Infrastructures of Religion and Power: Archaeologies of Landscape, Ritual, and Semiotics 0367404214, 9780367404215

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Table
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
1 Introduction
1.1 The Adoration of Infrastructures
1.2 Broader Theoretical Relevance of the Study
1.3 Bridging Theories with Infrastructures: Trilectic Archaeologies
1.4 Organization of the Volume
2 Excavating the Theoretical Landscape: The Archaeological Search for Significance
2.1 Introduction: The Semiotics of Archaeological Analysis
2.2 A Brief Introduction to Peirce’s Semeiotics and the Search for “Meaningfully Constituted Worlds” in Archaeological Research
2.3 Rehabilitating Representation
2.4 New Materialist Ontologies and Ontological Alterity
2.5 Ideology vs. Ontology
2.6 Symbolism and Semiotic Ideologies in the Making of Worlds
2.7 Assemblage Theory and the Making of Place
2.8 Lefebvre’s Unitary Space
2.9 Conclusion
3 Sublime Infrastructures: Emplacing Ritual, Religion, and Power
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Ritual’s Distinct Material Frame and Placedness
3.3 Ritual as a Medium of Power
3.3.1 The Sacred: Ultimate Source of Power, Metaphor of Difference
3.3.2 Ritual as Knowledge, Efficacious Act, Crucible of Transformation, and Site of Experimentation
3.3.3 Ritual as Social Identification and Medium of Identity Politics
3.3.4 Ritual as Ideology
3.3.5 The Emotional Nexus of Ritual Dramaturgy: Ritual as Structure, Hegemony, and the Materialization of Aesthetics
3.3.6 Ritual as Heightened Consciousness and Political Resistance
3.3.7 The Assembling Power of Ritual
3.4 Ritual, Place-Making, and Infrastructures
3.4.1 Religious Landscapes as Thirdspaces
3.4.2 Archaeologies of Infrastructures
3.5 Conclusion
4 Ceremonial Architecture as Semiotic Machines
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Ritual, Semiotic Mediators, and Ontological Alterity
4.3 The Materiality of Ritual Semiotics: Structured Depositions as Bundled and Condensed Assemblages
4.3.1 Repetition
4.3.2 Dicentization/Substitution
4.3.3 Symbolic Accumulation
4.4 Conclusion: Temples as Machines
5 Sacred Infrastructures and Rituals of Place-Making in the Ancient Andes
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Andean Conceived Space and Ideologies of Place
5.2.1 The Ontological Indivisibility of the Monumental, Infrastructural, and Sacred in the Andes
5.2.2 Synecdochal Geographies, Concentric Dualism, and Ideologies of the Centre
5.2.3 (Re)Territorializing Andean Sacred Landscapes
5.3 Variation in Andean Religious Landscapes
5.4 Concluding Thoughts
6 A Tale of Three Temples: The Changing Religious Landscape of the Southern Jequetepeque Valley, Peru
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Brief Introduction to the Jequetepeque Valley and the Cañoncillo Region
6.3 Jatanca
6.3.1 General Interpretations of Religious Architecture, Ritual Practices, and Political Organization
6.3.2 Ritual Constructions of Time, Place, and Cosmos at Jatanca
6.3.3 Perceived Space and the Phenomenology of Ritual at Jatanca: Segmentarity and Territorialization
6.3.4 Jatanca as Semiotic Machine
6.3.5 Lived Space and the Power of Ritual at Jatanca
6.4 Huaca Colorada
6.4.1 General Interpretations of Religious Architecture, Ritual Practices, and Political Organization
6.4.2 Ritual Constructions of Time, Place, and Cosmos at Huaca Colorada
6.4.3 Perceived Space and the Phenomenology of Ritual at Huaca Colorada: Segmentarity and Territorialization
6.4.4 Huaca Colorada as Semiotic Machine
6.4.5 Lived Space and the Power of Ritual at Huaca Colorada
6.5 Enter Tecapa
6.5.1 Huaca Colorada, Tecapa, and Transitional Period Transformations
6.5.2 Conceived and Perceived Space at Tecapa: Huaca Colorada Reterritorialized
6.5.3 The Distinctive Semiotic Machine of Tecapa
6.5.4 Lived Space and the Power of Ritual at Tecapa
6.6 Concluding Thoughts
7 Karma Ecologies: Khmer Place-Making, Infrastructures, and Ideologies of Space
7.1 Introduction
7.2 The Religious Construction of Place among the Khmer
7.3 The Mandala: Alternate Strategies of Territorialization in Angkor
7.4 Variation in Khmer and Southeast Asian Religious Landscapes
7.5 Concluding Thoughts
8 The Āśrama and Hospital Foundations of Ancient Angkor
8.1 Ascetic Geographies: The Āśrama of Yaśovarman I
8.1.1 Yaśovarman’s New Capital: The Semiotics of the Bakheng and the Overcoding of a Kingdom
8.1.2 The Yaśodharāśrama: Epigraphic Evidence
8.1.3 Archaeological Investigations of the Urban Yaśodharāśrama
8.1.4 Preliminary Archaeological Investigations of the Provincial Yaśodharāśrama
8.1.5 The Semiotic Machinery of the Yaśodharāśrama
8.1.6 Perceived Space, Aesthetics, and the Phenomenology of Ritual of the Yaśodharāśrama
8.1.7 Lived Space and the Power of Ritual in Yaśovarman’s Monasteries
8.2 Landscapes of Compassion: The Hospitals of Jayavarman VII
8.2.1 Jayavarman’s Revolutionary Place-Making and the Semiotics of Angkor Thom and the Bayon
8.2.2 The Hospitals of Jayavarman VII: Epigraphic Evidence
8.2.3 The Hospitals of Jayavarman VII: Archaeological Evidence
8.2.4 The Semiotic Machinery of Jayavarman’s Hospital Sanctuaries
8.2.5 Perceived and Lived Space and the Power of the Religious Landscape in Jayavarman VII’s Hospital Network
8.3 Concluding Thoughts
9 Conclusion: Landscapes of History
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Archaeologies of Historical Change
9.2.1 A Detour to Akhetaten: Akhenaten’s Amarna Revolution
9.2.2 Variations in the Cosmopolitical Production of Worlds/History
9.3 Concluding Thoughts
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

INFRASTRUCTURES OF RELIGION AND POWER

This book explores the central role of religion in place-making and infrastructural projects in ancient polities. It presents a trilectic approach to archaeological study of religious landscapes that combines Indigenous philosophies with the spatial and semiotic thinking of Lefebvre, Peirce, and proponents of assemblage theories. Case studies from ancient Angkor and the Andes reveal how rituals of place-making activated processes of territorialization and semiosis fundamental to the experience of political worlds that shaped power relations in past societies. The perspectives developed in the book permit a reconstruction of how landscapes were variably conceived, perceived, and lived in the spirit of Henri Lefebvre, and how these registers may have aligned or clashed. In the end, the examination of built environments, infrastructures, and rituals staged within specialized buildings demonstrates how archaeologists can better infer past ontologies, cosmologies, ideologies of time and place, and historically specific political struggles. The study will appeal to students and researchers interested in ritual, infrastructures, landscape, archaeological theory, political institutions, semiotics, human geography, and the civilizations of the ancient Andes and Angkor. Edward Swenson is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Director of the Archaeology Centre at the University of Toronto. Swenson has conducted archaeological research in the Jequetepeque Valley on the North Coast of Peru and in Cambodia as a member of the Yaśodharāśramas Archaeological Project. Swenson has published extensively, and his theoretical interests include the pre-industrial city, the rise of social inequality, the archaeology of ritual and ideology, violence and religion, materiality theory, place-making and ancient infrastructures, the archaeology of time and landscape, semiotics, and the politics of spatial experience and social memory.

INFRASTRUCTURES OF RELIGION AND POWER Archaeologies of Landscape, Ritual, and Semiotics

Edward Swenson

Designed cover image: Bas-relief sculpture from the Bayon temple, Angkor, Cambodia, depicting the building of a temple. Image taken by the author. First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 Edward Swenson The right of Edward Swenson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 9780367404215 (hbk) ISBN: 9780367404222 (pbk) ISBN: 9780429356063 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9780429356063 Typeset in Times New Roman by codeMantra

To my Mother and Father, Maria Giuseppina Scaiola Swenson and Edward Elmgren Swenson.

CONTENTS

List of Figures xiii List of Table xix Acknowledgements xxi List of Abbreviations xxv 1 Introduction

1

1.1  The Adoration of Infrastructures  1 1.2  Broader Theoretical Relevance of the Study  6 1.3 Bridging Theories with Infrastructures: Trilectic Archaeologies 10 1.4  Organization of the Volume  14 2 Excavating the Theoretical Landscape: The Archaeological Search for Significance 2.1 Introduction: The Semiotics of Archaeological Analysis 19 2.2 A Brief Introduction to Peirce’s Semeiotics and the Search for “Meaningfully Constituted Worlds” in Archaeological Research  20 2.3 Rehabilitating Representation 24 2.4 New Materialist Ontologies and Ontological Alterity 27 2.5  Ideology vs. Ontology  33

19

viii Contents

2.6 Symbolism and Semiotic Ideologies in the Making of Worlds 37 2.7  Assemblage Theory and the Making of Place  41 2.8  Lefebvre’s Unitary Space  48 2.9 Conclusion 52 3 Sublime Infrastructures: Emplacing Ritual, Religion, and Power

57

3.1 Introduction 57 3.2  Ritual’s Distinct Material Frame and Placedness  60 3.3  Ritual as a Medium of Power  66 3.3.1 The Sacred: Ultimate Source of Power, Metaphor of Difference  68 3.3.2 Ritual as Knowledge, Efficacious Act, Crucible of Transformation, and Site of Experimentation 70 3.3.3 Ritual as Social Identification and Medium of Identity Politics  73 3.3.4  Ritual as Ideology  75 3.3.5 The Emotional Nexus of Ritual Dramaturgy: Ritual as Structure, Hegemony, and the Materialization of Aesthetics  79 3.3.6 Ritual as Heightened Consciousness and Political Resistance  81 3.3.7  The Assembling Power of Ritual  84 3.4  Ritual, Place-Making, and Infrastructures  85 3.4.1  Religious Landscapes as Thirdspaces  85 3.4.2  Archaeologies of Infrastructures  88 3.5 Conclusion 93 4 Ceremonial Architecture as Semiotic Machines 4.1 Introduction 99 4.2 Ritual, Semiotic Mediators, and Ontological Alterity 100 4.3 The Materiality of Ritual Semiotics: Structured Depositions as Bundled and Condensed Assemblages 103 4.3.1 Repetition 103 4.3.2 Dicentization/Substitution 104 4.3.3 Symbolic Accumulation 105 4.4  Conclusion: Temples as Machines  117

99

Contents  ix

5 Sacred Infrastructures and Rituals of Place-Making in the Ancient Andes

124

5.1 Introduction 124 5.2  Andean Conceived Space and Ideologies of Place  125 5.2.1 The Ontological Indivisibility of the Monumental, Infrastructural, and Sacred in the Andes 126 5.2.2 Synecdochal Geographies, Concentric Dualism, and Ideologies of the Centre  132 5.2.3 (Re)Territorializing Andean Sacred Landscapes 135 5.3  Variation in Andean Religious Landscapes  138 5.4 Concluding Thoughts 141 6 A Tale of Three Temples: The Changing Religious Landscape of the Southern Jequetepeque Valley, Peru 6.1 Introduction 143 6.2 Brief Introduction to the Jequetepeque Valley and the Cañoncillo Region  144 6.3 Jatanca 152 6.3.1 General Interpretations of Religious Architecture, Ritual Practices, and Political Organization 152 6.3.2 Ritual Constructions of Time, Place, and Cosmos at Jatanca  165 6.3.3 Perceived Space and the Phenomenology of Ritual at Jatanca: Segmentarity and Territorialization 168 6.3.4  Jatanca as Semiotic Machine  169 6.3.5 Lived Space and the Power of Ritual at Jatanca 171 6.4 Huaca Colorada 173 6.4.1 General Interpretations of Religious Architecture, Ritual Practices, and Political Organization  173 6.4.2 Ritual Constructions of Time, Place, and Cosmos at Huaca Colorada  186 6.4.3 Perceived Space and the Phenomenology of Ritual at Huaca Colorada: Segmentarity and Territorialization 189 6.4.4  Huaca Colorada as Semiotic Machine  193

143

x Contents

6.4.5 Lived Space and the Power of Ritual at Huaca Colorada 201 6.5 Enter Tecapa 207 6.5.1 Huaca Colorada, Tecapa, and Transitional Period Transformations 207 6.5.2 Conceived and Perceived Space at Tecapa: Huaca Colorada Reterritorialized  209 6.5.3 The Distinctive Semiotic Machine of Tecapa 216 6.5.4 Lived Space and the Power of Ritual at Tecapa 217 6.6 Concluding Thoughts 219 7 Karma Ecologies: Khmer Place-Making, Infrastructures, and Ideologies of Space

221

7.1 Introduction 221 7.2 The Religious Construction of Place among the Khmer 225 7.3 The Mandala: Alternate Strategies of Territorialization in Angkor  229 7.4 Variation in Khmer and Southeast Asian Religious Landscapes 237 7.5 Concluding Thoughts 241 8 The Āśrama and Hospital Foundations of Ancient Angkor 8.1  Ascetic Geographies: The Āśrama of Yaśovarman I  245 8.1.1 Yaśovarman’s New Capital: The Semiotics of the Bakheng and the Overcoding of a Kingdom  246 8.1.2  The Yaśodharāśrama: Epigraphic Evidence  254 8.1.3 Archaeological Investigations of the Urban Yaśodharāśrama  262 8.1.4 Preliminary Archaeological Investigations of the Provincial Yaśodharāśrama  273 8.1.5 The Semiotic Machinery of the Yaśodharāśrama  279 8.1.6 Perceived Space, Aesthetics, and the Phenomenology of Ritual of the Yaśodharāśrama  283

245

Contents  xi

8.1.7 Lived Space and the Power of Ritual in Yaśovarman’s Monasteries  286 8.2 Landscapes of Compassion: The Hospitals of Jayavarman VII  291 8.2.1 Jayavarman’s Revolutionary Place-Making and the Semiotics of Angkor Thom and the Bayon 293 8.2.2 The Hospitals of Jayavarman VII: Epigraphic Evidence 304 8.2.3 The Hospitals of Jayavarman VII: Archaeological Evidence  308 8.2.4 The Semiotic Machinery of Jayavarman’s Hospital Sanctuaries  314 8.2.5 Perceived and Lived Space and the Power of the Religious Landscape in Jayavarman VII’s Hospital Network  319 8.3 Concluding Thoughts 323 9 Conclusion: Landscapes of History

327

9.1 Introduction 327 9.2  Archaeologies of Historical Change  329 9.2.1 A Detour to Akhetaten: Akhenaten’s Amarna Revolution 329 9.2.2 Variations in the Cosmopolitical Production of Worlds/History 334 9.3 Concluding Thoughts 339 343 Bibliography Index391

FIGURES

6.1 Map of the Lower Jequetepeque Valley 6.2 Map of the southern Jequetepeque Valley illustrating the location of Cerro Cañoncillo, the Late Formative site of Jatanca, and the Moche centre of Huaca Colorada 6.3 Photographs illustrating Cerro Canoñcillo’s three peaks (left upper register), the algarroba forest and the mountain enveloped in clouds (right upper register), an ancient canal on the Pampa de Mojucape (left lower register), and one of the shallow lakes of the Bosque de Canoñcillo (right lower register) 6.4 The stone wak’a perched on the central summit of Cerro Cañoncillo 6.5 Map of the monumental core of Jatanca 6.6 Photograph and Google Sketch-up Plan of Compound 1 illustrating the h­ orizontal and rectilinear configuration of Jatanca’s monumental architecture 6.7 Plans of Compounds 3 and 4 at Jatanca. Note the nested plazas and ceremonial proscenia supporting two ramped platforms in mirror opposition (adapted from Warner 2010: 356, 364) 6.8 Photographs of an adobe platform constructed on the elevated terrace overlooking the enclosed plaza of Compound 1 at Jatanca 6.9 The Acropolis and Cerro Cañoncillo in the background, which it mirrors in orientation and form 6.10 Architectural plan of the Acropolis at Jatanca illustrating access patterns, and an isometric illustration of the main staging area of this compound (isometric plan courtesy of John Warner)

145 147

148 151 154 155 156 157 159 159

xiv Figures

6.11 A photograph of an excavated ramped complex oriented towards Cerro Cañoncillo in an internal plaza of Compound 3 (upper register), and a photograph of a burial discovered in a chamber in Compound 1 (lower register). The Skull of the internment tilts towards the cerro161 6.12 Architectural plan of Compound 1 at Jatanca showing the location of small chambers and bench constructions located in a restricted zone of this massive complex. Caches of fine ceramics were deposited in these rooms (plan and isometric drawing courtesy of John Warner) 163 6.13 Architectural plans of Compound 3 demonstrating the nesting of replicated ceremonial space at Jatanca. Base-map adapted from Warner 2010: 356 164 6.14 Photograph of a bench structure (upper register) associated with a spear point and ceramic spoon (lower register) excavated in one of the highest and most private chambers of the Acropolis at Jatanca171 6.15 Rare examples of graffiti discovered at Jatanca 172 6.16 Topographic map of Huaca Colorada, illustrating the three main sectors and major architectural complexes 176 6.17 Cerro Cañoncillo looming over excavations of Huaca Colorada (upper register) and Google Earth air photographs of Cerro Cañoncillo (left lower register) and the main ceremonial Mound of Huaca Colorada (right lower register) 177 6.18 An adobe brick astronomical apparatus in Sector B of Huaca Colorada178 6.19 Graffiti from Huaca Colorada depicting a likely representation of Cerro Cañoncillo with a human figure and a possible rainbow (upper register). Graffiti representing stylized mountains and huacas (lower register) 178 6.20 Moche fineline ceramics in both Moche V and San José de Moro styles recovered from Huaca Colorada 179 6.21 Highland Cajamarca ceramics from Huaca Colorada 180 6.22 The stepped platforms anchoring the southern ends of the Western Chamber and the Eastern Terrace, the dyadic sectors forming the ceremonial core of Huaca Colorada. The Moche fineline depiction of a roofed dais closely resembles the excavated platforms (redrawn from Donnan 1978: Figure 104) 182 6.23 Human and animal sacrifices (camelid) at Huaca Colorada 183 6.24 Avian symbolism on artefacts from the Eastern Terrace (upper register). Dog symbolism and burial associated with the West Chamber (lower register) 190

Figures  xv

6.25 Adobe flight of stairs that provided access to the East Terrace during a late phase of occupation 6.26 Archaeological evidence for the periodic and repetitive reduction of the West Chamber, as the construction of later walls repeatedly reduced the precinct to the south 6.27 Face-neck jars and ceramic masks of elites and supernaturals recovered from Huaca Colorada 6.28 Foundation sacrifice, nested altars, and offering of pregnant woman placed in an earlier trapezoidal dais discovered in the south-central sector of the East Terrace of Huaca Colorada (Sector B) 6.29 A complete face-neck jar moulded with the face of a monkey placed under a ramp along the west perimeter of the ceremonial sector of Huaca Colorada 6.30 Three children’s burials excavated in Sector C associated with ­obsidian (upper register), copper (middle register), and ceramic (lower register) artefacts 6.31 Map of the Citadel of Tecapa in relationship to Huaca Colorada 6.32 Niched ceremonial halls and platforms, Compound V, Tecapa 6.33 Drone photograph illustrating range rooms of Compound II, and excavated range rooms in Compounds II and IV, Tecapa 6.34 Decorated ceramics and sling stones recovered from the excavation of a feasting midden in Compound III, Tecapa 6.35 Massive, central dividing wall, 460 m long, bisecting Tecapa and Huaca Colorada into northern and southern halves 6.36 Graffito of a probable compound structure on the niched wall of a ceremonial precinct in Compound VI, and similar etching on a bowl fragment excavated in Compound III, Tecapa 7.1 The liṅga-yoni carved in the riverbed of Kbal Spean, Cambodia 8.1 Map of central Angkor illustrating the location of major landmarks, including the Bakheng, the barays, and the Bayon of Angkor Thom (LIDAR map and plan courtesy of Dr. Sarah Klassen) 8.2 Drone photograph of the Bakheng temple, and multiple prasats on the tiered monument (Drone photograph, courtesy of the World Monuments Fund) 8.3 Map illustrating the location of known āśrama of Yaśovarman I, Sūryavarman I’s vīrāśrama, and Jayavarman VII’s hospitals in Southeast Asia. (Courtesy of the Yaśodharāśrama Research Program; GIS data of Angkorian roads, M. Hendrickson) 8.4 Lidar image indicating the location of East Baray and four urban āśrama of Angkor, and Lidar images of Prasat Komnap South. (Courtesy of the Yaśodharāśrama Research Program)

191 194 197

199 200 204 209 210 211 212 213 218 222 247 248

255 256

xvi Figures

8.5 Characteristic stela shelters (aedicule) of the Yaśodharāśrama from a) Pre Rup; b) Prasat Ong Mong; and c) Kuk Ta Prohm. (Photos courtesy of the Yaśodharāśrama Research Program) 8.6 Air photograph of Prasat Komnap South, illustrating the three main partitions of the āśrama, the trapeang, and the causeway leading to the Eastern Baray. (Courtesy of the Yaśodharāśrama Research Program) 8.7 Trapeang still containing water at Prasat Komnap South 8.8 Map of the Eastern ceremonial sector of Prasat Komnap South (upper ­register). Typical Long Building and stela pavilion of Angkor’s āśrama based on an overlay of the excavation plans of Prasat Komnap South and Prasat Ong Mong with Georges Trouvé’s plan of Prei Prasat (lower register) (Image courtesy of Yaśodharāśrama Research Program; CAD rendering by Socheat Chea) 8.9 Long Buildings and pavement excavated at Prei Prasat and Prasat Komnap South. Sculpted pediment of the collapsed stela pavilion, Prasat Komnap South. (Photos courtesy of the Yaśodharāśrama Research Program) 8.10 Statuary recovered from the area of the Long Building in excavations c­ onducted at the provincial āśrama of Prasat Khna, Preah Vihear Province 8.11 Kulen-style vessels and lids recovered in situ, just south of the Long Building, Prei Prasat 8.12 Drone photograph of excavated annex buildings at Prei Prasat, surrounding the Long Building, and the excavation of one such structure at Prasat Komnap South. (Drone photograph courtesy of Nicolas Josso.) 8.13 Excavation of fallen tiles in the eastern sector of Prasat Komnap South 8.14 Spoon employed in fire rituals, recovered from excavations of the south hall of Prasat Komnap South (photograph courtesy of Dominique Soutif) 8.15 Long Buildings of Prasat Khna (upper register) and Prasat Neak Buos (lower register) 8.16 Plan of the temple of Prasat Khna, illustrating the location of the āśrama and the vīrāśrama. (Courtesy of the Yaśodharāśrama Research Program) 8.17 Plan of the temple of Prasat Neak Buos, illustrating the location of the āśrama, the vīrāśrama, and the hospital. (Courtesy of the Yaśodharāśrama Research Program) 8.18 Topographic map of Prasat Khna

257

263 265

266

267 268 269

270 271 271 274 275 275 277

Figures  xvii

8.19 Inscription stela and surviving base of the aedicule associated with a metal razor excavated at the āśrama of Prasat Khna 8.20 Rhyolite stones embedded in the foundation of the east ceremonial sector of Prei Prasat (upper register) and the interior of the Long Building of Prasat Khna (lower register) 8.21 Orthophoto of U-shaped vīrāśrama with hypothesized earlier version of a long building excavated immediately to the north (photo courtesy of Nicolas Josso) 8.22 The face towers of the Bayon 8.23 The East Gate of Angkor Thom (upper register) and the South Gate (lower register) guarded by the statues of devas and asuras holding a giant snake 8.24 The repetition of Buddha carvings on an enceinte wall at Banteay Chhmar, and chiselled-out Buddha reliefs at Preah Khan in Angkor 8.25  Bayon bas-reliefs depicting everyday life, including temple construction, a cock fight, the possible mixing of medicinal herbs, and childbirth 8.26 Map of Angkor Thom, illustrating the location of the four urban hospitals of Jayavarman VII (LIDAR map and plan courtesy of Dr. Sarah Klassen) 8.27 Plan of a typical hospital chapel of Jayavarman VII 8.28 Main shrine of the hospital chapels: (a) east hospital, Angkor Thom; (b) south hospital (Ta Prohm Kel), Angkor Thom; (c) Chaeng Meng, Preah Vihear Province; (d) Prasat Neak Buos, Preah Vihear Province 8.29 Sculpted architectural elements and fragments of statuary, South (Ta Prohm Kel) and West Hospital (Prasat Tromoung), Angkor Thom 8.30 Chapel of West Hospital (Prasat Tromoung), after clearance 8.31 Excavated basin of Prasat Tromoung, and detail of its laterite steps 8.32 Jean-Baptiste Chevance excavating a burial context at Prasat Tromoung, and a metal tool discovered in the same cemetery to the west of the hospital chapel 8.33 Depiction of a sculpture of a pulse diagnosis (Chapel of the East Hospital) and a person carrying a water yoke, Prasat Tromoung

278 281 290 292 295 301 304 306 307

309 310 312 313 314 317

TABLE

3.1 The Six Intersections of Religion and Power

67

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The interpretations presented in this book are based on nearly 20 years of ­cumulative research, and they synthesize data, arguments, and ideas published in numerous articles and technical reports. I thus owe a great debt to many colleagues, students, granting agencies, and institutions. First, I wish to express my gratitude to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, National Geographic, and the University of Toronto for their generous financial aid for our research in the Jequetepeque Valley, Peru. I also convey my deep appreciation to the Hal Jackman Foundation and the University of Toronto for their unwavering support of our excavations in Cambodia. Many thanks in particular to Trinity Jackman for enthusiastically championing the Yaśodharāśrama Research Program. The research I direct in Peru was made possible by a large team of scholars affiliated with the University of Toronto, the Universidad Nacional de Trujillo (UNT), and other North American institutions. I thank my Peruvian co-directors, Francisco Seoane Peyon and Jorge Chiguala Azabache for their dedication, friendship, and invaluable assistance over the years. John Warner deserves special commendation; we have worked together in Jequetepeque from the start (1997), and his supervision of the excavations at Jatanca, Huaca Colorada, and Tecapa has contributed immeasurably to the success of the larger project. Over the years, Anna Guengerich, Sally Lynch, and most recently, María José Culquichicón Venegas have served as laboratory directors, and I am grateful for the high quality of the analysis they supervised. César Gálvez Mora of the Ministerio de Cultura in Trujillo has always supported our project, and we have long appreciated his counsel and partnership. As well, I sincerely thank the following Peruvian archaeologists and students for their many contributions to the project in Cañoncillo: Virginia Arroyo Huamán,

xxii Acknowledgements

María Alejandra Cancino Ríos, Jesica Centurión Ambrocio, Kevin Deza, Diego Fernández Siccha, Christian Gonzales Azañero, Luis Manuel González, Jaime Jimenez, Mellisa Lund Valle, Greisy Marin, Linda Kathering Murga Milla, Johnny Rojas, Hoover Miguel Rojas Cabanillas, Adriana Ramos Mar, Teresa E. Rosales Tham, Víctor F. Vásquez Sánchez, and Giancarlo Ubillus. The research in Peru also relies heavily on an outstanding team of local labourers, and we greatly appreciate their kindness, hospitality, and hard work. I would like to thank in particular Salvador Ysla Ventura, Sebastian Ventura, Elizabeth Briceño de la Rosa, and Edita Briceño de la Rosa for their friendship and many years of service. I am equally indebted to a remarkably talented team of past and current graduate students who have worked in the Cañoncillo region. They include: Aleksa Alaica, Stephen Berquist, Tom Blennerhassett, Katrina Burch Joosten, James Crandall, Guy Duke, Madeleine Fyles, Katrina Gataveckas, Anna Guengerich, Randy Hahn, Sally Lynch, Alannagh Maciw, Lindi Masur, Ellen Pacheco, Branden Rizzuto, Rachel Schloss, Kyle Shaw Müller, Giles Spence Morrow, Chris Wai, and Stefanie Wai. Giles Spence Morrow’s dissertation on the architectural history of Huaca Colorada and his approaches to space and landscape have inspired ideas developed in this book, and I also thank him for his exceptional skills in all fields of archaeology and his recent supervision of excavations at the site. Aleksa Alaica began her work at Huaca Colorada as an undergraduate in 2010, and she has become a skilled archaeologist and lab technician. She deserves thanks for her tireless work analyzing the human and faunal remains of the site. I would also like to acknowledge Stephen Berquist for his supervision of excavations of Tecapa and for his excellent dissertation, which has improved our understanding of this important centre. Furthermore, Branden Rizzuto’s Bayesian analysis of our large database of carbon dates and his innovative study of the metals of Huaca Colorada have significantly benefited the project. Stephen, Giles, and Chris Wai merit additional commendation for participating in survey and excavations in Cambodia, and I thank them for working alongside me in both Peru and Southeast Asia. Finally, we have trained over 60 undergraduate students over the years from both North America and Peru, and with deep appreciation, I recognize their countless contributions to our research in Jequetepeque. I was first invited by my PhD advisor, Alan Kolata, to work in Cambodia on an excavation project funded by The University of Chicago and the l’École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO) in 2006. The excavations of Jayavarman VII’s hospital of Prasat Tromoung at Angkor, under the direction of Christophe Pottier and Rethy Chhem, proved exhilarating and opened my eyes to a new world of fascinating scholarship. My participation in this project inspired my examination of Jayavarman’s religious landscapes and hospital network in Chapter 8 of this book, and I am very thankful to Alan and Christophe for affording me this lifechanging opportunity. In fact, Alan and Tom Dillehay first invited me to work in Jequetepeque in the late 1990s, and I am indebted to them, not only for their guidance, but also for the rigour of their scholarship that continues to shape my thinking

Acknowledgements  xxiii

on past ­landscapes, cities, and power relations. As a unit supervisor on the ­hospital project, I worked alongside a team of capable Khmer and French researchers, whom I thank for their continued support and friendship. They include Christophe Pottier, Dominque Soutif, Chuk Somala, Jean-Baptiste Chevance, Pierre Bâty, Sum Sang, and Phon Chea Kosal. Dominque Soutif and Alan Kolata invited me in 2014 to participate in the Yaśodharāśrama Research Program directed by Dominque, Socheat Chea, and Julia Estève. This remarkable experience initiated my participation in eight additional seasons (2014–2023), during which time I assumed the responsibilities of co-director. I cannot thank enough Dominque, Julia, and Socheat for including me in their research; my understanding of Angkorian civilizations and the āśrama of Yaśovarman I have benefited enormously from my collaboration with these exemplary scholars. I also thank my co-directors for allowing me to make use of images and figures from the project files for presentation in this book. Many other colleagues have contributed to the success of the Yaśodharāśrama Research Program. I am grateful to everyone at the EFEO, Siem Reap, for their support and hospitality, to the APSARA authority, Siem Reap, for oversight of our research in Angkor, and to the Cambodian Ministry of Culture for their approval of our excavations at Prasat Khna. Furthermore, I wish to express my gratitude to the multiseason contributions of Myongduk Choi, Chloe Chollet, Olivier Collette, Nicolas Josso, Leap Lounh, Nicolas Norleau, and Caroline Rufino. Nicolas Josso created the drone imagery and photogrammetric renderings published in this book, and I very much appreciate his many hours of diligent work. I owe additional thanks to my students Andrew Harris, Gabrielle Bornstein, Aidan Armstrong, and Sidney Jhingran for volunteering to excavate at the āśrama. Giles Spence Morrow, Chris Wai, and Stephen Berquist’s contributions to the excavations at Prasat Khna proved indispensable, and their many skills greatly benefited the project. Ginevra Boatto of the World Monuments Fund kindly provided me with the drone photograph of the Bakheng to publish in this book, and I thank her sincerely for permission to include the image. Sarah Klassen, a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Toronto, also prepared two maps of Angkor for this publication, for which I am most appreciative. Closer to home, I have been fortunate to serve as a faculty member at the University of Toronto. I could not have more supportive and intellectually stimulating colleagues. I wish to thank in particular Charly Bank, Ted Banning, Seth Bernard, Craig Cipolla, Gary Coupland, Michael Chazan, Max Friesen, Justin Jennings, Carl Knappett, Heather Miller, Lindsay Montgomery, Sarah Murray, Phil Saperstein, and Liye Xie for their camaraderie and intellectual inspiration. My fellow Andeanists, Justin Jennings and Andrew Roddick, a professor at nearby McMaster University, merit special thanks for their friendship and the deep knowledge they have shared on social theory and South American archaeology. I had the privilege to edit volumes with Justin and Andy, and their perspectives inform my thinking on place and time adopted in this book. I also gained a great deal

xxiv Acknowledgements

collaborating with Craig Cipolla, and our joint work on the semiotics of archaeological practice inspired the theoretical approaches I apply in this volume. Of course, a comparative study of this scope is bound to offend the specialist, whether working in the Andes or Southeast Asia, and I take full responsibility for historical simplifications or errors in interpretation. Finally, I wish to acknowledge my family for their continued love and support, and I dedicate this book to my parents, Maria Giusepinna Scaiola Swenson and Edward Elmgren Swenson. They instilled in me a fascination for the past and gave me every opportunity to pursue my interests in history and archaeology. I extend my thanks to my sisters Erica and Mata, who are not only siblings but among my best friends. Finally, I am deeply grateful to my wife of 25 years, Connie Hsu Swenson, and our daughter, Ellie Josephine. Despite painfully long absences and tolerating my participation in two field projects on other ends of the earth, they have always encouraged and supported my research. I feel blessed to have such a wonderful, loving, and caring family.

