and 1990s. This rejection was facilitated




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by skeptical reevaluations of the historical valueof postconquest redactions of indigenous narra-tives of the peregrinations of Quetzalcoatl/Kukulkan, previously invoked as evidence for thealleged invasion (e.g., Gillespie 1989, 2007;Smith 2007; Volta and Braswell 2014:360–362).Some newer models reversed the timing and direc-tionality of the connection: interpretations givingChichén Itzá creative priority in framing theshared “Toltec” style predominated into the firstdecade of the twenty-first century. Some of thesemodels (e.g., Jones 1995) drew on J. Eric Thomp-son’s (1970) hypothesis of the Gulf Coast PutúnMaya as the innovators of the eclectic art ofChichén Itzá. Although Thompson also includeda Toltec incursion into Yucatán in his reconstruc-tions, by the late 1980s Toltec invaders were nolonger a part of most models. This left the Maya—albeit a Putún group with strong central Mexicanconnections—as the primary synthesizers of artand architecture at Chichén Itzá and, often byextension, Tula. Eventually, even the Putún van-ished from most historical narratives. The Mayanlanguage reflected in inscriptions at Chichén Itzáproved to be the Cholan of the Classic Maya ratherthan Chontal, and the eponymous Itzá foundersof the city were identified as the results of a dias-pora from the Classic cities of the Petén (e.g.,Schele and Mathews 1998). Although muchrefuted (e.g., Kremer 1994), Thompson’s Putúnstill make their appearance as the MexicanizedMaya rulers of Chichén Itzá in some textbooksand in the occasional paper.

A number of contributors to the debate in the1980s and 1990s argued that the northern “Toltec”sector of Chichén Itzá partially or completelyoverlapped in time with the Late to Terminal Clas-sic “Maya” component, the Pu’uk-related rangestructures of south Chichén Itzá, and thus predatedthe Tollan phase at Tula by at least half a century.Lincoln (1990), based on the settlement patternanalysis presented in his doctoral dissertation,argued for complete contemporaneity of “Toltec”and “Maya” Chichén Itzá. His reappraisal ofceramic data suggested the same: the Sotuta com-plex, traditionally associated with the “Toltec”monuments, seemed also to be associated withMaya-style buildings like Las Monjas. Sotutaappeared to overlap with the earlier Cehpech com-plex wares in the early stages of construction of

the “Toltec” Temple of the Warriors and theCastillo. In addition, interpretation of radiocarbondates from the Castillo and inscribed CalendarRound dates from within k’atun 10.3 from the“Toltec”-style High Priest’s Grave and Maya-styleCaracol (Bey and Ringle 2007:416; Ringle et al.1998:190–192) seemed to support this revisedsequence. If, according to these reconstructions,the main phase of “Toltec” construction atChichén Itzá ended by A.D. 1000 and perhaps asearly as A.D. 950, this chronology would leave atmost a 50-year overlap between Chichén Itzá andTollan-phase Tula.

In this context, some archaeologists and arthistorians claimed victory for a more radical ver-sion of Kubler’s suggestions; they argued that thesupposed temporal priority of Chichén Itzá gaveit creative priority and positioned it as the sourceof the style and iconography of Tula. For Ringleand colleagues (1998:184), these chronologicalrevisions made it a “near impossibility that Tol-lan-phase Tula stood as a donor culture,” becausethe beginnings of the Tula-related style at ChichénItzá ostensibly predated its appearance at Tula.Dating all major sculpture at Tula to the Tollanphase but placing the beginning of “Toltec”Chichén Itzá around A.D. 850–880, Bey andRingle found more evidence of the early evolutionof the Toltec style at Chichén Itzá than Tula(2007:397; Ringle and Bey 2009:345). Similarlyreversing the direction of earlier models, Scheleand Mathews (1998:200) attributed the visual par-allels between Tula and Chichén Itzá to Maya“influence” on central Mexico during the Epiclas-sic, reflected in the eclectic art styles of Cacaxtlaand Xochicalco.

By 2010, these models were increasingly chal-lenged. Michael Smith (2007:581) criticized therevisionist views of Chichén Itzá, as well as thehypotheses they replaced, for their one-sideddependence on epigraphic and art-historical evi-dence due to deficiencies and gaps in the archae-ological evidence (and its publication) fromChichén Itzá. Reevaluation of and additions tothat evidence would not be long in coming. Garcíaand Cobos (2009) emphasized the distinctionbetween the early Sotuta complex, which theyplace between A.D. 700/750 and A.D. 900, andlate Sotuta, which they date to A.D. 900–1050.They criticize Lincoln’s total Cehpech-Sotuta

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overlap model for its failure to take this distinctioninto account (García and Cobos 2009:60). On thebasis of their revised ceramic chronology, Garcíaand Cobos (2009:48, 115) date the Maya-stylebuildings of south Chichén Itzá to the ninth cen-tury or earlier in the Late Classic, and the buildingsof the Gran Nivelación of north Chichén Itzá (andthe height of the power of the city) mostly to A.D.900–1100, with construction ending by the begin-ning of the twelfth century (see also Cobos2004:520, 533, 537).

In his 2010 doctoral dissertation, Pérez(2010:138–142) argued for further and very dif-ferent revisions to the ceramic chronology ofChichén Itzá. He confirmed that earlier Yabnal—but not Sotuta ceramic wares—were associatedwith the foundations and architectural fill of Maya-style structures in the southern half of the site; theHouse of the Phalli, Casa Colorada, and House ofthe Three Lintels thus predate Sotuta. Furthermore,Cehpech pottery was found in the fill of the AkabDzib, also in contexts lacking Sotuta. Thus, Pérez(2010:178) rejects any significant overlap betweenthe Cehpech and Sotuta ceramic complexes. Hedates the beginnings of Cehpech to A.D. 830–850and attributes to this complex a duration of abouta century. He places the beginning of Sotuta aroundA.D. 920–930 and its terminus between A.D. 1100and A.D. 1150, possibly as late as A.D. 1200 (Pérez2010:269). The Castillo and other “Toltec” struc-tures on the Gran Nivelación are associated withLate Sotuta and thus get pulled forward to A.D.1000–1150, making them coeval with Tollan-phase Tula (Pérez 2010:205). In this reconstruc-tion, building activity at Chichén Itzá tapered offand ceased between A.D. 1150 and A.D. 1250–1300 (Pérez 2010:333), so that the end of “Toltec”Chichén Itzá roughly coincides with the end ofTula Grande.

The recent work of Braswell and his associates(Braswell 2011; Braswell and Peniche 2012; Voltaand Braswell 2014) also raises significant ques-tions for the chronology of Chichén Itzá. Braswelland his team conducted stratigraphic excavationsin 2009 on the Gran Nivelación east of theCastillo, between that structure and the WesternColonnade of the Group of the ThousandColumns. Their results indicate that the lastremodeling of the Castillo and the final floor ofthe Gran Nivelación to the east were completed

in the Early Postclassic, around A.D. 950–1000(Braswell and Peniche 2012:238). Because theTemple of the Warriors and the Great Ball Courtand its associated temples were built after the con-struction of the Castillo and its associated floor,they also must be Early Postclassic. Volta andBraswell (2014:364–365) also question the valid-ity of the Cehpech ceramic complex, which waskey to prior attempts at sorting out the chronologyof Chichén Itzá. They note difficulties in distin-guishing among the slate wares of this complexand raise the question of whether Cehpech repre-sents a real phase or a group of widely shared elitewares integrated into other regional ceramic com-plexes across Yucatán. On the basis of theirBayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates fromChichén Itzá, Volta and Braswell (2014:380–383)place the full development of the Tula-relatedstyle (which they prefer to call “International”rather than “Toltec”) at Chichén Itzá between A.D.950 and A.D. 998. While observing that this isaround the same date as the traditional A.D. 987placement of the Toltec entrada, they nonethelessagree with all other recent commentators in reject-ing the mid-twentieth-century invented saga ofToltec (or Putún) invaders. For them, ChichénItzá is a Maya site. Its similarities to Tula (andother Mesoamerican regions) is best explainedthough the “emulation of foreign styles, wide-ranging trade relations, and a shared world reli-gion” (Volta and Braswell 2014:393). AlthoughBraswell and associates note that architecturaltraits associated with their International Style(e.g., columns) appear on the Gran Nivelación asearly as the second half of the ninth century, andpossibly as early as A.D. 800 (Braswell andPeniche 2012:253), for them, the heyday of“Toltec” Chichén Itzá is a Postclassic phenome-non that took place between A.D. 950 and A.D.1050 (Braswell 2011; Braswell and Peniche2012:258; Volta and Braswell 2014:372, 382–383, 389–390). They dispute Pérez’s dating of theend of construction as late as A.D. 1100–1200,instead placing the decline of Chichén Itzá priorto the demise of Tula Grande.

From Tula Chico . . .A significant problem for all explanatory hypothe-ses for the Tula–Chichén Itzá parallels is that the


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early art of Tula prior to the Tollan phase wasalmost completely unknown until very recently,and the Epiclassic art (ca. A.D. 650–900) of thesite is represented only by very incompleteremains. Mastache and Cobean (1989:58, Figure8) argued that a fragment of relief sculpture show-ing a feathered headdress from La Mesa, a sitenear Tula dated to around A.D. 650, resembledthe headgear of the composite creature imageson Pyramid B at Tula Grande, thus demonstratingthat the art of Epiclassic Tula was stylisticallysimilar to later Tollan-phase developments. Cohodas (1989:225), however, saw the closestparallels to this fragment in Teotihuacan art. Beyand Ringle (2007:406) later suggested that theincompleteness of the fragment rendered it incon-clusive, at best, as evidence for the roots of theToltec style, which they attributed predominantlyto Chichén Itzá in the absence of clear antecedentsat Tula. Nonetheless, they also commented thatrecent and, at that time unpublished, discoveriesby Cobean at Tula Chico might force a rethinkingof their position (Bey and Ringle 2007:418).Cobean and associates have indeed since pub-lished reliefs from an Epiclassic context at TulaChico, rendered in a style very close to that ofthe Tollan phase and displaying the same iconog-raphy (Jiménez 2010:Photos 20–21, Drawings6–11; Mastache et al. 2009:313–314, Figures 20–24; Suárez et al. 2007).

Tula Chico (Figure 1) was the original political-religious core of Tula, dating to the Prado (A.D.650–750) and Corral (A.D. 750–850) phases.Both phases are characterized by the presence ofCoyotlatelco pottery types, and both were definedmostly on the basis of test excavations by theInstituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia atTula Chico in the 1970s, three in the ceremonialcomplex itself and another 180 m to the southwest(Healan 2012:78). Since the distinction betweenthese phases is based more on differences in thefrequency of ceramic types rather than clear tran-sitions, it has been questioned as somewhat arbi-trary, and Healan (2012:78) suggests that perhapsthey might be better understood as early and latesubphases of a single phase.