ABBREVIATIONS

Cited Abbreviations in Text

ISC Inscriptions sanscrites du Cambodge; cf. Barth 1885. ISCC Inscriptions sanscrites de Campā et du Cambodge; cf. Bergaigne 1893. CP The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Eight Volumes; cf. Peirce 1958–1965. Cited Abbreviation in References Cited

BEFEO

Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1

The Adoration of Infrastructures

A week after the shocking 2016 presidential election in the United States, James B. Stewart of the New York Times penned an article that Donald Trump should do what he does best: “build something awe-inspiring.” In an attempt to salvage hope from the unexpected election results, Stewart lauded Trump’s promise to improve the nation’s ailing infrastructures (also a key plank of Hillary Clinton’s platform). The journalist commended Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration and noted that the “Golden Gate Bridge, the Hoover Dam, the Lincoln Tunnel and the Timberline Lodge” were all initiatives of New Deal public works.1 Although partly blaming the obduracy of the Republican-controlled Congress, Stewart bemoans that he could not name one legacy infrastructure project sponsored by President Obama’s $800 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. He further contends that massive investments in infrastructure would boost stock markets, provide coveted jobs for disaffected workers, and unite a bitterly divided nation. The 2015 Canadian elections were also preoccupied by infrastructure deficits, and one of Justin Trudeau’s principal election promises was to establish a national infrastructure bank, involving both public and private stakeholders. In the last few municipal elections in Toronto, the fierce debate over whether to construct subways or light rail in the city has decided the fate of mayors. The ideological cachet of subways obscured their much greater expense and impracticality, especially when proposed for low-density areas. The dispute became especially politicized in light of the growing realization that the construction of mass transit in select neighbourhoods had led to the alienation of large segments of the city residing elsewhere, and such infrastructural deficits disproportionately disenfranchised the poor. Rodgers and

DOI: 10.4324/9780429356063-1

2 Introduction

O’Neil (2012) have condemned such disparities in ­development as ­perpetuating “infrastructural violence.” Toronto spatial politics illustrate how the second circuit of capital (real-estate speculation and public works) has come to play an increasingly dominant role in structuring economic and political realities in the post-industrial world (Swenson and Jennings 2018: 25). Zukin (1995) similarly argues that post-Fordist American cities have attempted to retain a spirit of centred pre-eminence by remaking themselves into bastions of aesthetic production and cultural consumption. Whether beautifully landscaped parks, concert halls, art museums, or building marvels designed by commodified “starchitects,” urban monuments proclaim the (often challenged) primacy of centred, city space. For Zukin, the contemporary metropolis is distinct for the cultural capital congealed in “sites of delectation” is not so much the product of wealth and economic surplus but is expected to generate wealth in its own right. Zukin notes (1995: 12): Like any commodity, ‘cultural landscape’ has the possibility of generating other commodities. Historically, of course, the arrow of causality goes the other way. Only an economic surplus—sufficient to fund sacrifices for the temple, Michelangelos for the chapel, and bequests to art museums in the will of robber barons—generates culture. But in American and European cities during the 1970s, culture became more of an instrument in the entrepreneurial strategies of local governments and business alliances. Of course, infrastructure entails more than Golden Gate Bridges and Millennium Parks, and Trump’s most publicized building proposal, the anti-immigrant wall on the Mexican border, demonstrates the nefarious side of the political production of space. The Chinese government’s recent infrastructural and foreign policy plan, the Belt and Road Initiative, a trans-continental road, railway, and energy pipeline project has also met resistance in Europe and elsewhere out of fears that the massive construction campaign will serve to consolidate Chinese political and economic hegemony. Baron Haussmann’s famed urban renewal of Paris in the mid-19th century constituted much more than an aesthetic project but further demonstrates how power was realized in the remaking of urban landscapes (see Rodgers and O’Neil 2012). Haussmannization led to the displacement of nearly one third of the city’s population, and the construction of massive boulevards and the ­razing of quarters and renovation of others profoundly altered Parisian life and society. The standardization of building dimensions and aesthetics, the restrictive use of cream-coloured stones, and vast public works—ranging from municipal parks to Garnier’s famed opera house—completely revolutionized Parisian identity and social order well beyond the Second Empire (Harvey 2003; Swenson and Jennings 2018: 25–26). As mandated by state and private elite interests, another objective of Haussmann’s urban renewal was to prevent revolutionary violence (see Rodgers and O’Neil 2012). The widening of arterial boulevards facilitated the

Introduction  3

rapid movement of the army and prevented the construction of effective barricades. Even paving roads with asphalt made it difficult to pry out cobblestones that could be used as ­projectiles by angry protestors. An important objective of this book is to argue that wealth-generating “sites of delectation” and political economies grounded in the construction of place and infrastructures (comparable to the second circuit of capital) are not artefacts of the modern era but have defined hierarchical polities ever since their inception. In his discussion of the great infrastructural projects of Middle Kingdom Egypt, Barry Kemp argued that “bureaucracy in the ancient world was an instrument of prosperity of a kind that has surfaced in modern economic debates, revolving around the question: are public works entailing massive state employment a good thing?” He adds: “part of the back-cloth of history is the fact that the central direction of resources committed to massive labour-intensive projects was in earlier times the greatest engine of growth, creating many of the world’s civilizations” (Kemp 1989: 136). Related to Kemp’s focus on government commissions of construction projects, anthropologists have argued that urbanism should be understood as a “process,” not a phenomenon to classify (Abu-Lughod 1987: 172). Instead of simply categorizing a preindustrial urban centre as orthogenetic or heterogentic, regal-ritual or mercantile (Redfield and Singer 1954), attention should be paid to the continual construction of the city and the relations, dependencies, and experiences afforded by such building enterprises. Assemblage theory inspired by the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari similarly overcomes taxonomic essentialisms by focusing “on the historical processes that produce” cities, networks, or institutions since “the identity of any assemblage at any level of scale is always the product of a process (territorialization and in some cases, coding)…” (for a definition of these key terms, see Chapter 2) (DeLanda 2006: 28, 39). Moving beyond the narrow theoretical register of the urban, a focus on the production of space more generally demonstrates how landscapes inextricably congealed the economic, political, and ideological in past societies (and thus institutional power more generally speaking) (Smith 2003). Thus, concepts such as place-making permit fine-grained analyses of settlement practices, political economy, infrastructures, and religion, variables too often treated as independent in studies of historical process. Indeed, analysis should focus on the actual political work executed by spaces, places, people, things, and institutions. Place-making can be defined as the complex process by which built environments were constructed, maintained, perceived, lived, imagined, and contested (Lefebvre 1991; Swenson 2012a, 2015, 2017: 210). The concept “foregrounds landscape not as a static backdrop to social action but as integral to the inculcation of habitual rhythms and to the ideological construction of everything from personhood and community to being and cosmology” (Swenson 2017: 210). A number of case studies presented in this book will demonstrate how placemaking and infrastructural projects were commonly motivated by religious imperatives that are difficult to disentangle from the operation of larger political economies. For instance, Cosimo de’ Medici (Cosimo Il Vecchio) (1389–1464)

4 Introduction

initiated the great construction projects of the Florentine Renaissance, including the first public library, the costly renovation of monasteries, and Brunelleschi’s famed dome, in large part to assuage his deep-seated fears of damnation and to counteract the practice of usury upon which his banking empire was founded (Strathern 2016). One could reference numerous other examples to illustrate religion’s central role in the “construction” of authority and the assembling of social worlds in past societies. Asoka (269–232 BCE), the great king of India’s Mauryan Empire, built wells, rest houses, and provided medical aid to his subjects in accordance with his new-found Buddhist faith (Harvey 2012: 75–77). In Pre-Heian Japan, emperors constructed completely new palaces and capital cities following their installation, a policy that finds parallels in other societies, even if the religious rationale differed, including in Angkor, Aztec Tenochtitlán, and the Chimú Empire of Peru (Conrad 1981; Matos Moctezuma 1988; Stern 1951: 653; Wheatley and See 1978: 103).2 In many cultures, building programs were inspired by and explicitly re-enacted cosmic creation. As I noted in an earlier publication (Swenson 2013: 474): cosmogonic processes were commonly propelled by divine acts of placemaking (both earthly and architectural), and linguistic equivalents of the word ‘architect’ (literally signifying ‘first builder’ in Greek) were often employed to describe creator deities such as the Assyrian Marduk (Casey 1997: 27). Ancient rulers similarly fashioned themselves as architects of order and prosperity and embarked on great construction campaigns as a means to subdue chaos and defend moral and religious principles. However, such architectural revitalizations did more than renew the world socially and cosmically or legitimize the generative capacity of elites. They also materialized radically different space-times that set the parameters for the exercise and contestation of historically distinct power relations. My research on the religious architecture of ancient Peru and Cambodia has sought precisely to understand how social engineering was attempted through the literal engineering of the places that constrain and enable social life (see Chapters 3–6). Power is fundamentally emplaced not simply through the mobilization of the labour, resources, and technological knowledge required to undertake public work campaigns, but also through the capacity of infrastructures to shape everyday dispositions and orient fields of action (Swenson and Jennings 2018: 1; Wilkinson 2019a). As Lefebvre (1991) argued, exerting control over the production, experience, and representation of space constitutes a fundamental strategy in the consolidation of authority. Indeed, “the right to build and define place is equivalent to the right to assert identity and participate in political life” (Swenson 2013: 485). An archaeological analysis of infrastructures and the religious production of space can permit both cross-comparative research and an appreciation of cultural differences in the creation of subjectivities and government institutions. In this light, the development of “place-sensitive heuristics” facilitates the interpretation of the historical particulars

Introduction  5

of identity politics, socionatures, and the constitution of sovereignty in past s­ ocieties (Smith 2003, 2015; Swenson 2012, 2013; see also Casey 1997; Pauketat 2013). As discussed in the following chapters, attention to the efficacy of place and things—so as to develop such place-sensitive heuristics—will draw critically from a number of theorists, ranging from Benjamin and Foucault to Rancière. However, I rely especially on three major theoretical currents in analyzing the intersection of religion with urbanism, landscape, and infrastructures. They include theories on the production of space by Henri Lefebvre, Peircean semiotics, and recent perspectives in assemblage theory inspired by the works of Deleuze and Guattari and Manuel DeLanda among others. These perspectives are of particular value for they provide an effective framework to reconcile materialist and representational viewpoints as well as phenomenological and symbolic approaches in reconstructing historical occurrences. A number of excellent publications have recently proved the relevance of these theories to archaeological research (Crellin 2020; Crossland 2014; Jervis 2019; Lucas 2012; Preucel 2006; Smith 2015). However, students complain that trendy philosophies often fail to shed original light on the experiences and practices of past peoples. Certainly, the disconnect between high theory and the actual interpretation of the material record constitutes a longstanding problem in archaeology (Johnson 2006; Lucas 2012). This book was motivated in part to better ground these ideas empirically, and the case studies from the Andes, Angkor, and elsewhere intend to make significant advances to our understanding of past landscapes, religious ideologies, ritual practice, and historical change. At the same time, the empirical data serve to expose some of the limitations of the New Materialism and related perspectives. In fact, an important argument of this book is that archaeological investigations of ancient ritual, infrastructures, and Indigenous philosophies have as much to teach us about the human condition as western social theory. Therefore, applying the thought of Peirce, Lefebvre, Deleuze, or Foucault to the archaeological record does not assume their unquestioned validity but intends to gauge both their potentials and limitations in interpreting past cultures. A central proposition of my study, an examination of Andean ideologies of space stands to shed as much light on Angkorian landscapes (and vice versa) as can the theories of western social scientists and philosophers. In turn, I do not simply assume that later Andean worldviews recorded ethnohistorically and ethnographically find direct equivalence in the material traces of the earlier civilizations such as the Moche. Instead, I apply analogical reasoning to identify both important commonalities and historical differences through time (Swenson and Berquist 2022; Wylie 1982). Furthermore, the comparative anthropology I adopt endeavours to strike a balance between new materialist and posthumanist perspectives and more traditional constructivist approaches that explore how Andean and Angkorian worlds were made, experienced, and contested in culturally specific ways. Therefore, I base the selective application of the above-mentioned social t­heories on an explicitly comparative approach for I agree with Geertz that “theory … moves

6 Introduction

mainly by analogy” (1983: 22) and that anthropological archaeology is impossible in its absence. Anthropologists must tread the dizzying tight rope separating the dangerous voids of both extreme universalism and particularism. The diverse ways in which the built environment conditioned the social warrants full attention, but it is only through comparative research that archaeologists can contextualize and ultimately explain such diversity. Identification of some general trends in the semiotic affordances and assembling capacities of infrastructures should prove of equal value. Therefore, a comparison of the semiotic ideologies of temple architecture demonstrates the general insights gained in employing Peircean theories of sign relations, while permitting a more probing analysis of the varied meanings and agencies of sacred landscapes in ancient Southeast Asia and South America (see Chapters 5–8). 1.2

Broader Theoretical Relevance of the Study

Another key objective of this book is to bring into critical dialogue my interest in infrastructures and religious acts of place-making with new directions in archaeological theory. In the last few decades, the emergence of the New Materialism and post-humanist approaches has been greeted with enthusiasm by archaeologists of different theoretical persuasions. Theories that explore alternate ontologies, actornetworks, extended minds, and ecologies of things are championed for developing innovative approaches that can deliver archaeology from post-modern indeterminacy, the tyranny of representation, and social constructivism. Archaeological publications exploring a variety of different problems now increasingly cite the work of Karen Barad, Walter Benjamin, Jane Bennett, Manuel DeLanda, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Philippe Descola, Donna Haraway, Martín Holbraad, Tim Ingold, Bruno Latour, Rosi Braidotti, Brian Massumi, and Viveiros de Castro, among others (Alberti 2016; Alberti et al. 2013; Bauer and Kosiba 2016; Crellin 2020; Dawdy 2010; Fowler 2013; Hamilakis 2017; Harris 2014, 2020; Harris and Cipolla 2017; Lucas 2012; Pauketat and Alt 2020; Smith 2015; Swenson 2015a, 2018a; Weismantel 2015). The argument that “matter matters” (Barad 2003) implies that archaeology matters as well, while affirming that we can reconcile theoretical generalizations—or explaining processual regularities—with ­interpretations of historically particular cultural practices. Indeed, an investigation of entangled, forever morphing, material continua—subsuming peoples, places, substances, and things—holds for some the promise of bringing together the strengths of both ­processual and post-processual archaeologies (Hodder 2012). This book was motivated by my fascination with the efficacy of places and things in social life but also by my frustration with some of the limitations of theories inspired by the material and ontological turns. The following chapters draw from many of these perspectives, but they will also make the case that representation, ideology, ritual, and religion have been wrongly maligned and are heuristics worth retaining in making sense of complex historical realities. In this regard,

Introduction  7

I often feel uncomfortable reading about the primacy of bodies, things, ­matter, energy, and material—particularly the works espousing radically symmetrical archaeologies—when such “philosophies” are “represented” on the printed page and within the conventions of a shared hermeneutic (indeed, ideological) tradition (see Graeber 2015: 19; Kohn 2015: 314–315). Certainly, we cannot treat past subjects as literate, publishing scholars, but I argue it is equally perilous to reduce past practices or “structures” to a procrustean ontology or an all-determining and unreflexive meshwork. As I stated in an article critiquing the new-found fascination with ontology: “Some of the underlying principles of social constructivism are… worth salvaging as long as one rejects formulations of mind, language, or culture as independent of or prior to material and performative processes of becoming” (Swenson 2015a). Admittedly, I am much more interested in how the quincunx division of the Mesoamerican cosmos may have shaped constructions of bodies and the built environment than how Maya material and social regimes operated as a generic “meshwork.” This is where the irony often lies; in foregrounding matter and their physical flows and interconnections, interpretations often slide into somewhat dull, universalizing abstractions that fail to say something new or interesting about a past social formation. The approach I develop in this volume has been influenced by my long-held interest in how ritual constitutes a distinctly materialized field of practice and how politics are mediated by the physical world, especially as realized in the construction and experience of religious landscapes. Although often making use of datasets that resonate closely with general theoretical understandings of ritual or religion, archaeologists have recently condemned these terms for their Eurocentric connotations and for distorting the meaningful context of past practices (Asad 1993; Brück 1999; Fowles 2013) (see Chapter 3). In confronting these often valid criticisms, another goal of this book is to reassert the importance of interrogating storied subjects in anthropological archaeology including religion, political institutions, ritual, and landscape in the context of recent critiques of the New Materialists and other related theories. At times obscured by neologisms and a dogmatic rejection of the symbolic or representational, new materialist paradigms can tend to lose sight of pressing political problems and the fundamental importance of epistemology, philosophy, and ethics in social life. If symmetrical archaeologies and flat ontologies (purporting the equality of humans and matter as agentive forces) would fail to explain present revolutions, genocides, or the election of President Trump, then obviously we should proceed with caution in applying such frameworks to interpreting archaeological datasets. Still, I acknowledge the important advances made by advocates of the various new materialisms, and a goal of the book is to weave together some of the productive threads of various schools of thought to demonstrate how archaeologists could better approximate past realities. As mentioned, the case studies in the chapters that follow intend to show the productive synergies that can result in combining Peircean semiotics and Lefebvre’s trilectics of space with theories on assemblages.

8 Introduction

In Chapter 2, I provide an overview of models recently deployed to characterize and interpret past (and present) worlds, including culture, discourse, hegemony, network, meshwork, ontology, assemblage, machine, and entanglements, among others. Ultimately, I relate them to the common denominator of “(infra)structure” to demonstrate the inherent difficulty of ascribing coherent boundaries to the subjects we study—an inevitable and perhaps insurmountable condition of the historical sciences. I argue that the above-listed heuristics all have value depending on the research problem under investigation. However, in light of my interest in issues of religion (meaning), ritual, politics, and landscape, I argue that the concepts of place-making and infrastructure (and new theories in infrastructure studies) provide an especially powerful analytical framework by which to make sense of the workings of past political regimes (sensu Smith 2003, 2015). A focus on infrastructure brings together many of the valuable insights of both the material and spatial turn and permits both comparative analysis and appreciation of historical differences in the material mediations of power and identity in past complex societies. As described in greater detail in Chapters 2 and 3, my use of this term aligns with Lefebvre’s argument that architecture should be understood as a specific social product and not simply as an autonomous phenomenon. As explored in Chapter 3, expanding the notion of infrastructure to encompass everything from roads, sewers, and urban plazas to religious edifices permits an appreciation of the diverse modalities in which political apparatuses attempted to materially integrate, divide, and reform subjects within specific ecologies and community structures (Swenson and Jennings 2018: 3). Although we can treat landscape and infrastructure as interchangeable (especially if the former is preceded by the adjective “political”), the latter emphasizes features of the built environment that were the product of explicit political and religious campaigns, whether state-directed or grass-roots (Smith 2016; Wilkinson 2019a). However, infrastructures constituted more than secondary byproducts of such campaigns but played an important role in the endurance or transformation of particular political regimes (Smith 2003). Indeed, scholars recognize infrastructures as foundational to both the political economy and as crucial “technologies of government” in both present and pre-modern societies (McFarlane and Rutherford 2008: 366; see Swenson and Jennings 2018: 1). Building on the Marxist tradition, one could argue that the means and relations of production can effectively incorporate this particular understanding of infrastructure. However, such an approach tends to relegate “the production of space” (to invoke Lefebvre’s most famous work) to an epiphenomenon of more abstract economic contradictions, and place is rarely prescribed agency in its own right— nor is space theorized to be the possible source of contradictions (Swenson and Jennings 2018: 24). Distinct modes of production (Ancient, Asiatic, Feudal, or Capitalist) may have correlated to different urban and rural configurations, but the latter were simply sublimated to the march of time, the inevitable consequences of changing technologies and class relations (Merrifield 2002). As stated earlier, however, infrastructures were inextricably tied to religious initiatives, even

Introduction  9

ontological sensibilities, rendering untenable any real causative or hierarchical ­distinction between “infrastructure” and “superstructure” as traditionally theorized (see Godelier 1978). At the same time, theories on place must consider the things that populate landscapes and the technologies that underwrite infrastructural complexes (Smith 2015). In this regard, the material-realist philosophy of Deleuze and his interlocutors proves insightful, and his theories on assemblages permit the rethinking of widely used tropes, whether capitalism, ideology, or society itself (see Chapter 2). Following Deleuze, DeLanda (2006) envisions a world made up of constantly mutating and recombinant assemblages of matter, peoples, places, things, institutions, and energy fields that are actualized in terms of external relationships. DeLanda (2006: 17–18) shows that an abstraction such as capitalism is a real phenomenon but one accurately understood as emplaced assemblages (and the differences this can assume) rather than strictly as an over-determined economic system (see also Connolly 2013; Coole and Frost 2010: 29). Nevertheless, heuristics including economy and ideology remain of value when properly contextualized to understand the workings and permutations of such shifting assemblages (subsuming strategies, motivations, deep histories, etc.). In deploying the broad parameters of coding and territorialization in understanding the varied functional and spatial integrity of assemblages—operating in both the realm of the discursive and non-discursive —DeLanda (2006, 2016) offers a framework for identifying the forces, both human and material, behind the development of unique historical events (see Chapter 2). As heuristics, coding and assemblages hold much potential for the archaeological analysis given the nature of material remains (Harris 2020; Lucas 2012). The variables of coding/over-coding and territorialization/deterritorialization will prove especially useful in making sense of the inextricable relationship between religion, power, and infrastructure in my analysis of ancient Andean and Angkorian landscapes (see Chapters 5–8). Therefore, a focus on infrastructure and the worlds they assemble also serve to demonstrate that “ideology,” “religion,” and indeed “political economy” commonly form a continuum with ontological dispositions or material-discursive practices (Barad 2003: 810). However, they are often fruitfully treated as distinct domains of analysis even if in practice the religious, ontological, or material may prove indissoluble. Indeed, the value of such terms in making sense of the world in general or archaeological datasets in particular is undeniable, but I question theories that impart specific conceptions, especially ontology, with a singular explanatory power. Descola’s Au délà de la Nature (2013a) is an extraordinary contribution to scholarship, but I think it is fair to argue that classifying societies as belonging to animistic, totemic, analogical, or naturalistic ontologies is equally as reductive as Marx and Engel’s categorization of history into modes of production (see Chapter 2). Descola would label the ontology of both the Moche of the North of Coast of Peru (200–800 CE) and the later imperial Inca (1300–1532 CE) as “analogical,” just as a number of archaeologists have analyzed these Andean political formations

10 Introduction

as exemplars of the “Asiatic Mode of Production” (Maisels 2010; Southall 1998; Stone 2008). However, a cursory comparison of Moche architecture and aesthetics with Inca-built environments and artistic canons reveals constructed worlds that were remarkably dissimilar, and these important differences are better explained in terms of rather old-fashioned understandings of religious worldviews, political ideology, and economic organization. 1.3 Bridging Theories with Infrastructures: Trilectic Archaeologies

This book’s focus on religious place-making and infrastructures demonstrates that both “meaning” and “politics” should remain front and centre in our analyses of past social-material formations. Hodder’s classic call that archaeologists need to examine “meaningfully constituted worlds” (in which things are constituted by and constitutive of such meaning) appealed to a generation of post-processual archaeologists embracing hermeneutic methodologies (Hodder 1982: 13; Swenson and Cipolla 2021). However, meaning defies easy definition and became immediate prey to the new materialists who spurned the symbolic and representational (see Alberti et al. 2013; Barad 2003; Bennett 2010; Ingold 2012; Witmore 2007a). Nonetheless, there is no reason to presume that meaning should be simply ­synonymous with signification or the expressive, for it can also encompass the experiential, embodied, and non-linguistic (Boivin 2009: 282–283). Much of our activities, choices, and prospects are dictated by global capitalism, from the food we buy, our work schedules, to circadian rhythms, and the houses we inhabit (Lefebvre 2004). Capitalism then would form a significant part of the “meaningful world” future archaeologists will need to consider to make sense of everything from the distribution of strip malls to the stratification of rapidly evolving electronic devices in landfills. This stratigraphic deposit would express an economics of constant invention and obsolescence and by extension ideologies of progress and possessive individualism. For a good number of people, such ideologies are perhaps best understood as hegemonic in the Gramscian meaning of the term; many dimensions of everyday practice profoundly shaped by capitalism remain unquestioned and taken for granted (Gramsci 1971) (see Chapter 3). However, one would hope that capitalism is not over-determining in every instance and an investigation of certain aspects of ecclesiastical architecture, for instance, would need to consider other factors as well. A strip mall may shape the experiences and perceptions of the average suburbanite—usually beyond the conscious acknowledgement of their effects—and such centres of commerce could never have been imagined by the likes of Adam Smith or David Ricardo. However, the philosophies of Smith contributed in significant and unintended ways to the globalized and neo-liberal present in which we are presently immersed (Stanford 1998: 52–53). Indeed, the famed Wealth of Nations and economic theory in general would demand consideration alongside market

Introduction  11

forces, infrastructures, and energy transmission in making sense of capitalism as a powerful assembling or structuring force (Deetz 1977: 40; Stanford 1998: 53). Indeed, cosmology and epistemology often beget and transform ontology, a fact often ignored by proponents of symmetrical archaeologies and the ontological turn (see Fowles in Alberti et al. 2011: 898). For instance, Sahlins (1996) argued that the Judeao-Christian cosmology laid the foundation for the later development of many of our “isms,” including capitalism (see also Abramson and Holbraad 2014: 7–8). The belief in an all-powerful deity that transcended his creation contrasts with theologies in which divine or other-than-human forces inhere in the “natural” world (Sahlins 2022). Sahlins also claimed that notions of original sin and the casting of Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden continue to underwrite western anthropologies (and ontologies) on human nature, economics, and engagements with the environment. Surely, worldviews—biblical, capitalist, or otherwise— exert their greatest force through their material and spatial creations (Comaroff and Comaroff 1991; Smith 2003). It is for this reason that certain proponents of the New Materialism err in denouncing the representational or symbolic. Ironically, they perpetuate the same Cartesian dualisms they so readily condemn (material/ immaterial; body/mind; real/ideal; nature/culture, etc.) in presuming that (re)presentation, symbolism, metaphor, exegesis, and so forth are synonymous with disembodied thought and are inconsequential to understanding the materialization of ontological orders or the unfolding of human history (Cipolla 2021; Crossland and Bauer 2017: 6–7; Kohn 2013: 40–41; Swenson and Cipolla 2021). Nevertheless, the recent interest in assemblages derives from the insights of the New Materialism, especially the philosophies of Deleuze and Guattari, Manuel DeLanda, and Jane Bennett (Fowler 2013: 21–48). Such perspectives challenge Cartesian and anthropocentric dualisms and decentre human actors as the prime movers of causality, agency, and process (Lucas 2012: 190–193; Swenson 2018a). A “flat ontology” often constitutes the starting point of analysis, and the student approaches the unfolding of history in terms of the fluid interrelationship of sundry entities forming ever-changing assemblages. For instance, Bennet characterizes electrical grids as an unstable assemblage of workers, fuel, electricity, hydro stations, transmission towers, and related infrastructures (Bennett 2010; Harris 2014: 90). Blackouts often arise because of a disruption in the relationship between the parts forming this volatile whole (and not within the parts exclusively) (Crellin 2017: 113). What matters is the relationality of parts that constitute subassemblages within larger assemblages. As Fowler states (2017: 96): “An assemblage is a specific arrangement of diverse, heterogeneous, interacting components that has specific effects.” Lucas also notes (2012: 199): “Assemblage theory wishes to examine society as an assemblage in ways that sees them as synthetic entities and not essentialized types.” Bennet’s electrical grid reveals the important insights gained in applying assemblage and related theories, but the history of specific infrastructural projects must

12 Introduction

also consider the political and economic stakeholders in commissioning, building, and maintaining electrical power systems. As Smith notes (2015: 33): “Assemblages are not simply congeries of materials but rather are constituted by material forms linked by distinctly social relationships with assemblies of humans that are likewise defined by the engagement.” This foregrounding of social engagement is key; the shuttering of coal-generated plants and their replacement with green energy alternatives must take heed of the many ideological and economic factors at play, ranging from worries about pollution and cost-effectiveness to government policy and the success of advertisement. Thus, how coal, nuclear, or solar power are represented in various media or politicized in diverse ways deserves consideration in understanding historical process. Trump’s declaration that he would save jobs in the coal industry despite its detrimental effects on the environment provides an obvious example of how the larger assemblage of power generation is made up of unequal parts at once material and symbolic; a symmetrical ontology in this case would be hard to defend. As discussed in subsequent chapters, Deleuzian theories of machines, coding, and territorialization recognize the asymmetries and differential temporalities of such interlocking assemblages (Crellin 2020). In fact, investigating assemblages as semiotic processes recognizes the material and symbolic (or subject and object) not as Cartesian binaries but as inextricably interdependent. In this vein, archaeologists have turned to the theories of Charles Sanders Peirce to show that the phenomenological and semiotic are not mutually exclusive but are jointly materialized and profitably analyzed in tandem (see Crossland 2014: 73; Preucel 2006; Watts 2008). Peirce’s “semeiotics” is celebrated for transcending Saussurean signifier and signified dualisms and for recognizing the non-arbitrary properties of signs in relationship to their objects (or referents). Indeed, Peirce’s sign relations (firstness, secondness, thirdness/signsign, sign-object, sign-interpretant, etc.) can aid in the decipherment of the precise inner-workings and effects of certain components comprising larger assemblages including infrastructures and landscapes (Swenson 2018b). Thus indexes refer to the contiguity of sign and object wherein the latter directly affects or modifies the former. An index makes “present” the object it signifies differently than an iconic sign based on properties of resemblance; a weathervane moving with the direction of the wind is not equivalent to an iconic portrait based on mimesis or likeness. Similarly, a pyramid built as a direct replica or diagrammatic icon of a sacred mountain differs in meaning (and effect) from a temple constructed directly on a summit or incorporating the peak’s sacred stones into its actual construction (as an index of sorts—see Chapter 8). The third component of the indivisible semiotic triad, the interpretant, is a product or mediation of the initial relationship of the sign and the object (whether icon, index, symbol, etc.) (CP 2.228; Crossland 2014: 46; Savan 1987; Short 2007). These “dynamic interpretants,” also triadically manifested, designate responses, feelings, or affective reactions to sign-object relations. The interpretant thus refers to “the proper significate effect” and to new, often material signs that arise from encounters with sign-signs and sign-objects

Introduction  13

(and other sign-interpretants) (Colapietro 1989: 13, 107; Daniel 1984: 291; Lele 2006: 51; CP 1.480, 2.228, 4.536, 5.473–475; Savan 1987: 55–56; Short 2007: 18, 200–206; Watts 2008: 190). An individual fleeing a fire or genuflecting before a revered icon provides examples of a sign-interpretant (Swenson 2018b: 357; see Chapter 2). A power outage would index a failure somewhere in the grid and lead to a number of interpretants, including the automatic activation of backup generators or protests against government mismanagement. As Crossland argues (2014: 46): “Taking full account of the interpretant provides a powerful way to think about the process rather than the structure of semeiosis.” She further notes (2014: 264): “One of the tasks of archaeology is also to reconstruct these intended interpretants, which may have been feelings and reactions as much as any more discursively recognized response.” Many of the following chapters explore how the employment of semiotic frameworks can shed novel lights on the assembling capacity of ritual practices and religious infrastructures. Similar to Peirce, Lefebvre (1991) is a trilectic thinker, and his notions of space as perceived, conceived, and lived (rebranded firstspace, secondspace, and thirdspace respectively by Edward Soja, 1996) have considerably influenced geographers and anthropologists. In combination with assemblage theory and the insights of Peircean semiotics, Lefebvre’s spatial approach can advance interpretations of past worlds encoded in archaeological remains, even if such meanings defy reduction to conscious thought or orthodox ideologies. Conceived space designates designed, built, imagined, and imposed places, the space of architects, engineers, planners, and commissioning rulers. It is expressed in particular in “representations of space” including blueprints, models, maps, political monuments, surveyor’s grids, and so forth. On the other hand, perceived space is realized in practice and directly experienced, and it often operates at the level of the unconscious. Lived Space combines aspects of the perceived and conceived and denotes lived, meaningful, and potentially subversive constructions of everyday space (see Chapter 2). Related to Lefebvre’s notion of “spaces of representation” (art, literature, sculpture, graffiti, and the actual act of building), space is at once consciously apprehended (scrutinized), experienced (perceived), and potentially re-formed. Lived space could thus describe the conversion of a space into the discursive realm of subversion, ideology, and self-reflection. Although indirectly relatable, we can still draw a parallel between Peirce’s notion of interpretant and Lefebvrian theories of lived or third space. Both make reference to reactions, responses, and the process of continued semiosis generating a series of new signs, relations, and effects. In fact, codification and territorialization underwriting the assemblage process—whether (re)defining subjects, places, communities, infrastructures, etc., are realized through the activation of particular semiotic ideologies and the different reactions they elicit. In truth, gauging such reactions provides a more realistic means to interpret the agency of buildings and things in past societies, and this approach will prove especially productive in m ­ aking sense of infrastructures of religion and power in the chapters to come. Webb Keane’s

14 Introduction

(2018) notion of semiotic ideology explores the distinct ­ontologies and ­materialities underwriting different sign relations and their effects, and it acknowledges in turn that people are attentive to the function and consequences of signs in diverse media. Architectural projects often encoded semiotic ideologies that differently emphasized mimetic iconicity (“rhematization”), indexicality and connectedness (“dicentization”), or more abstract symbolic codes (“conventionalization”). Such ideologies served at once to promote particular religious movements, shape subjectivities, and materialize interpersonal dependencies with ontological others (Ball 2014; Chumley 2017; Gal 2013; Keane 2018) (see Chapter 4). Therefore, the analysis of the agency of landscapes—as actors in human history—must pay heed to both the materiality of assemblages and the semiotics guiding the assembling process. In the end, the core of this book remains unapologetically “humanist” in the sense that it wishes to understand how past people reflexively interpreted and derived meaning from the assembled worlds in which they were immersed. However, as mentioned earlier, such meanings were commonly elicited by places and things, and meaning refers as much to affect as it does to thought or representation. Although rejecting a strict divide between the symbolic or the material, the ­trilectic approach espoused here also recognizes the possibility of ­contradictions (in the spirit of Marx) between experience and interpretation or between the ­distinct parts assembled within larger political landscapes. 1.4

Organization of the Volume

The following chapters present case studies from the Andes, ancient Angkor, and other premodern social formations in order to demonstrate how rituals of placemaking played a central role in processes of assemblage, codification, territorialization, and semiosis fundamental to the creation of political regimes and subjectivity (and their contestation). In Chapter 2, I review the current theoretical landscape in archaeology, and I argue that the interpretation of the agency of infrastructures cannot ignore the ideological but must foreground semiosis, religion, and cosmology. I compare Lefebvre’s social production of space with assemblage theory, Deleuze and Guattari’s typology of spatial segmentarity, and Peircean-inspired interpretive frameworks, especially the concept of semiotic ideologies. This exposé lays the foundations for the trilectic approach I apply in the following chapters. I make the case that we must rehabilitate representation and symbolism in archaeological research and that ontology remains meaningless independent of discussions of ideology and cosmology (cosmopolitics). In Chapter 3, I argue that ritual entails a distinctive materialization of action intimately related to the exercise of power. I develop the theory that ritual, by engineering amplified and altered material frames, constitutes one of the most powerful modes of semiosis and machinic assemblage, explaining the unrivalled political efficacy of religious infrastructures. In this vein, I propose six points of intersection of ritual and power to aid interpretations of how ritual differently structures the

Introduction  15

political. This framework also intends to aid archaeological inferences on power relations encoded in the material residues of ritual practice. Building on my criticisms of the limitations and misunderstandings of anti-representational perspectives discussed in the previous chapter, I then explore how ritual practice played a central role in the making of place (thirdspaces), the construction of subjects, the political “distribution of the sensible” (Rancière 2013) and the territorialization of larger social-material collectives. I also contend that archaeologists must examine religious architecture in conjunction with larger infrastructural histories. Therefore, I assess definitions and applications of “infrastructure” as a heuristic and criticize the often implicit separation of the religious and aesthetic from the infrastructural and economic. In Chapter 4, I examine temples in particular as semiotic machines and explore how ritual commonly mediates between ontological others, thus explaining the amplified semiosphere of sacred space and the distinctive material frame of ritual practice in general. I then identify and examine some of the recurring sign modalities of ritual mediation/communication that are relevant to interpreting both temple spaces and structured depositions in the archaeological record. These materialized sign modalities include repetition, substitution, intimate parallelism, and symbolic accumulation (exhaustion) (Yelle 2013). This discussion sets the stage for the case studies in the following chapters that demonstrate how comparable semiotic processes underwrote the production of religious landscapes in Angkor and the North Coast of Peru. I conclude the chapter with an examination of the generative and machinic capacities of sacred spaces as prime nodes for the territorialization of social-material collectives at the level of community, polity, and cosmos. Chapters 5–8 provide in-depth analyses of religious infrastructures from ancient Peru and Cambodia respectively to illustrate how the application of the theories developed in the previous chapters can shed original light on the role of ritual and place-making in the creation of distinct political ecologies. I selectively apply the approaches discussed earlier in the book when pertinent to a specific problem and to interpret a particular landscape or architectural complex. The approaches range from analyses of the semiotic ideology encoded in structured depositions within sacred structures to investigations of the aesthetic effects of the distinctive segmentarity characterizing built environments (Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 210). As a baseline, I make use of these perspectives to approximate a reconstruction of how landscapes were variably conceived, perceived, and lived in the spirit of Henri Lefebvre, and how these registers may have aligned or clashed. In other words, I examine built environments, infrastructures, and rituals staged within specialized buildings to demonstrate how archaeologists can better infer past ontologies, ideologies of time and place, cosmologies, and historically specific political struggles. Chapter 5 explores Andean ideologies of place and conceived space in general, a survey that sets the scene for the examination of the case studies from the Jequetepeque Valley of northern Peru presented in Chapter 6. Therefore, Chapter 5 introduces key Indigenous philosophical and religious concepts concerning

16 Introduction

space and place, including wak’a, tinkuy, camay, synecdochal geographies, and so forth that inform the interpretations of the archaeological evidence in the following chapter. As such, I provide a survey of overarching commonalities as well as important historical differences in Andean sacred geographies and infrastructures that touch on theoretical points developed in preceding chapters. Chapter 6 presents a study of Cañoncillo archaeological complex of the Southern Jequetepeque Valley. This region is distinguished by the three neighbouring ceremonial centres of Jatanca, Huaca Colorada, and Tecapa, each reaching their florescence in distinct periods. Although they all likely anchored a cult related to the worship of the nearby mountain of Cerro Cañoncillo, the building techniques, semiotic ideologies, and architectural configuration of the three centres differed notably, pointing to changing constructions of community, authority, and personhood as well as differing conceptions of time and history. The chapter examines how the ceremonial landscapes and associated infrastructures codified, territorialized, and signified political subjectivity through distinct aesthetic media and semiotic ideologies. In the end, the analysis sheds critical light on how religious infrastructures and rituals of place-making reconstituted gender relations, realigned regional politics, and altered the temporalities of everyday practice on the North Coast of Peru. Chapter 7 turns its attention to ancient Angkor and provides a survey of Khmer ideologies of place and theories proposed to interpret the political landscape of ancient Angkor. A vibrant green city, the templescape of Angkor was defined by the remarkable interdigitation of rice fields, water basins, monumental architecture, dense temple complexes, and linear arrays of villages. Temples formed the nucleus of settlements and the engine of the agrarian economy, while also serving as centres for the arts, craft specialization, education, and finance. Therefore, the temples articulated a great karmic ecology; the building of reservoirs, roads, and related infrastructures, radiating around monumental sanctuaries, accrued merit for the king, sponsors of the temples, and even commoners who participated in the construction and upkeep of religious estates. Another important objective of the chapter is to critically reassess theories that Southeast Asian urban landscapes were organized as mandalas or diagrammatic icons of cosmic and social order. Scholars have argued that Southeast Asian polities exemplify an alternate tradition of spatial politics based not on fixed, cadastral territories but one configured on a symbolic geography of shifting clines of replicated religious centres personified by the charismatic power of their respective leaders. Although the notion of mandala remains useful, I argue that Angkorian temples, stone inscriptions, and dedicated lingas codified semiotic ideologies that territorialized a unique political geography irreducible to this spatial concept. The final section of this chapter revisits theories of the Angkorian temple as an animate microcosm and compares it with other Southeast Asian traditions, including the great city of Bagan in Myanmar and Tai settlement systems in Thailand and Laos. The brief comparison illustrates not only how religious symbolism deeply influenced the configuration and experience of

Introduction  17

urban landscapes, but that associated aesthetic ideologies elicited distinct social responses and assembled unique communities. Chapter 8 builds on the insights of the previous analysis of Angkorian urban landscapes and presents two case studies of the exceptional building projects of the Angkorian kings Yaśovarman I (889–910 CE) and Jayavarman VII (1182–1218 CE). The comparison serves to identify commonalities in Khmer strategies of place-making but investigates in turn how the different religious ideologies of the kings, separated by 300 years, translated to the propagation of distinct infrastructures, state temples, sacred geographies, and aesthetic media. Similar to Chapter 6, the analysis demonstrates how a contextual study of different datasets (architectural, material, inscriptional, etc.) can provide an improved approximation of the historical particulars underwriting the spatial production of past subjects. The founder of the city of Angkor (Yaśodharapura), Yaśovarman I (889–910 CE), embarked on an unprecedented building campaign and commissioned 4 āśrama (ashrams or hermitages) in his new capital city to different religious denominations and a hundred more in the provinces of the expanding empire. In the late 12th century, Jayavarman VII initiated perhaps the most ambitious building program in history, one that both paralleled but also departed significantly from the architectural and religious projects of early Khmer kings. Similar to Yaśovarman’s āśrama, his regime commissioned the construction of 102 state-funded hospitals (ārogyaśāla) along with an extensive temple and road system. Jayavarman’s remaking of place was especially radical since it was designed in part to convert the realm to Mahayana Buddhism. The comparison reveals some striking parallels in the two kings’ building projects, and it provides a detailed archaeological study of the āśrama and hospital networks. Nevertheless, some stark differences are also apparent in the rulers’ spatial politics, as expressed in divergent semiotic ideologies, iconography, ritual observances (lived space), strategies of territorialization, and the material media of architectural construction. The concluding chapter summarizes some of the principal insights of the book and discusses explicitly how the methods and theories developed in this study can improve interpretations of historical process, social change, and periodization schemes more generally. It is often claimed that archaeologists hold a privileged position in making sense of long-term historical change and the material conditioning of social life. In this spirit, the book mobilizes the trilectic approach to interpret how South American and Angkorian infrastructural projects underwrote the development of historically varied materialities, temporalities and, by extension, economic and political formations. A comparison of the changing material signatures of ritual frames, aesthetic media, semiotic ideologies, investments in infrastructures, and the shifting territorializations of places and things offers insights on significant historical development. In Chapter 9, I demonstrate the value of this approach by comparing the Andean and Angkorian case studies with the revolutionary religious movement of Pharaoh Akhenaten (r. 1353–1336 BCE) during the short Amarna period. His new theology intended but ultimately failed to upend

18 Introduction

the Egyptian social order and most aspects of everyday reality, from language and administration to ritual and cosmology (Hornung 1999: 49; Reeves 2001: 139). Many of the semiotic-material registers explored in this book demonstrate abrupt and coordinated shifts as a result of the pharaoh’s novel policies. In the end, I examine some key innovations of the Amarna movement to support some of my concluding arguments concerning the interpretation of historical process from archaeological contexts. I conclude that major ideological and cultural transformations are inconceivable without the remaking of the environment and supporting infrastructures, and in antiquity, this was inevitably a cosmopolitical (religious) landscape. Notes 1 In quoting sociologist Scott Myers-Lipton, Stewart notes that the accomplishments of the Works Progress Administration were “astounding.” Millions of workers built “78,000 bridges, 650,000 miles of roads, 700 miles of airport runways, 13,000 playgrounds and 125,000 military and civilian buildings, including more than 40,000 schools” (2016). 2 Newly inaugurated Aztec tlatoque (leaders or kings) were expected to ritually terminate and then renew the great pyramid of the Templo Mayor. Seven such renovations have been identified archaeologically at Tenochtitlán (Umberger 1996: 86).

2 EXCAVATING THE THEORETICAL LANDSCAPE The Archaeological Search for Significance1

2.1

Introduction: The Semiotics of Archaeological Analysis

The analysis of material traces to reconstruct past lifeways and long-term social change defines the archaeological enterprise. Archaeology thus exemplifies a semiotic science, for we interpret material remains as signs of absent peoples and their practices in order to make inferences on larger historical phenomena (Crossland 2014; Swenson 2018b; Swenson and Cipolla 2021). In light of the inescapable semiotic foundation of archaeological interpretation, archaeologists have much to gain from the theories of philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce. I have argued elsewhere with my colleague Craig Cipolla that his semeiotics2 hold the potential to “bridge some of the deepest divides in the discipline” (see Swenson and Cipolla 2021). In this introduction to the chapter, I provide a brief summary of the fundamentals of Peirce’s philosophy and focus in particular on aspects of his semeiotics that relate to archaeological practice and inform arguments developed in later chapters on religious architecture and infrastructures. In the following sections, I then compare semiotic and representational approaches with the important contributions of the new materialism, focusing especially on assemblage theory and studies of ontology. The critical review recognizes the significant advances of these recent perspectives in making sense of past landscapes and the complexities of historical process. However, my focus on the force of religion in the creation of infrastructures and political subjects will serve to expose the shortcomings of particular theories adopting rigidly “anti-representational” standpoints. Therefore, I advance the argument that ideology and cosmology must remain a central focus of archaeological research in making sense of ontology, material processes, and the making of worlds. Ultimately, I propose a reconciliation of sorts and develop a theoretical framework that combines the most promising aspects of the semeiotics DOI: 10.4324/9780429356063-2

20  Excavating the Theoretical Landscape

of Peirce, assemblage theory, and Lefebvrian perspectives on the social p­ roduction of space. My application of this triumvirate is selective and critical, and in the following chapter, I seek to demonstrate how an analysis of ritual practice in the context of place-making and infrastructural histories provides archaeologists with one of the most powerful means to interpret how past political regimes attempted to engineer “meaningfully constituted worlds.” 2.2 A Brief Introduction to Peirce’s Semeiotics and the Search for “Meaningfully Constituted Worlds” in Archaeological Research

Peirce’s triadic theory of signs transcends the static structure of the Saussurean dualism of signifier and signified and recognizes the non-arbitrary properties of signs in relation to their objects (or referents) (Baron 2021). Peirce maintained that the universe is materially shaped by interconnected and morphing signs that take the form of objects, interpretants and other signs—a creative and context-specific process referred to as semiosis (Merrell 1995). As a proponent of pragmatics, the practical, material, and semiotic are inextricably entangled, and Peirce held that to understand the meaning of signs one must observe their practical results—the interpretants that follow, and the material processes they trigger. Peirce’s doctrine of categories (or categories of thought) (Peirce 1998 [1894]) divided the semiotic process in terms of firsts, seconds, and thirds that corresponded in turn with the properties and interrelations of signs, objects, and interpretants: sign-sign (firstness), sign-object (secondness), sign-interpretant (thirdness). Each of these relations is further typologized as multiplying triads so that within the sign-object relation (second trichotomy), Peirce identified icons (firstness), indexes (seconds), and symbols (third) (Short 2007: 207–208). Indexes are defined by a relationship of causality and contiguity between sign and object, whereby the latter directly affects or modifies the former. In contrast, a relationship of resemblance defines an icon; for instance, a drawing of a cat represents the actual cat. Therefore, an index signifies or represents an object differently than an iconic sign based on properties of immediacy and shared appearance; a weathervane moving with the direction of the wind, a dog footprint referencing the animal that made it, or smoke signalling fire are not equivalent to an iconic portrait based on mimesis, direct presence, or likeness. Variations in how indexical signs work in ritual performances in particular—pointing to something based on iconic resemblance (a footprint) or in terms of direct contact (weathervane) inform my analysis of the differential meanings and effects of religious architecture in the chapters to come. Symbols correspond more closely to Saussure’s semiology in which an object expresses a meaning based on convention and tradition. For instance, a wooden cross is an iconic sign of the crucifixion, but it also symbolically represents ­sacrifice, ­salvation, and Christianity more generally.

Excavating the Theoretical Landscape  21

The third component of the general semiotic triad, the interpretant, constitutes the mediated product of the initial relationship of the sign and the object (whether icon, index, symbol, etc.) (CP 2.228; Crossland 2014: 46; 1992: 7; Savan 1987; Short 2007). Interpretants also manifest triadically and encompass reactions, responses, or feelings to sign-object relations. In correspondence with the doctrines of categories, the three kinds of interpretants include emotional (affective), energetic (reactive), and logical (or “habitual” as redefined by Crossland 2014: 264). The interpretant thus refers to “the proper significate effect” and consists of new material signs that arise during the endless process of semiosis (Colapietro 1989: 13, 107; CP 1.480, 2.228, 4.536, 5.473–475; Daniel 1984: 291; Savan 1987: 55–56; Short 2007: 18, 200–206; Watts 2008: 190). As mentioned in Chapter 1, an individual fleeing a fire or genuflecting before a cross provides examples of a signinterpretant, acts that constitute news signs in and of themselves which generate new signs in turn (Swenson 2018b: 357). Peirce’s doctrine of categories parallels the empirical process in archaeological interpretation and other disciplines (Swenson and Cipolla 2021).3 Firstness denotes the immediacy of feeling without interpretation (e.g., intuitively and unreflexively sensing the brown colour of sediment scrapped by a trowel). Brown, as a colour or quality (“qualia”) encapsulates a state of firstness and can only take form as a second when explicitly objectified or embodied—say in the form of soil (Swenson 2021a).4 Secondness pertains to the actual, relational, and reactive, where “the world comes to directly intervene in the practices and representations of subjects” (e.g., when a patch of blackened and burnt soil unexpectedly appears while trowelling the superimposed brown sediment) (Swenson and Cipolla 2021: 314). Finally, thirdness is habitual, mediating, and conventional, including thought and logic (e.g., when you begin to interpret your soil stain, perhaps categorizing it as the edge of an old hearth). Equating dark, sooty soil with a hearth is an interpretation that exemplifies thirdness—and one conditioned by cultural values. Peircean theory has the potential to transcend theoretical divides in archaeology. For example, even Lewis Binford—suspicious of meaning and symbolism as criticized by post-processual archaeologists (cf. Hodder 1982)—might have found inspiration in the philosophies of Peirce. Binford’s famed Middle Range Theory would align with Peirce’s broad semiotic category of secondness and the “energetic interpretant.” In fact, middle range theory privileges the indexical—as emblematic of secondness in the sign-object relationship—as it entails the inference of specific “elemental behaviours” that created the material record. For instance, a hearth constitutes an indexical sign of cooking or keeping warm—and thus a non-arbitrary sign of material causality and a middle-range inference for Binford (see Raab and Goodyear 1984). In contrast, high theory (thirdness) could pertain to interpretations that relate the hearth to a larger archaeological assemblage in order to make loftier generalizations on dietary taboos, economic constraints, culinary practices, ideologies of home, and so forth (Peirce’s “thirdness”).

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Archaeologists, then, are understandably obsessed with the signifying potential of places and things, and the meaning we hope to extract from everyday objects, often garbage, could lead to accusations that we impart too much “significance” to the materials we study. However, archaeologists would escape charges of fetishism since we go to great efforts to link artefacts and places with the societies that created them. If archaeologists have traditionally searched for the subjects behind things, in Capitalism, as famously theorized by Marx, things themselves operate independently of larger webs of labourers, technologies, and relations of production. For Marx and Engels, commodity fetishism defines the capitalist condition. Alienated from their labour, the finished products workers surrender for an incommensurate wage acquire value based on exchange and assume an autonomous identity in the marketplace. Ironically, certain scholars embracing various thing-centred turns of the last few decades, including symmetrical archaeology, object-oriented ontology, and perspectivist-inspired engagements with ontology (Alberti and Marshall 2009; Henare et al. 2007: 2; Olsen 2003, 2010; Witmore 2007a), have condemned the search for the meaningful signified by objects (whether labourer, ecological conditions, enabling structures, etc.)—wherein an artefact invariably represents ­something beyond the material entity in question (semiosis par excellence). Such repudiations of “representation” invite closer scrutiny of archaeological meaning-making in the present and the search for the meaningful in past societies (see Swenson and Cipolla 2021). As mentioned in the introduction, Hodder’s call that archaeologists should reconstruct “meaningfully constituted worlds”—formed a keystone of post-processual archaeology (Hodder 1982: 13; Swenson 2020; Tsoraki et al. 2021). It is important to note, of course, that meaning is difficult to define, and we should not conflate it with an absolute state of immateriality in which a sign and its “meaning” are opposed. For this very reason, archaeologists must exercise caution when they spurn the symbolic and the representational—a trend that is clearly present in many recent thing-centred approaches (Swenson 2020: 182; see also Alberti et al. 2013; Barad 2003; Bennett 2010; Ingold 2012). Meaning entails much more than communication and expression as it also implicates affective, habitual, and non-linguistic processes (Boivin 2009: 282–283; Newell 2018: 10; Watts 2021). In fact, meaning/meaningful can refer to both “signification (semantic content)” and “significance (relevance, importance)” (DeLanda and Harman 2017: 32). The subordination of human relations to the commodity form in Capitalism or the synchronization of diet, daily work rhythms, and life cycle events to the liturgical calendars of a major religious tradition provide examples of significant (meaningful) “structures” that have played a central role in conditioning social and material realities.5 Although certainly not identical, signification (or representation) in a materialized form has contributed to the creation of the significant, even if the taken-for-granted “parliament of things” often sustains such meaningful worlds (Latour 1993). Indeed, Miller (1987) stresses the “humility” of material culture

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structuring social life since artefacts most often cue behaviour below the level of consciousness. However, the representing power of material media, conscious or otherwise, also demands our attention. Archaeologists are certainly not alone in searching for meaning behind objects, and consumers’ concern with quality, fair trade, the production process, or the origins of goods acquired in the marketplace can expose and unsettle the fetishization of commodities. In fact, Marx’s exploration of commodity fetishism superseded earlier concerns with ideology, and he never claimed that the fetishism of commodities entailed the “illusory projection of human agency onto things,” as critiqued by Latour (White 2013: 667; see also Žižek 1994: 15–20). Instead, the “commodity form as form arranges subjects and objects in a historically specific kind of relationship” such that capitalism is decidedly real both materially and in the ways it displaces intersubjective economic transactions (White 2013: 680). As Lukács argued, commodity fetishism could only be overcome through “the reunification of subjects and objects, torn grievously asunder by the effects of reification” (cited in Eagleton 1994: 183, 186). In fact, Latour’s charge that Marx’s fetishism commits the crime of “looking behind things (say social inequalities) rather than at them” (White 2013: 668; see also Hall 1977) exposes the ahistorical tendencies of Latour’s Actor Network Theory (Harman 2009). Of course, in particular social contexts and similar to archaeologists, people can become especially attuned to the affective or semiotic capacities of the material world (Graeber 2015). Ginzburg (1983) even contends that semiotics originated in Babylonian divination. The art of extispicy (reading animal organs to predict the future) or oneiromancy (interpreting dreams) may seem far removed from archaeological interpretation, but both are predicated on reading material signs to either predict or retrodict meaningful occurrences. Such representational practices were inherently mediatized and obviously changed “history” as both narrative structure/symbolic technology and material reality (Trouillot 1995; see Preucel 2021). Writing itself appears to have originated in China primarily as divinatory tools as exemplified by the famed oracles bones (Gu 2009: 5, 106, 113; Keightley 2000). Of course, writing, one of the most celebrated media of representation, has profoundly transformed the human condition (Assmann 2006; Goody 2000). In the end, the uniformitarianism underlying Binford’s Middle Range Theory is flawed for the “elemental” practices that created the archaeological record are not behaviourally unmediated but are inseparable from larger material-semiotic structures, whether understood as culture, ontology, ideology, metapragmatics or even capitalism (Lucas 2002: 182–183). In the sections that follow, I argue that the search for such “structures”—however conceptualized (assemblages, meshworks, networks, material-social collectives)—must recognize the important role of representational processes in the material formation, reproduction, or transformation of said phenomena. Once again, Peircean-inspired perspectives prove useful in such investigations.

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2.3

Rehabilitating Representation

Recent thing-centred turns in archaeology criticize social constructivists who privilege “symbolist and meaning-centred approaches that sideline things” (Meyer and Houtman 2012: 13). However, all research seeks the meaningful, including theories that decentre the human subject and explain the world in terms of vibrant matter, sociotechnical mixtures, or morphing meshworks (Ingold 2012; Witmore 2007a: 218). As intimated above, archaeology is an exemplary representational endeavour, translating the traces and remains of the past into stories about said pasts in the present (Joyce 2002; Shanks 2007, 592). As Fowles notes: “Archaeology, as I see it, has always been the discipline not of things but of the grand narrative” (cited in Alberti et al. 2011, 899). However, one could object that I am confusing an epistemological problem with the material realities we ultimately seek to understand. Certainly, adherents of anti-representationalist theories convincingly challenge the notion that things are reducible to symbols. They further demonstrate that the prediscursive, immanent materiality of objects shapes being, experience, and outlooks and are not simply determined by transcendent (linguistic) codes or structures (Dawkins 2005; Thrift 2008; Watts 2021). As Coole and Frost note (2010: 27): It is entirely possible, then, to accept social constructionist arguments while also insisting that the material realm is irreducible to culture or discourse and that cultural artifacts are not arbitrary vis-à-vis nature…. For critical materialists, society is simultaneously materially real and socially constructed: our material lives are always culturally mediated, but they are not only cultural. As in new materialist ontologies, the challenge here is to give materiality its due while ­recognizing its plural dimensions and its complex, contingent modes of appearing. In this regard, I endorse approaches that embrace a “more-than-representational” outlook (Jervis 2019: 9; Lorimer 2005: 84; Harris 2021: 32–33). Such a perspective exposes problems with hylomorphic theories that attribute sole causality to ideas and cultural constructions that mould inert matter into meaningful forms (Campbell 2021, Cipolla and Gallo 2021; Crellin et al. 2021; Harris 2018). Nevertheless, adopting an “anti-representational” position (as opposed to “more-than-representational” stance) is misguided for scholars recognize diverse modalities of representation irreducible to the symbolic or Peirce’s register of thirdness (convention, cultural code, law, etc.) (Preucel 2021). Indeed, Peirce’s semeiotics constitutes a theory of meaning that recognizes other kinds of signs beyond and independent of symbols codified in what anthropologists traditionally study as culture, ideology, cosmology, and so forth (Crossland and Bauer 2017; Dawkins 2005: 9; Tomaselli 1996). Although Peirce and others have commonly identified signs as something that “stands for,” “represents,” or “refers to” their objects, signs do not simply function as “surrogates” or “substitutions” of “genuine articles” (Merrell 1995: xi). Instead, the sign vehicle, what Peirce called the

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“representamen,” is decidedly material and “something in-itself” to an interpreting entity, just as a ­fingerprint constitutes a material index of a person’s hand (and identity) or an audible scream may signal to an interpretant imminent danger.6 Peirce’s definition of the “sign as something that stands for something else (its object) for some interpreting mind” (Dawkins 2005: 9; see CP: 2.228) is not only fundamental to mediation but to the realization and propagation of life itself. In this light, Eduardo Kohn has argued that all life is intrinsically semiotic, and he argues that we need to “radically rethink what it is that we take representation to be” (Kohn 2013: 41; see also Merrell 1995: 49; Preucel 2021; Sebeok 2001). In other words, all ecological processes operate through the reactions and responses of living entities (cells, animals, etc.) as interpretants of objectified signs. Kohn thus argues that representation forms the basis of all “thought,” a process that distinguishes life as varied as the ecosystems of neo-tropical forests to the reactions of bacteria to changing temperatures, and he defines semiotics as “the study of how signs represent things in the world” (Kohn 2013: 7; emphasis added). In his study of the Avilá Runa of the Ecuadorian Amazon, Kohn argues that semiosis ­differentiates the living from inorganic things. Kohn contends (2013: 9): “What differentiates life from the inanimate physical world is that life-forms represent the world in some way or another, and these representations are intrinsic to their being.”7 He shows that iconic and indexical signs underwrite the workings of natural ecologies, while symbolism, a uniquely human semiotic register, often derives from and is fundamentally shaped by a universe of semiotically interacting entities based on icons and indices (Kohn 2013: 50, 55; see also Merrell 1995, 89). Therefore, scholars embracing object-oriented ontologies often lose sight of the fact that things (or patterned “forms”) are actively harnessed and modified by the semiosis of living beings, which Kohn identifies as interpreting “selves”—whether bounded or distributed. For Kohn, then, the living in all its manifestations “represent” (and thus think), whether a monkey fleeing from a predator or an ant communicating via chemical emissions (see also Merrell 1995: 82). Indeed, in both the human and animal world, to represent “is to exercise agency” (Kockelman 2007; Kohn 2013: 83), and relationality itself is inconceivable independent of semiotics.8 Signs are also inherently about possibility and absence—and thus futurity—another distinctive quality of the biological realm (Crossland 2014: 18). A puma that pounces on a peccary is successful if she can anticipate the direction the prey will leap, but this could end in failure if the feline “misinterprets” the signs of a future event (Kohn 2013: 94). As Kohn argues (2013: 40–41): we humans are not the only ones who do things for the sake of a future by a re-presenting it in the present. Representation, purpose, and future are in the world—and not just in that part of the world that we delimit as human mind. Kohn’s “anthropology beyond the human” aligns with the post-humanist critique, but he redeems representation in its various modes as a primary mover in the world. In fact, he is critical of Latour, Haraway, Ingold, Csordas and others for

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reducing representation to language and for ironically applying linguistic forms of ­relationality to explain the networks of actor-network theory (Latour) or the ­workings of “constitutive intra-action” (Haraway 2008; Kohn 2013: 83; 2015). Kohn notes (2013: 40–41): “Latour also perpetuates cosmic dualism because the atomic elements remain either human mind or unfeeling matter, despite the fact that these are more thoroughly mixed than Descartes would have ever dreamed.” Crossland (2014: 19) concurs that Latour’s networks “draws explicitly on a semiotics that is Saussurean in origin,” in which “agency is characterized as emergent within relations between different things.” She continues: As Harman has outlined, Latour’s focus on the chain of relations to the ­exclusion of all else situates meaning in these relations of difference and deferral, rather than in the things themselves. Paradoxically, this can lead to the distinctive ­characteristics of his actors – whether material or immaterial – slipping out of view. Adherents of both Peircean semiotics and the new materialisms acknowledge the “distinctive characteristics” of things, and as mentioned, these perspectives are equally critical of constructivist approaches or theoretical frameworks that emphasize process in terms of binary relationships (Barad 2007: 121). In this regard, most archaeologists would reject Kant’s transcendental idealism that casts the empirical world as a mass of appearances simply created through our mental representations. Schopenhauer’s famed first sentence of his monumental work, The World as Will and Representation, also declared that “the world is my representation” (­vorstellung), signifying that objects in space and time do not exist in and of themselves (noumenon) but only acquire meaning through the thinking, cognizant subject as mediated by the senses (phenomenon). Peirce’s trinary semiotics recognizes the fundamental mediation of the interpretant, but the latter constitutes not an immaterial mind but a sign of physical substances, affect, effects, and entanglements. Following Latour (1993, 2005), archaeologists adhering to symmetrical anthropologies or flat ontologies (Bryant 2011; cf. Cipolla 2021) emphasize that nonhuman beings alter and prescribe human action; things afford behaviour, captivate, enable agency, and evoke memory and emotional responses (Olsen 2003, 2010, 2012; Smith 2015; Witmore 2007a). However, what is often missing (or at least sidelined) in such approaches are precisely the representing agents (both humans and non-human lifeforms) whose actions, motivations, materiality, and desires often create decidedly asymmetric or hierarchical relationships within larger materialsocial collectives. Therefore, significance (representation) is not simply imposed on a material reality but emerges alongside it (in which every interpretant constitutes a new sign), while having the capacity to appreciably transform it in turn. As Preucel notes (2006: 64): “Signs function not simply to represent social reality, but also to create it and effect changes in that reality.” It is for this reason that I fail to grasp how a truly anti-representationalist approach can accurately describe social

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phenomena of any kind. Of course, I recognize the concept of a flat ­ontology as defensible in its attempts to challenge preconceived “modernist” notions of how the world works and to explore the potential symmetry of things, people, and places in life’s unfolding (Cipolla 2021; Crellin 2020: 160–161; Crellin et al. 2021; Witmore 2007a: 546). However, I contend that analyses of agency and affect must take heed of representational processes, their histories, and, their diverse manifestations (Newell 2018). For instance, Bauer and Kosiba (2016: 123) criticize Jane Bennett’s theory of vibrant matter for evacuating “the action of assembly of its meaning by spreading agency among a variety of materials, things, and people that simply react to some harm.” This critique mirrors Harman’s (2009) earlier challenges to Actor Network Theory which elevates relations between actants at any given moment at the expense of understanding how the biographies of things and their previous, often politicized interactions actively shape and partially predetermine the configuration of said networks (Crellin 2020: 132–138). As Cipolla notes: “both assemblage theory (in the virtual and the actual) and object-oriented ontology (in its version of essence) provide helpful alternatives to the seeminglyeternal symmetry between ‘actants’ that is present in some recent material and thing-centred turns” (Swenson and Cipolla 2021: 319). Ultimately, it is important to recognize how different entities (human or otherwise) build and gather relations and, by extension, represent and signify (Joyce 2021; Swenson 2021a). In the end, Peircean semiotics parallels the study of alternate or new materialist ontologies as both endeavour to transcend mind/matter, subject/object, and constructivist/materialist oppositions in interpreting the making of “meaningfully constituted worlds” (Baron 2021: 195). In the next section, I briefly review the contributions of these approaches but critique their shortcomings, especially the elision of politics, ideology, and semiotic processes by many proponents of the so-called ontological turn. 2.4

New Materialist Ontologies and Ontological Alterity

As the critiques by Kohn and Crossland make clear (see above), make clear (see above), constructivists are not the only ones who perpetuate binary thinking, the seemingly profound error bedevilling modernist social science according to proponents of anti-representationalism (Harris and Cipolla 2017; Shanks 2007; Witmore 2007a). Indeed, scholars have championed Peirce’s ternary semiotics as overcoming the ocean of criticism lodged against the dualisms of Cartesian philosophy or the dialectics of Hegelian thought and historical materialism (Baron 2021; Cipolla and Gallo 2021). Other analytical frameworks strive to do the same, including Ingoldian meshworks or Hodder’s theory of dependency entangling peoples and things (Hodder 2012; Ingold 2007). However, such a focus on a web of causal and social relationships interrelating people, places, and objects tends to downplay the (often political) forces precipitating the interactions and the representational practices by which such webs were further enmeshed and generative of meaning and even being (Bauer and Kosiba 2016: 133; Cipolla 2018; Kosiba

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2020). We can direct the same criticism towards certain proponents of the ontological turn; describing the ontologies of cultures beyond western “naturalism” as “relational” is not only reductive but obscures how relations were differently conceived, created, severed and mediated in different semiotic ideologies. As Merrell (1995: 34, 40) argues, signs constitute more than mere proxies, and semiosis processually engenders interaction, interrelationships, and interconnectedness between representamens, objects, and interpretants (all of which are signs) that endlessly generates new signs (CP: 2:303). In other words, semiosis is at once material and processual, not an a priori structure but a prime structuring force of the social (Nakassis 2013; Preucel 2021; Stasch 2003, 2011). Turning to ontology, Holbraad notes (in Alberti et al. 2011, 908): The antirepresentationism of the move to ontology is slanted toward the idea that there are many realities to reckon with rather than one. After all … the very thrust of this move is away from parsing alterity as a disagreement between (many) competing representations of (one) reality and toward thinking of it as the misunderstanding that ensues when (many) different (and therefore noncompeting) real things are mistaken as representational versions of one. Recent archaeological considerations of ontology similarly challenge notions of culture as the symbolic reworking of one empirical reality. Instead of many “­representations” of a single physical universe, there are multiple, materially mediated “worlds” that differently set the parameters for behaviour, thought, agency, sociality, politics, and semiosis (Crossland and Bauer 2017; Paleček and Risjord 2013; Strathern 1988).9 In recent anthropology, ontology is thus commonly equated with deeply rooted dispositions on the nature of reality and being (Kosiba 2020: 11). Therefore, in recent anthropological theory, ontology encompasses practices, orientations, and dispositions that are largely unquestioned and taken-for-granted (Alberti and Bray 2009; Alberti and Marshall 2009; Descola 2013a: 20; Hallowell 1960; Swenson 2020). Of course, this understanding is a far cry from original conceptualizations in continental philosophy that approached ontology as discourses on the nature and possibility of being (Graeber 2015: 15; Scott 2013; Swenson 2020). Alberti (2016: 164) recognizes this genealogy by equating ontologies with “orienting theories and models of reality” operating within very real worlds they recursively structure. Certainly, models and theories constitute powerful representational media—especially when materialized, performed, and embodied. Therefore, reality is meaningless without representation, whether “made present” in language, writing, texts, bodies, things, spectacles, or ritual (Swenson 2020). Indeed, representations are indivisible from practice (both conscious and unconscious), and if symmetrical ontologies are to be taken seriously, we should include the symbolic as actants in networks, initiators of intra-actions, and generative nodes in meshworks (Barad 2003; Crellin 2020: 167–168; Ingold 2012; Kohn 2013; Latour

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1993; Mattson and Jones 2021). Therefore, ‘multiple worlds’  are also made in and through representations, which are often plural, contradictory, and contested. In other words, we must collapse the opposition between “world” and “representation” or materiality and semiotics that unwittingly recapitulates a binarism that anti-representationalists are so intent on eradicating. In describing the world-­ making and semiotic power of ritual in particular, Stasch contends (2011: 163): For semiotically oriented scholars, describing ritual’s worldmaking effects has been part of a larger project to unwind and dispel the persistent folk idea that a representation is a nonreal portrayal of preexisting real entities. Rather, ­processes of signification are of the order of causality and materiality, simultaneous to being of the order of ideas. A person or village might be a sign, making present—and made present by—other entities such as a god, a moral principle, or a history (Mines 2005, p. 55). But the person or village is no less real for that, and it may be through the fleshly, dusty sign’s involvement in causal chains that it makes present its meanings (and see Chapter 3). Archaeologists inspired by the ontological turn, most notably Viveiros de Castro’s perspectivism or the typology of Descola, rightly challenge theories that foreground cultural constructions as simply an epistemological problem—the apprehension or misapprehension of reality (Alberti and Marshall 2009; Alberti et al. 2011). In light of the above discussion, however, the common attack on “representationalism” as a paradigm that rejects the possibility of alternate worlds is ill-founded for representational practices (semiotic processes) play a vital role in making such worlds. As Cipolla notes: Alberti and Marshall suggest (as with some recent object-oriented approaches) that it might be possible for archaeologists to strip away their own cultural orientations, perhaps by eschewing the representational tendencies that grew out of the post-processual critiques, in order to engage with the ontological status of archaeological traces. Here, Argentinian body-pots should not be treated as pots that iconically represent bodies, but rather as non-representational entities (Alberti and Marshall 2009, 350–353). This approach… allows researchers to take the pots’ alterity seriously, free of interpretation and free of representation (cf. discussion of “radical essentialism” in Alberti and Marshall 2009, 249). Such approaches look past the semiotic processes that inform their work. For instance, how does one identify a pot or a body without reference to representation (Cipolla 2019; Harris and Cipolla 2017)? This is precisely where a Peircean semiotic framework would help to lay bare the researcher’s interpretations that persist and frame the search for radical difference (Swenson and Cipolla 2021: 320).

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At the same time, we must take seriously the status and efficacy of signs in the prehistoric cultures of Argentina and elsewhere which would ideally encourage a revaluation of the representational practices and expectations of the archaeologist. In recognizing that representation and ontology are not opposing categories (Campbell 2021) much would be lost if different genres of representation and world-making, including what is often glossed as ideology and epistemology, were dissolved in the acid bath of an all-encompassing ontology (D’Altroy 2016). In truth, past peoples also essentialized and reduced the complexities of reality into “purifying categories” ideologies, religious dogmas, and culturally specific political theories, and these “worldviews” have shaped worlds that left traces archaeologists study. We might agree with Latour (1993) that we have never been modern, but people do not necessarily experience or understand reality as comprised of a “network” of myriad symmetrical actants as exemplified by the persistence of nature/culture and subject/object dualisms underwriting the ontologies of different societies distinct from the post-Enlightenment West. In truth, certain strains of antirepresentationalist theories unwittingly perpetuate west vs. the rest oppositions and err in demoting the power of representation to make and change social realities beyond contemporary Euro-America (Newell 2018: 3). As Bessire and Bond note (2014: 442): “…ontological anthropology, in its eagerness to avoid overdetermined dualism of nature-culture, may reify the most modern binary of all: the radical incommensurability of modern and nonmodern worlds.” Did not the peoples of the British Neolithic or ancient South America also represent, contemplate, and theorize about signs, objects, life, cosmos self, materiality, and so forth in a manner that invites comparison with Judeao-Christian, Cartesian, or Buddhist philosophies? Ontological hierarchies are not unique to western Enlightenment theories (cf. Crellin 2020: 158), even if individuated, white, heterosexual men did not occupy the “ontological apex” (Bennett 2010: ix) of the hierarchies of being characterizing other philosophies (Harris 2021: 5). In this light, it strikes me as paradoxical that archaeologists who embrace radical alterity and rightly challenge the privileging of western epistemologies over indigenous alternatives would uncritically endorse Latour’s ANT (Actor Network Theory) or Ingold’s SPIDER, as both constitute generalizing theories on how all worlds ultimately “work.” Ingold conceives of the meshwork as a universal philosophy of life, while seemingly equivalent indigenous understandings are often described as a relational ontology, as criticized above. The privileging of the ontological, as a kind of cultural substratum, tends to sublimate indigenous conceptual schemes to the realm of the nondiscursive. Certainly, a world understood as animated by interdependent and partible persons, places, materials, and sacred powers shaped doxic or unquestioned dispositions in a number of ethnographic and ancient societies (Brück 2006; Strathern 1988). However, in elevating the ontological, we risk resurrecting the spectre of the noble savage, a figure indivisible from nature or at least more attuned to the realities of the meshwork than say deluded Cartesians. Moreover, such an approach unwittingly homogenizes indigenous cultures, thus

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perpetuating a western (modernist) exceptionalism (Harris and Robb 2012: 669; Harrison-Buck 2012). Baltus (2015) similarly criticizes Ingold’s theory for depicting a “nondiscursive” reality and for failing to capture the conscious manipulation of material and spiritual entanglements in explicit political “movements” in past and present societies. Indeed, Ingold is little interested in politics or alternative cultural constructions of reality, and scholars embracing the ontological turn and related strains of posthumanism rarely consider how new ideologies may have contradicted or disrupted ontological orders in indigenous cultures (Graeber 2015). The meshwork heuristic might find a parallel with some indigenous religious philosophies and temporalities, but not with others (Swenson 2015a). In fact, the priority given to a world in perpetual becoming and continual change may betray a capitalist and consumerist sensibility, and such ideas align with recent theories in quantum physics, computer programming, and new age theology. Therefore, different historical circumstances, such as the climate crisis, can account for specific understandings of reality as one in constant flux—in which humans constitute just one morphing component of a vital ensemble. In fact, other scholars have charged western philosophers and social scientists of appropriating and assimilating indigenous thought and repackaging them as conforming to a universal metaphysics (Ramos 2012: 486; Salmond 2014; Todd 2016). The conflation of indigenous worldviews with trendy western philosophies poses ethical and epistemological problems, and the comparativist should privilege dialogue and difference as much as philosophical equivalence (Atalay 2012; Cipolla 2021). The above discussion raises a number of pressing questions. If ontology is a technical word for “how the world works” (Graeber 2015: 11; Harris 2021: 7), then were Cartesian philosophers or processual archaeologists living and thinking outside of the meshwork? If the ontological divides between nature/culture and mind/matter have skewed traditional archaeological understandings (even material representations) of the past, could the same be said for other cultures founded on different ontologies? Are we not faced with an uncomfortable contradiction, especially if ontology refers to the way worlds are variably made manifest and “work” in a given cultural tradition? The fact that people view and experience reality differently would suggest that how we come to know (epistemology), feel (phenomenology), and represent (semiotics) its working is of equal importance as the constructed material reality itself (ontology)—which is inconceivable in the absence of the former processes (Graeber 2015; Kohn 2015; Salmond 2014). By extension, can we simply assume that knowing, experiencing, and representing the world are inherently equivalent or coextensive and thus free of contradictions, doubt, uncertainty, and insecurity (Bessire and Bond 2014: 448)? As Graeber argues (2015: 22): “OT’s [proponents of the ontological turn] crime is ignoring the human universal that we all have to come to grips, to one degree or another, with what we cannot know.”10 As argued in Chapter 4, ritual as a distinct mode of semiosis plays an especially important role in grappling with the unknown and indeterminate.

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In sum, relational ontology is perhaps too broad a category because how m ­ atter, things, non-human powers (metapersons), social beings, etc. were differently interrelated in the creation of worlds—whether merged, repelled, opposed, transformed, mediated, and so forth—encompasses as much cosmological and ideological propositions as ontological ones (Holbraad and Abramson 2016).11 It is for this ­reason that I find the new metaontology (Alberti 2016; Crellin 2020: 179) based on the generic truism that everything is relational (flux, becoming, difference, etc.) ­problematic and reductive in understanding the diversity of the human experience. For instance, distinct dualistic philosophies that pervaded the social theories and religions of certain non-western peoples, ranging from Andean synecdochal ontologies (Allen 1997; Spence Morrow and Swenson 2019; Swenson 2015a) to Chinese Daoism, are as much based on a relational structure as philosophies founded on dialectical negation in the western tradition. Following Deleuze and others, it may be trendy to condemn “the impoverished logic” of the dialectic (Webmoor and Witmore 2008: 54), but adherence to theories of negation and renewal structured the kinship corporations, built environments, cosmologies, and political orders of a number of South American societies in the Andes and Amazonia (see Chapter 5). Such understandings of the dialectic clearly differ from the role it played in the philosophes of Amazonian perspectivism or historical materialism, but we cannot deny that the latter upended and contributed to the remaking of much of the globe during the course of the last century (with both intended and unintended consequences). It is also worth stressing that dialectical theories are not confined to the domain of the mental. Certainly, dualistic or dialectical cosmologies shaped and politicized specific understandings of gender, nature, culture, being, matter, and so forth, even if they could never capture or exhaust the complexities of the latter. With that said, ideologies were no doubt embedded in certain constructions of reality, but they may also have contradicted or disrupted pre-existing ontological orders. In the end, ontology is inevitably shaped by specific philosophical or political movements, not just in the present, but I would suspect since the dawn of our species. If we agree with Alberti that ontology relates to “theories and models of reality” and is irreducible to the non-discursive, taken-for-granted assumptions about nature, culture, and being (comparable to Bourdieu’s notion of doxa), then said theories and models are open to questioning and thus enter the realm of ideology (becoming potentially heterodoxic or orthodoxic—Comaroff and Comaroff 1991; see Chapter 3). Such a position also suggests that ontological dispositions can vary among members of the same society (shamans, women, children, etc.) and that subjects can adopt different stances to being and becoming depending on their circumstances (Harris and Robb 2012: 669–675). Certain underlying ontological structures of the industrial west (methodological individualism, nature as objectified, existence as driven by scarcity, commodity fetishism, etc.), may have roots in the Judeao-Christian cosmology, but they have been most forcibly engendered by capitalism—which has decidedly shaped being and reality (Harris and Robb 2012:

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669; Sahlins 1996). Indeed, ontology is most often the product of the dominant cosmopolitical traditions (including capitalism). Therefore, the affordances and agency of landscapes matter now as they did in the past, but in very different ways and according to both different ontological orders, cosmopolitical regimes, and ideological struggles (see Chapter 9). In sum, a recognition that ontology (which is never monolithic or all-determining) has the potential to become ideological would help remedy some of the unintended reductionisms and new dualisms populating the current theoretical landscape in archaeology (dualism vs. relationality; ontology vs. epistemology, west vs. the rest, representation vs. materiality, etc.) (Bessire and Bond 2014: 644). 2.5

Ideology vs. Ontology

In light of the above discussion, it is worth noting that applications of the traditional heuristics of “ideology” and “discourse” presaged recent archaeological investigations of the ontological foundations shaping distinct, materially real worlds. As Miller and Tilly noted some time ago (1984: 6–7): Foucault’s conception of power-knowledge concepts opposes the concept of ideology as either being a discourse opposed to science or as a feature of the social world involving the ‘management’ and ‘representation of reality.’ His insistence on the positive, productive characteristics of contemporary apparatuses, linked with the contention that the power-knowledge relation leads to a politics of truth, is the precise opposite of the Frankfurt school’s critique of ideology. (see also Žižek 1994: 7) For Frankfurt scholars, ideology remains false consciousness—a dissimulation of reality. In contrast, Foucault’s discourse or Althusser’s ideological state apparatus encompass emplaced, lived actualities (prisons, schools, factories, and so forth), and they are much more “real” than understandings of ideology as mystification (Althusser 2014; Eagleton 1994: 217–219; Foucault 1995). Archaeologists have also viewed ideology as all-penetrating (see Bernbeck and McGuire 2011): the ideological weaves itself into embodied gestures, intimate utterances, semiotic registers (Agha 2007), quotidian dispositions, and the material parameters structuring behaviour. In Das Kapital, Marx and Engels replace ideology with commodity fetishism thus blurring the line between reality, truth, representation, and the material sinews of experience. Such a realization also recognizes that material realities can be harmful, unjust, contradictory, challenged, and potentially reconfigured (Preucel 2021). Scholars interested in “ontological politics” (or cosmopolitics) share a similar perspective even when assiduously avoiding terms such as ideology (Blaser 2009; Latour 2004; McLean 2009; Stengers 2005). Mol (1999) affirms that “politics shapes

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realities and being,” which is “historically, culturally, and ­materially located.” She further demonstrates that “multiple realities do not lie simply in the domain of perspective but are made through acts of intervention and performance.” (1999: 77). Marisol de la Cadena (2010: 350) similarly argues: Nature—what it is, what it does—is not an apolitical entity as we have learned to think. Rather, its constitution as ontologically distinct is at the heart of the antagonism that continues to exclude indigenous beliefs from conventional ­politics—with the idea of beliefs working to occlude the exclusion, or setting the internal limits (cf. Povinelli 1995) to the ontological construction of politics. Judith Butler likewise contends that “the question of who and what is considered real is a question of power, and power often dissimulates as ontology” (Butler 2004: 215). Therefore, it seems apparent that ontology can ironically become just another word for “structure,” one potentially even more inert and determinate than the conventional heuristics of culture or ideology (Bessire and Bond 2014). In fact, Terry Turner critiques the structuralist basis of Althusserian Structural-Marxism and Foucault’s “post-structural” notion of discours, a charge that he also levels against proponents of the ontological turn. He remarks (2009: 9): These avowedly anti- or post-Lévi-Straussian theoretical positions were ­actually formulated as continuations of essential aspects of the theoretical framework of Lévi-Straussian structuralism by other means, above all the concept of the subject as an epiphenomenon of impersonal, unconscious linguistic or ideological structures, and the consequent irrelevance or illusoriness of subjective ­consciousness, agency, and material activity. Unlike Peircean semiotics that offers an account of process (and the role of interpretation) beyond structural determinism, certain proponents of the ontological turn, including Descola and Viverios de Castro, would not easily escape this charge. Indeed, their reworking and resuscitation of cognitive structuralist thought remains decidedly idealist in nature and one based on oppositional categories. Despite rejecting the culture and nature divide foundational to Levi-Strauss’s structuralism, Saussurian linguistics and binarisms of this sort continue to underwrite Descola’s ontological typology or Viveiros de Castro’s perspectivism, including the axes of interiority and physicality or soul-body oppositions (see Salomon 2018; Turner 2009). Indicting Viveros de Castro’s approach as “anthropocentric,” Turner further notes (2009: 18): Perspectivism actually retains the orthodox structuralist conception of the ­relation of nature and culture as a privative binary opposition of mutually exclusive classificatory categories defined through the contrastive presence or absence