Tula Chico is one of 10 large, nucleated Epi-classic hilltop sites in the Tula region, whichinclude the aforementioned site of La Mesa. Thesesites represent a radical discontinuity in settle-

ment patterns with earlier Teotihuacan-associatedsites in the area, probably reflecting an intrusivepopulation, perhaps of northern or western Mex-ican affiliation as evidenced by ceramic similar-ities to Classic pottery traditions from the Bajío(Cobean 1990:500–501; Healan 2012:80–81;Mastache et al. 2002:69–71). The chronologicalrelationship of Tula Chico with the other nine set-tlements remains unclear. The latter may be ear-lier, associated with the first Epiclassic La Mesaphase (ca. A.D. 650–700) in the Tula region(Healan 2012:76). Prado-phase ceramic materialsare associated with the earliest constructions atTula Chico (Cobean et al. 2012:42; Mastache etal. 2009:311–312). Nevertheless, the extant radio-carbon dates from Tula Chico and La Mesa showan almost total overlap in four of the five samplesfrom each site, suggesting that the two centerscould have been contemporaries, although thesmall number of samples from both makes thisuncertain (Healan 2012:80). Four radiocarbondates from a platform east of the Tula Chico plaza,calibrated to two standard deviations, rangebetween A.D. 700 and A.D. 900. Although thisdoes not permit the building to be dated with anygreater precision, the excavators interpret this asevidence that construction began around A.D. 700because there was another building stage beforethe one that is dated (Mastache et al. 2009:314;Suárez et al. 2007:50). A much earlier singleradiocarbon date, calibrated to two standard devi-ations as A.D. 450–650 (Mastache et al. 2009:316,Figure 25), was obtained from fill underneath theplaza below a ball court. As an isolated date out-side the range of the others, its significance isuncertain (Healan 2012:80). It may be associatedwith the earliest building activities at the sitearound A.D. 600–650 (Mastache et al. 2009:316).Some of the buildings at Tula Chico had three tofour substructures, indicative of a history ofrepeated remodeling over time. In the end, TulaChico was burned and destroyed ca. A.D. 800–850. After this violent termination, it was aban-doned and never reoccupied—a significant factfor any understanding of the relationship betweenits art and that of Chichén Itzá.

Although not on the scale of Tula Grande, TulaChico is of significant size. Its plaza is almost 100m wide (Figure 1; Cobean et al. 2012:35). Its planis similar to that of its Early Postclassic successor,





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another indicator of artistic continuity with theTollan phase. Like Tula Grande, it has a main ballcourt, partially excavated by INAH in 2005, onthe west side of the plaza, strongly resemblingTula Grande Ball Court 2 (Suárez et al. 2007:48).Although the Tula Chico ball court and its Post-classic counterpart resemble one another in terms

of their small stone tabular façade decoration andplaster floors, the former is not I-shaped like thelatter (Mastache et al. 2009:313). The overall lay-out of Tula Chico also differs from Tula Grandein its north-south orientation (in contrast to theorientation of Tula Grande 17 degrees east ofnorth) and in the placement of its major platforms


Figure 1. Topographic map of Tula Chico. Preliminary version of the Tula Chico site map by Arq. Jesús Acevedo García,reproduced courtesy of Dan Healan and Robert Cobean. Scale added based on Mastache et al. 2009:312, Figure 19.




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side by side to the north of the plaza, rather thanthe Teotihuacan-derived arrangement of PyramidsB and C at Tula Grande (Healan 2012:77).

Excavations in 2002–2003 on top of the east-ernmost pyramid on the North Platform at TulaChico revealed two early Corral (ca. A.D. 750–800) halls. These structures predate by up to acentury the putative late ninth-century beginningsof the “Toltec” style at Chichén Itzá in the Cehpech-Sotuta overlap models of that city. More-over, they predate the full flowering of “Toltec”Chichén Itzá by as many as 200 years if Pérez’s(2010) and Volta and Braswell’s (2014) revisedchronologies are accepted. These structures werebadly damaged by fire, but yielded many frag-ments of reliefs of reclining elite figures (Figures2a–c; Jiménez 2010:Photos 20–22, Drawings 7–9), similar to those from the Early PostclassicPalacio Quemado at Tula Grande (Cobean et al.2012:37). Like these later counterparts, the TulaChico images probably originally formed ban-quette/bench or roof friezes (Suárez et al.2007:49). These Tula Chico reliefs depict the sameposes and body proportions, as well as royal cos-tume elements, as those portrayed on Tollan-phasereclining figures from the Palacio Quemado andother locales at Tula (Figures 3a–c). Shared designelements include plumed headdresses, quilted cot-ton armor, knee bands, and jade or turquoise barearspools (see Kristan-Graham 1989:136 for def-inition) and nose plugs or bar nose ornaments(compare the Tula Chico examples with the laterones reproduced in Jiménez 2010:Photos 23, 28–30; see also Mastache et al. 2009:Figures 13–14).One of the Tula Chico figures (Figure 2c) has aback shield or mirror of a type ubiquitous at bothTula Grande and Chichén Itzá (Kristan-Graham1989:157–159). Two of the figures (Figures 2aand 2c) carry bars or staffs festooned with knotsor ribbons of the type found on the arms and legsof some of the Palacio Quemado figures and otherTollan-phase images of rulers from the PyramidB pillar reliefs and from the Tula stelae (Jordan2014:37–38). Kristan-Graham (1989:160–162,265) identifies them as a costume element asso-ciated with ritual bloodletting, derived from sim-ilar Classic Maya royal regalia. They are alsocommon at Chichén Itzá. The style of the TulaChico figures is slightly simpler in its portrayalof facial features and costume details than some

of the more elaborate examples from the PalacioQuemado, but it is comparable to that of otherPalacio Quemado specimens.