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of traits: thus culture is defined by the possession of distinctive ­features like ­language, cooking fire, manioc beer, etc., and nature, as the opposing ­category, is defined by the absence of these features. Viveiros de Castro characterizes the ontology underlying Amazonian perspectivism as multinaturalism (as opposed to multiculturalism), a worldview in which the bodies of distinct species determine the apprehension and experience of reality. This specific apprehension, however, is universal in terms of a shared sentience, consciousness, intention, and cultural sensibility that moderns usually attribute to humans alone. Thus, jaguars see the world as humans do (and perceive themselves as humans), but their corporeal shell mediates that vision—so what appears to be blood to humans is in fact manioc beer to a drinking jaguar. Culture then becomes the given and nature the variable. The skills of shamans rest on the ­ability to change perspective (and subjectivity)—and thus their natures—by seeing the world through the eyes and bodies of different species. Certainly, Viveiros de Castro’s impressive body of work demonstrates that perspectivism/multinaturalism characterizes the ontological dispositions of certain Amazonian societies. He also makes an important contribution in demonstrating that as a philosophy it rightly challenges and upends western understandings of personhood, subjectivity, and alterity (Skafish 2013: 15). However, this philosophy fails to apply to all South American or Amerindian cultures as sometimes implied in his writing (see Ramos 2012: 483, 489; Turner 2009).12 It is also limited in fully capturing the complexities of personhood and identity among the Tupi Guarani peoples of Viveiros de Castro’s study (Ramos 2012). In many of these cultures, the physical and social body undergoes a complex sequence of transformations based on the progressive de-animalization and humanization (acculturation) of a person that begins at birth. A state of animality returns at death, and ancestral spirits become feared beings that prey on the living. To cite Turner again (2009: 29): The body, in short, even as a physical entity, is not an abstract object with a fixed, culturally human perspective, but a process comprising a series of transformations, each of which entails a transformation of perspectives, not all of which are cultural: in the Kayapo view, at least, we start and finish as animals.13 Despite the many insights of Descola’s four-part typology of the world’s ontologies (animism, totemism, analogism, and naturalism), the same limitations and charges of reductionism apply (2010b, 2013a). Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to argue that four ontological orders (as structurally determinant) could explain historical diversity in past landscapes, architectural styles, modes of ritualism, artistic ­traditions, and so forth, but Descola has advanced claims of this sort (Descola 2010a). I have argued elsewhere that masks and masquerades may reflect specific ontological orders or hierarchies of being, but they are often more fruitfully interpreted

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in the domain of cosmology or ideology (Swenson 2020). I revisit this argument to critique the limitations of searching for explanations exclusively in the realm of the ontological (as a new structural determinant). Descola and colleagues have interpreted the striking masks of the Northwest Coast as “ontological camouflage” and emblematic of animistic societies (Descola 2010b). The masks, nested one inside the other, can be opened and closed to reveal the inner essence within. Wearing masks permits control of the interiority, p­ erspective, and soul of others (Descola 2010b: 26, 36). Viveiros de Castro similarly notes that in Amazonian societies masks allow shamans to change ­ perspectives and see the world from the viewpoint of another being. He writes (1998: 482): To put on mask-clothing is not so much to conceal a human essence beneath an animal appearance, but rather to activate the powers of a different body. The animal clothes that shamans use to travel the cosmos are not fantasies but ­instruments: they are akin to diving equipment, or space suits, and not to carnival masks. Viveiros de Castro’s take on masks is compelling for certain Amazonian cultures, and he recognizes the heightened ritual framework of mask-induced changes in perspectives. However, masks, including in the Amazon, do not simply express a prevailing ontological condition, for they can also act to unsettle social norms and a sense of ontological security (Goulard 2011: 19–20). For instance, in certain societies documented in South America, masked figures often have license to engage in tabooed or forbidden acts including sexual aggression and violence (Goulard 2011). To provide an example, masquerade among the Matis of the Western Amazon entails a brutal form of socialization in which children are whipped with sticks by figures sporting ceramic masks of mariwin, formidable ancestor spirits who emerge as terrifying spectres from the forest (Erickson 2011). This ritualized corporal punishment, in a culture in which children are rarely hit or mistreated, dispels laziness and ensures the growth of both the young and ripening corn. The arrival of the masked mariwin occurred during the maize harvest and was accompanied by the copious consumption of beer. It is also telling that neighbouring communities in the Amazon that scholars would label animistic either rely heavily on masquerade or make absolutely no use of masks (Fausto 2011). As Pollock (1995) notes, the dominant semiotic field operative in different societies often determines the material scaffolding of specific ritual traditions, including the employment of masks. In cultures where oral and musical representation are esteemed more highly than visual symbols, masking (concealing/altering identity) often occurs not by disguising the face but by dissimulating the human voice through the medium of music (both vocal and instrumental) (Fausto 2011: 251).14 Differences in cosmology also explain the varying degree of importance of masquerade in Amazonian societies. For instance, Fausto

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(2011: 251) argues that Tupi speakers rarely made use of masks because their sense of cosmological order was not founded on the cyclical renewal of reciprocal bonds between cosmic beings and human communities. Instead, the predator-prey relation structured the sociocosmic round, thus explaining the importance of trophy curation over masquerade. Among other Amazonian peoples, donning masks intended not so much to change perspectives but to return to a primordial state of oneness with all beings before the speciation of the world into different animals (Taylor 2010: 42–43). In the end, a perusal of the ethnographic and historical records confirms that masks are often more fruitfully studied in terms of ideology rather than ontology. Masks fell out of favour with the spread of Christianity since the masked classical actor directly served the pagan gods (Napier 1986).15 Masks were condemned and associated with demonic forces for “in Christian beliefs all ambiguous personifications save the Trinity were both morally unacceptable and categorically harmful” (Napier 1986: 12). In Christianity, masking was equated with duplicity and deceit, while in Greek theatre it entailed not concealment but the manifestation of a moral character. In other cultures, masking afforded a consubstantiation of the person wearing the mask with the figure depicted on the artefact. In highlighting the ideological valence of masks, the work of Griaule and others further demonstrates that it could take years for both the anthropologist and initiate alike to decipher the complex meaning of masks (who they represented, what cosmogonies they enacted, what effects they precipitated) (Griaule 1963; Pernet 1992: 48–53). Moreover, such meanings often changed radically or became more fully revealed as initiates graduated into higher ritual and status grades. Masks, then, often serve as ciphers of the epistemological, the hidden, sources of wisdom, and vehicles of social memory. 2.6

Symbolism and Semiotic Ideologies in the Making of Worlds

In my general defence of the heuristic of ideology as analytically irreducible to the ontological, I affirm that the symbolic (thirdness) has also dramatically made and up-ended normative worlds—creating and not just representing realities that could be embraced or fiercely rejected and resisted (Baron 2016: 38–39; McLean 2009: 232). Take, for instance, the remark by Thucydides describing the built landscape of Sparta that he implicitly contrasts with Athens. Suppose the city of Sparta to be deserted, and nothing left but the temples and the ground-plan, distant ages would be very unwilling to believe that the power of the Lacedaemonians was at all equal to their fame. Their city is not built continuously and has no splendid temples or other edifices; it rather resembles a group of villages, like the ancient towns of Hellas, and would therefore make a poor show. (Thucydides 1954: I, 10)

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The modest townscape of Sparta was in large part a product of the peculiar ­oligarchical but communitarian social ideology of the Lacedaemonians, which prohibited ostentatiousness and conspicuous consumption in both material things and architectural construction. Certainly, the buildings of both Athens and Sparta can be understood as an assembly (as with space in general—Dovey 2010) that constrained, enabled, or sustained behaviours and institutions. Nevertheless, specific political ideologies can largely account for their salient meanings and differences. Of course, this observation seems rather self-evident, but it can serve as a reminder of the limitations of the anti-representationalist critique. Indeed, cosmologies, economic theories, and political philosophies—ranging from capitalism and Marxism to monotheism and Gnosticism have dramatically reconfigured ontological orders, semiotic ideologies, and materially experienced and knowable worlds. As I have argued previously (2015a: 678–679; see also Todd 2016: 7: 17–18): Analyses of indigenous epistemologies and mythologies … affirm that philosophizing is not simply the prerogative of the western social scientist but has ­reinforced or altered the ontological-material frameworks of diverse peoples …. Therefore, historically specific ontologies are the product of culturally figured and ideologically negotiated practices, and interpretations of past ontologies must consider the political context of the often interlinked material [and semiotic] production of ecology, community, and being itself. Indeed, those who control the means of representation exert as much power as those who control the means of production (and in certain instances, the two are inseparable) (Baudrillard 1994; see Campbell 2021). This truism applies not ­simply to our global, hyper-mediatized world of social media and false news but to pre-modern social formations as well. Therefore, the “struggle for the possession of the sign” (Comaroff 1985: 196) entails much more than asserting one’s right to communicate but implicates control over the semiotic mechanisms that “trigger material processes” (see also Rancière 2013: 35). In a similar vein, signs and their efficacy are also structured by historically ­specific ideologies, what Webb Keane (2018) denotes as “semiotic ideologies” that both derive from and shape politicized ontological dispositions. The examination of archaeological datasets to interpret past semiotic ideologies, which Keane defines as the distinct ontologies and materialities underwriting sign relations and their effects, holds considerable potential to interpret the agency and shifting meaning of material remains, whether hearths, middens, or ancient infrastructures. Keane’s semiotic ideology thus foregrounds “ontological politics” (Mol 1999) discussed briefly above, and he examines the ways in which agents deploy signs and how such signs recursively enable and constrain agency. This concept recognizes how the differing status of material signs within a given cultural tradition predetermines how objects are interrelated, represented, enlivened, and valued. Semiotic ideology thus refers to the historically specific role of signs in conditioning

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thought, action, and being. Therefore, they also form part of and “trigger material processes” and shape the experience of often contested physical realities (Keane 2018). In other words, semiotic ideologies denote how semiosis is comprehended and ultimately activated in different societies (Yelle 2013: 3). Keane further defines the term as “people’s underlying assumptions about what signs are, what functions signs serve, and what consequences they might produce” (Keane 2018: 65). “The semiotic reflexivity” implied in the storied term ideology “draws on assumptions about the nature of the world, the kind of beings that inhabit it, and the kind of causes and effects which they are involved.” (Keane 2018: 67–68). Indeed, how signs operate and are interpreted are rooted in deep-seated, often politicized ontological dispositions on the real, objective, subjective, and material. In further ­elaborating on this concept, Keane poses the question (2018: 68): “In relationship to the world, is the sign arbitrary, natural, logical, or divinely ordained?” In fact, alternate construals of “the relationship between sign vehicle and object” commonly form the basis of fundamental religious disagreements and political conflicts with deep-seated ontological implications (see Keane 2003: 66; 2018). As Latour remarks (2002: 14): “What has happened that has made images (and by images we mean any sign, work of art, inscriptions, or picture that acts as a mediation to access something else) the focus of so much passion?” In this regard, there is perhaps an irony in condemning Cartesian-influenced philosophies as delusional mischaracterizations of reality since it has greatly mediated perceptions and experience in the post-Enlightenment West and beyond. Indeed, the secularist rejection of ritual symbolism and the efficacy of magical signs is largely a legacy of the Protestant Reformation (Yelle 2013: 3). Following Webb, Yelle has shown that protestant literalism subverted the animating power of signs and significantly influenced the development of science, law, and religion—a development that led to the creation of decidedly new realities (see also Stasch 2011: 168). Hence, semiotic ideologies wed the representational with the ontological by linking “the ways people make sense of their experiences to their fundamental presuppositions about what kinds of beings animate the world (spirits, witches, gods, geologic formations)” (Keane 2003: 66). As such, some of the key struggles of the reformation and counter-reformation—and iconoclastic movements in general— revolved around the semiotic qualities and effects of sign-objects (“a particular construal of the relationship between sign vehicle and object for which there is available at least one alternative construal.”) (see Keane 2018). Does the sacrament of the Eucharist incarnate the body of Christ or simply commemorate a congregation’s devotion to Christian doctrine? The clash of semiotic ideologies was immediately apparent in the Spanish desire to eradicate “idolatry” in the Andes. For instance, Europeans maligned Andean “idols” for lacking representational realism (Dean 2010: 12). To consider another example, despite their radically different philosophical foundations, the new materialists’ devaluation of representation finds a parallel with the theologies of Mahayana Buddhism. For instance, in the Mādhyamika

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school, as first promulgated by the sage Nāgārjuna (who lived sometime between 150–250 CE), the misconception of the world by the unenlightened—and the ensuing ­delusion and suffering (duhkha) it causes—is a function of prapañca or “the ­meaningful conceptualization of the world by the use of language” (Mitchell 2002: 131). In other words, concepts produced through linguistic signs create a false reality comprised of discrete, independent, and dualistically interrelating entities, including subject-object, mind-matter oppositions that generate craving, ­attachment, and suffering. In contrast, nirvana constitutes the awakened state of awareness of the ultimate reality as signless, non-dual, beyond representation, and empty (Mitchell 2002: 86, 103). For those who achieve nirvana, the true nature of things is seen as intrinsically interdependent (relational) and in a state of continued flux and conditioned arising (pratitya-samutpāda). Ultimately, the enlightened Buddhist seeks escape from both ignorance and the dependent co-arising of all phenomena. The semiotic ideology of the Mādhyamika school of Buddhism clearly differs from traditions in which divine speech was considered material, efficacious, pure and cosmologically creative. In New Kingdom Egypt, for instance, cosmogony and “the structure of the divine world” were “primarily linguistic” (Assmann 2007: 24). However, Mādhyamika semiotics also contrasts with the iconoclasm of Protestantism in which material signs (as opposed to the written word of scriptures) were understood as arbitrary and lacking the vital capacity to create an alternate if powerfully false reality. As mentioned, a number of scholars have argued that Protestant semiotic ideologies led to the disenchantment of things and the concomitant decline in ritualism, poetry (oral performances), allegory and analogical ontologies (Yelle 2013). Dick Houtman and Brigit Meyer (2012) similarly explore how the “Protestant emphasis on spirit over matter [including the material affordances of signs] has infected many other fields, including the social sciences, so as to create a suspicion about the place of things in the study of religion.” Indeed, the Second Commandment (prohibition of graven images), remarkably elevated higher on the list of commandments than the sixth, (“thou shalt not kill”) encapsulates how ideologies governing sign-object relations have profoundly shaped religion, political conflict, and indeed ontology (Mitchell 2012: 112–114).16 Many iconoclastic movements, from Byzantium and Protestantism to the Cultural Revolution and the Taliban, are purification movements set on destroying false “mediators” that obstruct access to the really real (Latour 2002: 21). As such, shifts in semiotic ideologies radically reassembled social-material collectives with major political consequences. As Protestantism alone exemplifies, they at once created new materialities and ideologies of the material (or “materialisms”). Of course, the same holds for cultures beyond the West or communities practising fundamentalist Abrahamic religions. As Preucel (2021) has argued, theories of vibrant matters are far from novel but have been developed in the philosophies (and not simply ontologies) of different indigenous communities.

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In fact, one might argue that theorists who reject the representational and ­signifying capacity of things, while still elevating the agency and vibrancy of matter, are guided by semiotic ideologies that are partly the product of current global conditions (climate change, the digital revolution, consumerism, secularism, etc.). As described in the following section, assemblage theory provides a valuable theoretical framework to make sense of this complexity, one that recognizes the joint material and representational vectors of historical phenomena. In turn, I provide a brief introduction to Lefebvre’s unitary theory of space that complements both Peircean and assemblage approaches and sets the stage for the discussion of ritual, religion, and infrastructure in the following chapter. 2.7

Assemblage Theory and the Making of Place

Our current age proves that the material world exerts a remarkable efficacy “that defies human will,” whether “electricity grid, food, and trash” (Coole and Frost 2010: 10). Although far from identical and differing historically, the same applied to pre-industrial social formations.17 As Coole and Frost note (2010: 10): …the new materialists are rediscovering a materiality that materializes, evincing immanent modes of self-transformation that compel us to think of causation in far more complex terms; to recognize that phenomena are caught in a multitude of interlocking systems and forces and to consider anew the location and nature of capacities for agency. Recently scholars have mobilized the concept of the assemblage to try and make sense of how “materiality materializes” and to decipher the complex agency of matter, things, and signs. As made clear by the above discussion, a consideration of the materializing force of semiosis further reveals the profound complexity of agential processes. The complexity and realist schools of the new materialism, especially the philosophies of Deleuze and Guattari, Manuel DeLanda, and Jane Bennett have largely inspired the new-found interest in comprehending existence in terms of assemblages (Fowler 2013, 21–48). The philosopher Manuel DeLanda (2006, 2016) was the first to explicitly designate such thought as “assemblage theory,” and his research has simplified and facilitated the empirical application of the oftenabstract writings of Deleuze and Guattari (Jervis 2019: 3). The concept of assemblage is readily familiar to archaeologists, and it has long denoted either a class of associated artefacts sharing traits or a group of objects excavated from interrelated deposits (Lucas 2012; Smith 2015: 43–46). Lucas has noted (2012: 193) that the assemblage “has wide currency in archaeological method but has on the whole, received almost no theoretical attention…” However, in the last few years, archaeologists have begun to seriously rethink and redeploy this key construct (Crellin

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2020; Hamilakis 2013; Hamilakis and Jones 2017; Harris 2017, 2021; Joyce and Gillespie 2015; Joyce and Pollard 2010; Smith 2015). In line with other new materialist theories discussed above, assemblage thought rejects anthropocentric ­dualisms and recognizes that humans are not the sole authors of causality, agency, and historical process (Lucas 2012: 190–193). Assemblage theory casts the dynamic flux of reality as comprised of everchanging and recombinant assemblages—intensive, self-organizing congeries of entrained but heterogeneous matter, peoples, things, signs, institutions, and energy fields with emergent or consistent effects (Bonta and Protevi 2004: 54–55; DeLanda 2006). Such a perspective takes stock of how contingent entities cohere and differently precipitate causation through the assembly of interdependent but potentially independent sub-assemblages. In a similar manner, DeLanda (2006) argues that assemblages operate in terms of external relationships. By “relations of exteriority,” DeLanda stresses that components of an assemblage can simultaneously form part of other confederations and induce different effects and transformations. In other words, assemblages are irreducible to their component parts (Harris 2021: 49; Jervis 2019: 43). For instance, components can break from one assemblage and form part of another; a horse may constitute a critical component of a household assemblage in one instance and then coalesce with bows, arrows, saddles, warriors, and a particular terrain to form an integral component of a war machine (DeLanda 2016: 68–71). DeLanda further argues that our conventional abstractions, ranging from community to capitalism, obscure such assembling processes and hinder the interpretation of variability in socio-material formations (DeLanda 2016: 15–17). Thus, an investigation of capitalism, as working in and through assemblages, ­permits a more probing understanding of both global and local differences in commodity flows and market exchanges, revealing that ‘capitalism’ constitutes much more than an over-determined economic system (DeLanda 2016: 40–43). In adopting such a perspective, Crellin praises the “deeply historical approach that asks one to understand the history that produces the specificity of an assemblage” (2020: 166). Assemblage theory’s attention to problems of time, especially the durations of assemblage and de-assemblage (or materialization, sensu Lucas 2012: 205), distinguishes this approach from cognate theoretical constructs, including Latour’s networks, Ingold’s meshwork, or Hodder’s entanglements (Crellin 2020; Harris 2014, 2017: 90; 2021: 10; Hodder 2012; Ingold 2011; Jervis 2019: 30; Latour 2005). Moreover, assemblage theory challenges the simplistic attribution of agency to objects and offers a more probing analysis of the political forces working through and materializing assemblages (Crellin 2017; Gillespie 2015: 43; Harris 2014: 89–90; Lucas 2012: 196; McFarlane 2011: 655, 668; Smith 2015: 28–30). For instance, humans act differently than things or substances, and intentionality, desires, motives, and ideologies demand consideration in identifying the forces assembling or disassembling political regimes (and spaces). Deleuze and Guattari (1987: 333) refer to the forces that produce and transform assemblages as

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“machines” (Ben-Arie 2016: 180) (see Chapters 3 and 4). In this vein, A.T. Smith has shown that assemblages of artefacts and built environments form integral components of “political machines” in manufacturing the desires and expectations of subjects in conformance with prevailing ideologies of power (Larkin 2013: 329, 332–334; Leone 2005: 184; Miller 1984: 39–40; Smith 2015: 156–157). Smith further notes (2015: ix): sociopolitical reproduction is accomplished in large measure by the operation of material assemblages, which I call machines, whose efficacy lies in their ­capacity to sustain communities, orders, and institutions in excess of human intention, and hence human agency, present actions, and possible futures. At the same time, the expressive, discursive, and semiotic inhere materially in machinic processes, and they can equally transform (or reproduce) machines with unforeseen consequences. Unlike perspectives that imply change and reassembly (territorialization/deterritorialization) as a stochastic process, assemblages “can be both managed and managing” (Bickle 2019: 203), or in Deleuze’s terms, assemblages can become variably striated, coded, and stratified.18 As a political force, Deleuze refers to such assemblers—especially state institutions—as “signifying regimes,” and those that resist “countersignifying.” Thus, proponents of assemblage theory take representation and semiotic processes seriously (Jervis 2019: 2; Harris 2021: 61; Swenson 2018a). For instance, Bickle summarizes Harris’s description of a house as a specific kind of assemblage, which is territorialized and transformed by material and immaterial signs. She writes (2019: 203): Harris (2018: 8) explains assemblages through the concept of a house: the house is an assemblage of materials (such as the bricks, mortar and furniture), linguistic concepts (bedroom, kitchen, domesticity), symbols (privacy, social class, wealth) and representative (ownership, capitalism). The assemblage of the ‘house’ is constantly produced through the interaction of these difference elements, in other words, becoming and subject to change in multiscalar ways… Indeed, Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987: 337) theory of assemblages embraces a ­theory of signs in line with Peirce’s synechism that stresses the material-expressive continuum of existence (Baron 2021: 195; Cipolla 2018: 65; Cipolla and Gallo 2021; Joyce 2021; Tsoraki et al. 2021). As summarized by Bonta and Protevi (2004: 4): Deleuze and Guattari’s historically and politically informed engagement with complexity theory helps us break free of the postmodernist trap by rethinking sense and reference, and in so doing shatter the postmodernist equation of signs with signifiers, or meanings with position in a signifying chain, and with reference with the relation of signifiers to each other. In this way, signs—thresholds

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sensed by systems—are not only conceptualized as occurring beyond the ­register of the human and even the organic, but are also understood as triggers of material processes [emphasis added].19 Barad’s (2003) notion of material-discursive practices similarly recognizes that “intra-actions” defining assemblages “are simultaneously material and meaningful,” an outlook shared by Deleuzian thinkers who investigate the imbricated material and expressive properties of assemblages (Bauer and Kosiba 2016: 121; Cipolla and Gallo 2021; Joyce 2021; Tsoraki et al. 2021). Appadurai (2015: 225) similarly notes that “Mediation and materiality cannot be usefully defined except in relationship to each other. Mediation as an operation or embodied practice, produces materiality as the effects of its operation.” He thus concludes that mediation (including forms of representation) constitutes “modes of materialization,” while media connote specific technologies of this mediation (print, theatre, place-­ making, speech, ritual, etc.) (Appadurai 2015, 233). Preucel shows (2021: 403) that mediation falls in the domain of Peirce’s thirdness that entails “two things coming into contact with one another by means of a third thing which serves as a medium of communication or interaction.” Such a process often triggers “transformation” and thus the capacity “to create something new.” In the end, Deleuze and Guattari and their followers decentre the human as the sole movers of history, but they also recognize that meaning and representation play an integral role in the processual unfolding of assembled worlds. They achieve a reconciliation of the material and the semiotic by examining the creation and creative potential of assemblages within a “tetravalent” or fourfold process conceptualized along the two axes of territorialization/deterritorialization and their combined material (machinic) and expressive (enunciative) properties (Crellin 2020: 165–167; Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 556).20 Territorialization and deterritorialization, refer to how assemblages materially coalesce or break apart. The second axis recognizes the symbolic and expressive components inherent to assemblages that can affect the stability and material efficacy of variably territorialized assemblages. Following Deleuze and Guattzari, the latter is commonly understood in terms of “codes,” a concept I equate with ideologies that can also be fruitfully conceptualized as a (materialized) assembly of values, propositions, and aesthetics. In deploying the parameters of “coding” and “territorialization” in understanding the integrity of assemblages, DeLanda (2006, 2016) provides some useful empirical applications of these concepts. He identifies in particular the varied forces behind the development of unique historical entities or “events” (see also Lucas 2012). As mentioned, territorialization refers to the degree to which an assemblage of peoples, places, and things are bounded and interrelated, while coding refers to the explicit ideologies conveyed by and often materially reproducing such territories (DeLanda 2016: 48). Territorialization refers not only to the determination of the spatial boundaries of the whole — as in the territory of a community, city, or nation-state but also to the degree to which an

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assemblage’s component parts are drawn from a homogenous repertoire, or the degree to which an assemblage homogenizes its own components. (DeLanda 2016: 22) In other words, this parameter refers to the extent to which the “defining boundaries of an assemblage “have been delineated and made impermeable” (or permeable) (DeLanda 2016: 3). Habitual practices, ranging from farming to craft production, can work to territorialize set assemblages through the emplaced sequencing of the peoples, things, and places forming daily routines. Ritual also powerfully if differently territorializes new kinds of assemblages (DeLanda 2016: 216, 27–28) (see Chapter 3). A walled city provides an obvious example of how diverse assemblages of peoples, buildings, and institutions were tightly territorialized. The spatial register is not simply reducible to (de)territorialization, however, for a city skyline or cluster of towers within a walled settlement can serve to “encode” other facets of the larger urban assemblage (political power, material wealth, ­phallocentrism, etc.) (DeLanda 2016: 33–34). Thus, codification—with material culture doing much of the political work—forms the basis of memory fundamental to the constitution of identity and the establishment of real or imagined political dependencies (Smith 2015: 73). Coding, then, refers to “expressive elements” in assemblages that “fix identity,” and structure and order processes (Jervis 2019: 54). As an example, DeLanda notes that “despotic states” are often characterized by overcoding in multiple domains of life, ranging from dress and trade to spectacle, militarism, and etiquette (Bonta and Protevi 2004: 122; Patton 2000). Therefore, in my particular reading, overcoding commonly refers to the superimposition by archaic states of standardized norms, infrastructures, aesthetics, formal practices, and material symbols—a dominant code of sorts—over the often maintained but possibly modified social “flows” and traditions of local peoples (Deleuze and Guattari 2009) (see Chapter 8 for an application of this concept to archaeological landscapes). Following Deleuze, DeLanda identifies territorialization with non-discursive practices and places, a “formed materiality,” and coding with more explicit discourses and “material expressivity” (DeLanda 2016: 48). Surveillance and the spatial disciplining of bodies, as famously theorized by Foucault, would fall under the domain of non-discursive, territorializing processes. The latter would also include “buildings specifically designed to facilitate routine practices and sort the raw materials (human bodies) into criminal, medical, or pedagogic categories.” In the discursive realm of coding, “doctors, criminologists, etc. give more stable form and identity to [such] categories and practices” (see DeLanda 2016: 38–39). Applying these parameters to archaeological datasets, Lucas notes (2012: 200): “Coding and territorialization act to rigidify or ossify the relations of a network to create stability and thus new entities at an aggregate level.” More specifically, Lucas equates coding to the ‘enchainment’ of objects and territorialization to their varied “containment… the creation of a fixed and circumscribed spaces which act as firewalls and centers of gravity for repelling and/or pulling objects together” (2012: 200). Lucas

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offers the example of a church as an institution (and place) that is at once highly coded and territorialized. He notes (2012: 202): the church, itself the product of a recurrent citation (i.e. insofar as it materially references other buildings we call churches), also acts as a centre of gravity for more ephemeral collectives such as funerals, weddings, christenings, and Sunday services. Its very durability but also its larger scale work towards the territorialization of these gatherings, thereby acting to anchor them in a fixed and stable space. Semiosis can also be fruitfully understood as an assembling or machinic process complicit in territorialization and codification. As discussed above, distinct semiotic ideologies “trigger distinct material effects,” and thus differently territorialize and code assemblages. In other words, signs elicit interpretants that variably territorialize or deterritorialize. For instance, a fire accidentally set in a house forces occupants to flee, deterritorializing the assemblage of the home. Genuflecting in the presence of a crucifix in the apse of a cathedral more tightly binds the devotee into the territory of the church as both place and institution. Icons, indexes, and ­symbols, or their varied combinations, also exert varied powers of codification (Kohn 2013: 50–51). For example, members of a crowd attending a sporting match who don the jerseys and symbols of the home team are indexically territorialized along with the latter into a loosely bounded community. At the same time, fans bedecked in matching uniforms codify an overarching identity transposable to the scale of the individual, stadium, and city. Wearing the jersey of the away team can partly ­deterritorialize the arena and codify a larger assembly of competitive ­opposition. Indeed, identity is largely made and sustained through indexical symbols (Silverstein 2004; Singer 1984; Shaw 1994). In fact, Deleuze and Guattari equate indexes with territorial signs, icons with reterritorialization, and symbols with deterritorialization (see Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 141–142). Indexes directly bind components in an assemblage and often include “flags, fences, skylines, arches, statues and so on that directly territorialize” (Bonta and Protevi 2004: 99). As I explore in the following chapter, ritual in particular intensifies semiotic ­processes of assemblage and serves as a powerful mechanism in the making (de/ territorialization) and codification of space. The exploration of ancient Andean (Chapters 5–6) and Angkorian religious architecture (Chapters 7–8) as “semiotic machines” (Chapter 4) provides case studies of historical variation in such processes. Indeed, assemblage theory inspired by Deleuze and Guattari furnishes particularly valuable tools to understand the meaning and effects of the built environment. Spatial terms employed in the “geophilosophy” of Deleuze and Guattari, including territorialization, nomadism, segmentarity, smooth and striated space, have proved especially useful in the analyses of humanist geographers and increasingly in archaeology (Harris 2021; Jervis 2019). In addition, such concepts “reflect

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the extreme sensitivity of Deleuze and Guattari to issues of concrete implacement, that is, their conviction that where something is situated has everything to do with how it is structured” (Casey 1997: 122). I provide a brief description of several of their concepts relating to space that inform my interpretation of religious infrastructures in the following chapters. For instance, space described as smooth (espace lisse) is one that is open, intensive, rhizomatic, and characterized by “qualitative multiplicity.” In contrast, measured, bounded, extensive, ramified, and hierarchical space, defined by “quantitative multiplicity,” distinguishes striated space (Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 477; Patton 2000). As Dovey explains (2010: 21–22): Striated space is where identities and spatial practices have become stabilized in strictly bounded territories with choreographed spatial practices and social identities. Smooth space is identified with movement and instability through which stable territories are erased and new identities and spatial practices become possible. According to Deleuze and Guattari (1987: 335), urban landscapes epitomize ­striated space, highly coded and territorialized places commonly produced by state institutions. Coding striates smooth space “creating barriers for the movement of flows, restricting the potential for interactions to occur” (Jervis 2019: 54; and see Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 557). Unlike the densely partitioned and stratified city, the ocean and desert exemplify smooth spaces, the abode of nomads and ships in motion—an expanse of pure exteriority and continuous displacement. For Deleuze and Guattari, “War machines” actively create smooth spaces by deterritorializing emplaced assemblages and triggering “lines of flight” (Conley 2005: 261–262; Deleuze and Guattari 1987). Patton proposes replacing the war machine with the broader concept of “metamorphosis machine,” and he argues that the latter “does not simply support the repetition of the same but rather engenders the production of something altogether different.” (Patton 2000: 110—and see Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 422–423; 2009). Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of segmentarity also proves useful for archaeological analyses of built environments, and it parallels some of the approaches of spatial syntax theory developed by Hillier and Hanson (1984) (Dovey 2010: 19). This term denotes the joint compartmentalization of space and society (assemblages) as manifested in three general configurations: binary, circular (concentric) and linear (Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 210). Binary refers to an arrangement based on opposition commonly pivoting on divisions of gender, ethnicity, and class. For instance, Andean temples constructed with separate entrances for male and female devotees or for celebrants originating from the coast or highlands (Cummins and Mannheim 2011) would exemplify this mode of segmentation. Men’s clubs or girls’ schools provide other such examples (Dovey 2010). Circular segmentation denotes nested and interlinked spaces—such as the scaled relationship of bedroom

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to home, the home to the neighbourhood, and the neighbourhood to the city. The relationship of branch oracles of Chavín or Pachacamac in the ancient Andes created a vast, nested, and concentrically structured religious geography (Burger 1992) (see Chapter 5). In contrast, linear spaces prescribe sequence and progression, such as an enfilade in a palace or a museum comprised of a perfectly aligned suites of rooms (Dovey 2010: 18–19). For instance, movement from a monumentalized entrance to the ticket counter and then through a series of interlinked galleries that culminate in a gift shop commonly distinguish museum exhibitions. The series of progressively smaller, enchained plazas at Pachacamac, also typifies such linear ­segmentation. Pilgrims passed slowly through these nested plazas, (often over a period of months), while suffering deprivations and austerities in order to properly purify themselves in preparation of their anticipated audience with the great oracle. Belonging to the domain of striated or “tree-like” space, these three types of segmentations foster distinct experiences and often promote specific kinds of behaviour (reverence, alienation, conviviality, etc.). As Dovey explains (2010: 20): The three-part categorization of binary, circular and linear segmentarities… is largely a description of tree-like organizations with a focus on the separation of segments in accord with a higher-level order. Thus, the corporate office often sets up a binary division between staff and visitors (across a counter), a nested hierarchy between headquarters and branches of the firm, and a linear spatial sequence to the boss’s office. In contrast, more rhizomatic or smooth space, such as itinerant markets, shantytowns, or the open-plan office, create more dynamic, “supple,” and permeable networks. All landscapes, including cities, are comprised of continua of such smooth, striated, and segmented spaces, and these heuristics offer a useful means to compare the different histories and political affordances of built environments (Livesey 2005a: 263).21 As Deleuze and Guattari note (1987: 500): “Even the most striated city gives rise to smooth spaces: to live in the city as a nomad or as a cave dweller.” As discussed in the next section, Henri Lefebvre’s notion of conceived, perceived, and lived space complements Deleuze and Guatarri’s categories of space. 2.8  Lefebvre’s Unitary Space

Similar to assemblage thinkers, Henri Lefebvre viewed the material (spatial), semiotic, and political as inextricably intertwined (Määttänen 2007). As Gottdiener notes (1993: 131): In working with this triple relation, Lefebvre attempts to avoid reductionism, whether it is of the economistic (Marxist) or the idealist (deconstructionist) kind. He proposes a unitary theory of space that ties together the physical, the mental, and the social.

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Lefebvre’s perspectives not only complement assemblage approaches, but in my estimation provides a valuable framework for the archaeological interpretation of power relations in the past as mediated by things and especially places. Lefebvre’s impressive scholarship also paralleled Peirce’s non-linguistic semiotics and his mission to “bridge the gap between the epistemological and practical” (Määttänen 2007: 457). Comparable to Peirce’s semeiotics, Lefebvre’s unitary theory of space (1991) is founded on a multitude of interlocking triads, centred on the trilectic relationship of spatial practices, representations of space, and spaces of representation (representational spaces). This triumvirate further correlates with space as perceived, conceived, and lived as well as spaces understood as historical or relative, abstract, and contradictory. In other words, the production of space consists of the dialectical interplay of three dimensions or processes: “spatial practice (an externalized, environment), a representation of space (a conceptual model used to direct practice), and a space of representation (the lived social relation of users to the environment).” (Gottdiener 1993: 131). Schmid (2008: 29) explains that “This parallel series points to a twofold approach to space: one phenomenological and the other linguistic or semiotic.” However, Lefebvre approaches these dimensions as approximations (or “moments”) of constant flux and uncertainty. Space, then, like Deleuze and Guattari’s assemblage, incorporates both the material and expressive and is in a state of constant becoming. However, unlike the latter, Lefebvre does not reject dialectics (Merrifield 2000), and his studies of space and cities reveal that contradictions often characterize and variably deterritorialize or reterritorialize spatial regimens (and I deliberately make calculated use of Deleuzian terms).22 New Materialists have rightfully criticized hylomorphism, defined as the making of worlds through the imposition of conceptual form on pliant matter (Ingold 2011). However, form still “matters,” and it is perhaps a simplification to hold that “form is only ever an after-effect of process” (Harris 2021: 161–162), for they may collide dialectically in unexpected and creative ways. Indeed, attention to form (or conceived space/representations of space) often permits the identification of the institutions and ideologies territorializing assemblages and possibly striating or smoothing space. As Merrifield notes (2000: 171): … in Lefebvre’s hands, space becomes redescribed not as a dead, inert thing or object, but as organic and fluid and alive; it has a pulse, it palpitates, it flows and collides with other spaces. And these interpenetrations—many with different temporalities—get superimposed upon one another to create a present space. Scholars have interpreted Lefebvre’s theories rather differently, and as Merrifield notes, he only provided a basic sketch of his trilectics (Gottdiener 1993; Merrifield 2000; Schmid 2008). Merrifield adds (2000: 173): “it’s not a mechanical framework or typology he’s bequeathed us … but a dialectical simplification, fluid and alive, and each moment messily blurs into other moments in the real life contexts.”