Beginning with Kristan-Graham (1989:285–290, 2007:564), the Tollan-phase reclining figures


Figure 2. Relief of reclining figures from Tula Chico: (a)from hall on the easternmost pyramid of the NorthPlatform (drawing by Jay Scantling after Mastache et al.2009:314, Figure 20); (b) fragment of relief of reclining fig-ure from hall on the easternmost pyramid of the NorthPlatform (drawing by Adam Scot Hofman after Jiménez2010:99, Drawing 7); (c) relief of reclining figure from hallon the easternmost pyramid of the North Platform (draw-ing by Adam Scot Hofman after Jiménez 2010:101,Drawing 9).

a

b

c




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have been identified as deceased rulers or royalancestors (Mastache et al. 2009:306–307). Theirpose appears related to pan-Mesoamerican con-ventions for the depiction of elite ancestors iden-tified by Urcid (2010) and that I relate to the Tulaexamples (Jordan 2013). The similarity of theTula Chico examples to the Tollan-phase imagessuggests to the excavators that the same dynasticinstitutions and ideology reflected in the art ofTula Grande already were present at the time ofthe construction of Tula Chico (Mastache et al.2009:322).

Excavations beneath another platform at thesouthwest corner of the Tula Chico plaza yieldedbanquette reliefs of the Prado phase from a dis-mantled building. These depict Venus star sym-

bols accompanied by cut conch shells (Figure 4a;Jiménez 2010:Photo 66), an eagle that predatesthe raptorial birds of Pyramid B but lacks a heartin its mouth like the latter (Figure 5a; Jiménez2010:Drawing 6; cf. Jiménez 2010:Photo 56), andat least one additional fragmentary reclining per-sonage. The excavators compare the Venus sym-bols to those depicted in the contemporaneous artof Cacaxtla and Xochicalco, while also notingtheir obvious Teotihuacan antecedents (Mastacheet al. 2009:314; Suárez et al. 2007:49). All thatremains of the reclining figure is the foot andlower leg, but enough survives to show that it isessentially the same image as represented in thelater Corral- and Tollan-phase reliefs (Mastacheet al. 2009:315, Figure 22).

In addition to these obvious examples of styl-istic and iconographic continuity between Tula


a

b

c

Figure 3. Reliefs of reclining figures from Sala 1 ofBuilding 3, Palacio Quemada, Tula Grande: (a–b) draw-ings by Jay Scantling after Jiménez 1998:347 and 349,Figures 55 and 56; (c) drawing by Jay Scantling afterJiménez 2010:48, Photo 28.

a

b

Figure 4. (a) Relief of Venus symbols and cut conch shellsfrom Tula Chico. Drawing by Hazel Antaramian-Hofmanafter Jiménez 2010:86, Photo 66. (b) Relief of Venus sym-bols, Venus Platform, Chichén Itzá. Drawing by AdamScot Hofman after Tozzer 1957:Figure 297.




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Chico and Tula Grande, at least one of the TulaChico pyramids was covered with slabs with sculp-tured reliefs of feathered serpents, depicted in hor-izontal orientation and undulating position similarto those on the Pyramid of the Plumed Serpents atXochicalco (Cobean et al. 2012:154; Jiménez2010:102, Drawing 10). Another feature of EarlyPostclassic Tula anticipated at its Epiclassic pre-cursor are “projecting panels consisting ofquadruped animals and birds,” again resemblingthose of Pyramid B (Jiménez 2010:18). Besidesthe eagle noted above, Jiménez (2010:Drawing11) reproduces a relief of a feline from Tula Chico(Figure 6a) that may have formed part of such afeature, and notes its resemblance to the jaguarsof the Pyramid B frieze. Finally, a slab sculptureof an elite personage with crossed arms from TulaChico is executed in a style recalling Early Post-classic Tula stone carving (Jiménez 2010:Photos13–14; compare to de la Fuente et al. 1988:Figures4, 5, 7, 9, 11). Columns, a prominent shared featureof Tollan-phase building styles at Tula and “Toltec”Chichén Itzá, are already present at Tula Chico(Kristan-Graham 2007:541).

. . . To Chichén ItzáGiven the “striking similarity” (Jiménez 2010:5)of the sculpture of Tula Chico with its Tollan-phase successors, it is clear that significant aspectsof the Tula art tradition had developed by the Epi-classic (Mastache et al. 2002:65). This has impor-tant implications for the nature and timing of therelationship of Tula with Chichén Itzá. The reclin-ing figures at Tula Chico are significantly olderthan the full development of “Toltec” ChichénItzá, whether it is placed in the late ninth centuryor, according to the latest evidence provided byVolta and Braswell (2014) and Pérez (2010), inthe tenth. At the very least, they overlap with theearliest manifestations of International Stylearchitecture on the Gran Nivelación. Earlierclaims like that made by Bey and Ringle(2007:415) that the “available evidence from Tulaindicates that the development of ‘Toltec’ iconog-raphy, sculpture, and to some degree architecturaltraits took place during the Late Tollan phase (afterA.D. 950), when there was a general shift awayfrom undecorated facades to those heavily orna-mented by sculptural frieze” are no longer tenable.


a

b

Figure 5. (a) Relief of an eagle from Tula Chico. Drawingby Adam Scot Hofman after Jiménez 2010:98, Drawing 6.(b) Eagle relief from the Platform of the Eagles, ChichénItzá. Drawing by Adam Scot Hofman after Tozzer1957:Figure 435.




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Sculptural friezes incorporating imagery of thekind found in the Tollan phase and at ChichénItzá date to the Epiclassic at Tula Chico.

Reliefs of reclining elites of the kind found atTula Chico are paralleled in several architecturalcontexts at Chichén Itzá: on the Platform of theEagles (Figure 7b; Tozzer 1957:Figure 243), the“Toltec” annex to Las Monjas (Figure 7c; Tozzer1957:Figure 575), and on the tableros of the Tem-ple of the Warriors (Figure 8a; Tozzer 1957:Figure

431). The similarities of the Temple of the War-riors to Pyramid B have made it the “lynchpin ofthe Tula-Chichen relationship” (Kristan-Graham2007:557), the ground zero of the scholarly con-flicts of the last century and a quarter. Based onthe resemblance of reliefs on the Terminal ClassicTemple of the Warriors and on the Palacio Que-mado, Bey and Ringle (2007) argued that the Tem-ple of the Warriors came first. But the presenceof similar images at Tula Chico considerablyundermines this argument, even if the TerminalClassic placement of the Temple of the Warriorsis correct, and the more recent evaluations of thechronology of Chichén Itzá indicate that it is not.

Thompson (1943:118–119) identified thereclining figures on the Platform of the Eaglesand south frieze of the Temple of the Warriorswith the Mexica deity Tlachitonatiuh. Baird(1985:123) notes that these reclining figures have


a

b

Figure 6. (a) Fragment of relief of a feline, Tula Chico.Drawing by Adam Scot Hofman after Jiménez 2010:103,Drawing 11. (b) Jaguar relief from the Temple of theWarriors, Chichén Itzá. Drawing by Jay Scantling afterTozzer 1957:Figure 431.

a

b

Figure 7. Comparison of (a) reclining figure from TulaChico from Figure 2a with reclining figures from ChichénItzá; (b) from the Platform of the Eagles, drawing byAdam Scot Hofman after Tozzer 1957:Figure 243; and (c)Monjas annex, drawing by Adam Scot Hofman afterTozzer 1957:Figure 575.

c




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some features of that Nahua divinity of the settingsun, such as yellow hair, but also sport the gogglesof Tlaloc. These features distinguish them fromsimilar images at the Palacio Quemado and otherlocales at Tula, to which we now must add TulaChico. Despite the absence of the distinctive eye-wear of the storm god, Jiménez (2010:18) sug-gests that the reclining figures from Tula Chicoare “possibly tlaloques,” hinting at a possibleconceptual link between the Epiclassic Tulareliefs and their Yucatec counterparts. Tlaloc gog-gles appear on a pillar relief from Pyramid B aspart of a similarly costumed standing figure,either representing the deity himself or a Tularuler impersonating him (Jiménez 2010:95,Drawing 3; Mastache et al. 2009:300, Figure 9).Cobean and colleagues (2012:75) explicitly com-pare this image to reliefs of goggled figures atChichén Itzá. In a Palacio Quemado bench frieze,armed human figures march behind Tlaloc or an

impersonator of that deity (Mastache et al.2002:124, Figure 5.37). It seems likely that Tlalocwas considered a patron of royalty at Tula, andthat Toltec rulers perhaps were viewed as incar-nations of this divinity (Mastache et al. 2002:104,125, 142). Although such goggles are part of thewidely disseminated complex of TeotihuacanStorm God and martial imagery that formed ashared Classic inheritance for both Tula andChichén Itzá, reclining figures of this type and inthis style and medium are to date unknown in theart of Teotihuacan.

Comparison of the reclining figures at ChichénItzá with those at Tula Chico reveals several minordifferences in posture and costume (Figures 7 and8). In a relief from the Platform of the Eagles(Tozzer 1957:Figure 243), the personage’s legsare portrayed together with both feet resting onthe ground, while in its Tula Chico equivalent thelegs are oddly splayed with one foot resting on


a

b

c

d

e

Figure 8. Comparison of (a) frieze from the Temple of the Warriors, drawing by Adam Scot Hofman after Tozzer1957:Figure 431 with (b) eagle from Figure 5a and (c) reclining figure from Tula Chico from Figure 2a and recliningancestors in Classic Maya art; (d) from Ucanal Stela 4 and (e) the Hieroglyphic Stairway, Copán, drawings by JayScantling after Urcid 2010:Figure 29.




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the edge of the panel and the other extendedbehind the figure. The Maya relief shows the fig-ure holding his staff with both hands under theobject, while in the Tula Chico version he supportsit from beneath with one hand while grasping itfrom above with the other. The Las Monjas figurereproduced in Figure 7c is prone rather than reclin-ing on his back. Nonetheless, in other respects—pose, costume, staffs, and weapons—they are veryclose to their Tula Chico counterparts. Urcid(2010:Figures 28–29) demonstrates the pan-Mesoamerican distribution of reclining ancestorimagery from the Olmec through the Late Post-classic, but the Classic Maya examples he repro-duces (Figures 8d–e), although conceptuallyextremely similar, are very different in style fromthose at Tula and Chichén Itzá. The first occur-rence known to date of such ancestor images in abroadly “Toltec” style is at Tula Chico, increasingthe likelihood that this version of this theme orig-inated there.