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In my previous archaeological applications of Lefebvre’s core theories (Swenson 2012a; Swenson and Jennings 2018), I have found particularly useful Edward Soja’s rendering of the trilectics, with some modifications (but see Schmid’s critique of Soja 2008: 109). Conceived space (second space), equated with Lefevbre’s concept of the “representation of space,” refers to the built environment as planned, engineered, idealized, and imposed, the purview of architects, city-planners, politicians, high priests and developers. In truth, archaeologists have traditionally focused on Lefebvre’s “representations of space,” paying less attention to the two other dimensions of his spatial trilectics. Perceived, or firstspace, designates the built world as often unconsciously embodied, modified, and experienced in practice, while lived space (thirdspace) refers to a critical apprehension of place as engendered through such perceptions and experiences (Casey 1997; Cresswell 2004: 38–39; Lefebvre 1991; Massey 1991: 28; Shields 1999; Soja 1996). The analysis of firstspace has made important contributions, especially among proponents of phenomenological approaches in Great Britain (Barrett 1993; Thomas 2001; Tilley 1994; see also Moore 1996, 2005). However, in most instances, interpretations of how built environments prescribed movement, dictated inter-personal communication, induced affective responses, and enhanced sensory perception affirm the authority of those who built the monument–where an isomorphism between spaces as conceived and perceived is often uncritically presumed (see critique by Brück 2001 and Johnson 2006; Swenson 2012a). Lived space refers to a place of intense introspection or embodiment, where space is at once perceived and conceived, material and imagined, scrutinized and possibly challenged (Soja 1996: 34). It is in such thirdspaces that cultural categories of place, time, and identity come into sharp focus–where they are literally felt and consciously deconstructed (Casey 1997; Foucault 1986; Hetherington 1997; Lefebvre 1991; Soja 1996). Lefebvre equated “lived space” with what he called “spaces of representation,” which he contrasted with the conceived “representations of space” that constitute the purview of most archaeological reconstructions. The former refers to how experiences in space actually create and transform representations of place— where new and possibly conflicting meanings, memories, and outlooks are generated within particular spatial encounters. Therefore, in such exceptional places, semiosis does not simply entail the imposition of a priori conceptual schemes onto an inert built environment (see Lefebvre, 1991; Shields, 1999; Soja, 1996). Indeed, thirdspaces are places of becoming and self-awareness, sites where identities are forged and contested. Put more simply, perceived space (which Soja refers to as firstspace) denotes the places of everyday encounters and movements that are largely experienced at the level of unconsciousness practice. When walking to the store to buy milk or taking the subway to attend a concert, one usually does not think explicitly about the places encountered, or how they were built and changed through time. In contrast, lived space brings together immediate, embodied experiences of place (perceived) with novel imaginings of these locales (which are impossible

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to create without embodied, material experience). Guerrilla gardening in Toronto (transforming an abandoned yard into a cultivated plot), desecration of Maya sculptures, ­rituals contesting official discourses of space, or graffiti art (remaking, re-inscribing, and reterritorializing official places) provide some examples of such lived spaces (for examples see Duncan 1993; Joyce and Weller 2007; Levin and Solga 2009; Swenson 2012a). Highly sacred places are comparable to thirdspaces for they engender a heightened consciousness of one’s place in the world, and they often exert a capacity to change people in bodies and mind (Swenson 2012a). As discussed in Chapter 4, temple buildings often territorialize or contain a great, deterritorializing power and thus evocatively juxtapose striated and smooth space. Lefebvre’s framework thus resonates with the categories of Peirce and Deleuze/ Guattari and, in combination, they can aid in the interpretation of past landscapes. For instance, conceived, perceived, and lived space parallel Pierce’s categories of thought based on firstness (possibility—what could be designed and built), secondness (actuality—what is constructed, signified and experienced), and thirdness (potentiality—how peoples’ interpretation of lived space can remake and resignify a particular place).23 The latter also has much in common with Deleuze and Guattari’s theories on the virtual. Conceived, representations of space are actively materialized in processes of coding (and overcoding), and thus are commonly expressed in terms of types or Peirce’s “legisigns.” As a form of ideology, representations of space comprise “the various arcane signs, jargon, codifications and objectified representations used and produced by… agents and actors” (Merrifield 2000: 174). Indeed, archaeologists often interpret conceived space from highly elaborate sign-objects including diagrammatic icons, scaled miniatures, and iconographic depictions of landscapes (clay models of architecture, mandala diagrams, blue prints, maps, etc.). Thus, metapragmatics (devising signs and semiotic ideologies to make sense of how signs should and do work) often inform institutional “representations of space.” Ultimately, the domain of conceived space corresponds with the making and fixing of place and thus with the desire to assemble or territorialize certain kinds of socio-material collectives. In contrast, perceived space occurs in the immediate world of multiple tokens or sinsigns, the real material instantiations of ideal types. It thus entails living in and through assemblages, the world of habitual practices that create places of possible alienation or unquestioned belonging. Perceived space, then, most closely matches Ingold’s taskscapes of routine, work, and quotidian rhythms (2000). However, Lefebvre’s approach departs from Ingold’s rather romanticized understanding of dwelling and the “temporalities of the landscape.” On the other hand, lived space are places where interpretants are generated in encounters with the physical surrounds as people ponder, signify, and react to both quotidian and exceptional spaces (whether smooth or striated). Moments of lived space intensify the possibility of creating smooth spaces or deterritorializing striated landscapes (and vice versa). As Bonta and Protevi note (2004: 141–143), events such as street dance party engender smooth space even “if bounded on all sides by

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the striated, segmented space of the city.” Homeless encampments in public parks or the defacement of monuments with illegal graffiti re-inscribe, appropriate, deterritorialized, and variably smooth official spaces. In other words, the realization of intense thirdspaces sunder boundaries and often reterritorialize relations between people, places and things. Soja’s concept of thirdspace compares with Benjamin’s theory of profane illumination, profound revelations often evoked by dreams, mind-altering drugs, or unexpected encounters with once familiar geographies. In such revelatory states, people reinterpret “overlooked objects of everyday reality– from obsolete train stations to out-of-place arcades–as uncanny, supernatural, and irrational.” (Bou 2015: 174; Benjamin 1978; Merrifield 2002). As an extreme form of lived space, profane illumination induces the realization that places and things have a history, a sudden awareness that creates distinct signs and interpretants. Therefore, lived space involves the explicit, often conscious recoding or deterritorialization and reterritorialization of space as exemplified by the aforementioned examples of guerrilla gardening, graffiti tagging, destruction of private property, and so forth. In the latter, a heighted semiosis is often at play that has the potential to challenge taken-for-granted signifying regimes. The creative spatializations of the flaneur subversively traversing the city or the rebellious interventions of the Situationalists provide comparable examples (de Certeau 1984; Debord 1981). 2.9 Conclusion

Lefebvre’s spatial categories are not mutually exclusive and serve more as useful heuristics in the analysis of present and past landscapes. As mentioned, these three modalities or assemblages of space represent fleeting moments—a trilectic—as opposed to discrete, independent realities (Schmid 2008).24 Indeed, archaeologists can productively employ Lefebvre’s types to investigate the possible and changing tensions inhering within the assembled spaces we study. In other words, an examination of how conceived space reinforced or contradicted places as they were perceived and lived should permit historically sensitive interpretations of the political efficacy of past landscapes (see Swenson 2012a; Swenson and Jennings 2018: 27). For instance, Lefebvre contends that the three modalities of space fell out of sync with the ascendency of the abstract and alienating places defining the capitalist mode of production. In contrast, he idealized premodern alternatives, especially the cities of Renaissance Tuscany, for the purported spatial coherence they engendered. Lefebvre (1991: 40) writes: “That the lived, conceived, and perceived realms should be interconnected, so that the ‘subject,’ the individual can move from one to another without confusion—so much is a logical necessity.” However, he also recognized that the prevailing representation of space (conceived space) of the Renaissance, grounded in classical perspectivism and symmetrical geometries, differed from the long-established social and organic spaces of Tuscan Italy “inherited from the Etruscans, which had survived all the centuries of Roman and Christian dominance” (Lefebvre 1991: 41). Thus, the official discourses on space

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often did not align with the everyday experiences of place in Renaissance Italy. Lefebvre’s monumental works has shown how the space of capitalism (zoning, the spatial separation of work and leisure, suburbanization, privatization of land, production/consumption modelled on the factory, and so on) completely overwhelmed the perceived spatial practices of modern-day communities. Therefore, coherence between the perceived, conceived, and lived realms does not necessarily imply a superior social condition or less-alienating political reality. Ultimately, archaeologists can and have made important contributions in identifying the degree to which these modalities of space differently intersected. For instance, in his classic work on the “grammar” of 18th century Virginia houses (1975), Glassie’s examination of the layout, internal partitions, and symbolism of rural dwellings revealed a closed, fearful and conservative society far removed from Enlightenment values and architectural ideals that celebrated, individualism, progress, and innovation. In contrast, Leone’s (2005) study of Annapolis in the 18th and 19th centuries identified how capitalism was reassembling public and private spaces within this city and thus reshaping bodies and perceptions of place. Leone further mobilizes archaeological data to show how African Americans accommodated such developments. However, he also demonstrates how they resisted and creatively re-signified the houses of the white owners for whom they laboured as slaves or freed servants. For instance, Leone (2005) documents how African Americans strategically deposited magical talismans (bundled materials called mojos, hands or tobys) at thresholds, in attics, and other zones of contact in various homes as a means to ensure their protection and to curse their oppressors (see Chapter 4). In Chapters 5–8, I combine similar approaches with the analysis of the semiotic affordances and varied (de)territorializing effects of religious infrastructures and landscapes in the ancient Andes and Southeast Asia. However, in Chapter 3, I first explore how ritual in particular played a critical role in the making of place, the construction of subjects, and the assembling of larger social-material collectives. I also contend that archaeologists must examine religious architecture in conjunction with larger infrastructural histories. Chapter 4 will focus more specifically on religious architecture as semiotic machines as this will directly inform my analysis of the Andean and Angkorian datasets. Notes 1 Sections of this chapter first appeared in Swenson and Cipolla 2021, which I have modified to support the argument of this book. 2 Peirce commonly referred to the general study of sign processes as “semeiotics,” and scholars often make use of this variant spelling to distinguish Peirce’s philosophy of signs from other “semiotic” and linguistic theories, including those of Saussure. In this book, I adhere to the latter spelling to emphasize the general study of signs and their material effects. However, I will make use of the former spelling when explicitly referencing Peirce’s theoretical program.

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3 For a full and clear exposition on Peirce’s three categories, see Crossland and Bauer 2017. 4 Peirce understood “qualities” such as colour, lightness, or smell in term of firstness, or abstracted and disembodied properties. Such qualities are only perceptible as “qualia” in a state of secondness, when they become materialized in things, such as the brown soil in question (Keane 2003: 415). Exemplifying thirdness, “qualisigns” implicate the reaction of interpretants, “a process in which qualia are ascribed meanings and values in partial conformance with normative cultural traditions” (see Swenson 2021a: 332). 5 Peirce held that meaning was not confined to language; similar to Wittgenstein’s contention that “meaning is use,” he maintained that it is most accurately defined by habit, whether the habitual employment of a pair of scissors, the eating of a banana, or the normative and expected behaviours afforded by a public plaza (Määttänen 2007). In discussing Peirce’s pragmatic theory of meaning, Määttänen notes (2007: 455): “Habits of walking, driving cars or bicycles, using different kinds of tools and instruments in our daily life are also ways of interpreting and understanding the world around us.” 6 Kockelman (2007: 306) offers a succinct summary of Peirce’s definition of sign, object, and interpretant: “Signs: whatever stands for something else; objects: whatever a sign stands for; and interpretants: whatever a sign creates insofar as it stands for an object.” 7 Peirce contends that all reality (and not just the biological realm) is based on semiotic processes. My earlier example of backup generators as interpretants that automatically activate during a power outage would support such a position. Although a problem difficult to resolve, I am nonetheless sympathetic with Kohn’s position that “representation” as a distinctive interpretive response beyond the mere mechanical characterizes life processes in particular. Lindstrøm (2015) similarly critiques the notion that things have agency and argues instead that the efficacy of inanimate objects, as effectants rather than Latourian actants, differs from the deliberated and calculated actions of humans and higher order animals. Although Lindstrøm’s position is open to criticism for downplaying differences in ontologies—things certainly could be experienced as enlivened or agentive in different societies—her perspective nonetheless exposes the reductionism of symmetrical archaeologies; the material, technical, and ecological dependencies entangling humans and animals often differ in fundamental ways from human-thing relationships. In fact, Lindstrøm argues that vertebrates with central nervous systems exercise agency in ways that approximates traditional understanding of the term as entailing intention, will, and purpose. 8 Baron remarks (2016: 35): “The ability of individuals to interpret signs and choose responses—interpretants—is often referred to as ‘agency’.” 9 Salmond contends (2014: 163): The value of the word ‘ontology’ in these discussions is… ‘the connotations of reality… it brings with it’ (Heywood 2012: 146), an effect many of these scholars seek to mobilize in solidarity with their interlocutors as well as in the defense of the world and its threatened ecologies. 10 Graeber continues (2015: 31): I am an ontological realist and theoretical relativist. I value the development of a rich diversity of (at least partly) incommensurable theoretical perspectives on a reality that, I believe, can never be entirely encompassed by any one of them—for the very reason that it is real. 11 Crellin (2020) classifies the theories of posthumanism, the New Materialism, and the ontological turn (radical alterity) all as “relational approaches.” She notes (2020: 13) that “these approaches” move beyond human agency “to acknowledge the roles of a diverse cast of protagonists, including, but not limited to, humans. These diverse protagonists always emerge from highly interconnected and interdependent relations” (see

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also Fowler 2013). Although a fair categorization of the thinking of Latour, Ingold, Bennett, and the later Hodder, I contend that this label often proves inadequate—or simultaneously too broad and reductive—in describing the ontologies and philosophies of ­Indigenous people. 12 Viveiros de Castro writes (2004: 5) that perspectivism refers to “a set of ideas and practices found throughout indigenous America.” 1 3 In some Boro and Gê myths, humans originally lacked culture and stole cultural artefacts and technologies from particular species of animals. Culture as a specifically human condition was fully formed when these appropriated technologies were assembled together. As Turner summarizes (2009: 18): The human development of culture and the acts that led to it disrupted the Edenic ­coexistence of the ancestral humans and animals, and resulted in the loss by the ­animals of the proto-cultural possessions and skills they had. Animals thus became fully differentiated from humans as completely natural beings, and humans ­correspondingly became fully differentiated from them as contemporary cultural humans. 14 Pollock compares the prevailing visual semiotic field of the Kwakiutl of the Northwest Coast with the predominant aural semiotic modality of the Arawak Kulina of the Western Amazon. In discussing the latter culture, he contends (1995: 592): “…my point is that because verbal performance is the primary conventional medium for indexing identity among Kulina, verbal performance is also, in semiotic terms, the appropriate channel for the indexing of transformed identity.” He continues: … just as the expression of identity calls upon certain culturally ordered semiotic media, so too the masking of identity, whether in its disguise or substitution, can only take place through those same semiotic media. The mask, in this sense, is no more (and no less) enigmatic than conventional, everyday representations of identity. 15 In fact, the Medieval Latin word masca (masque in French and maschera in Italian) signified witch, spectre, and demon (Napier 1986: 11). 16 The Second Commandment Reads: Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven Image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: For I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God. (Exodus 20:4–5 [King James]) Latour (2002) notes that since life is inconceivable without mediation, the Second Commandment is especially terrifying for it is impossible to obey. 17 Hodder (2012) compellingly argues that our entanglement with and dependency on things have risen exponentially in the modern era. However, to invert the Geertizian maxim, humans have always been suspended in a web (assemblage) of things not always of their making, at least since the dawn of the genus homo. 18 The notion of assemblage adopted from Deleuze and Guattari (1987) derives from the mistranslation of the French word agencement that signifies both arrangement and agency. This concept thus offers a methodological tool not just to account for the intermingling of heterogeneous agencies, but also to facilitate ‘the study of the variety of forms of action these forces are capable of generating. Moreover, because agencements create differentiated agents and positions […], it is possible to trace relationships of domination as they are dynamically established’ (Caliskan and Callon, 2010, pp. 8–9). (Farías 2011: 370)

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19 Deleuze and Guattari explicitly argue (1987: 7): semiotic chains of every nature are connected to very diverse modes of coding (­biological, political, economic, etc.) that bring into play not only different regimes of signs but also states of things of differing status … it is not [possible] to make a radical break between regimes of signs and their objects. (cited in Newell 2018: 10) 20 As Dewsbury summarizes (2011: 150): The tetravalent systemisation works along two distinct axes comprising the four types of valence: first, between the intermingling machinic assemblage of bodies, actions and passions (content) and that of a collective assemblage of enunciation of acts and statements (expression); and second, between territorial stabilising lines of articulation and that of deterritorialising lines of flight. (Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 88) DeLanda (2016) conceives of these axes as “parameters.” 21 Dovey emphasizes that all spaces form a mixture of striated and smooth spaces (2010: 20): “The rhizomatic structure of Pentagon may house the most hierarchical of social assemblages.” 22 Gottdiener describes Lefebvre’s grasp of dialectics as “masterful.” He writes (1993: 130): In Fichtean dialectics and in much deconstructionist or structuralist thought, analytical categories are perceived as oppositions or antinomies. Lefebvre wants nothing to do with this Manichean view because it usually results in static contrasts. Marx’s dialectical moments were flowing, manifold, and complex, especially with regard to ‘the negation,’ a concept that I believe only Adorno and Lefebvre have really understood. According to Lefebvre, dialectical moments are expressed as ‘triplicite’as three terms, not two. The third term instantly deconstructs static oppositions or ­dualisms, and adds a fluid dimension to social process. 23 Merrell explains (1995: 21): “The sphere of possibility contains everything that might become a sign, actuality includes what is a sign, and potentiality involves what most likely would become a sign in the event that a certain set of conditions is in effect.” 24 Schmid argues (2008: 40): a social space includes not only a concrete materiality but a thought concept and a feeling—an ‘experience.’ The materiality in itself or the material practice per se has no existence when viewed from a social perspective without the thought that directs and represents them, and without the lived experienced element, the feelings that are invested in this materiality…. These three dimensions of the production of space constitute a contradictory dialectical unity. It is a threefold determination: space emerges only in the interplay of all three.

3 SUBLIME INFRASTRUCTURES Emplacing Ritual, Religion, and Power

3.1 Introduction

In the treatise De re aedificatoria, the Renaissance author and architect, Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472), famously wrote: “The safety, authority, and decorum of the state depend to a great extent on the work of the architect” (cited in Hughes 2011: 210). Lefebvre would have endorsed Alberti’s assertion that architects play a critical role in safeguarding state power, but he no doubt would have stressed that such purveyors of “conceived space” often serve as the engineers of government oppression and alienation. Haussmann’s remaking of Paris discussed briefly in the introductory chapter provides one such example of the latter, and the prominence of infrastructure and “architectural power” also characterized hierarchical societies in the pre-industrial past. In fact, religious ideologies often underwrote, motivated, or justified pre-modern building campaigns in both non-stratified and centralized polities (Graeber and Wengrow 2021), a fact that necessitates a closer examination of key concepts, including especially ritual and religion, categories increasingly condemned by proponents of the ontological turn and new materialisms. In other words, place-making and infrastructural projects were commonly driven by religious imperatives that are difficult to disentangle from the operation of larger political economies. As also mentioned in the introduction, Cosimo de’ Medici (Cosimo Il Vecchio) (1389–1464) memorable construction projects in Florence aimed not simply to commemorate and legitimate his ascending authority but to repent for his usurious banking wealth. Likewise, Herod’s renovation of the Second Temple in 20 BCE, one of the largest building endeavours of the 1st century BCE, corralled the finest artisans and architects of Judea as a means to consolidate his threatened authority. As Montefiore (2011: 90) explains “Herod

DOI: 10.4324/9780429356063-3

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pulled down the second temple and built a wonder of the world in its place,” and he ordered the training of a thousand priests to become skilled builders. Lebanese cedars were obtained for the reconstruction, and massive, brilliant white ashlars were quarried and cut at the source.” A thousand wagons were conscripted to move the gargantuan monoliths. No din and no hammering could pollute the most sacred of locales, and “Herod ensured that everything was ready offsite and silently slotted into place,” as the noise of the construction process could not disturb the Lord (Montefiore (2011: 32, 90). The Holy of Holies was consecrated in 2 years, while an additional 80 years was required to complete the entire complex. Montefiore lauds Herod’s “brilliant understanding of space and theater.” Dazzling and ­awe-inspiring, his renewed ­temple was covered with plates of gold, and similar to the Inca Coricancha in Cuzco, at the first rising of the sun, the building reflected back a fiery splendour, compelling visitors to avert their gaze. Jerusalem’s renovated second temple induced an extraordinary wonder, and one inconceivable without the creative and transformative power of architects, artisans, labourers, and religious specialists. Herod’s grand renovation of one of history’s most famed sanctuaries exemplifies how place-making and large-scale architectural projects assembled a multitude of communities, institutions, resources, practices, and technologies. Such building campaigns inextricably bound together social domains anthropologists tend to treat as separate (economics, politics, religion, ideology, etc.). Indeed, anthropologists have long interpreted monumental architecture as transparent signifiers of urban, state-level societies and as dramatic reifications of “social complexity” and material surpluses (Adams 1966; Childe 1950; Trigger 1990). However, archaeologists have demonstrated that non-stratified and relatively egalitarian societies have built vast religious monuments and related infrastructures, ranging from the great pyramids of Pre-Ceramic Peru to the sizeable men’s houses of Amazonia and Melanesia (Burger 1992; Graeber and Wengrow 2021). Indeed, much is lost when built environments are interpreted as simply epiphenomenal barometers of sociopolitical organization or economic complexity. Instead, archaeologists should focus precisely on the construction and subsequent use and experience of built landscapes, an endeavour that stands to advance both comparative anthropology and improve analyses of unique social histories. An appreciation of how Herod’s renovation deterritorialized everything from cedars, labourers, taxes, ashlars, gold, tools, watercraft, beasts of burden, and other elements and cosmically reterritorialized these diverse elements in Jerusalem focuses attention on the actual institutions, social actors, and religious convictions that drove such dramatic assembling processes. In addition, the prescriptions regulating building (minimizing noise so as not to disturb the Lord), and the actual materials and layout of the temple were governed by deep-seated and culturally specific religious conceptions of place, the holy, and human relations with the supernatural (or immanent metapersons—Sahlins 2022). The Holy of Holies housing the essence of God and separated by its forbidding curtain, along

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with the nested plazas fronting the main shrine and accessible to different social classes, encoded social divisions and complex theological traditions and sacrificial ­practices. The original Second Temple built at the end of the Babylonian captivity and the return of the Jews to Jerusalem (6th century BCE) was constructed in the same venerated place as the first (Mount Morai), and it contained many of the restored sacred implements (the Table of showbread, the menorah, the golden incense altar) of time immemorial.1 The consecration of the Second Temple and Herod’s later restoration parallels the rebuilding of temples superimposed one on top of the other in many regions of the world—from ancient Mesopotamia to Mesoamerica and the Andes (Gamboa 2015; Mock et al. 1998; Steinkeller 2015). Such recurring renovations attest to the power of place and the ontological others they embodied to assemble diverse social-material collectives. They also prove that conceptions of space and the semiotic ideologies they implicated were grounded in religious cosmologies that when effectively materialized played a paramount role in the actual assembling process. However, this perhaps self-evident realization does not presume that Lefebvre’s conceived space unequivocally determines how different communities perceived and experienced place. Indeed, as the long and tortured history of the Temple Mount reveals, awesome monuments of overwhelming power and revered otherness commonly become flashpoints of conflict, violence, and political struggle. Contested to this day, the subsequent destruction of the Second Temple and its various resignifications (the messianic anticipation of the Third Temple in Judaism, the building’s replacement by the body of Christ for Christians, and the construction of the Dome of the Rock in Islam, to provide just a few examples) have loomed large in all three Abrahamic religions. This admittedly cursory discussion of Herod’s temple supports my general argument that new materialist perspectives and theories of the agency of place cannot ignore how religious ideology (and meaning in general), especially when materialized in ritual practice, secured centre stage in the construction and contestation of diverse political worlds. Therefore, in this chapter and the next, I develop the argument that ritual, entailing a distinctive materialization of action, constitutes one of the most powerful modes of semiosis and machinic assemblage, explaining in part the political efficacy of religious infrastructures. Building on my criticisms of the limitations and misunderstandings of anti-representational perspectives discussed in the previous chapter, I explore how ritual practice played a central role in the making of place, the construction of subjects, the political “distribution of the sensible” (Rancière 2013) and the assembling of larger social-material collectives. I also contend that archaeologists must examine religious architecture in conjunction with larger infrastructural histories. I apply these theoretical insights along with those introduced in Chapter 2 to interpret Angkorian and Andean landscapes in the subsequent chapters. Here, I focus in particular on the intersection of ritual, place-making, and infrastructures as a medium of power relations. In Chapter 4, I narrow my analysis to an investigation of ceremonial architecture as semiotic machines.

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3.2

Ritual’s Distinct Material Frame and Placedness2

Recently, a number of archaeologists have condemned ritual and religion as Eurocentric categories that misrepresent the acts and dispositions of past peoples (Swenson 2015b). In the spirit of Asad’s original critique, scholars have rejected the category of “religion” in particular as a product of post-Enlightenment rationalism and thus a purifying category of modernity that has distorted and simplified past cultural practices (see Asad 1993; Fowles 2013; Masuzawa 2012). As a mode of action, and thus more readily reconcilable with the cherished trope of “practice,” ritual has fared a little better. Nevertheless, a number of archaeologists argue that the delineation of certain activities as ritualistic in contrast to the technical, mundane, or practical imposes Eurocentric dichotomies of the sacred/profane, symbolic/utilitarian, irrational/rational, and the discursive/non-discursive (Brück 1999; Goody 1977). Privileging distinct ontological modes configuring alternative material worlds (and not simply alternate “representations” of such worlds) intends to circumvent these problems and eliminates the need to denote certain modes of practice as ritualized in contrast to other fields of action (Brück 2006; Haber 2009; Hamilakis 2011; Hull 2014; Price 2008). Therefore, some anthropologists have eschewed traditional definitions of ritual as encompassing the highly symbolic, communicative, and rule-governed, or as efficacious actions transacting relations with supra-human powers. If both the manufacture of a cooking pot and the ­sacrifice of an animal are constitutive of society, embedded in efficacious if arcane formulae, and goal-oriented (instrumental), then what is the point of calling the one technical and the other ritual? As a solution, certain archaeologists have also resorted to deploying emic categories or in amalgamating ritual with other heuristics. For instance, Lewis (1980: 39–40) and Fowles (2013: xii, 101–103) note that practices we would typically designate as ritualistic are described as “doing things” or “doings” among both the Gnau of Papua New Guinea and the Pueblo communities of the American Southwest. Therefore, focusing on indigenous categories, ontological modes, culturally specific rationalities, or the varied affective contexts of embodied practice is deemed to offer a more accurate and historically sensitive framework of analysis than would the employment of conventional etic categories (Alberti and Bray 2009; Brück 1999; Haber 2009: 428; Hamilakis 2011; Harris 2021; Harris and Sørensen 2010). Indeed, proponents of practice theory commonly assert the indivisibility of ritual, politics, and economy. In a similar manner, other archaeologists have affirmed that religion provides a safer heuristic than ritual in interpreting archaeological contexts if understood as a totalizing structure of practice (Insoll 2004: 10–14). For instance, Insoll argues that all dimensions of Islamic material culture are a product of Islamic worldview, and he decries the reductive subsumption of ritual to politics and ideology, a move that elides questions of belief, faith, spirituality, and religiously inculcated routines and dispositions (ranging from diet, daily prayers, house symbolism, to the gendering of everyday space).

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However, I contend that the ritualization of practice is as fundamental to the human condition as eating, sleeping, or making love; even if it varied significantly in space and time, banishing this key concept from archaeological analysis would significantly impoverish our understanding of past societies. I propose instead to approach ritual more broadly as entailing the material re-framing and semiotic intensification/alteration of certain modes of behaviour, a perspective that can put to rest the epistemological angst surrounding the analysis of ritual in archaeological contexts (Swenson 2015b; and see Chapter 4). Moreover, thinking of ritualized practice not as a kind but a condition of action ideally respects the historical particulars of past events while permitting cross-cultural comparisons (Keane 2010: 190). Fowles (2013: 103) provides a definition of “doings” among the Pueblo “as practices characterized by a heightened awareness of interconnectedness and the relations between things.” Practices directed by a keen apprehension of the relationality of the world actually conform well to influential models of ritual developed by anthropologists. A mode of action in the subjunctive mood, as Turner argued (1967), ritual commonly entails the focusing of attention which implicates distinctive frames of practice, thought, performance, and emotion (Davis-Floyd and Laughlin 2022: 122–130; Lewis 1980; Renfrew 1994; Seligman et al. 2008; Smith 1980: 114; Tambiah 1979). Whether understood as a differentiated “stance” (Humphrey and Laidlaw 1994), “strategy of ritualization” (Bell 1992), or a process of “condensation” (Housman and Severi 1998), performances of this kind qualitatively mark and distinguish action and their performers (Keane 2010: 196; and see Chapter 4). Practices invoking greater awareness of the world’s entanglements might in certain instances be expressive (even constitutive) of cultural worldviews, but their meanings are often mutable and polyvalent (Humphrey and Laidlaw 1994). As Bradley (2005: 33) notes: rituals are more about actions of a specialized kind rather than propositions about the world that involves a form of participation and commitment to action. Once it is accepted that ritual is a kind of practice—a performance which is defined by its own conventions—it becomes easier to understand how it can occur in so many settings and why it may be attached to so many different concerns. In a similar manner, Hodder (2010: 17) recognizes that ritual constitutes “a marking event, and it can be called religious not because it is separate from everyday life, but because it focuses attention, arouses, refers to broader imaginings and deals with the relationship between self and community” (see also Bell 1992; Bloch 1986, 1989; Gluckman 1963; Leach 1954; Rappaport 1999). The material reframing of action often sets apart recognized “events” (initiations, pilgrimages, festivals, etc.) from the stream of everyday practice, events which often afford alternate experiences (and intensified relationalities) of time, place, and being (Morley 2007). The degree and scale to which certain practices

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are conspicuously marked or unmarked (say as taboo)—in both a material and semiotic form—should thus allow for an improved approximation of the context, meaning, and even mode of activity that occurred in past social formations (Fowles 2008; Keane 2010). This observation affirms that ritual is profoundly mediated by the material world, and the specialized framing of practice is most often achieved through its altered “mediatisation” (Engelke 2005). Taking heed of the maxim that the “medium is the message” (McLuhan 1966: 8–12), archaeologists have much to gain in charting how variably marked (framed) practices related contextually to relatively unmarked (unframed) acts in the archaeological record (Hull 2014: 175; Keane 2010; Turner 1986: 93; Verhoeven 2011: 27). In truth, archaeologists have only recently recognized the amplified materialization and semiosis of the ritual process, an amplification that underscores that ritual is intimately linked to transformation and the creative realignment of relational fields (Swenson 2015b—and see Chapter 4 for a detailed exploration of the semiotic side of this process). For instance, ethnographers have demonstrated that ritual often alters the intentional and communicative quality of action, an observation that would explain the long-standing popularity of both symbolic and functionalist theories of ritual behaviour (Descola 2013b: 37; Grimes 1990; Houseman and Severi 1998; Humphrey and Laidlaw 1994; Kyriakidis 2007; Rappaport 1999; Swenson 2011, 2015b; Tambiah 1985; Verhoeven 2011: 19). Rituals, differing in meaning, content and objectives, nonetheless work to reinforce, dismantle, or alter the ­relational orders of self, society, and cosmos. Such rites could include a ­foundation sacrifice to animate a dwelling, a rite of intensification to ward off environmental perturbations, an initiation to transform a girl into a woman, a healing ceremony to cure the sick, a funeral to ancestralize the recent dead, or a carnival which inverts social norms. Despite the great historical differences in recorded ceremonial traditions, the ritual process thus commonly entails the generation or reconfiguration of distinct social-material assemblages (Houseman & Severi 1998: 197–202). The amplified materialization of ritual action—that effectively reframes practice via aesthetic media, marked speech, music, bounded places, and dance— has the potential to enhance (or distort) sensory perception, an experience that facilities ­alterations in the relationships defining a community of practice (Kapferer 1983). Therefore, action is ritualized (materially altered) to more effectively strengthen, dissolve, or realign social and material dependencies between people, places, things, gods, and so forth. Ritual, then, commonly activates a specifically relational ontology, and it is unsurprising that recent archaeological research interested in animism and non-Cartesian ontological orders have most often focused their attention on ritualized contexts (Alberti and Bray 2009; Fowles 2013; Haber 2009). However, ontologies are not necessarily static in a given society, and the degree to which objects were “enlivened” and entangled with the social world may become particularly pronounced in the context of the ritual frame (Swenson 2015a, 2015b). Therefore, it is unsurprising why archaeologists have met with some success

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interpreting historically specific traditions of personhood, time, and political ­subjectivity from the analysis of ritual deposits and performatively marked places in the archaeological record (Brück 2006; Fowler 2011; Fowles 2013; Kidder 2010; Swenson 2012a, 2015a). My focus on the ritual dimensions of building campaigns and infrastructure projects intends to build on these achievements. A decidedly instrumental act—to initiate, curse, propitiate, fertilize, bless, empower, etc.—ritual often brings vital forces directly into material being, which explains in part why it is especially prone to politicization (Bell 1992; Bloch 1992; Fowles 2013: 54, 190; Swenson 2013). The faculty of ritual to recalibrate relational networks can also account for its appeal to anthropologists interested in agency and process, especially given its capacity to make present the absent and negotiate the “paradox of mediation and immediacy” (see Descola 2013b: 40, 42; and see Chapter 4). As Robb notes (2010: 503): “Many rituals create spaces within which people can act as different kinds of beings, or mark, heighten or justify the transition between modes of agency” (see also Pauketat 2013: 2–3; Viveiros de Castro 1998, 2004). Although irreducible to politics, ritual performances can constitute a fundamental exercise in power given their role in precipitating or preventing transformation, whether at the level of the individual person, larger social collective, or cosmos. It thus follows that an examination of ritual contexts in the archaeological record in relationship to the patterned depositions of other routines can shed light on culturally specific constructions of agency, aetiology, and power (Pauketat 2013; Pollard 2008). In this regard, Henn notes that ritual opens up a multitude of modalities of transformation listed inter alia as ‘framing,’ ‘shift of genre,’ ‘code switching,’ ‘parallelism,’ ‘contextualization,’ ‘decontexualization’ and ‘entexutalization,’ which are crucial for the formation and transformation of everything from language to the socio-political aspects of ritual. (Henn 2008: 23) In fact, ritualization entails one of the most obvious and potent instruments of assembly/codification in the spirit of Deleuze and Guattari that mutually implicates the material and symbolic (see Chapter 2). In a sense, the shift from a less to more ritualized frame of action (or vice versa) commonly entails the highly performative deterritorialization of peoples, things, and signs, followed inevitably by their dramatic reterritorialization, a process comparable to Turner’s anti-structure/structure dialectic underwriting liminal rites of passage. As Handelman observes (2004: 6): “ritual reorganizes disparate elements into interdependence within the new totality of a ritual performance. Thus ritual makes relationships.” Ritual, then, provides an explicit vehicle to move between assemblages, both habitual and novel (DeLanda 2006: 50). For instance, the liminal stage of separation commonly entails the dissolution of social rules and norms as well as the death and rebirth of initiates.

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At the same time, initiates encounter new material objects, signs, knowledge, and places (a novel assembly) a material reframing that facilitates their metamorphosis (reassembly) into full-fledged and renewed community members. Rites based on the violent reincorporation of a primal vitality lost in the initial experience of ­separation—what Bloch has called “rebounding violence”—exemplifies the complex and successive processes of embodied deterritorialization/reterritorialization characterising many ritualized experiences (see Bloch 1992; Swenson 2003, 2014).3 As discussed in Chapter 2, if coding refers to “expressive elements” in assemblages that “fix identity” and suffuse meaning into the territorialization of a socialmaterial collective, then ritual, however, experienced and interpreted, constitutes a primary coding machine (Jervis 2019: 38–39). Indeed, ritual performatively bounds and interrelates (or unbounds and disassociates) peoples, places, and things, while codifying explicit ideologies expressed in the materialization of such an assemblage (DeLanda 2016: 48).4 The more “formal and rigid” the rules of social engagement, two adjectives commonly employed to describe ritual practice in general, the more such encounters are coded and expressive of meaning (DeLanda 2006: 16). Indeed, ritual often includes what Goffman called “eventful” or “fateful” encounters, in which specific and stereotyped information is communicated, whether dealing with courage, wisdom, compassion, abnegation, and so forth (DeLanda 2006: 55–56). Even if such codes, defined as “specialized expressive media” (DeLanda 2006: 19), may be read differently, ritual’s intense assembling process inescapably affects participants and spectators alike. As exemplified by the centripetal assembling power of Herod’s temple reconstruction, rituals involving pilgrimage, temporary gatherings, feasting, and anticipated audiences with other beings fundamentally reassemble social networks and remake subjectivities through newly territorialized places and things (Swenson 2018a). Indeed, the gathering of diverse peoples, places, objects, technologies, semiotic registers, and identities exemplifies how the ritualization process often creates an altered material frame on a grand scale. To stress the point again, the amplified materialization of ritual action, involving aesthetic media, rarefied speech, music, masquerade, taboos, symbolically dense architecture, sacred meals, and specialized manipulations of the body facilitated fundamental alterations in relationships enabling the emergence of novel social-material collectives (or assemblies) (Swenson 2015b, 2018a). The religious festival provides a salient example of the capacity of ritual events to either reify or invert social norms, a process activated through the recoding of shifting material assemblages (Frost 2016). Falassi’s “building blocks” (1987: 4–6) of the festival implicitly highlight how recurrent religious gatherings entail the joint alteration of material, spatial, and temporal ­registers. These elemental units include: rites or reversal, rites of conspicuous display, rites of conspicuous consumption (including feasts and sacramental meals), rites of intensification, ­ritual dramas (e.g., cosmogonic re-enactments), rites of exchange (e.g., grand fairs), rites of competition, and rites of devalorization. Therefore, these events entailed an immersion in an altered and often intensified (or de-intensified) material world.