The reclining ancestor motif occurs alongsideeagles (Tozzer 1957:Figure 431) and jaguars onthree bands of relief on the cornices above eachlevel of the outer walls of the Temple of the War-riors (Figure 8a). Tula-style eagles also appear onthe façade of the North Colonnade at Chichén Itzáand are depicted eating hearts (paralleling thoseon Pyramid B) on the Tzompantli and the Platformof the Eagles (Figure 5b), along with jaguars. Afragmentary image of an eagle in a quite similarstyle occurs in association with the reclining fig-ures at Tula Chico, although it is unclear whetherthey are part of the same composition. We there-fore now have two related images with a contextsuggestive of a longer history and developmentat Tula than at Chichén Itzá. The jaguar fragmentfrom Tula Chico makes three. Since the substruc-ture of the Castillo has two reliefs of prowlingjaguars in “Toltec” style, along with entwined ser-pents, Bey and Ringle (2007:412) maintain thatthese images have a longer history at Chichén Itzáthan at Tula (also Ringle and Bey 2009:346, Fig-ures 10b–10c). The jaguar fragment from TulaChico, however, is quite similar in style and older,or at least overlaps if we accept their dating of theCastillo substructure to A.D. 850–880 (Ringle andBey 2009:345). If Braswell and Peniche’s(2012:254, 259) tentative placement of theCastillo-sub in the early tenth century is correct,

its feline sculptures postdate Tula Chico by atleast half a century. The Venus symbols found atTula Chico are also paralleled at Chichén Itzá, forexample on the Mercado dais, on a column of theSouth Temple of the ball court, and on the VenusPlatform, which also bears reliefs of eagles,felines, and reclining figures (Tozzer 1957:121;see Miller 1989 for an extended treatment). Com-pare, for example, Figure 4b, a star from the VenusPlatform, with its Tula Chico counterparts. Thismakes a suite of four images with demonstrablyolder occurrence at Tula.

A compounding difficulty is that processionsof felines and raptors, like some other traits sharedbetween the “twin cities,” predate both centers inthe art of Teotihuacan (e.g., Miller 1973:Figures22, 26, 250–252). The Venus stars are also of Teoti-huacan origin and prominent in the Epiclassic artof Cacaxtla and Xochicalco. It is conceivable thatthe eagles, jaguars, and Venus symbols could havereached both Tula and Chichén Itzá independentlythrough the shared Classic legacy of Teotihuacanin central Mexico and among the Maya. Never-theless, as previously noted, the reclining relieffigures of the kind found at the twin Tollans arenot known at Teotihuacan and apparently maketheir first appearance at Tula Chico. This increasesthe likelihood that this group of images, with theirassociated range of styles, was appropriated as apackage from Tula by the elite patrons and artistsof Chichén Itzá.

DiscussionAs is almost always the case with discoveriesbearing on the Tula–Chichén Itzá debate, the newmaterials from Tula Chico raise as many questionsas they answer. If significant aspects of the Tulastyle and at least that part of the iconographicrepertoire present at Tula Chico originated at Epi-classic Tula, did they reach Chichén Itzá throughinteraction with later Tollan-phase Tula Grande,or was there already a relationship between thetwin cities, with direct contact between Tula Chicoand Chichén Itzá? The incomplete (in the senseof both excavation and publication or documen-tation) nature of the archaeological record at bothsites makes this issue as murky as most of the oth-ers related to the Tula–Chichén Itzá exchange. Itmight appear that Epiclassic Tula was a small,





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insignificant center, not a polity likely to play animportant role in the long-distance exchange thatcharacterizes the Epiclassic. Nonetheless, the sizeand extent of the city during the Prado and Corralphases is at present unknown (Cobean et al.2012:46). Prado ceramic material is mostly con-fined to Tula Chico, although it is also associatedwith burials excavated near the present sitemuseum. Most of the Epiclassic settlement at Tuladates to the Corral phase (Healan 2012:77–78).The surface distribution of Corral-phase ceramicsherds at Tula indicates a settlement of at least 4and as many as 6 km2 in extent, with Tula Chicoas its civic-ceremonial nucleus (Healan 2012:78;Mastache et al. 2009:312).

There is evidence for construction at TulaGrande during the Epiclassic. Mastache et al.(2009:321) note traces of possible Prado-to-Corralconstruction found by Jorge Acosta under thePalacio Quemado and, more recently, by Cobeanunder the vestibule of the same structure andunder Building K. Although the nature of thesestructures is hard to determine, they may repre-sent a second Epiclassic ceremonial center in thecity (Cobean et al. 2012:47), indicating greatersize, complexity, and possibly prestige for Tuladuring this period. Healan (2012:79), however,dates the earliest construction levels at TulaGrande to the Terminal Corral phase (A.D. 850–950), immediately after the fiery demise of TulaChico. Sterpone’s (2007:18, 26–27, 38–39) morecontroversial reinterpretation of architecturalstratigraphy and other archaeological data fromTula Grande attempts to push back the first con-structions and associated carvings at Pyramid Bto possibly as early as ca. A.D. 700–750. He pro-poses that the stages of Pyramid B currently vis-ible in the restored version predate the Tollanphase and represent an earlier core exposed bythe looting of the Tollan-phase construction (Ster-pone 2007:26–27). Sterpone (2006) bases hisrevised chronology largely on a proposed Epi-classic ceramic phase, the Tula-Mazapa, whichhe defined from his excavations of the substruc-tures of Pyramid B and the Palacio Quemado.This complex displays similar types to the laterTollan phase but a more restricted range of waresand forms. He also reports an Epiclassic radio-carbon date from Tula Grande (Sterpone2006:275). Sterpone’s chronology is consistent

with George Cowgill’s suggestion, based onradiocarbon dates from Mazapan burials at Teoti-huacan, that Mazapan ceramics and the Tollanphase at Tula may date to A.D. 800–1000 ratherthan A.D. 950–1150 (Smith 2007:583–584). Ster-pone has not yet published the details of his strati-graphic data, and his revised sequence is rejectedby Cobean (Smith 2007:583–584). Healan(2012:84) criticizes Sterpone’s Tula-Mazapaphase for not offering any improvement over theconcept of the Terminal Corral phase. Healan(2012:85) also offers a strong rebuttal of both thequantitative methodology behind Sterpone’sinterpretation of the radiocarbon evidence andhis assessment of the stratigraphic context of thesample.

However the controversy over the beginningsof Tula Grande is resolved, the style and imageryof the sculpture at Tula Chico suggest ties toXochicalco and Cacaxtla and participation in theinterregional elite political-pilgrimage networkthat Ringle, Bey, and Negrón (1998) identified asthe Epiclassic feathered serpent cult. Ringle andBey (2009:332) suggest that Chichén Itzá becamea regional Tollan in the same elite ideological net-work around A.D. 700. Part of the iconographicevidence for their arguments, the “feathered ser-pent” imagery at both Piedras Negras and ChichénItzá, is questionable because it consists in part ofrepresentations that Taube (1992, 2000) has con-vincingly identified as the Teotihuacan War Ser-pent. This was part of Teotihuacan wariconography present in the Maya area since theEarly Classic. Nonetheless, Ringle et al. (1998)suggest an early date (ca. A.D. 700) for the incep-tion of the cenote cult at Chichén Itzá, which theyassociate with Teotihuacan war imagery (what-ever the specific identity of the associated ophid-ians), and observe that Tula-style atlatls, darts,and fending sticks are among the earliest offerings(Ringle and Bey 2009:333–334). This would sup-port contact with central Mexico during the Epi-classic heyday of Tula Chico.

If there were interactions between Tula andChichén Itzá at this early date, how, if at all, isthis reflected in the archaeological record? Beyand Ringle (2007:378) note that there are fewceramic imports in Epiclassic Tula, except forVeracruz materials, and they date all importedMaya ceramic material at Tula to the Tollan phase.





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Nonetheless, there may be evidence for ceramicconnections between Tula and Chichén Itzá asearly as the Terminal Corral phase (Kowalski andKristan-Graham 2007:43). Hourglass braziersappear at Tula in Terminal Corral contexts,although they are more common during the Tollanphase and are associated with the Sotuta complexat Chichén Itzá (Bey and Ringle 2009:391). Addi-tionally, according to Sterpone (2007:41), Maya-style ceramics—either imports or localimitations—that date to A.D. 850–950 were dis-covered in the 1980s during excavations of upper-class habitations and burials in the area of thecurrent site museum. On this basis, as well as onthe basis of artistic parallels, Sterpone (2007:6)suggests that Tula was the recipient of both mate-rial artifacts and symbols from southeasternMesoamerica during the ninth century. Unfortu-nately, the specifics of wares, forms, and modesare lacking in Sterpone’s discussion, and his sug-gestions contradict the assessment of the excava-tors who date the same burials to the Tollan phaseand identify only one import—Tohil plumbate—with one interment (Gómez et al. 1994:77–108).The sparse ceramic evidence for an Epiclassicconnection between Tula Chico and Chichén Itzáseems consistent with (and equally puzzling as)the scant evidence of ceramic exchange duringthe Postclassic, when central Mexican ceramics,with one or two exceptions, are not found atChichén. This has led Bey and Ringle (2007:391,395) to conclude that “direct [ceramic] exchangebetween the two sites was almost nil.” The sameauthors suggest that the forms of locally producedceramics at both sites suggest some sort of contact,but their examples are not plentiful, with the onlyunequivocally clear ceramic evidence of ChichénItzá–Tula contact being the Tlaloc censers fromBalankanché (Bey and Ringle 2007:378).

Several other kinds of data support the sugges-tion of early contact between the two centers. Acarved shell plaque showing a seated Maya rulerin Late Classic style was collected at Tula in thenineteenth century (McVicker and Palka 2001),and a Classic Maya polychrome vessel bearinganother image of a seated lord was excavated atthe site in the 1980s (Cobean 1990:488–493,lámina 222). Bey and Ringle (2007:378) suggestthat the vase was acquired at Tula during the Tol-lan phase. Thus, these objects may have been

antiques or heirlooms when deposited (and there-fore doubly exotic, potent prestige objects).Together, these observations hint at Epiclassic/Late Classic contact between Tula and the Mayalowlands. Some art-historical evidence points inthis direction, as well. In her doctoral dissertation,Kristan-Graham (1989:7, 172) argued that theTula Toltec drew upon Late Classic Maya royalimagery and costume elements (like the afore-mentioned bloodletting knots) to create a visuallanguage of individual rulership lacking in the artof Teotihuacan. If this hypothesis is correct—andher comparisons are persuasive—such contactshad to occur during the Epiclassic because suchroyal figures are present in the art of Tula Chicodating to that time.