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Ceremonial feasts are commonly founded on the display and bundling together of exotic foods, fine ritual equipment, tableware, elaborate facilities, costumes, dance, and so forth, while initiations are realized through masquerade, seclusion in temporary constructions, body modifications, and exposure to secret regalia. In addition, great festivals provide a powerful medium for subject formation by captivating peoples’ time to prepare the special places and to produce the distinct material corpora necessary for a successful festival (Swenson 2018a). Building campaigns also commonly occurred in a festive environment, and the process of construction—a literal act of assembly—was often highly ritualized, as I discuss in greater detail below (Lehner 2015; Steinkeller 2015). With this in mind, the reaction against ritual in certain archaeological circles, especially among posthumanists, strikes me as misplaced and unproductive. An acknowledgement that ritualization constitutes a distinct materialization and framing of action can permit the fine-grained differentiation of contexts in the material record. This is especially the case if highly performative and marked events intended to (re)create relations with ontological others, kin, consecrated buildings, the cosmos, the initiated, and so forth. In fact, an examination of why some contexts are amplified semiotically and altered materially can provide the basis from which to interpret the preconditions, meanings, and consequences of certain practices that leave archaeological traces. Of course, this argument pertains unambiguously to religious buildings, often glossed generically as temples, something I explore in detail in the following chapter. Nonetheless, a number of recent studies self-consciously avoid analyzing specially framed and highly coded places as the outcome of ritualized practice. For instance, in his analysis of British Neolithic causewayed enclosures (3700 and 3300 cal BCE), Harris (2021: 160–161) rejects ritual and focuses instead on affect, immanence, process, and Deleuzian concepts such as “lines of flight.” Certainly, affect is central to religious experience, but I would tend to see the former as a dependent variable of the latter. Harris recognizes that the deposition of a cow’s skull in a pit along with an assortment of flints and other animal bones within a construction at the Chalk Hill enclosure in Kent conveyed meanings and invoked emotions distinct from “the encounter with cattle, flint and other animals, dead or alive, in people’s daily lives” (Harris 2021: 164). He also compelling identifies the relational matrix of such caches that could have effectively remade and re-signified reality (Harris 2021: 162–168). However, to conclude that the affective charge of special deposits testify to the power of the monument to centripetally gather animals, materials, and people, leaves fundamental questions unanswered, including what relations (and alterities) were actually negotiated by the offerings (on a detailed exploration of “structured depositions,” see Chapter 4). In other words, Harris’ assiduous avoidance of ritual and his theorization of caches of skulls, pots, and human burials in exceptional sites as constituting “lines of flight” that generated “new and unexpected places” elide the meanings, objectives, and social anxieties of the communities who made the offerings and constructed the larger enclosure (Harris 2021: 165). Deleuze and Guattari’s ­theories certainly prove useful as attested by my application of their theories in my

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study. Furthermore, I wish not to be overly critical of Harris, and his post-humanist analysis has much to offer, especially his excellent reconstructions on the temporalities of the construction and experience of the causewayed ­enclosures. However, in the last instance, Harris seems intent on analyzing Neolithic monuments to validate a Deleuzian metaphysics of emergence and becoming, and we actually learn little new about Chalk Hill or others sites, especially in how such monumental places were conceived, experienced, and lived, as well as the actual cosmologies and possibly contested histories they materialized. In truth, the rejection of ritual among archaeologists commonly coincides with the devaluation of meaning and representation, a move that ironically denies the inherent materiality of the latter as criticized in Chapter 2. For instance, Hamilakis (2011: 211–212), explicitly rejects the term ritual in foregrounding the senses, while Price attacks the notion of belief altogether in stressing ritual as “bodylore” (2008: 144–147). Walker (1998: 249) also disavows meaning but espouses a more generalizing theoretical perspective. He states: “conceptualizing ritual objects as primarily symbols, rather than as tools used in behaviors, has promoted archaeological studies of culturally specific meanings rather than detailed examinations of the regularities in the uses of these objects.” Harris and Sørensen (2010) similarly aim to replace religion with emotion, or with the affective capacities of material culture and performance. They assert that we should not look at material culture as symbolic vehicles for meaning, but as objects that induce affect. As mentioned, I agree that problems of the senses and emotion demand our full consideration, and I also foreground ritual as a performatively charged mode of behaviour. However, I fail to see the worth of placing affect or practice in opposition to semiosis, symbolism, and meaning (Newell 2018). In fact, as numerous ethnographic accounts demonstrate, ritual is also fundamentally concerned with epistemology and endeavours to enhance knowledge of ambiguous situations (divination, healing, the search for enlightenment), or at least grapple with what is “unknowable” (Graeber 2015). Epistemology also constitutes a source of great power, mystery, and contemplation, and the skills and knowledge to ritually engage the unknowable can confer prestige, authority, and privilege (or fearful disdain and opprobrium). The acknowledgement that ritual implicates the epistemological exposes some of the deficiencies of strictly behaviouralist and post-humanist interpretations that demote politics, philosophy, intellectual discourse (theology), and hence meaning more generally. Indeed, the examination of ritually framed contexts proves especially valuable in making sense of past power relations and ideologies. The next section explores the dense skein of ritual and power, a subject highly relevant to understanding past religious infrastructures and landscapes. 3.3

Ritual as a Medium of Power

The definitions of ritual formulated by Victor Turner and Roy Rappaport, two renowned anthropologists and experts on the subject, reveal, at least implicitly,

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that we must contend with issues of power in its various meanings if we wish to make sense of ritual as a cross-cultural phenomenon. Turner defines ritual as “prescribed formal behavior for occasions not given over to technical routine, having reference to beliefs in invisible beings or powers regarded as the first and final causes of all effects” (1982: 79). The reference to “invisible powers” is straightforward enough and implies that ritual often negotiates asymmetrical relations. The emphasis on causes and effects also highlights the transformative capacity of rite to intervene in and change situations. Rappaport’s famed definition is also suggestive (1999: 24): “the performance of more or less invariant sequences of formal acts and utterances not entirely encoded by the performers.” This understanding captures the fascinating structure-agency dialectic specific to the ritual process. This construal affirms “that ritual creates and recreates a world of social convention and authority beyond the inner will of any individual” (Seligman et al. 2008: 11). In ­applying Rappaport’s definition, Seligman et al. (2008: 11) argue that ritual mediates “fundamentally fractured and discontinuous worlds” and permits “us to live in it by creating temporary order through the construction of a performative, subjunctive world” (see also Kapferer 2004). The privileging of “order” and “authority” strongly connotes the political, and the invocation of subjunctive possibilities further emphasizes issues of control, (in)security, and the imagination of alternative social worlds (Malinowski 1974). If politics is fundamentally understood as strategies to change or maintain the world in the face of alternate strategies and conflicting values (and the decisive role of things and places in promoting stasis or transformation), then ritual’s function in navigating change and reworking relational fields places it squarely in the crosshair of power relations. In this vein, I tentatively identify six points of intersection of religion/ritual and politics, summarized in Table 3.1 and explored in detail below. I intend this fluid typology to aid interpretations of how ritual differently structures (or assembles) the political. It also can serve to assist archaeologists in making inferences on power relations legible in the material residues of ritual practice. In truth, the six overlapping points are most often mutually reinforcing (and in many instances, they are difficult to conceptualize apart). Therefore, a point considered alone might carry little interpretative power, for as an abstraction, it is often TABLE 3.1  The Six Intersections of Religion and Power

1 The sacred: ultimate source of power, metaphor of difference. 2 Ritual as knowledge, efficacious act, crucible of transformation, and site of experimentation. 3 Ritual as social identification and medium of identity politics. 4 Ritual as ideology. 5 The emotional nexus of ritual dramaturgy: ritual as structure, hegemony, and the materialization of aesthetics. 6 Ritual as heightened consciousness and political resistance.

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dependent upon one or more of the other six categories for it to hold analytical value. In other words, one should approach this framework as a heuristic device and not as a universal explanation of why ritual so often constructs power relations and attachments to place. 3.3.1 The Sacred: Ultimate Source of Power, Metaphor of Difference

Beginning with the first convergence, the fact that ritual is most often invested in soliciting or manipulating other powers, ontological otherness, however conceived culturally, largely explains its singular and intimate connection to authority (see Chapter 4). Such sacra can inhere in “nature,” as something immanent to reality, or transcend it—hence, the popularity of the term “supernatural.” For instance, shamanic transformation necessitates an altered transcendent state (above the ordinary) in order to tap a greater and differentiated force or being (Godelier 1978; Viveiros de Castro 1998, 2004). Put more plainly, ritual acts as an essential conduit to ultimate sources of power and consequently to empowerment (Sahlins 2008, 2022; Viveiros de Castro 1992: 190–191). As explored in Chapter 6, sacrificial violence often provides the means to open portals to ontological others (Swenson in press).5 In placing emphasis on ritual as a specialized technology to bridge ontological domains, we must keep in mind the serious work performed by the built environment and material culture in making this possible, a central focus of the ­following chapter. Indeed, ritual practice commonly entails the employment of semiotic mediators to negotiate with the powers of alterity and transgress ontological barriers, thus facilitating communion with awesome beings. In light of ritual’s fundamental role in engaging alterity, it becomes immediately apparent why it so often becomes entangled with the political (Sahlins 2008, 2022). In a comprehensive ethnographic and historical survey, Sahlins reveals that in egalitarian society characterized by ontologies of immanence (animist understanding of the world, in which things are perceived as enlivened, sensible, distributed persons) relations between cosmological actors, what he calls metapersons, and subservient mortals were based on profoundly unequal relations. The survival and well-being of the latter depended on the machinations and cosmological interventions of all-powerful metapersons who play an immanent role in human affairs. The dense hierarchies (“cosmic polity”) underwriting the rich mythologies and ritual practices of diverse non-hierarchical cultures have led Sahlins to conclude that “the state is prefigured in cosmology before it is known in society” (2022: 127). Indeed, as many anthropologists have noted, the symbolic construction of sacred power (often the ultimate measure of asymmetrical difference) and its expression through ritual performance are potentially transposable to the structuring of hierarchical social relations (Renfrew 1994: 50; Swenson 2003; Tambiah 1990; Valeri 1985). Thus, Durkheim and his apologists err in their contention that religion is always modelled on and thus a reflection of a priori social values and institutions (and Sahlins shows the reverse is often in play; 2022: 171–173). As Lincoln (1994:

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112) notes, religion is not simply wielded to naturalize authority but ultimately to “supernaturalize” it. The fact that ritual engages other-than-human powers (whether transcendent, immanent, ancestral, etc.) can account for its intimate connection to authority and the legitimization of political hierarchy. Ritual commonly opens an essential conduit to sources of creation, transformation, vitality, or philosophical truth, and it thus represents a central medium by which power has been discursively expounded and represented (Sahlins 2022; Valeri 1985). As mentioned above, the efficacy of ritual (to initiate, propitiate, fertilize, hex, bless, empower, etc.) often brings animating forces directly into material being. The famous Maya sculptures of lintels 24 and 25 from Temple 23 at the site of Yaxchilan in Chiapas, carved in 726 CE, exemplify the efficacious and conjuring power of certain rites (and even possibly their representational media). Lintel 24 depicts the ruler Itzamnaaj Balam II (Shield Jaguar) and his wife, Lady K’an’al Xook, conducting a bloodletting ritual, a complex rite commemorating the coronation of the king. The queen threads a rope studded with thorns through her tongue to release blood and collect it into sacred bowl containing bark paper and a stingray spine. In Lintel 25, the paper and blood offering of the Queen conjures a “doubleheaded vision serpent,” most likely the founding ancestor of the dynasty in combination with the god Tlaloc, a deity of war, sacrifice, and rain (Sharer and Traxler 2006: 435–439; Schele and Miller 1986: 186–188). The great, mysterious authority of Maya royalty rested in large part on their ability to encounter the other (thus becoming other, even if not fully “divine”), as artfully represented in the extraordinary sculptures from Yaxchilan. This proximity of elites to the sacred was certainly not unique to Maya royalty; and cross-culturally historians have documented the theocratic basis of rule, in which paramount leaders incarnate supreme deities or are invested with the mantle of supernatural legitimacy. I could sound off many examples: the god-pharaohs of Egypt, the Chinese mandate of heaven, the cult of Augustus in ancient Rome, and the divine right of kings in medieval Europe. In none-state societies a comparable proximity is also apparent; for instance, the most powerful chiefs of Polynesia concentrated and disseminated the greatest mana. This transposition of relationships from the divine to the political realm also characterized Imperial Rome. In Roman art, especially coinage and sculptural reliefs, the emperor is most commonly shown engaged in animal sacrifice—providing an interesting parallel with the depiction of the Queen of Yaxchilan (Gordon 1990; Heyman 2007; Swenson 2014). This parallel is far from surprising since sacrifice constituted a major mode of communication and exchange with ontological others (Swenson in press). In fact, “as chief officiant, the emperor is depicted both as a negotiator with the gods, and implicitly as the benefactor who distributes the largess of sacrificial rituals” (Heyman 2007: 90). The princeps as sacrificer of animals and thus benefactor of his subjects provided a model for elite authority in both Rome and the provinces (Gordon 1990: 202; Price 1984). Therefore, sacrificing to the princeps symbolized a community’s obedience to the apotheosized ruler, and at least from the perspective of the Roman

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elite, an acknowledgement of the emperor’s piety and benevolence in provisioning for his subjects and maintaining peace. As Gordon notes (1990: 229): … the fusion of the moral system with the sacrificial system in [the imperial] civic priesthood evokes both the divine necessity and the social responsibility of the existing social order. The relationships proposed by the sacrificial system between god and man (inferiority; reciprocity between unequals; providential beneficence; changelessness) is implicitly offered as a model of the relationship between the elite and the rest of the community. We should approach the sacrificial rituals depicted in Roman and Maya art as more than symbols legitimizing elite authority but as testaments of the power of rite to invest leaders with the knowledge to order society and remake the world. This realization provides a convenient segue to discuss the second intersection of ritual and power. 3.3.2 Ritual as Knowledge, Efficacious Act, Crucible of Transformation, and Site of Experimentation

Indeed, the second point of convergence closely aligns with the first. Although we must exercise caution in ascribing intentionality to past behaviour, ritual commonly acts to achieve a more enlightened or empowered state of existence. Healing itself constitutes an exercise in power—in line with Giddens’s “power to,” a transformative capability to intervene in a situation so as to effectively change it (Giddens 1984). Illness constitutes a disequilibrium in the body, a painful malfunction caused by the violation of corporeal boundaries by invading microbes or malevolent beings, whether demons or disrespected prey (Kapferer 1983; Kohn 2013). This deterritorialization of the body renders it “unholy” and necessitates the assembling and reterritorializing intervention of the healer and associated material corpora (figurines, miniatures, dances, injections, bandages, etc.).6 Of course, the etymology of the word “heal” (old English hālig; German: heilig) derives from “whole,” or to “make whole,” which is also the root meaning of our word “holy” (Spitzbardt 1959). In many shamanic societies, such curative intervention requires contact with greater powers. Whether concerned with healing or other rites kinds of rites, the monopolization of such ritual technologies could prove instrumental in negotiating authority that differentially empowered agents in varied historical contexts. The power of shamans in Tupi-Guarani societies of the Amazon varied from those who commanded high prestige through their intimate interventions with cosmic forces but little else, to those who exploited their prestige to exercise considerable economic and political influence (Viveiros de Castro 1992: 262–263, 267). Among certain Tupi-Guanari groups, shamans can adopt the perspective of jaguars (the power to shift between perspectives), a skill that enables them to perceive the world through

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the eyes of jaguars as human-like persons, in which blood becomes beer, fangs knives, humans prey, and so forth (Viveiros de Castro 2004). As the saying goes, knowledge is power (especially when deemed efficacious), and mastery of complex rituals could often be parlayed into temporary or more permanent positions of authority. In fact, throughout the Americas, the jaguar, among the most powerful predators of the Americas, was closely associated with both shamans and ancient royalty (Saunders 1998). To emphasize the importance of the first two points of intersection, the restricted access to cosmological knowledge has provided an important basis of authority in both non-stratified and hierarchical societies (Barth 1975; Godelier 1986; Graeber and Wengrow 2021: 419, 475; Whitehouse 1992: 147). Secretive initiation cults are predicted on the possession of religious wisdom that is conceived as both dangerous and powerful. The more restricted and concealed this knowledge, the more potent and hazardous it often tends to be. In turn, the fewer individuals who possess such knowledge, the greater influence they likely wield—tendencies that ethnographers have documented, including Frederik Barth among the Baktaman of Papua New Guinea (Barth 1975: Whitehouse 1992: 150; for an archaeological example, see Wright et al. 2021).7 Intercession with the sacred and performance of complex rites are considered both empowering and perilous, requiring long years of apprenticeship and the adept experience of esteemed specialists. In further examining the second point of convergence—ritual as efficacious knowledge in the specific context of secret societies—ethnographies from Melanesia and Amazonia widely corroborate that possessors of ritual technologies secure the most elevated status. In fact, ideologies of gender inequality in many regions of Amazonia and Melanesia provide the classic example of power asymmetries founded explicitly on restricted access to modes of ritual enlightenment (Allen 1967; Gregor and Tuzin 2001; Herdt 1998). Among various cultures within these far-flung geographic areas, mythological traditions claim that women were once the dominant members of society for they possessed the secretive ritual regalia (bull roarers, flutes, drums, etc.) enabling cosmological intercession. Later men usurped power by tricking women to surrender the ceremonial implements and attendant knowledge.8 In many such societies, the secretive men’s houses and clandestine initiation rites are strictly off-limits to women, and transgression of the taboos of genderritual separation is considered cosmically destabilizing and is fiercely punished as a consequence. Women are forbidden to learn the secrets of male initiation, the mysteries of cherished mythologies and cosmogonies, or the meaning of male ritual transformation in general. For instance, women are denied understanding (at least theoretically) that bull roarers, swung in the secluded assembly of men, are activated to simulate the voice of spirits or ancestors. Thus, the privileged control of ritual beliefs and regalia in these societies can justify the social and political ­subordination of women that transcends the religious sphere (Gregor and Tuzin 2001).

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As already mentioned in my discussion of ritual’s capacity to remake and ­realign social relations, ritual’s inextricable relationship to power is also in large part a consequence of its creative function as an efficacious act; it is fundamentally conceived to “empower” participants in transformative rites that provide access to supra-ordinary influences. Ritual often functions to solicit, propitiate, order, control, execute, placate, stabilize, reconstitute, regenerate, expiate, purify, transform, mediate, ennoble, abnegate, and so forth. Interestingly, Eagleton (1991) defines and analyzes “ideology” in the framework of comparable action verbs. As discussed earlier in the chapter, the force of ritual lies in its efficaciousness to recalibrate desired social fields and achieve a new and altered status (or an altered being, to think ontologically; Robb 2010).9 In highlighting the above action verbs, I wish not to imply that ritual is intrinsically functional. As a political force, rituals also serve to foment anxiety, fear, insecurity, repression and could serve as brutal instruments of traumatic socialization (Crapanzano 1981). As such, the meaning, effects, and experience of rite varied significantly according to the differing social roles of participants and spectators. An acknowledgement that ritual’s amplified material-aesthetic frame facilitates social and physical transformations can also explain why it often creates critical sites of experimentation (and thus constitutes a primary medium to alter the status quo). This assertion would no doubt surprise scholars who view ritual as a conservative and timeless practice. Such experimentation, however, can differently promote either oppression (reaction) or liberation and advance difference ideological agendas, as explored below in the discussion of the fourth, fifth, and sixth points of convergence. Ritual is commonly understood as performing and objectifying ideal social norms (even when liminally negated). This process of reification explains its inventive potential to create alternate, highly structured realities that can reshape quotidian routines in turn (Handelman 2004; Kapferer 2004). As many theorists have shown, the heightened performative content distinguishes ritual-acts from other forms of behaviour (Bell 1992; Köpping 1997; Schechner 1985; Tambiah 1979; Turner 1982). Aesthetically charged, theatrical displays executed through the body renders ritual a powerful instrument of communication and efficacious transformation; it is within such an experiential and sensual framework that social orders are particularly amenable to reification, modelling, reassembly, and misrepresentation (Handelman 1990). In this vein, theorists have commonly drawn a link between rite and the highly performative “make-believe” structure of “play” (see Renfrew et al. 2018). Huizinga famously proposed that Homo ludens exemplified the human condition. He states (1955: 5): “Now in myth and ritual the great instinctive forces of civilized life have their origins: law and order, commerce and profit, craft and art, poetry, wisdom and science. All are rooted in the primeval soil of play” (Burghardt 2018: 32). In fact, the innovative power of ritual is affirmed in numerous theories that purport that diverse art forms and institutions, ranging from sport and theatre to cities and monarchy, have their origins in ceremony (Bataille 1990: 20–22; Carter 2003;

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Detienne and Vernant 1989: 2; Freud 1950 [1905]; Girard 1977; Hamerton-Kelly 1987; Nietzsche 1966: 158–159, 270). Even if Huizinga’s position is exaggerated, we can at least appreciate how ritual events stimulate the imagination and create places or thirdspaces for the conscious realignment of relationships, roles, and social responsibilities (see below and Swenson 2012a). Such ritually engineered reconfigurations further attest to the assembling and territorializing power of rite in general. For instance, Graeber and Wengrow argue that administrative technologies, including bookkeeping and more advanced writing systems, originated in the context of temple ritualism.10 They even propose that the early cultivation of staple crops took the form of “ritual play farming” that occurred during seasonal congregations of diverse communities. In these festive gatherings, individuals adopted novel identities and formed more complex associations centred in part on the tending of crops steeped with religious significance. Such ritualized play may also have inspired the manufacture of the first ceramics (such as figurines) and the mining of pigments used in dance ceremonies (see Graeber and Wengrow 2021: 500). Graeber and Wengrow mention in turn how the Greek steam engine devices were employed to ritualistic ends, such as making temple doors appear to miraculously open on their own. Similarly, Chinese gunpowder was first used for fireworks to beckon the gods, bring good fortune, or scare away malevolent spirits. Graeber and Wengrow conclude (2021: 500–501): For most of history, then, the zone of ritual play constituted both a scientific laboratory, and for any given society, a repertory of knowledge and techniques that might or might not be applied to pragmatic problems…. time and time again in human history, that zone of ritual play has also acted as a site of social experimentation—even, in some ways, as an encyclopaedia of social possibilities. Ritual’s capacity to foster social experimentation and create novel social-material collectives brings into high relief issues of identity, which has assumed a central place in anthropological studies of ritual and politics. 3.3.3 Ritual as Social Identification and Medium of Identity Politics

Moving on to the third point of convergence, ritual also plays a fundamental role in the creation of political subjectivity and the articulation of identity and w ­ orldview. By political subjectivity, I mean the attitudes, dispositions, opinions, self-conscious orientations, and values through which a collective defines itself. In a sense, it constitutes the smallest unit of the ideological, a problem discussed in the following section. Although the intimate connection between religion and identity may have intensified both with the spread of absolutist Abrahamic religions and in the wake of Enlightenment thinking that ossified the category, the gods people have worshipped and the attendant rituals that mediated such veneration commonly reified identities of us and them (Fowles 2008). Therefore, is unsurprising that the Aztec

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conquest of rival city-states culminated in the destruction of the temples of the patron deities of the vanquished polities, a practice documented in other traditions, including Mesopotamia and the Andes (Bahrani 2008: 166–167; MacCormack 1991; Townsend 1992: 84). In Durkheim’s influential theories, ritual reifies and sacralizes the collective and legitimizes the social structure itself. Indeed, the assertion that ritual entails a form of strategic practice (Bell 1992, 1997), incorporating symbolic and material processes that act in the ideological negotiation of political subjects (or “imagined communities,” Anderson 1991), shares close affinities with Durkheimian theory. Few would deny that in many instances “common ritual observances defined the boundaries of [people’s] polities” (Kertzer 1988: 19, 38). Weber essentially agreed with Durkheim that religion acts as a cohesive force, unifying members of the household clan and defining the spirit of the tribal confederation (Morris 1987: 70–71). As Durkheim and many of his apologists have long recognized, conducting rituals together promotes a sense of social belonging and makes manifest ideal social norms and aspirations. This reification of the social is not a question simply of inculcating shared belief. As Kertzer notes (1988: 76): the common reading of Durkheim that he identified solidarity with value c­ onsensus in his interpretation of ritual, misses the strength of his argument. His genius lies in having recognized that ritual builds solidarity without requiring the sharing of beliefs. Solidarity is produced by people acting together, not people thinking together. Indeed, Durkheim affirmed that ritual promoted the “unconscious priority of communal identification” (Bell 1997: 25). Certainly, shared ceremonial practices commonly define social and community boundaries, whether the Umma of Islam, the sangha of Buddhism, or the sacraments in Catholicism. Anthropologists have similarly studied how taboos, dietary restrictions, and related ritual prescriptions/ prohibitions have delimited and opposed social groups (Douglas 1973; Fowles 2008). Communities defined by a strict orthopraxic regime of ritualism often recognize such practices as essential to their ethos of self-identification, even in cases when rigidly prescribed sequences of ritual performances are intended primarily to secure the efficacy of a particular rite. Bell’s notion of orthodoxy (narrowly codified but widely propagated beliefs) aligns with Rappaport’s liturgical order; both transcend sociopolitical differences while orthopraxy (rigidly prescribed practices), comparable to Rappaport’s notion of “ritual orders,” celebrates and accentuates social distinctions (Rappaport 1999). In other words, the ritualization of collective action can foster a profound sense of community, separation from others, and thus a self-determined sovereignty that does not necessarily implicate deeply entrenched worldviews (Bell 1997: 201). To provide an example, classical literati held that the obsessive and unique religiosity

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of the Romans, especially in the realm of correct and pious practice, drove their successful conquest of the world. In this respect, the orthopraxic basis of Roman religion differed notably from Christianity which would become the state orthodoxy in the 4th century CE, as the former was largely based on the proper orchestration of prescribed rituals, especially sacrifice and the maintenance of expected relations with the gods (Beard 2015: 101–105). As Beard notes (2015: 102), Roman religion was one of “doing, not believing.” This orthopraxic ideal differed from religions such as Christianity founded on morality, faith, and salvation. Roman adherence to orthopraxy can serve to highlight the power of ritual—especially as a distinct material practice—to effectively territorialize the social as an assemblage coded with purpose, conviction, and directed action, even in the absence of a belief-based dogma. Indeed, it is no surprise that highly symbolic acts that make or break ­identities—alliances, oaths, reciprocal pacts, contracts, judicial proceedings, and covenants—are sealed through the technologies of the ritual process. However, such processes also awaken consciousness, reflection, and scrutiny—and the orthopraxic provides a premier context for the generation and contestation of orthodoxic or heterodoxic perspectives. In the Roman context, Lucretius’s scathing rejection of religion provides an obvious example and reveals that the nexus of ritual and identity is often inherently ideological. 3.3.4

Ritual as Ideology

The above discussion leads us to the closely related fourth convergence of ritual and power—the fundamental importance of ideology in deciphering past religious landscapes. Aligned closely with the third point of intersection, material and semiotic practices of a ritual nature are commonly implicated in the negotiation of selfconscious political stances and affiliations. Building on the defence of ideology presented in Chapter 2 (explored briefly in relationship to ontology), an expanded discussion of this concept as relates to ritual is warranted, given its centrality to my study. Ideology is often defined as the interpenetration of meaning and power, or the ability to exercise authority through the privileged production and monopolization of meaning itself (Eagleton 1991; Mann 1986: Thompson 1990). This is not to suggest that ideology denotes an exclusively symbolic force or the conscious political magnification of cultural norms and values (despite its literal meaning as “the study of ideas”). Such perspectives stem from the first systematic formulation of the concept by Marx and Engels in seminal works, including German Ideology (Marx and Engels 1965) and A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1968). In his polemical critique of the Young Hegelians, Marx asserts that ideas/ ideology are not causes but effects of material forces (Thompson 1990). In Marx’s negative formulation, ideology, as a derivative of economic conditions and relations of production, expresses the interests of the dominant class and dissimulates the realities of class divisions more generally. Therefore, its effect lies in “false

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consciousness,” or the accession of the exploited to the contradictory worldviews of the dominant, a worldview which works ultimately to misrepresent and conceal socioeconomic conditions. As Thompson (1990) notes, Marx’s “latent conception” of ideology still implies an efficaciousness that transcends mere epiphenomenon. In other words, the capacity of ideological systems to perpetuate existing relations of class domination by persuading individuals to embrace ideals that mask exploitative relations and deter the pursuit of social justice imparts a significant power to ideological institutions (Althusser 1971; Leone 1982: 748). This general understanding of ideology to “legitimize” and in essence forge power through an accepted “authority” or consensus has long dominated archaeological analyses of religion (Bard 1992; Conrad and Demarest 1984; DeMarrais et al. 1996; Godelier 1978; Kolata 1992; Miller and Tilley 1984; Moore 1996). Such notions relate not only to Marx’s false consciousness thesis but also to Weber’s (1965) formulation of the three sources of legitimization: the rational (legal apparatus, bureaucracy, courts, etc.), traditional (sanctity of immemorial institutions), and charismatic (the exceptional character of individuals who exercise authority). In the analysis of pre-modern political systems, the latter two have most often taken precedence and religious ideology has thus secured centre stage. Certainly, this is reasonable, given that the political and religious were inextricably intertwined in the past. The power of ideology “to supplant coercive means of maintaining social control” (Miller and Tilley 1984: 14, see also Godelier 1978) is thus a common interpretation of the significance of institutional religion in prehistoric societies. Moreover, archaeologists have ascribed a more active and causal role to religious ideology in instigating political developments including imperial conquest (Claessen 1984). For instance, in a classic study, Conrad and Demarest (1984) propose that Aztec and Inca expansion were driven not by economic or ecological factors but by religious motivations based on the cult of human sacrifice and the sacred property rights of dead Inca kings respectively. Although an important contribution, ideology is given too much autonomy and uniformity in their work (it is essentially considered dominant) , a move that ignores its differential reception by diverse communities within society. Instead, analyses of ideology must also take into account not simply its creation and dissemination by authoritative institutions, but its acceptance, reformulation, alternate materializations, varied ontological foundations, and rejection by different groups within a given historical context. Certainly, most archaeologists now reject the relegation of ideology to the epiphenomenal as an inherently negative “smoke and mirrors” that simply sustains, legitimizes, or mystifies inequitable material realities (Reinhard and McGuire 2011). Indeed, ideologies are no longer viewed as exclusively monolithic (or hegemonic), the prerogative of the dominant, but are increasingly construed as multiple and conflicting, a perspective formulated in the earlier works of Marxist theorists including Lukács and Karl Mannheim (Abercrombie et al.1980; Asad 1979: 620–621; Comaroff and Comaroff 1991; Miller and Tilley 1984: 8–9; Moore

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1996: 170). Lenin’s call for a socialist ideology of the proletariat discloses the long-standing acceptance of such perceptions.11 Moving beyond problems of legitimation and the dominant ideology thesis, social scientists now commonly approach ideology as a fundamentally material process. As early as the 1970s and 1980s, Structural Marxists argued that ideology formed part of the “internal armature of the relations of production” (Godelier 1977, 1978) and a critical “technology of production” in and of itself (Kolata 2003: 201). As intimated in Chapter 2, more recent approaches have further collapsed the distinction between the material and ideological, or superstructure and infrastructure, a move presaged in Marx’s notion of commodity fetishism and later in Althusser’s writings on the ideological state apparatus. However, in a manner strikingly similar to the fate of ritual, ideology has suffered near banishment in the investigations of a number of archaeologists adopting post-humanist and new materialist approaches, a move I criticized in Chapter 2. This rejection stems from ideology’s early associations with, belief, symbolism, disembodied worldview, and, of course, “representation,” the subject of withering attacks in recent archaeology (see Baron 2021: 195). I argue instead that ideology should retain a place in archaeological studies as it provides an effective framework to investigate self-conscious and explicitly politicized assembling strategies, including especially ritual practices. In many instances, ideology binds together the material (machinic) and enunciative (expressive) processes underwriting the axes of territorialization/deterritorialization so central to Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of assemblage (Crellin 2020: 165–167; Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 556; see Chapter 2). In this vein, Eagleton (1991: 29–31) explicitly defines the term as “material process of the production of ideas, beliefs, and values of social life” or as the materially mediated “ideas and beliefs (whether true or false) which symbolize the conditions and lifeexperiences of a specific, socially significant groups or class” (emphasis added) (see also DeMarrais et al. 1996; Miller and Tilley 1984). In a similar manner, the Comaroffs (1991: 21) argue that ideology represents a materially “articulated system of meanings, values, and beliefs that can be abstracted as ‘worldview’ of any social grouping.” Moreover, they stress that ideological discourse structures the field of political negotiation and contestation. Accordingly, ideology is equated with Bourdieu’s constructs of “orthodoxy and heterodoxy” (ideology and counterideology) that ultimately emerge through the conscious revelation of the “inertial,” taken-for-granted forces of hegemony. Consequently, there is general agreement that ideology self-consciously proclaims, constructs, assembles and powerfully represents (and is thus intensely semiotic). Therefore, ideology is best construed as a material practice that at once acknowledges specific social situations (whether positively, negatively, or selectively) and attempts to safeguard, reassemble, or overturn the conventional and normative (DeMarrais et al. 1996). Returning to ritual, its heightened ideological potential is evident for it creates an explicit arena for the “struggle for the possession of the sign” and formally

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materializes the signification process (Comaroff 1985: 196). In other words, ritual has the potential to foster critical thinking and a heightened apprehension of one’s place in or alienation from a particular social field (Turner 1982). For instance, in his fascinating study, Kapferer demonstrates that in demon exorcism rituals in Sri Lanka, “many of the ordinary and routine practices of and characterizations of everyday life are created as problematic, and where many dimensions of a ‘­prereflective,’ taken-for-granted world, are thrown open to examination” (Kapferer 1983: 2). In a similar manner, Smith (1987) argues that ritual serves as a “focusing lens” by which people scrutinize the real, determine what is significant, and make sense of immediate problems. Indeed, theorists as different as Turner, Geertz, and Sahlins argue that ritual action stimulates a reflective awareness of normative cultural processes (Bell 1997: 76). Thus, the structure-anti-structure dialectic of ritual experience and the heightened fraternity and critical cognizance of cultural mores forged within the realm of Turner’s liminal communitas enable initiates to contemplate “social dramas” (Turner 1967). Such social dramas are related to Gluckman’s (1963) classic study of “rituals of rebellion,” orchestrated rites of reversal that showcase social contradictions in order to remedy them.12 Similarly, Geertz’s (1973) famously interpreted the Balinese cock-fight as spinning a web of significance by which the Balinese themselves interpret and valorize social life and culturally construct what it means to be Balinese (making ritual behaviour an important determinant in social identity and change—Bell 1997: 67). Likewise, Sahlins’ (1985) “structure of the conjuncture,” which explains historical process as the mobilization of cultural schemas to apprehend new and changing situations (leading to the recursive readjustment of cultural orders), privileges religious “mythopoetics” in such historical conjunctures. Thus, ritual often navigates the interplay of structure and event that can lead to new understandings and experiences (such as the ritualized response of native Hawaiians to the ill-fated return of Captain Cook as the god Lono). Bell’s interpretation of ritual as a strategic form of “redemptive hegemony,” a construal of reality and situatedness that “enables actors some advantageous way of acting,” further emphasizes its fundamental role in articulating political subjectivities (Bell 1992, 1997: 81). Unsurprisingly, scholars have analyzed ritual’s ideological effects in terms of both domination and resistance. For a number of anthropologists, religion represents the ultimate hegemonic structure naturalizing and mystifying inequalities, the classic formulation of religion as an opiate. In contrast, others have shown how ritual performance can create a platform to give voice to the oppressed—a medium in which subjectivity is consciously defined and defended. In the latter perspective, meaning is not simply deemed a priori, and most theorists agree that the structure of rite often generates novel significations (Højbjerg 2007: 212). The choreography of rite thus defies comparison to the taking of dictation or rigidly adhering to the proscriptions and prescriptions of a “mythic charter.” Although a problematic dichotomy, both perspectives offer insights and warrant discussion, as explored in the fifth and sixth convergences discussed below.