The reclining figures, raptors, felines, andVenus symbols at Tula Chico join other traitsshared by Tula and Chichén Itzá for which Tulahas clear temporal priority, supporting a model ofreciprocal interaction between the two cities ratherthan making the Tula a backwater, as Kubler stig-matized it. It has been two decades since Taube(1994:214, 239) pointed out that objects ofturquoise and gold appear at Chichén Itzá in bothartistic representations and in the archaeologicalrecord. The use of these materials represents aclear discontinuity with Classic Maya traditionsand is both Postclassic and pan-Mesoamerican incharacter. Although the thorough Aztec looting ofTula has apparently prevented the survival ofactual gold ornaments there, they are representedin the sculpture of the site. Moreover, turquoisemosaics have been recovered in excavations sinceAcosta’s day and are depicted in painted reliefs.In Taube’s words, “arguments for the contempo-raneity of Toltec Chichen and Classic Maya or theMaya origins of Toltec iconography must explainthe widespread presence of turquoise at ToltecChichen” (1994:239). Another trait with possiblenorthern origins at Tula and Chichén Itzá is thechacmool. No chacmools have been discovered todate at Tula Chico, but a Chalchihuites culturesculpture found at Cerro del Huistle, Jalisco, in acontext dated to around A.D. 550, is interpretedby its discoverer as the oldest known chacmool(Hers 1989:63–85, Figures 7–12). Its simple formsuggests that if it is truly a chacmool, it is an earlymanifestation of this sculptural type. Its early dateand the apparently strong connections between





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Tula and the Chalchihuites culture manifested inart, architecture, and religion (e.g., Diehl1983:50; Jordan 2013:251–253; Kristan-Graham2007) make a northern rather than Maya originfor this form likely and its appropriation byChichén Itzá from Tula possible (López andLópez 2000:25, 27).

All of this is not to argue for a shift from a“Mayacentric” model of the origin of the sharedfeatures of Tula and Chichén Itzá back to the oldscenario of a Toltec invasion of Yucatán. In theage of social network theory and other complexmodels of regional interaction, such unidirectionalmodels look increasingly antiquated. Smith(2007:597) notes how improbable a Toltec inva-sion of Chichén Itzá would have been given whatwe know of Mesoamerican warfare. Both the TulaChico discoveries and the new chronologies forChichén Itzá again make possible a Tula Toltecpresence at the Yucatán center—not as invaders,but as elite visitors, allies, and pilgrims. This sug-gestion echoes previous literature. Taube rejects aToltec invasion but still holds strongly to a physicalTula Toltec presence at Chichén Itzá, although heagrees with almost all recent commentators that“[t]he iconography of Toltec Chichen suggests aself-conscious synthesis of Maya and Toltec tra-ditions” created by the Itzá who, like their Classicprecursors in the heyday of Teotihuacan, activelyappropriated central Mexican iconography asso-ciated with warfare (Taube 1994:244). Kowalski(2007:276), likewise rejecting invasion, cautionsthat “we should not discount the idea that centralMexicans from Tula may have visited or even set-tled” at Chichén Itzá. Like Taube, he interprets theshared architectural forms of the sites to be theresult of Maya borrowing of ideas from Tula thatultimately originated in the Chalchihuites region(Kowalski 2007:296). Although archaeologicalevidence for foreign enclaves at Chichén Itzáremains elusive, high-level elite visits, along thefeathered serpent or “Zuyuan” (López and López2000) pilgrimage-diplomatic-exchange networks,remain possible if unproven in the present state ofknowledge.

The Tula Chico discoveries have yet to be inte-grated into the literature on the Tula–Chichén Itzácontacts and the artistic relations between thesecities. I have endeavored in this paper to beginthis process. Although more details regarding the

early history of the Tula style must await furtherexcavations at both Tula Chico and Tula Grande,the Tula Chico evidence serves as a potentreminder that, after 130 years of scholarly debate,the perennial problem of the Tula–Chichén Itzáconnection is still far from resolved. Acknowledgments. I thank Dan Healan for reading an earlydraft of this paper and serving as its discussant at the panel“Reconsidering the ‘Epic’ in the Epiclassic Period inMesoamerica” at the 2015 SAA annual meeting, as well asgranting permission, with Robert Cobean, for the reproductionof the topographic map of Tula Chico. Thanks are also due toCecelia Klein for helpful comments and to Cynthia Kristan-Graham for organizing the panel and for encouraging me topursue the Tula art tradition as my primary research focus.Finally, I would like to thank the artists who contributed theline drawings: Hazel Antaramian-Hofman, Adam Hofman,and my wife, Jay Scantling. No permits were required for theresearch described in this paper.

Data Availability Statement. All data are available in the pub-lished sources cited in this paper.

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Note1. I use the term “Toltec” in quotes when referring to the

Tula-related art and architecture at Chichén Itzá to avoid theconnotations of an equation of style with ethnic identity orputative evidence of foreign invasion that plagued much ofthe literature on the two sites in the last century. I employ theword without quotation marks to refer to the builders and in-habitants of Epiclassic through Early Postclassic Tula.

Submitted July 8, 2016; Accepted August 26, 2016.




https://doi.org/10.7183/1045-6635.27.4.462


from tula chico to chichén itzá: implications of the epiclassic

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