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3.3.5 The Emotional Nexus of Ritual Dramaturgy: Ritual as Structure, Hegemony, and the Materialization of Aesthetics

Convergence five touch on theories that reduce religion to the ideological armature of false consciousness, promoting the status quo and the sanctity of tradition (and thus reaction). Certainly, the assemblages of artefacts and built environments can delineate ritual frames that aesthetically manufacture the desires and expectations of subjects in conformance with prevailing ideologies of power (Leone 2005: 184; Miller 1984: 39–40; Smith 2015: 156–157). In fact, one could argue that the success of these endeavours rested in large part on the merger of aesthetically enticing things and places with moral expectations and anticipated or imagined encounters with cosmic powers. The Great Inca feasts that underwrote their m ­ assive building and agricultural campaigns provide an example of the serious ideological work accomplished by material culture in advancing state initiatives. The distribution of desired corn beer, brewed by chosen, sacred women (the aclla), blessed by the sun, and served in fine decanters expressing the state aesthetic, must have enticed a good number of conscripted workers to contribute their labour to Inca reclamation projects (Morris 1998; Gose 2000). The feasts were also commonly staged in awesome built environments that replicated the sacred space of Cuzco (Swenson 2013). Thus, the spectacular framing of ritual can often explain its capacity to politically shape bodies as well as persuade minds. As intimated above, ritual dramaturgy entails intense multi-sensory experience that promotes revelatory states and induces fervent emotional reactions, and the staged performance and formal syntax of ceremony can serve as potent authorizing tools. In this vein, political behaviour is highly ritualized, and politicians have been described as the “ultimate ritualists” (Kertzer 1988: 90). Spectacles of power, whether a debate in parliament, the enthronement of a monarch, or criminal court proceedings, are symbolically charged and formally orchestrated in a manner highly reminiscent of religious ceremony. Moreover, rites of authority are suffused with traditionalism, allusions to divine legitimacy, and heightened aesthetics that secure and substantiate the force of authority itself (Kertzer 1988; Lincoln 1994). In this light, Jacque Rancière’s theories on the politics of aesthetics prove especially useful in understanding the role of ritual’s amplified material frame in the shaping of bodies and the creation of subjectivities. Rancière (2009, 2013) expands aesthetics beyond the study of art and its appreciation to include the “totality of sensible experience” (Weaver 2021: 112; see also González-Ruibal 2019; Smith 2015). More specifically, his notion of the “distribution of the sensible” (le partage du sensible) explores how authorities regulate what can be seen, heard, felt, and experienced. As an inherently political process, the “aesthetic experience” thus powerfully prescribes the ways in which communities physically engage and perceive the world. As Weaver notes (2021: 113): Rancière’s use of the concept is helpful as it provides language for navigating how power becomes concentrated, expressed, and distributed in the

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material—not simply through habit, but through active policing of subjectivities experienced aesthetically through the encounter of the body with the material world. As made clear in the above discussion, ritual powerfully distributes and concentrates the sensible and inculcates an intensely material apprehension of the sublime, beautiful, and transcendent—terms that align with more traditional understandings of aesthetics. The example of Inca feasting discussed above—in which labourers were immersed in a sensually enhanced, awesome, and alternate world of order and beauty—provides one obvious example, but I could mobilize many others (Kolata 2013; Morris 1998). For instance, the cross-cultural occurrence of burning incense in temples (Christian, Daoist, Maya, etc.) created an olfactory force field that not only presenced the sacred but aesthetically separated or alternately unified ontological and social others. Scholars have long stressed that the aesthetic tsunami unleased by intensely religious places can serve as a powerful instrument of indoctrination and embodied captivation. For instance, Maurice Bloch (1989) famously argued that ritual entraps participants into a hegemonic miasma. Resonating with Rancière’s take on aesthetics, he contends that the formality, repetition, and conservative framework of ceremony (expressed in time-honoured theatrics and music, as well as in stereotyped sensory stimulations) numb critical thought and insulate the status quo from challenge. Thus, for Bloch, the force of rite lies more in its communication than in its message (which is most usually ambiguous and irrefutable), and he privileges the syntactical structure of ceremony over its semantic dimensions. Similarly, other scholars hold that religious performance converts the arbitrary and conventional into what appears to be universal and natural. The conservative, seemingly timeless rules of ritual performance protect the content of rite from evaluation and merge the past and present by casting social divisions as part of the never-changing n­ atural order. In Bloch’s view, ritual in effect indoctrinates and ultimately acts to naturalize dominant ideologies and political inequalities (Bloch 1989; and see Bradley 1991). In other words, the potential of ritual to assemble a hegemonic apparatus derives from fusing personal emotional experiences “with conceptions of order and authority thereby internalizing and naturalizing structures of domination” (Dietler 1999: 137, see also Kertzer 1988: 40). Bloch (1989) even argues that the more hierarchical a given society, the more ritualized it will be, and he claims that religion ­originated in leadership strategies—a thought-provoking if problematic theory. Beyond questions of affect, ritual technologies can undoubtedly set limits on choice (agency) and behaviour, thus shedding light on their possible hegemonic effects. If the power of witches goes unquestioned and is taken for granted in a particular society, one would likely think twice about challenging an offending neighbour if the community feared her exceptionally powerful witchcraft. This admittedly simplistic example intends to demonstrate that Gramscian notions of hegemony—as repurposed specifically by anthropologists (see Kurtz 1996)—merit

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our attention in making sense of the political context of certain ritual traditions. Nevertheless, the latter defies reduction to a constraining structure, for one can counter magic with more magic or question altogether the efficacy, aesthetics, and attendant semiotic ideologies of such ritual procedures. At the same time, and as discussed in the final convergence, ritual is commonly mobilized to challenge oppressive power structures (Leone 2005; Preucel 2006). 3.3.6

Ritual as Heightened Consciousness and Political Resistance

Bloch’s perspective highlights the sensory power of ceremony (as an intoxicant of sorts) but departs from the sixth and final convergence—ritual as medium of heightened awareness, counter-aesthetics, social reversal, and political resistance. Indeed, the formalism and heightened symbolic content of ritual action can foster a heightened consciousness in which normative cultural processes become amenable to observation and scrutiny, and consequently “change,” as exemplified by Kapferer’s study of Sri Lankan exorcism discussed briefly above. This perspective differs markedly from Bloch’s understanding of ritual as complicit in the obliteration of consciousness and logical thought. Although accurate perhaps in certain situations, Bloch fails to recognize that ritual can also heighten political awareness, as already explored in the discussion of the third and fourth convergences. Turner (1974) contends that ritual is fluid, creative, and even liberating, while Bourdieu (1990) envisions religious ceremony as a tool for cultural innovation and social transgression. The Comaroffs (1993) mobilize ethnographic examples of how ritual praxis can create sites of experimentation, transformative action, and “subversive poetics.” Ritual performances, then, do not simply indoctrinate but can effectively criticize and contest—and thus “redistribute the sensible” (Taussig 1980). In fact, social scientists have long recognized the counter-hegemonic politics of religious movements. For instance, Weber (1965: 59) contrasted the political motivations of state-instituted priests with anti-establishment prophets, arguing that prophetic movements were “determined decisively” by the pressures of imperial systems on smaller, indigenous polities (Morris 1987: 73). In this instance, Weber was referring to Hebrew prophecy spurred by the plight of Palestine squeezed between the Roman and Parthian Empires. Like Kautsky, he argued that religious beliefs differed between classes and that Christianity gained popularity among non-elite urban artisans in the Roman Empire. Morris comments (1987: 88, 79) that Weber explored the theodicy of the oppressed and that “Unlike Durkheim… Weber conceived of society not as an organic totality but as an area of conflicting interest groups or strata.” Weber (1965: 107) further contended that the idea of salvation appeals to lower class groups (and women in particular) but is little embraced by the privileged and often arises to soften the impact of social and economic exploitation. Likewise, Lewis (1971) argued that ecstatic religions are not emblematic of unstructured society (contra Douglas) but are promoted in response to the oppressive demands of “excess” structure. Indeed, many anthropologists

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have analyzed possession and shamanistic trance among disenfranchised groups as a form of ­subaltern resistance against presiding social constraints (Bell 1997: 117–118; Kendall 1985; Taussig 1987). In a similar manner, the parodic license of carnival celebrations does more than insulate the hegemony of oppressive state institutions by ritually venting the dissent and social grievances of the downtrodden (Eco 1984). Instead, in some recorded instances, they fulminated open political revolt and coalesced real subversive force (Bakhtin 1984; Dirks 1994; Kertzer 1988: 145). Kelly and Kaplan provide one solution to the seeming paradox that ritual often plays a central role in both hegemonic and subversive politics. They argue (1990: 140) that “the special power in ritual acts, including their unique ability to encompass contestation, lies in the lack of independence asserted by a ritual participant, even while making assertions about authority…. The limits on agency in ritual presentation make the larger claim possible.” If a politically motivated act is ­compelled by god or induced in a state of possession, agencies become at once confounded and potentially amplified and thus more consequential. For instance, Serge Gruzinski (1989) examines the phenomenon of the Mexican “Man-God” as a reaction to Spanish colonial exploitation in New Spain. This rare figure, who professed great powers by incarnating a deity (indigenous, Christian, or a combination of divine personae), reveals how religious innovations countered the specific psychological and sociological traumas of violent deculturation and colonial domination. In colonial Peru, the Taki Onqoy rebellion (meaning shaking sickness), a millenarian cult explicitly religious in nature, represented one of the best ­coordinated ­indigenous revolts against Spanish colonialism during the 16th century (Stern 1982). The wak’as, sacred progenitors of Indigenous communities, led the charge against the Spanish god and demanded the revitalization of Andean ­religion as well as the destruction of Europeans and their distinctive material world. Kertzer (1988: 42) draws a similar conclusion to Kelly and Kaplan. He remarks: “ritual can be important to the forces of political change just because of its ­conservative properties. New political systems borrow legitimacy from the old by nurturing the old ritual forms, redirected to new purposes” (original emphasis). Indeed, Hobsbawn and Ranger (1983) claim that ritual is actively complicit in the “invention of tradition” (or at least its reconstitution—Liebmann 2008) by which novel and subversive social practices are invested with legitimacy through their effective ritualization and hence traditionalization. Comparable to the Inca example mentioned in the preceding convergence, history and ethnography confirm the serious work performed by material and aesthetic media in ritually challenging, remaking, and sustaining new social configurations. Examples would include shifts in space, architecture, clothing, crafts, and diet accompanying the revolutionary spread of Islam in the 7th century, the Pueblo revolt of 1680, or the religiously driven rebellion of the Taiping state in 19th-century China (Harkin 2004; Lanternari 1963; Liebmann 2008; Spence

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1996).13 In the Americas, messianic revitalization movements (Wallace 1956) and related ­religious campaigns overthrew regimes and institutionalized new political ­structures and material realities (Coe 1981; Liebmann 2008). An example of a revitalization movement would include the traditionally rooted but innovative religion or “purification movement” instituted by Tenskwatawa (the prophet), the spiritual leader of the Shawnee and younger brother of the famed Tecumseh in the early 19th century American Northeast and Midwest (Pauketat 2013). This revitalization movement prescribed the destruction of European material culture, technology, food and dress and the revitalization of traditional Amerindian practices. However, a great deal of innovation also characterized Tenskwatawa’s religious reforms; for instance, old medicine bundles were destroyed along with European clothing, alcohol, and weaponry, and he ordered the killing of all dogs as they were perceived as evil beings. At the same time, Tenskwatawa invented new dances, songs, and medicines, and he wished to purify his people by executing witches and traitors (a possible Christian influence). Similar shifts in material practices underwrote the nativistic Pueblo revival led by Po’Pay at the end of the 17th century, the great prophet and instigator of the Pueblo revolt (Liebmann 2008: 362).14 The destruction of Spanish buildings, artefacts, and Christian sacra accompanied widespread if variably adopted innovations in the material corpora of Pueblo communities, ranging from dual plaza/kiva settlements to both radically new and archaistic ceramic styles (Liebmann 2008). The cargo cults of Melanesia and African millenarian uprisings against British colonialism provide other well-known examples of religious responses to European colonialism and the spread of capitalism (Lindstrom 1993; Worsley 1968). These movements initiated radical cultural reform in response to widespread social disruption and collective feelings of anxiety and despair wrought by colonialism. The cargo cults highlight in particular the central role of material media in the ritual reconstitution of community structures (Burridge 1954; Lepowsky 2004; Worsley 1968). The movements promised the resurrection of deceased relatives, destruction or enslavement of white foreigners, and the magical arrival of ancestors and utopian riches on majestic steamers (Lepowsky 2004; Worsley 1968: 52). For instance, among the Buka in the Solomon Islands, prophets predicted that a deluge would engulf all whites, and a ship would subsequently arrive filled with Western industrial commodities. Followers of these prophets ceased working in the fields and built storehouses to stockpile the awaited goods. Concurrently, native material culture was summarily destroyed—thus presenting a somewhat reverse situation to Tenskwatawa’s reforms or the Takui Onqoy rebellion.15 Indeed, the desired goods were understood as the creations of ancestors, since only they could have conceivably crafted such wondrous items (Lepowsky 2004: 31–32). Foreign peoples were either viewed as returning, beneficent spirits or usurpers who unfairly gained control of these technologies, and cargo cults intended to restore a lost moral order (Lepowsky 2004: 38).

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Ritually inspired social and material innovations characterized cargo m ­ ovements that variably incorporated practices of mimesis, exclusion/expulsion, revival, and importation. (Lepowsky 2004). For instance, in regions of New Guinea that ­witnessed the “Vailala Madness” (1919–1930), traditional funerary rites and male initiation ceremonies were forbidden, prophets declared the equality of women, and both sexes could eat together for the first time in originally designed cult houses (Lepowsky 2004: 39). In fact, the exposure to western industrial goods, often understood as appropriated indigenous technologies, prompted the development of new rituals and religious observances to procure the desired matériel among a number of different cargo cults (e.g., John Frum, Tom Navy, Prince Philip Movement, etc.) (Lepowsky 2004: 38; Worsley 1968). Participants staged “drills” and “marches” with sticks substituting for rifles, and they painted military and national insignia onto their bodies in order to mimic the appearance of soldiers and appropriate the symbols of foreign armies. Cargo cult proponents performed such mimetic acts for they understood Western military parades and drills as efficacious rituals that worked to attract the cargo. An example of sympathetic magic, cargo cult members also built life-size replicas of airplanes in straw and constructed military-style landing strips as ritual means to lure cargo planes and ensure the delivery of prized commodities produced by powerful ancestors. 3.3.7

The Assembling Power of Ritual

The above survey of the six overlapping “convergences” demonstrates that the formidable assembling capacities of ritual to create (reterritorialize), sustain (territorialize) or transform (deterritorialize) “order” (“cosmos”) can account in large part for the profound political ramifications of the ritual process. This assembling capacity, whether the creation of Inca-imagined communities through feasting or the reaffirmation of the power of the ancestors in Melanesian cargo cults, operates through altered and often enhanced material/semiotic fields. Indeed, what rituals ultimately intend to assemble or (de)territorialize takes on tangible spatial forms amenable to archaeological analysis. DeLanda (2006: 17) reaches a similar conclusion in his discussion of assemblages in general, and he notes that markets, for instance, should be understood primarily as “concrete organizations,” including physical marketplaces or bazaars. He concurs with the economic historian Fernand Braudel that all phenomena “must be located in a concrete physical locale, such as a small town and its surrounding countryside, a locale which should also be considered a component of an assembly.” This spatial specificity holds especially true for ritually manufactured places (Massey 2005: 130). For instance, Smith (1987: 104) recognizes that “sacrality” implies a fundamental “emplacement;” Moser and Feldman (2014: 6) similarly concur that “the iterative action of ritual is precisely the concentration of human praxis that acts to emplace.” Indeed, ritual constitutes one of the most powerful means of place-making, the subject of the following section.

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3.4

Ritual, Place-Making, and Infrastructures

3.4.1

Religious Landscapes as Thirdspaces

As the above discussion makes clear, anthropologists increasingly interpret ­ritual performance not simply as the ideological legitimization of structure but as fundamental to the dynamics of structuration itself, an appropriate metaphor in deciphering the intersection of place-making and ritual performance (Bell 1997; Kapferer 2004: 50; Swenson 2011, 2013; Turner 1967). In other words, ritual does much more than communicate underlying social relations; it is instrumental to their production. Archaeologists, then, must be sensitive to how ritual as a transformative and embodied experience actively shaped dispositions and worldviews, a process actualized most forcefully through the construction and experience of cultural landscapes. Indeed, archaeologists are well positioned to examine past religious complexes in the physical landscapes they inspired. By investigating how ritual actively worked in the political construction of persons, places, infrastructures, and things, a landscape perspective provides a strong empirical basis from which to transcend ahistorical interpretations of religion as having functioned simply to legitimize or mystify institutions–ideology as traditionally understood by orthodox Marxists (see discussion above). As Smith notes (2003: 77): “if space is not prior to political relationships but rather created within them, then not only must we examine spaces as political activities but we must also describe authority in terms of the spaces it assembles.” Landscape refers to the entire constellation of places that mediated the political, economic, and spiritual life of past communities. It thus includes everything from ceremonial architecture and topographic features to canal networks, settlement systems, and urban and rural infrastructures (David and Thomas 2008: 38; Smith 2003). Such places were imbued with cultural meaning, “constructed” in the d­ ouble sense of the word (Pauketat and Alt 2005: 230). “Landscape” also emphasizes the persistence of the material past in the present and the efficacy of the built environment to direct future action (Fogelin 2007: 79). This approach recognizes that experience and signification are not simply dictated by a priori cultural schemes but are in a perpetual process of becoming, as social actors interact with historically constructed material surroundings (Pauketat and Alt 2005, 2020). Attention to how ceremonially charged landscapes prescribed people’s movement through space and time further reveals how identities were forged by the ritual regulation of the temporalities of social practice and the materialization of varied social memories (Swenson 2018a). The focus on landscape, then, can permit archaeologists to move beyond static models of cultural scripts or dominant ideologies to consider how people ritually assembled their environments and were progressively shaped by them in turn. Ultimately, a landscape approach affirms the inextricable co-constitution of the religious with material practices (Houtman and Meyer 2012; Keane 2003) and

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offers a more nuanced means than standard typological models of interpreting the role of religion in the operation of past political organizations. In other words, analyzing ritual performances as variant modes of place-making within specific landscapes intends to historicize political relations and mechanisms of subject formation in a manner that evolutionary generalizations fail to accomplish (Smith 2003). An often profoundly religious undertaking, place-making is implicated in the creation of diverse forms of community, polity, and social order, and the institutionalization of unique religious traditions resulted in the creation of very different political worlds. In particular, ritually constructed places tend to create charged thirdspaces and bring into high relief the utility of Lefebvre’s trilectic approach. As discussed in Chapter 2, thirdspaces are places of becoming and self-awareness, sites where identities are forged and contested. Although most often analyzed as places of resistance in critiques of capitalism and the post-colonial condition (shantytowns, prisons, ruins, public spaces of protest; Dawdy 2010; Shields 1990, 1999; Soja 1996), the thirdspace analytic is of special heuristic value in understanding premodern spatial politics and religiously charged places in particular (Lumsden 2004; Meskell 2003; Robin 2002). In fact, the literature on Lefebvrian thirdspace strikingly parallels studies on the intensely political nature of ritual space (Hetherington 1997; Kapferer 2004; Köpping 1997; Shields 1990; Swenson 2012a). Similar to Soja’s thirdspace, symbolically charged ceremonial loci are commonly interpreted as conflating the imaginative and real, the past and present, the intimately personal and explicitly social, inner-selves and radically other beings. As a potentially liminal nexus of metamorphosis, ambivalence, and heightened consciousness, ritually constructed places constitute the ultimate thirdspaces, where subjects are bodily and mentally reconfigured in ways that potentially alter both everyday perceptions of space and the officially conceived ideological places of the presiding social order (Smith 1987; Turner 1967). As discussed throughout this chapter, the heightened aesthetics and theatrics of ritual performance render it a powerful instrument of communication and efficacious transformation (Zedeño and Bowser 2009: 8). It is within the sensual and inherently spatialized field of ceremonial pageantry that social orders are reified in place, misrepresented, or potentially altered (Bell 1997; Inomata and Coben 2006; Köpping 1997; Swenson 2011). Theorists emphasizing the pre-discursive and performative aspects of ritual experience have demonstrated that the political significance of such acts is often plural and contested. Meaning is not simply a priori and mechanically reproduced in ritual but is variably generated in the flow of rite (Handelman 2004; Humphrey and Laidlaw 1994). Therefore, ritualized acts often suffuse place with thirdspace qualities, for they demarcate performative arenas of intense, alternative experience, the meaning of which is potentially fluid but dramatically moving and transformative. Although scholars commonly interpret ceremonial architecture as representing “controlled environments” in the extreme (Smith 1987), it is in precisely such places where identity, personhood, and one’s place in the world fall under intensified scrutiny. As

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Humphrey and Laidlaw note (1994: 5): “the peculiar fascination of ritual lies in the fact that here, as in few other human activities, the actors both are, and are not, the authors of their acts.” This statement reinforces Rappaport’s definition of ritual and Kelly and Kaplan’s perspective on agency discussed above. The same pertains to ceremonial spaces, which at once tightly prescribe behaviour while immersing celebrants in awesome spectacles that commonly promote reflection on social conventions. Take for instance the immense stone Buddhist temple of Borobudur (8th–10th century) in central Java, a great monument bedecked with narrative reliefs and thousands of tiered Buddhist statues. In terms of Lefebvre’s conceived space, it materialized a multifaceted iconic symbol, including a microcosm of Mount Meru, an open lotus flower symbolizing enlightenment, and a cosmic mandala of ­spiritual awakening (see also Chapter 4). In terms of perceived space, pilgrims slowly ascended the monument’s ten terraces—the number of which symbolized the ten stages of the Boddhisattva path—a literal, physical journey to attain liberation (Miksic 1990). Thus, conceived and perceived places were smelted into a powerful thirdspace (lived space) that allowed some pilgrims to contemplate, feel, embrace, question, or become overwhelmed by the central tenets of Mahayana Buddhism. Indeed, archaeologists have proposed useful terms paralleling the thirdspace analytic, including Smith’s evocative space, Harris and Sørensen’s affective field, Bender’s contested landscapes, and various applications of Benjamin’s dialectical images or Foucault’s notion of heterotopia (see Bender 2001; Dawdy 2010; Harris and Sørensen 2010; Joyce et al. 2009; Samuels 2010; Smith 2003: 73, 165–169; Swenson 2012a). These approaches have attempted to reconcile phenomenological perspectives emphasizing physical experience in space and the politics of placemaking with the agencies of the built environments to shape perceptions, subjectivities, and memory (Samuels 2010: 70). For instance, Dawdy equates ruins with Benjamin’s dialectical images, alienating spaces that conjure unexpected meanings and intense feelings. She notes: “Dialectical seeing” can offer a method that departs “from both hermeneutics (which reads intentionally encoded messages) and phenomenology (which reads only the presentist immediacy of experience). Looking for dialectical images is akin to provoking involuntary memory of the conditions that produced the relations between objects and people” (Dawdy 2010: 768). As discussed in Chapter 2, such experiences trigger “profane illuminations,” sudden revelations of the occluded or multilayered histories of particular places, things, and attendant social conditions. Foucault’s rather hastily sketched but widely applied notion of heterotopia similarly refers to places removed from the normative spatial and temporal rhythms of daily life. Scholars have interpreted heterotopias as condensing, reflecting, or refracting many of the other places constituting a larger community (Foucault 1986). Temples or related ritual structures align with Foucault’s subcategory of a “crisis heterotopia,” a quintessential place of otherness (alterity) associated with

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rites of initiation and religious transformation. Indeed, according to Foucault, the temple represented an exemplar of this type. As Samuels notes: Temples make appealing heterotopia… delineating sacred from profane space to act as foci around which the social and spiritual worlds is ordered, a place in which things were juxtaposed in such a way as to prompt reflection on the nature of other places. (Samuels 2010: 67) Despite a close association with alterity (see Chapter 4), temples differ from the “de-centred anti-sites” of prisons, brothels, or asylums, the other places of marginalization and deviance, which at once reaffirm but inevitably refract the presiding norms of modernist societies. Historical archaeologists have identified heterotopic spaces as just such places of profound alterity (Lippert 2006; Samuels 2010), while others have stressed heterotopias as “a combination of different places as though they were one” (Kahn, 1995: 324), a conflation of often incommensurate and contradictory places/times. As discussed in Chapter 4, this characterization resonates with understandings of ritual as precipitating the condensation, symbolic accumulation, and bundling of diverse, often antithetical signs, things, and places. Infrastructures, such as roads or sewage systems, would seem far removed from heterotopic or dialectically contradictory spaces. However, these categories can also apply in certain instances, and infrastructures were dramatically interwoven with more encompassing religious landscapes in pre-modern societies (Hastorf 2009). Therefore, infrastructures merit our full attention, and their construction and functions were often highly ritualized in past societies. 3.4.2

Archaeologies of Infrastructures

Augé’s concept of “non-place” (non-lieu, 1995) offers a point of comparison with Foucault’s heterotopia. It refers not to other, alternate, or opposing spaces but to asocial and transitive locales lacking a sense of meaningful placedness and enduring social relations. This term is commonly employed to describe infrastructures in the age of hyper-capitalism and supermodernity, places of incessant circulation bereft of fixed identity, such as subways, highways, malls, airports, and bus ­stations (González-Ruibal 2008: 247; Harvey 2012: 82–83).16 In line with Augé’s perspective on the ambiguous presence of places of movement, social scientists have stressed the invisibility of infrastructures in particle, which they have commonly defined as the “architecture of circulation” (Larkin 2013: 328; and see Elyachar 2010, Gandy 2005: 39; Graham 2007; Star 1999). As Monica Smith writes (2016: 165): “infrastructure is highly planned and an intentional focus of investment yet is meant to function as though it were invisible; it is essential and elemental….” In a comparable manner, other scholars have argued that infrastructures recede to the background and become the subject of conscious reckoning primarily when they

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fail or breakdown (Elyachar 2010: 455; Star 1999: 380). Hodder (2012: 11) makes a similar distinction between “front-back aspects of things” in which things often appear neat and distinct when you look at it from the front, but behind the scenes there are pipes, ducts, cables, refuse bins, coal bunkers, oil tanks hidden away at the back, or beneath the ground, or in the roof. Hodder’s observation that “All the connections of things are often hidden away,” is a common refrain applied to infrastructures. In his valuable article on archaeological approaches to infrastructure, Wilkinson (2019a: 1221; 2019b: 31) also argues that to maintain its heuristic utility, infrastructures, as a distributed constellation of interconnected facilities, should remain conceptually distinct from standalone and often more visibly prominent architectural constructions. He (2019a: 1220) endorses Monica Smith’s definition of the term (2016: 165) as consisting of “landscape-scale connectivities” built and maintained by supra-household labour parties often under the direction of a specialized political apparatus. The latter could take on myriad social forms, but states in particular are difficult to imagine without infrastructures. Wilkinson adds that networked infrastructures (different from compound-like arrangements, such as storerooms) are best understood as apparatuses “that exhibit extremely high levels of system-wide integration and interdependency” (2019a: 1228). In the end, he identifies four main types of infrastructures: static (e.g., harbours, terraces), circulatory (e.g., roads, irrigation networks), bounding (e.g., corrals, ramparts, moats), and signalling (e.g., light houses), and the typology proves especially useful in differentiating between facilities that harness, contain, or release peoples, energy, and matter. I recognize the benefits of examining infrastructures typologically and in a ­narrowed analytical register, and such an approach facilitates comparison of the varied political ramifications of the built environment. However, infrastructures often form critical nodes of larger religious landscapes and can become sites of spectacle and heightened aesthetics (Hastorf 2009: 54). To briefly consider one example from the Andes, the great earth shrine of the Akapana of Tiwanaku, Bolivia (6th– 11th century CE) dramatically directed a cascade of coursing water in and out of its ascending terraces through “over-engineered” drainage canals built of sandstone blocks (see Kolata 1993, 2003).17 This extraordinary templefountain not only mimicked the alternating surface and subterranean flow of water characteristic of the Altiplano aquifer as it descended from the mountains (which the pyramid directly indexed), but it was also fully integrated into the hydraulic network of Tiwanaku’s vast raised field system (see also Janusek 2020; Janusek and Bowen 2018). Similar to Angkor discussed in Chapter 7, the water to irrigate the fields and ensure the bounty of crops was literally charged and sacralized within the great city’s stone monuments. Therefore, Tiwanaku provides one example among many of the seamless continuum of the religious and infrastructural

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in past societies. Indeed, the “extremely high levels of system-wide integration and ­interdependency” at Tiwanaku transcended any strict divide between ­invisible, “practical” infrastructure and monumental religious architecture. The remarkable sculpture of 1,000 liṅgas, carved mainly between the 9th and 11th centuries within the riverbed of Kbal Spean of the Siem Reap River in the Kulen region of Cambodia to the northeast of the city of Angkor, provides a striking parallel to the Akapana (Tawa 2001). The hills of Phnom Kulen form a natural catchment of water in the central plains of Cambodia. Water flowing from this region over the grid of stone liṅgas fixed in miniature yonis (symbolic of female fecundity) eventually filled the canals and great reservoirs (barays) that irrigated the extensive rice fields of Angkor. The multiple stone liṅgas fertilized, sacralised, and purified the life-giving water that sustained one of the largest urban populations of antiquity. Therefore, architecture, religious art, and infrastructure are in many instances inextricably intertwined and mutually reinforcing (something Wilkinson acknowledges), and the latter often secures centre-stage in religious imaginaries, political struggles, and state ideological projects. As intimated in the introductory chapter, infrastructures in the past could become as explicitly political (ideological) as those of Capitalist modernity, even if grounded in radically different cosmologies (Morrison 2015). At the same time, modernist public facilities can express a “­cosmopolitical” grandeur comparable to Tiwanaku’s Akapana, a fact that contradicts the thesis that all infrastructures operate primarily on the plain of the invisible and unconscious (Larkin 2013: 335). In truth, archaeologists have much to gain by interpreting the interplay of visible, prominent constructions with the concealed and invisible components of the built environment, a subject discussed at length in the following chapter in the specific context of temple architecture (see in particular the section on “structured depositions”) (see also Larkin 2013: 329; Robbins 2007). In this regard, the ambivalent meanings and situated experiences afforded by infrastructures can account for their heterotopic, thirdspace possibilities. As Mitchell notes (2014: 437): “Infrastructures are both durable yet fragile, hidden but ever present, solidly embedded in the collective world yet open to speculation and uncertainty.” Larkin also highlights this creative ambivalence and argues (2013): “What distinguishes infrastructures from technologies is that they are objects that create the grounds on which other objects operate, and when they do so they operate as systems. They are conceptually unruly given this duality” (emphasis added). Larkin is equally critical of the dominant tendency among scholars to reduce infrastructures to a “‘system of substrates’ (Star 1999: 380) that underlies the built phenomenal world such as pipes, cables, sewers, and wires”, and he stresses not just their technical functions but their aesthetic, semiotic, and poetic properties (2013: 329; see also Harvey and Knox 2012).18 Infrastructures become sources of fantasies and desires “and can take on fetish-like aspects that sometimes can be wholly autonomous from their technical function.”19 Think simply of the delight of one’s first train ride, the wonder of walking across a suspension bridge, or the trepidation

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felt by the appearance of massive cooling towers visible from a car window. The subject not simply of mental contemplation but embodied experience, infrastructures can at once be highly satisfying in an aesthetic sense as well as politically intimidating and oppressive (Mrázek 2002; Rancière 2013). As Larkin notes: “They form us as subjects not just on a technopolitical level but also through this mobilization of affect and the senses of desire, pride, and frustrations which can be deeply political” (Larkin 2013: 333). In his discussion of the material sinews of “political machines,” Smith (2015: 157) describes the infrastructural assembling of places and things as complicit in “reifying sovereignty,” making it into a desirable and even pleasurable “object.” Therefore, infrastructures can play a central role in the constitution of subjects not simply in prescribing movement, dictating the temporal rhythms of daily activities, or controlling access to resources but also by wedding the aesthetics of place with imagination, community self-esteem, and (possibly fictive) feelings of empowerment (Harvey and Knox 2012). Pedersen (2011: 45) similarly stresses the ideological valence of the Russian promotion of infrastruktura: “[I]nvestment in infrastructure was… not rational in any narrow economic sense; instead building ‘miniature metropolises’ was understood as investing in a new being, a new humanity, a new cosmos.” (Humphrey 2005; Larkin 2013: 333). In fact, the foundation of completely new cities (“dis-embedded capitals”) was often religiously motivated to create fundamentally new worlds (or earthly cosmos).20 For instance, Constantine founded Constantinople on the site of the small town of Byzantium not simply to escape entrenched power in Rome but to build a new Christian city free of millennia of Pagan ritualism and built landscapes (Hughes 2011: 155). Akhenaten did the same at Akhetaten/El Amarna (to worship the Aten), and Jayavarman VI constructed his massive city of Angkor Thom to dramatically emplace the new Mahayana state religion (see Chapters 8 and 9). Larkin (2013) mobilizes a number of case studies that demonstrate the “deeply affectual relationships” people forge with infrastructures, often the goal of elites who found new cities. In this vein, Meskell questions the analytical utility of Augé’s non-place. She writes: I have always taken issue with Augé’s assertion that airports, undergrounds, and malls are asocial places. Certainly, an ethnographic approach would challenge such a position and, if we take airports as an example, would easily demonstrate that such places are redolent with memories, emotional outpourings, and deep sociality. (Meskell 2008: 267) Toronto’s streetcar system, the largest in North America, provides an example of the performative aspects of infrastructures that place the network at the heart of the city’s civic identity (Doucet and Doucet 2022). When former Mayor Rob Ford threatened to remove the streetcar grid and replace them with buses in his belief

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that it hindered the free movement of automobiles, his passing proposal was met with an outpouring of protest. Advocates not only defended streetcars for emitting less air pollution but praised their iconic design, their attraction to tourists, and their deep history as integral to the urban fabric of the downtown core.21 Such highly performative or spectacular infrastructures align with Lefebvre’s notion of conceived space, built environments explicitly designed to fulfil a particular public or state need (even if manufactured) while conveying coded ideological messages on place, identity, and the role of specific institutions in society, whether private or corporate. One need only think of Freedom Tower, Grand Central Station, huge spires built to support television antennae (e.g., Toronto’s iconic CN Tower) that dramatically alters skylines, cavernous airports built by “starchitects,” the Three Gorgeous Dam, and the Brooklyn Bridge (Robbins 2007; Schama 1995). These varied examples invite comparison with the Roman aqueduct at Pont de Guard, Bernini’s fountains, and the great bath at Mohenjo Daro (Robbins 2007). Indeed, the deep history of infrastructures as emblems of authority and civic pride often informs building campaigns in the present. In discussing China’s Three Gorges Dam, Schama remarks (1995: 261): The colossal dam and the hydroelectric power station as emblems of omnipotence were for modern despots what the Nile irrigation canals were for the Pharaohs…. And by pressing ahead with the titanic project of the Three Gorges Dam, Deng Xiaoping tried to present himself in succession to the founder of the very first dynasty, around 2200 B.C, emperor Yu (the Chinese Osiris), whose authority was established on his mastery of the flood, and the establishment of intensive irrigated agriculture. Similar to ritual then, infrastructures often play a decisive role in the “distribution of the sensible,” rendering political regimes and their imagined communities, palpable, desirable, and moral. Religious infrastructures in particular inflame the senses while setting limitations on how they are experienced and understood. In addition, archaeologists tend to overlook that the assembling of workers and the organization of labour underwriting construction projects—highly visible and protracted affairs—further enhanced the performativity of infrastructure. Although, a good number of scholars view labour conscription and sizeable corvee mobilization as a dramatic display (“visualization”) of state exploitation (Scott 2017), growing data indicate that the oppression of the worker often assumed much more subtle forms based on the manipulation of aesthetics, desirable comestibles (the spectacle of the feast), and the pride of contributing to something great. Indeed, building was often highly ritualized in pre-modern societies or constituted an important ceremony in and of itself. In Mesopotamia, the high regard placed on the design and building process is revealed in the depiction of kings holding aloft baskets containing building fill (Steinkeller 2015: 139). The measuring rod and surveying line also constituted emblems of royal authority in the ancient Near East.

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Recent excavations in the workers’ villages of Egypt also reveal that labourers ate well and lived in comfortable barracks. The excavations at the “Workers Town” at the Heit el-Ghurab, for instance support a positive view of pyramid projects: workers who came in homebased fellowships were well treated, well-fed, perhaps in the contexts of feasts. The pyramid projects provided, intentionally or not, an integrating force for the greater nation, creating a sense of unity and national identity. All worked with an enthusiasm and esprit de corps during a ritual suspension of taxes and a leveling of social status, not unlike Victor Turner’s concept of communitas in his classic study, The Ritual Process, Structure and Anti-Structure. This vision stands in contrast to a traditional, ‘negative view of the pyramid projects’. (Lehner 2015: 399) The unusually high quantity of cattle remains at Heit el-Ghurab indicates that the workers’ diet was high in protein. In this light, many of the pyramid towns of Old Kingdom Egypt were founded to undertake great building projects. As such, infrastructural investments were not so much conceived to support cities; rather many Egyptian special purpose towns were founded to provision and sustain infrastructural projects of a decidedly religious nature (Bard 2008; Kemp 1989: 146; Swenson 2021b). In citing Barrett, Fowler notes: “The act of making a monument also made a community” (Barrett 1993; Fowler 2010: 361). Indeed, participation in building projects—ranging from temples to canal systems—in ancient Angkor and elsewhere in Southeast Asia conferred merit on the sponsors and builders alike, thus improving the karmic prospects of all involved (see Chapter 7). 3.5 Conclusion

As argued throughout this chapter, if the ritual frame commonly entails the heightened materialization and aesthetization of practice as a means to control cause-andeffect forces, then it stands to reason why the building process itself—especially of monumental landscapes and related infrastructures—was so often highly ritualized in past societies. Indeed, the act of building assembled peoples, energy, matter, things, and ontological others to impose form, beauty, and order onto the world. This tangible mode of “framing” or “assembly” literally constructed, reformed, and re-signified said worlds. Otherwise stated, building mirrors the ritual process by concretizing and reconfiguring relational orders of all kinds and by powerfully shaping subjectivity. This observation can further account for the inherent political possibilities of both place-making and ritual, as detailed in the above discussion of ritual’s varied convergences with power. The acknowledgment that ritual can shape and order a messy reality, in a ­manner that parallels architectural construction, raises the question of Aristotelian hylomorphism, the subject of withering critique by Tim Ingold in a highly influential

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article published in Archaeological Dialogues in 2012. Inspired by Simondon and Deleuze and Guattari, Ingold attacks the common notion that the imposition of a preconceived mental template or form (morph) onto inter matter (hyle) can explain the imaginative and creative process. Intent on collapsing conventional dichotomies that privilege mind over matter, artefact over life forms, and culture over nature, Ingold contends that “form is ever emergent” in the material “rather than given in advance” (2012: 433). He compellingly remarks: The trouble with the matter-form model, argue Deleuze & Guattari (1987: 451– 52), is that in assuming ‘a fixed form and a matter deemed homogeneous’ it fails to acknowledge, on the one hand, the variability of matter—its tensions and elasticities, lines of flow and resistances—and, on the other hand, the conformations and deformations to which these modulations give rise. Ingold stresses that we should understand forms as a process of continuous development in which matter is primary and determinative. Thus, scholars should approach matter in terms of what it does and not what it means. As such, matter defies reduction to concepts or categories but shapes the world in terms of its vitality and ­perpetual, physical becoming. Citing Deleuze and Guattari’s example of metallurgy, and critiquing traditional chaîne opératoire perspectives, Ingold further claims that the hylomorphic model erroneously reduces technical operations to “sequences of discrete steps, with a clear threshold marking the termination of each step and the commencement of the next” (2012: 433). Nevertheless, it is significant that ritual often divvies up action into successive sequences with defined thresholds (e.g., the classic structure of rites of passage). It commonly proceeds through the precise delineation of technical steps that can become reified within very specific flows of action.22 Indeed, Lévi-Strauss (1981: 672) famously argued that ritual relies on “parceling-out” of events, objects, and people and makes “infinite distinctions and ascribes discriminatory values to the slightest shades of difference.” In other words, ritual often renders Ingold’s “­meshwork”—the entangled ever-morphing webs of life—into more intelligible or reified “structures.” It is for this reason that ritual equally if variably implicates the ontological, cosmological, epistemological and philosophical. Therefore, the intense stimulation of the imagination afforded by the ritual frame entails neither the privileging of form over matter nor the opposition of mind and body. In truth, the creative process (poesis) confuses and conflates our standard categories of the native western anthropology, and ritual in particular exemplifies an especially amplified field of creativity, a field not fashioned independently in the mind but one assembled in a complex ecology implicating a continuum of materials and forms. We should thus take seriously the proposal discussed above under the s­ econd convergence of power that “collective ritual play” constitutes a premier site of experimentation and invention—a “scientific laboratory” and “a repertory of knowledge and techniques” (Graeber and Wengrow 2021: 500–501).

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In fact, the creative force of the ritual frame and the common feelings of ­ambivalence it induces rests on its distinctive material scaffolding. Ritual immerses practitioners in an intense “matter-flow” that partially dictates the path to “follow” (Ingold 2012: 435). At the same time, however, ritual affords an opportunity or awakens the desire to order and make sense of broader environmental and social currents in which the specific flow moves. Ritual’s hylomorphic ideal (and not necessarily reality, as Ingold would argue) is immediately apparent in the astronomical alignments and complex mathematics underwriting the construction of earth mounds and religious monuments distributed across the world (Graeber and Wengrow 2021). Whether a microcosmic timepiece to sympathetically channel the life force of the celestial macrocosm or a cosmogonic model of creation, such constructions exemplify not only the materialization of Lefebvre’s conceived space but the general impulse to tap, contemplate, and regulate cosmic orders (forms). The discovery of sacred measuring units further supports this rather obvious insight, but one worth highlighting to demonstrate that hylomorphism (for the lack of a better term) is not simply a singular conceit of a broadly conceived Western philosophy. To provide just a few examples, archaeologists have identified standard ­measuring units at Teotihuacan (100–500 CE), among the Hopewell mound ­builders (100 BCE–400 CE), and possibly at Angkor Wat (ca. 1150 CE) (Mannikka 1996; Romain and Buchanan 2015; Sugiyama 2004). For instance, archaeologists have calculated that the basic unit of measurement at Teotihuacan equalled approximately 83 cm. This unit formed a common denominator that was based on the Mesoamerican ritual calendar of 260 days, and it underwrote city planning and dictated the main dimensions and size of the principal monuments of the city, including the Temples of the Sun and Moon (Sugiyama 2004: 102–104).23 The attention to precise measurement finds parallels with the fastidious ­concern for the careful sequence of actions in specific rites. Interestingly, it also resonates with the organization of labour in massive, coordinated building projects, and Mumford (1970) held that work parties commissioned to build vast monuments formed the first “megamachines” in history. These sophisticated machines were grounded in the earliest “production-line techniques” to erect the great religious edifices of prehistory, such as the Egyptian pyramids at Giza. Tasks were divvyed up into an “endless variety of simple, mechanical components: cutting, dragging, hosting, polishing…” (Graeber and Wengrow 2021: 407–408). Ingold’s romantic take on the production process as emblematic of the meshwork clearly has its ­limitations. Following Mumford, Graeber and Wengrow further note (2021: 408): “This is how the pyramids were built: by rendering subjects into great social machines, afterwards celebrated by mass conviviality.” They thus privilege the festive and aesthetic context of such congregate assemblies in contrast to Mumford’s original argument that the first megamachines were founded on enslaved and oppressed work gangs. Deleuze and Guattari also draw from Mumford’s work and approached machines in general as assemblages that direct the actual work of assemblage. They also provide an alternate definition of the machine as “any

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functional structure under the command of a higher unity” (Bonta and Protevi 2004: 107; Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 428, 457; and see Chapter 4). This more general definition proves useful in interpreting sacred architecture as abodes of powerful ontological others. Ultimately, the obsession with mensuration, successive labour tasks, sequential ritualized actions, and microcosmic-macrocosmic alignments bring the world of signs front and centre in the analysis of temple b­ uildings as world-making semiotic machines—the subject of the following chapter. Notes 1 The Second Temple, however, lacked the Ark of the Covenant, the sacred fire, and the divinatory tools of the Urim and Thummim, presumably lost with the destruction of the First Temple in 587 BCE (Singer 1901–1906). 2 This section constitutes a reworking and expansion of arguments first presented in Swenson 2015b. 3 Shults remarks (2010: 82): “What makes religious symbols unique is that they are taken to engage the boundary conditions of the world, or the world-constructing boundaries of a person’s imaginative cultural engagement.” 4 DeLanda (2016: 57) notes that religious discourses, similar to law codes and constitutions, codify “places into sacred and profane… food into permissible and taboo… days of the year into ordinary and special.” This intense codifying process “affects every expressive and material component of the social assemblage.” 5 As Olivia Harris remarks in her interpretation of Andean ritual violence (1994: 59): it is restricted to the moment of liminality in the context of religious performance when adults enter into direct contact with the powers of the earth, the mountains and the ancestors, and it is preceded by the ritual suspension of normal activity, so that it is bracketed from everyday life. 6 DeLanda (2016: 20) describes reterritorialization as entailing a transformation from one state of identity to another. 7 Archaeological research has shed original light on secret societies, such as the poorly understood cult of Mithraism popular among Roman soldiers and centred on the slaughter of a cosmic bull. Over 420 of the vaulted and subterranean mithrae have been documented (along with 700 highly formulaic depictions of Mithras’s sacrifice of the bull), and faunal analyses have established the seasonality of Mithraic feasting events (Martens and de Boe 2004). 8 Secret societies including the cult of Mithras in the Roman Empire, the Knights Templar of the Middle Ages, and the Freemasons of modern Europe were all founded on covenants that demanded the strict guarding of profound and revelatory religious knowledge, access to which was restricted exclusively to privileged men. Whitehouse (1992: 150) lists the commonly shared features of such societies: they are restricted to males; they involve a series of initiations into progressive stages of knowledge; the rites often involve physical or psychological ordeals; the rituals are controlled by the oldest members of the sect or society, who have passed through all the stages of initiation and thus possess the most secret and important knowledge. 9 In stressing problems of efficacy, scholars often make a distinction between ritual and ceremony, arguing that the former relates directly to cult powers, while the latter denotes carefully orchestrated activities of a non-religious nature (Gluckman 1962). The two modes of behaviour are often considered closely interrelated on the basis of

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their formalized, rule-governed, and theatrical aspects, in which action is infused with formidable symbolic content. Other anthropologists stress the transformative efficacy of ritual, in contrast to the more narrowly representative functions of ceremony. Firth notes: Ceremonial I regard as a species of ritual in which, however, the emphasis is more upon symbolic acknowledgment and demonstration of a social situation than upon the efficacy of the procedures in modifying their situation. Whereas other ritual procedures are believed to have a validity of their own, ceremonial procedures, while former in character, are not believed in themselves to sustain the situation or effect a change in it. (Firth 1967: 39) 10 They further contend that the control and monopolization of ritual knowledge constituted one of three principal “orders,” along with sovereignty/violence and charisma, that enabled the development of historically specific hierarchical polities. In terms of the ritual origins of the administrative arts, they write (Graeber and Wengrow 2021: 419–420): In fact, the first forms of functional administration, in the sense of keeping archives of lists, ledgers, accounting procedures, overseers, audits and files, seem to emerge in precisely these kinds of ritual contexts: in Mesopotamian temples, Egyptian ancestor cults, Chinese oracle readings and so forth. 11 Nevertheless, it deserves mention that subversive ideologies are still considered an oxymoron among certain social scientists who equate the ideological with the hegemonic. Thompson (1990), for instance, argues that “contestatory symbolic forms are not ideological,” and Althusser’s (1971) notion of the ideological state apparatus (churches, schools, family, etc. that socialize and indoctrinate) is decidedly institutional and implicated first and foremost in naturalizing the benefits and privileges of the dominant. In archaeology, similar interpretations are espoused by Brumfiel (1998), who interprets ideology not as a pervasive hegemony but rather as a mechanism to achieve unity within the dominant class so as to effectively control subordinates through unmitigated coercion. 12 Anthropologists have nonetheless criticized this famed study for its underlying functionalism and for ignoring the colonial context of the Ncwala Swazi ritual (Lincoln 1987). 13 In his definition of materiality in the context of revitalization movements, Liebmann stresses its ideological aspect (2008: 361): The concept of ‘materiality’—by which I mean the ability of physical objects to create, mediate, and be shaped by ideology—focuses attention on the fact that material culture does not just passively reflect revitalization but, rather, plays an active role in the intentional transformation of culture and society that is the goal of every revitalization movement. 14 Following common anthropological definitions, “revival” refers to the adoption and institution of older practices, value-systems, and aesthetics, while nativism denotes the rejection of foreign lifeways and material culture (Wallace 1956: 227; and see Liebmann 2008: 364). However, innovation also characterizes revitalization movements, as  reflected in the novel materialities of Tenskwatawa’s movement and the Pueblo revolt. 15 However, examples of “anti-cargo” reactions also characterized several Melanesian Millenarian movements, including the Milne Bay Prophet Movement (1893, Louisiade Archipelago), in which European goods were renounced in anticipation of the return of the dead (still on Western-like boats) and the revitalization of native technologies and lifeways (Lepowsky 2004: 35–36).

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16 Augé (1995: 83) explains: “If a place can be defined as relational, historical and ­concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place.” 17 Kolata (2003) interprets the 17 m high Akapana with its seven terraces as a simulation of the mountain peaks of the Quimsachata range and as a source of life-giving waters. It thus served as an icon of fertility and agricultural abundance and an elite tool to control and regulate the vital forces of nature. 18 Larkin explains (2013; 334): “What distinguishes the poetic is when a speech act is organized according to the material qualities of the signifier itself rather than to its referential meaning.” These material qualities can include everything from asphalt and metal to the precision-fitted stones of Inca walls and storehouses. 19 As Gandy remarks (2005: 39): “Urban infrastructures are not only material manifestations of political power, but they are also systems of representation that lend urban space its cultural meaning.” 20 As Harmanşah notes (2013: 7): “Founding cities was a spectacle of the state,” and he mentions how the Ottoman capital of Ankara, with its “architecture of revolution,” replaced Constantinople in an attempt to celebrate a new Turkish state and identity (2013: xvii). 21 Indeed, “iconic” is one of the most common adjectives mobilized to describe Toronto’s streetcar. The Doucets (2022: 3) sum up the political significance of this key infrastructure: “To some Torontonians, they are an iconic mode of daily travel and part of a muchsought-after urban authenticity; to others, they are either irrelevant, an impediment to mobility, or a symbol of a downtown ‘elite.’” 22 Ritual’s propensity to order, sequence, and demarcate material flows can explain its centrality to time-reckoning and calendrics. Although ritual can create a place and time ‘out of time’ (i.e., an escape from temporal routines), its chronometric faculty is evident in its punctilious ability to delineate stages, phases, and series (Rappaport 1992:6–10). Ritual observances can thus intensify the spatial and temporal grasp of the ‘eventful.’ (Swenson 2017: 215) 23 As Sugiyama notes (2004: 104): “The original size of the Sun Pyramid (216 m2 at its base), when considered in terms of the basic Teotihuacan measurement unit, symbolized the pan-Mesoamerican ritual calendar of the 260-day cycle” (83 cm × 260 = 215.8 m). The Hopewell Measurement Unit was also freighted with sacred and calendrical meaning and was equivalent to 321.26 m (Romain and Buchanan 2015).

4 CEREMONIAL ARCHITECTURE AS SEMIOTIC MACHINES

4.1 Introduction

Anthropologists have long recognized that symbolically charged places of a religious nature exhibit a remarkable “semiotic density” (Stasch 2003, 2011). However, the distinct semiotic affordances of ritual contexts in the archaeological record remain under-theorized and hold great potential for the interpretation of past religious landscapes. In the chapters that follow, I compare archaeological data obtained from the Andean temple structures with royally endowed āśrama (monasteries) founded by king Yaśovarman I (889–910 CE) and the later hospitals of Jayavarman VII (1182–1215 CE) in ancient Angkor. The comparison demonstrates how an analysis of the sign properties of ceremonial architecture and related “structured depositions” (Richards and Thomas 1984) can permit an approximation of the underlying meanings and intended function of past ritual practices. My approach relies on both an examination of variations in the relationship between sign vehicles and objects (icons, indexes, symbols, etc.) in definable ritual contexts as well as a semiotic investigation of material repetition, indexical iconicity, substitution, and accumulation (exhaustion) characterizing specific building traditions and other archaeological remains, including burials and offerings (Silverstein 2004; Yelle 2013). Ultimately, I analyze the Andean and Angkorian religious constructions as exceptional spaces of semiosis, powerful machines in the spirit of Deleuze and Guattari that assembled distinct political worlds. I begin this chapter with an exploration of how ritual commonly mediates between ontological others (the finite and infinite, the here-and-now and the beyond, the mortal and immortal, etc.), thus explaining the amplified semiosphere of sacred space and the distinctive material frame of ritual practice in general. I then identify and examine some of the recurring sign modalities of such ritual mediation that DOI: 10.4324/9780429356063-4

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are relevant to interpreting both temple spaces and structured ­depositions in the archaeological record. This discussion sets the stage for the case studies in the following chapters that demonstrate how comparable semiotic processes underwrote the production of very different religious landscapes in Angkor and the North Coast of Peru. I conclude the chapter with an examination of the generative and machinic capacities of sacred spaces. Religious architecture did much more than communicate cosmologies and encode theologies. Rather, their semiotic and creative power dramatically assembled and territorialized social-material collectives at the level of community, polity, and cosmos. 4.2

Ritual, Semiotic Mediators, and Ontological Alterity

Cross-culturally, religious buildings are distinguished by their monumentality and heightened aesthetics, and temples often bundle together multiple media and rely on specialized technologies. This generalization is not surprising, but it is rather remarkable given the differences in the cosmologies and moral economies underlying different religious traditions. The fact that temples often fix in place dramatic encounters with imposing, ontological others can explain in part the amplified material frame needed to mark and aesthetically enhance religious architecture (Swenson In Press). Such emplaced encounters align with the first convergence of ritual and power discussed in Chapter 3. Mighty others, whether gods, ancestors, ineffable life forces, or enlivened features of the landscape, are effectively ­differentiated by their materially enhanced emplacement (and thus “beauty”— however construed culturally).1 Indeed, to “set apart,” denotes one of the original meanings of the “sacred,” which can account for the common emplacement of the holy “in the wilderness, on the mountaintop, in caves, or buildings dedicated to this purpose” (Ponzo et al. 2021: 4). In this vein, ritual practice commonly entails the employment of semiotic mediators to confront alterity and transgress ontological barriers, thus facilitating communion with powerful beings.2 Within sacred places, precious material objects often serve as such conduits of mediation, acting iconically and indexically to make manifest the invisible or transcendent. Therefore, religious buildings and their furnishings constitute awe-inspiring semiotic machines in which objects crafted in relationship of similarity or contiguity to other entities (often divine or intangible) can directly alter or affect the latter. For instance, in ancient Egypt, “the beauty and preciousness of the material forms of the statue,” placed in dark shrines simulating the primaeval darkness of creation, were designed to please, lure, and attract the descending god (Leone and Parmentier 2014: S15). The artisan’s skills, along with the invocations of priests, proved indispensable in captivating divine others and providing material media to bridge distinct ontological realms. In fact, in ancient Egyptian, the word sculptor translates to “he who keeps alive” (Meskell 2004: 250).

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Therefore, the efficacy of ritual to achieve certain ends is commonly realized through an intensified semiotic and material frame that serves to unite ontological domains and establish (or break) relationships with powerful cosmological actors (Keane 1995: 106; Leone 2020: 315; Pauketat 2013; Ponzo et al. 2021: 4; Seligman et al. 2008: 6–7; Smith 1980: 103; Swenson 2015b). In other words, sacred spaces create amplified semiospheres of heightened aesthetics not simply to communicate cosmologies and religious values but to fundamentally order and remake worlds (Silverstein 2004: 623; Stasch 2003).3 As Yelle notes in his discussion of the semiotics of ritual (2013: 34): “it is when the referent is noticeably absent—as in the case of some goal not yet attained but fervently desired—that the sign is needed most” (see also Leone and Parmentier 2014). Following Peirce, Kockelman (2007: 306) defines the sign as whatever stands for something else, an object or referent as whatever a sign stands for, and the interpretant as whatever a sign creates insofar as it stands for an object. This basic semiotic triad assumes an especially palpable form in ritualized practice given the need to mediate with ambiguously set apart but present others (or given the need to conjure or presence a cosmic force).4 This realization can serve as a reminder that religion defies reduction to mystification or the deification of the social in the spirit of Marx or Durkheim, for it is also concerned with negotiating the unknown and managing a mysterious world created by external powers (Sahlins 2008, 2022; Shults 2010: 90). Indeed, as discussed in Chapter 2, signs are inherently about absence, possibility, and thus futurity, explaining the heightened semiotics of religious experience (Crossland 2014: 18; Kohn 2013: 94; Swenson and Cipolla 2021: 317–318).5 Although Peirce and others have commonly identified signs as something that “stands for” their objects, I discussed in Chapter 2 how his semeiotics recognize the materializing power of signs (Merrell 1995: xi). Indeed, Peirce’s pragmatic (as opposed to idealist) theory demonstrates that signs get things done and are inherently tied to the physical world. They thus trigger real material effects (interpretants), and his semeiotics proves especially useful in understanding ritual as a world-making material process (Neville 1996: 77; Shults 2010). In a similar manner, the semiotic ideologies of cultures embedded in non-naturalist ontologies (sensu Descola 2013a) recognize the material efficacy and animating power of signs, especially in the context of religious performances (Keane 2018; Swenson 2015a; Swenson and Cipolla 2021: 324; Yelle 2013: 3). Silverstein (1998, 2004: 627, 650) argues that iconic indexicality constitutes the typical sign modality of ritual, whereby performative acts, in a process termed “dynamic figuration,” convert iconic similarity into relations of indexical connectivity (see also Fowles 2013: 156; Henn 2008: 14; Nakassis 2018: 290–291; Robbins 2001; Tambiah 1985: 156–161; Yelle 2013: 23–27). As Ball notes (2014: 153): “Ritual is not a domain so much as a process itself, a process anchored by its image-to-connection transformative efficacy.”6 Drawing from Peirce’s interpretant mode of the “dicent,” Ball (2014) has named this process “dicentization,” (wherein ritual converts sign relations of likeness into sign relations of creative

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connectivity). Otherwise stated, “iconic logics of metaphor are linked to indexical logics of causation.” (Chumley and Harkness 2013: 7). For instance, a figurine wielded in a healing rite to transfer an ailment (or infecting spirit) from a sick subject to the miniature enacts such an image to connection transformation (and breaking the figurine may intend to eliminate the illness) (Farber 2004: 128–130; Gregor 1977; Marcus 2019: 14; Overholtzer 2012; Roth 1915: 350; Stahl 1986).7 In a similar manner, a figurative mandala (or cosmographic temple structure) is a potent copy that serves to influence and affect the macrocosmic original. Of course, such analogical processes align with Frazer’s (1981) classic laws of association of magical practice based on sympathy (similarity) and contagion (contiguity) (Sebeok 1976: 31–32, 76–77, 131–132; Tambiah 1985: 35; Yelle 2013: 28). In sympathetic magic, “making one object similar to a second object is a way of affecting that second object’s characteristics, even from a distance” (Stasch 2003: 381). Operating within such “mimetic economies” (Leone and Parmentier 2014: S3), the active transformation of “formal similarity” into “contiguous relations” entails a creative process that anthropologists have compared to artistic production and Aristotelian poesis (“creative production”) (Lambeck 2013).8 Indeed, the poetic and metaphoric structure of ritual media, whether expressed in song, dance, recitation, architecture, or other visual art, exemplifies how ceremonial acts “cultivate representational forms (poetics) that can tap into some sort of broader generative capacity” (poesis) (Kohn 2015: 313; Silverstein 2004: 626). Hence, the semiotic need to convert resemblance into material connectivity (or disconnectivity) can often explain the amplified aesthetic qualities of ritual media, ranging from masks and statues to elaborate altars and their furnishings (Kapferer 1983). Barth (1990) also recognized that ritual commonly operates through metaphors or “highly motivated and non-arbitrary symbols,” and he argued that “the essence of metaphor is the use of the familiar to grasp the elusive and unrecognized, rather than the mere ordering of phenomena by homology” (Boivin 2009: 276).9 Thus, comparable to the semiotics of sympathetic magic, a yellow hen is required in rituals to cure yellow fever in Serbia (Yelle 2013: 27). Such examples demonstrate how ritual often engages alterity (in this case, illness) to make the unpredictable more predictable and manageable. Archaeologists adopting cognitive approaches have viewed the role of material culture in religious experience in a similar light (Clark 2010; Day 2004). Day (2004: 107–111) argues that material objects extend the mind into the physical realm and facilitate cognition in a process he terms “scaffolding.” Material scaffolding plays an especially prominent role in mentally challenging “off-line cognition” that allows individuals to think about and comprehend absent or non-existent entities and concepts. Scaffolded material things, whether statues, miniatures, or diagrams, concretize the abstruse and difficult to fathom into comprehensible and manipulable material forms (Dewan 2021: 225–228; Knappett 2020: 56–65). Indeed, Day and Clark contend that off-line cognition exemplifies religious experience. This

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notion of scaffolding resonates with Silverstein’s notion of entextualization or Gerholm’s interpretation of the “hard surface” of the “ruling” (Lewis 1980: 19) of ceremony in which ritual objectifies discourse and makes it an “object that appears to transcend particular circumstances or speakers” (Keane 1995: 106). This hard surface at once focuses the attention of spectators and makes visible social codes or structures open to different interpretations (Gerholm 1988: 133). Emphasizing once again how such an intensified semiosis and materialization intend to better manage alterity and the unknown, Leone and Parmentier note (2014: S17): “what cannot be spoken of becomes precisely the focal object of entexualized discourses that claim to know about what cannot be known and to represent what cannot be represented.” In the end, ritual’s material scaffolding commonly constitutes an intensified mode of creative semiosis designed to mediate between material signs that are of variable distance to the referents they intend to contact or materially affect. As discussed by Yelle (2013), this distinctive semiotic architecture of ritual commonly operates through a number of interrelated mechanisms, including sign repetition, indexical iconicity, substitution, and symbolic accumulation (exhaustion/condensation). Although they often converge and commonly work in tandem, these semiotic modalities can assume distinct material and aesthetic forms and, as a corollary, have dramatically structured the archaeological record. I define and describe these mechanisms in the next section, as they will inform my archaeological investigations of the two case studies in Chapters 6 and 8. 4.3 The Materiality of Ritual Semiotics: Structured Depositions as Bundled and Condensed Assemblages 4.3.1 Repetition

Anthropologists have commonly invoked “repetition” of formal practices and symbolism as one of the most common characteristics of ritual (Bell 1992, 1997: 150–153; Casajus 1993; Lévi-Strauss 1981; Rappaport 1999; Tambiah 1979). It can take many forms, including the recurrence of rhymed mantras and musical refrains as well as the rhythmic reiteration of gestures and formulaic embodied acts. As Yelle explains, repetition “gets things done” and intends to “establish the legitimacy of a particular message.” He adds: “Ritual discourse frequently reflects an attempt to overcome the arbitrariness of the sign through imitation and other forms of repetition, which therefore function as a kind of rhetoric to produce conviction in the efficacy of ritual” (Yelle 2013: 55). For instance, in Hindu Tantra, “the more one repeats a mantra, the more successful it will be.” Yelle (2013: 25) further notes that efficacious “rituals, especially of the magical variety, deploy both non-arbitrary signs… that construct analogical relationships of similarity or contiguity between its ritual and its target or objective,” as well as the “rhetoric

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of poetic repetition.” The latter finds common expression in “rhyme, alliteration, ­tautology (the repetition of similar or identical words or phrases), and palindromes, or chiasmus.”10 Beyond language, such repetition can take salient material form legible in the archaeological record. Such “crystallized” repetition commonly includes r­ ecurring offering deposits, seasonal floor re-plastering, and altar rededications (Boivin 2000; Gillespie 2008; Kyriakidis 2007; Mock 1998). Spaces saturated with replicated and ornamental iconography, such as carved spiral motifs to entrap or channel dangerous, cosmic power provide other examples of non-linguistic repetition of an efficacious nature (Tilley 2007; see also Seligman et al. 2008: 15, 148–166). Indeed, Seligman and colleagues (2008: 148) argue that repetition is “central to the very nature of ornamentation” adorning certain traditions of religious architecture, and its repetitive structure acts to impose “order on the universe” (as indicated by its actual etymology; Bloomer 2000). Thus, the garlands, horn motifs on Corinthian columns, flutes, dentils, and other ornamental designs of Greek temple architecture indexed the elements and desired outcomes of Greek animal sacrifice (Seligman et  al. 2008: 148).11 Of course, decorative repetition can take on iconic and figurative forms as well. The thousands of carved apsaras (goddesses and celestial nymphs) adorning Angkor’s many temples overwhelmingly signal the immanent presence of the divine.12 Reliefs of yoginis and Buddhas in great iterative numbers also commonly grace the interior and exterior walls of Angkorian temples, depending on the denomination of the monument (see Chapters 7 and 8). In a somewhat different manner, the numerous Chaac masks (Maya rain god) that blanketed some of the Terminal Classic (800–1000 CE) religious buildings of the Puuc and Rio Bec regions in Yucatan directly paid homage to the great deity. At the same time, in their repetitive force, as exemplified by the captivating Codz Poop structure (Palace of the Masks) at Kabáh, Yucatan, the multiple stone masks likely beseeched and thus causally indexed the coming of the rains in a region dependent on rainfall agriculture (Treister 2013: 191–197). This mesmerizing repetition in stone parallels the numerous recitations of a Hindu tantra mentioned above. 4.3.2 Dicentization/Substitution

In considering this interpretation of the Chaac masks, Ball’s theory of dicentization (or Silverstein’s indexical iconicity) described above also extends beyond the linguistic register and commonly becomes materialized in ritual settings. For instance, a temple built in the shape of an adjacent mountain can serve to harness the power of the latter, while replicated, nested plazas create a dramatic indexical chain of iconic spaces that effectively transmit people and energies across a charged landscape (see below). Miniatures often exemplify the sign process of dicentization. For instance, rituals performed on stone models of agricultural terrace systems in the Andes intended to benefit and ensure the productivity of the field systems iconically indexed by the maquetas (Swenson 2021). In a similar

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manner, the mimetic, “echo” stones of Machu Picchu, scaled down representations of surrounding mountains, extended the personhood and authority of revered peaks within the confines of the royal estate (Dean 2010: 55–57; Hamilton 2018: 178; Swenson 2021). Yelle’s notion of substitution aligns with Ball’s theory of dicentization or Silverstein’s understanding of ritual as an indexical icon. He similarly describes the substitute sign-object as something that manipulates a larger and usually more difficult-to-manage referent. He notes (2013: 35): Although such substitutions are arguably inherent in all semiosis, they are p­articularly evident in ritual, which constructs a separate domain that is often deliberately intended, as in the case of Tantric mantras, to function as ­microcosm, one amenable to manipulation in a way that the larger world may not be. (see also Knappett 2020) I endorse this perspective but view substitution in specifically archaeological contexts as combining the sign effects of both repetition and dicentization. Ritual deposits in the material record can manifest strategic variability (or literal substitutions) in what is iterated. For instance, the alternation of offerings of human sacrifices with bundled caches of copper sheets in the post-emplacements atop the pyramids of the Sicán culture of the coastal Andes worked at once to indexically interrelate the differing deposits (creating a specific context) while expressing values and cosmologies that elude precise interpretation (Haagen and Shimada 2016). Such patterning resonates with Silverstein’s notion of the “metricalization” of ­ritual performance. This patterned repetition creates a “space-time envelope of participation” grounded in “multiple modalities of figuration played out in an orderly,” poetic manner (Silverstein 2004: 626). As discussed in Chapter 6, such metricalized substitutions can entail the replacement of human bodies with ceramic effigies or animals in replicated and aligned caches. An examination of the overall context in which such substitutions are arrayed in repeated deposits can offer an approximation of the overall meaning and intended function of these ritual practices. 4.3.3

Symbolic Accumulation

The final semiotic process under consideration, symbolic “accumulation” or “exhaustion” brings together and builds on the three other semiotic modalities discussed above. Yelle (2013: 37) defines “exhaustion” (or symbolic accumulation) in poetic ritual utterances as the complete enumeration of a particular set, such as the directions, the e­ lements, the ritually significant colors, the groups of gods, etc…. Like an insurance policy… exhaustion reinforces a conviction in the efficacy of the spell by

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enumerating all contingencies and harnessing the spell to these as an index of its goal. Archaeological manifestations of symbolic accumulation abound; salient examples include microcosms (whether in the form of diagram, temple, miniatures, or cityscape), tombs, and medicine bundles. Symbolic accumulation, then, entailing the material convergence of repetition, substitution, and the indexical linking of iconic media, also resonates with the notion of “structured depositions” identified by archaeologists. Coined by Richards and Thomas (1984), this term refers to the intentional creation of the archaeological record as formed by past ritual acts or more encompassing symbolic schemes (Pollard 2008; Swenson 2015b). As summarized by Garrow (2012), structured depositions have been differently employed to describe the unusual clustering of artefacts within particular places, such as caches in Neolithic henges (described critically by Garrow as “odd deposits”), and material cultural patterning in general that expresses meaningfully constituted worlds. The latter has included both explicit ideologies and taken-for-granted (unconscious) attitudes towards nature, pollution, hygiene, gender, sacred landscapes, and so forth. The concept of structured deposition has played an important role in the archaeology of ritual since the 1980s, especially in Britain and Northern Europe. Garrow (2012) has written a comprehensive review of the changing application of this heuristic, both as a means to identify patterning in the archaeological record and as an interpretive model of ritual itself (see also Hughes 2014). Archaeologists have critiqued Richards and Thomas’s concept to describe the material traces of ritual acts in particular, arguing that all material remains, whether rubbish dumps or craft activities, are “structured” in some way and exhibit signatures of repetition encoded in routine practice (see critiques by Garrow 2012; Hughes 2014; Mills and Walker 2008). Richards and Thomas’s (1984: 191) notion of structured deposition was based on the argument that since “ritual activities involve highly formalized, repetitive behavior, we would expect any depositional patterns observed in the archaeological record to maintain a high level of structure.” Garrow (2012: 104–108) rightly critiques that “structured” is a misleading term since ritualized ­deposits are not necessarily more structured than everyday residues. Instead, the degree to which artefacts are assembled, juxtaposed, and accumulated demands attention, a pattern implicitly considered in Richards and Thomas’s analysis of the Neolithic site of Durrington Walls (but see critique in Garrow 2012: 90–95). Inspired by assemblage theory, Jervis differentiates structured depositions of a ritual nature from material cultural patterning more generally in terms of their high degree of codification. He notes that “the act of deposition is one of territorialization, of gathering objects… selecting particular objects or materials for some special treatment, perhaps due to their potent qualities” (Jervis 2018: 56). He continues: “Odd deposits can be seen as strongly coded, they emerge as a set of intentional, repetitive practices” (see also Pollard 2008: 45).13

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As I have argued previously (Swenson 2015b: 335–337), the notion of ­bundling and condensation of material signs could profitably reform the concept of structured depositions, and these heuristics better align with Yelle’s notion of symbolic exhaustion. “Bundled” deposits refer to explicit ceremonial events that relied in part on performed acts of ritual deposition. This heuristic better captures the “condensation” or highly coded sign accumulation of particular assemblages of artefacts that were consciously emplaced in the archaeological record. Therefore, “ritual bundling” designates something more specific than the past residues of meaningful practice (shaped by a particular cultural logic or “structure”) but refers to an actual genre of ritual deposition or construction. Houseman and Severi’s (1998) notion of “ritual condensation” finds some parallels with Yelle’s concept of symbolic accumulation. The former refers to the simultaneous existence in a single sequence of action of more than one and often opposing modes of relationships (and thus signs), as exemplified by the adoption of dual gender identities and contradictory kinship roles in the Naven ceremony of the Sepik River region of Papua New Guinea (see also Bell 1997: 159–160; Dietler 2001; Tambiah 1979: 119; Turner 1967: 28–29). They argue that such symbolic condensations structure differing genres of ceremonies, including healing rites and shamanistic trance. This understanding of condensation compares with Fowles’s (2013) definition of Puebloan doings as accentuating the interconnectedness of different things and to Robb’s (2010) recognition that multiple modes of agency are compressed within the ritual frame (to facilitate shifts in being). Therefore, as a quintessentially performed action, ritual often concentrates antithetical or complementary relations to engender material, social, and cosmic realignments (and spur transformation more generally).14 The condensation of multiple signs and materials in ritual media thus secures its relational, dialectical, metamorphic, and creative vitality.15 In fact, Keane identifies an analogous process of “semiotic bundling” in ritualized modes of speech and action (Keane 2003, 2010: 204). In a sense, ­condensation entails the occupation and activation of a liminal boundary in which multiple and often opposing conditions impinge and come into contact (Shults 2010: 92). Symbolic accumulation and ritual condensation are commonly realized through the combination of disparate material entities, a phenomenon analogous to the potent and protean properties of Amerindian medicine bundles (Jervis 2018; Pauketat 2013: 27–36; Zedeño 2008).16 Zedeño and Pauketat demonstrate that Native American bundles provide a useful analytical framework to interpret the political agency of sacred (animated) places and things more generally. The famed medicine bundles of indigenous North America consisted of skin or cloth wrappings that packaged an assortment of different materials, including pipes, scalps, broken arrows, metal, feathers, plants, rocks, paint, and heirlooms evocative of mythical places and beings (Pauketat 2013: 6–8, 43–58). Differing in size, function, and contents, Amerindian bundles could play a role in healing rites as their name implies, and their curation conferred authority and identity to their guardians. As animate beings, oracles, historical charters, mnemonic devices, and nexuses of

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causality and change, these power objects were supplicated with prayer and offerings, and they secured centre stage in numerous ritual performances. Powerful and feared sacra, the opening of bundles released or harnessed cosmic powers, whereas their exchange renewed social relations among the Plains Indians of the American Midwest (Pauketat 2013; Zedeño 2008). In sum, North American medicine bundles exemplify how potent semiotic mediators bundled or accumulated together sundry things, substances, and symbols into a single power object. Pauketat (2013: 27–28) describes these awesome artefacts as effectively enabling the “convergence of material pathways” of human and non-human beings, and among the Shawnee and other nations, these bundles acted as sentient oracles and “witnesses.” Mobilizing the bundle as the flashpoint of convergent ritual intercession, Pauketat remarks that they find correspondence with what anthropologists have called ‘discursive moments’ (Meskell 2004), ‘couplings’ (Ingold 2011), ‘intimate p­ arallelisms’ (Wheatley 1971), ‘spacetime synchronicities’ (Munn 1986), ‘happenings’ (Gell 1998) and ‘hierophanies’(Eliade 1987). (Pauketat 2013: 28) What is especially remarkable about ritually bundled things—that often extend to temple buildings and related architecture—is their capacity to gather, contain, or territorialize great “deterritorializing” forces, including other powers that can ­potentially remake worlds. The accumulation of diverse things and substances, indexing multiple convergent powers, realize “moments of transubstantiation, transformation, and metamorphosis” (Pauketat 2013: 28). Devices of profound causation and virtual potentiality, assemblages such as medicine bundles served as ultimate semiotic mediators that could reconstitute reality physically, spiritually, and indeed historically. In this respect, diverse objects bundled together in elaborate performances can acquire greater efficacy in directing self-reflexive action and tend to shed their “humility,” the noun employed by Miller (1987) to describe how most material things cue behaviour below the level of consciousness (Swenson 2015b; and see Chapter 2). Similar to liminal rites of transformation, involving the blending, inversion, negation, and renewal of social roles and relationships, the bundling of aesthetically charged and heterogeneous materials captures the creative potential of certain modes of ritual practice to unite life forces, differentiate people, realign relationships, and reinscribe the significance of times and places (Fowles 2013: 103; Kapferer 2004; Swenson and Warner 2016; Turner 1969: 97–101). By microcosmically accumulating interconnected things, ritualized bundling served to influence the world in ways that were comparable to the desired effects of sympathetic (homoeopathic) magic in the spirit of Frazer, as discussed above. Therefore, the potential of ritual performances to sway cosmic forces and (re)structure political relations is exemplified by the bundling of dialectically ­antithetical or mimetically

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linked entities. Certain funerary contexts could even be interpreted as miniaturized bundlings of larger social and cosmic realities (e.g., Egyptian tombs or Paracas mummy bundles from Southern Peru attired in numerous, superimposed tunics) (Swenson 2015b: 337). Bundled assemblages such as medicine bundles find equivalents in condensed places of symbolic accumulation, as exemplified by diverse religious structures, including shrines, feasting grounds, men’s houses, plazas, or temples. For example, in his remarkable study of the Korowai Feasting house (gil) of West Papua, Stasch (2003) demonstrates how multiple signs converge in these extraordinary structures to at once materialize and “exhaust” the Korowai world symbolically and metaphorically. These structures were built at times of congregation when dispersed communities belonging to larger patri-clans came together approximately every 5–20 years to fell trees, build the huge longhouse, harvest grubs, prepare sago flour, and throw lavish banquets. Built over the course of a month as a ritual arena to stage feasts, initiations, and negotiate macro-community relations and land-holdings, the elaborate edifices were constructed of wood, rattan, and palm leaves and measured on average 10 m wide, 5 m tall, and 60 m long (Stasch 2003: 364). To provide a sense of the structures’ extraordinary semiotic density, they iconically indexed the flow of rivers, the movement of the sun, the human body, a giant ritual drum, clan identity and lands, social inclusion, gender relations and marriage ties, the cycling of settlement dispersion and aggregation, labour expenditure, sago palm regeneration and maturation, the passage of time and ecological processes (as expressed in deliberate abandonment and decay of the structure), as well as grub development and lifecycles. The feasting houses were intimately tied to the felling and rebirth of new sago palm groves and by extension they marked successive human generations. In a similar manner, grub cultivation was carefully synchronized with the construction of the edifice. As such, proper grub extraction consumed in feasts required considerable knowledge of insect lifecycles and the proper environmental conditions for their development. The Korowai thus carefully chose the location of the feast house to ensure proper grub growth, and they delayed the construction of the feasting house roof (requiring thousands of palm fronds) to keep the ridge post exposed to the sky. This delay intended to counter “haste in completing the roof (thereby making the building into an inhabitable dwelling),” as a rushed construction would result in grubs maturing too quickly and flying away as beetles (Stasch 2003: 372). The long house was also a macro-scale indexical icon of trunks felled to cultivate grubs, and evening ritual dances intended to warm the house—and by extension the many logs it materially indexed to prevent the cold from killing the maturing grubs. These are just two examples of many mobilized by Stasch of how the feasting house semiotically intervened in the regulation of cause-and-effect processes fundamental to Korowai life. Therefore, it is worth stressing that the house did much more than “represent” the Korowai cosmos as a totalizing symbol, for it intended to directly regulate the tricky timing of grub development and thus

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ensure the success of feasts and the health of sago stands so central to subsistence, construction, and social reproduction. As Stasch argues (2003: 360): Longhouses are powerful causal forces in major part through their poetic force, the way their builders superpose into this single sign-vehicle different orders of signification. Longhouses’ force is a matter not only of the intellectual, aesthetic, or political efficacy of signification (Lévi-Strauss, 1963 [1949]), but of the signification of efficacy.17 Examples of such condensed symbolic places abound in the archaeological record, and they varied in terms of who could leverage (or even know) the signs as well as their presumed material and ritual efficacy. They also differed in scale and could range from a complex offering to a single building to the entire design of a settlement. As mentioned in Chapter 3, the stunning 8th–10th-century Buddhist temple of Borobudur in central Java at once materialized a cosmic mandala and a lotus flower (the “three concentric rings of stupas are reminiscent of the seed pods at the heart of the flower”), while its ascending reliefs encoded the life histories of the Buddha and the progressive attainment of enlightenment. As one ascended the monument, pilgrims gained greater access to esoteric knowledge (Miksic 1990: 40–42, 63).18 In fact, through its many signs, the experience of Borobudur intended to shorten the path to enlightenment and accelerate spiritual epiphany (Miksic 1990: 19). The ten terraces of the temple further symbolized the ten stages of the Boddhisattva path to the ultimate attainment of Buddhahood, and the circumambulations to view all of Borobudur’s galleries could hasten a pilgrim’s transformation into a Boddhisattva (Miksic 1990: 22–23, 39). Pantheon-like temples also condensed the world cosmically and socially. For instance, pre-Islamic Mecca was the pre-eminent cultic centre in Arabia, and the famed Ka’ba housed all the pagan god-images of the peninsula. These icons were brought to Mecca from local shrines throughout Arabia either by force or persuasion, and all of Arabia was condensed in the main shrine. Mecca thus functioned at once as sociogram and cosmogram. Nearly the whole of Arabia participated in pilgrimage to the Ka’ba to worship their autochthonous gods and more powerful divinities such as the moon deity Hubal (Aslan 2011: 25–29). Mass pilgrimages coincided with the scheduling of commercial fairs at Mecca that greatly enriched the Quraysh tribe, the keepers of the keys to the temple and the eventual rivals of Muhammad and his new religion. The Ka’ba exemplifies the microcosmic and “accumulated” symbolism of sacred places. Aslan notes (2011: 5): Not only were the many idols of the Ka’ba associated with the planets and stars, but the legend that they totaled three hundred sixty in number suggests astral connotations. The seven circumambulations of the Ka’ba—called tawaf in Arabic and still the primary ritual of the annual Hajj pilgrimage—may have been intended to mimic the motion of the heavenly bodies.

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Aslan describes the Ka’ba as an axis mundi comparable to other cosmic ­mountains of creation. Pilgrims who were blessed with entry into the sanctuary would “tear off their clothes and place their navels over the central nail [described as the centre of the universe], thereby merging with the cosmos” (Aslan 2011: 5). Microcosmically bundled places, comparable to pre-Islamic Mecca, are notably widespread in other cultures, including the Coateocalli of Aztec Tenochtitlan, the Coricancha of Inca Cuzco, and the Bayon of Jayavarman VII at Angkor. All three temple complexes housed the numerous deity images of their respective realms, both to affirm the supreme authority of the state and to directly control subjugated peoples whose well-being depended on the care of local deities, essentially taken hostage by the centralized regimes (Hayden et al. 2016: 133–135; Sahagún 1982: 182). For instance, the Coateocalli (Temple of the Snake), located near the main Templo Mayor of the great Aztec god Huitzilopochtli, was designed in the form of a jail that expressed the conversion of captured gods into subordinate and inferior prisoners (Durán 1994: 431–436; Umberger 1996). At the same time, however, this shrine symbolized inclusivity to all the diverse peoples who were subjects of the empire by producing an especially complex overlapping of religioscapes, one that brought together a variety of different specific gods but rendered them all subject to the Aztec polity. Indeed, the offerings that the subjugated peoples brought to worship their gods were actually controlled by the Aztec-Mexica (Haly 1992: 301). (Hayden et al. 2016: 134) The city of Tenochtitlan as a whole also constituted a veritable microcosm of empire, and the Mexica constructed new temples in the tradition of city-states they conquered to appropriate and concentrate their power within the confines of the capital (Umberger 1996). As described in Chapter 8, as a “national shrine,” the Bayon of Jayavarman VII, similarly served as a model of the country and a microcosm of the world. Unsurprisingly, such symbolic condensation could play out concurrently in the sociopolitical domain, and great cities such as Versailles and Postclassic Mayapan (Yucatán) corralled all the aristocrats of their respective kingdoms so that they could be closely monitored, but also to condense the state ritually in one great monumental space. The urban landscapes of Inca Cuzco and Kandy in Sri Lanka also served as diagrammatic icons of empire writ-large, with communities occupying neighbourhoods within the cities that corresponded spatially and geographically to their home provinces (D’Altroy 2015: Duncan 1993). For instance, in the early 19th century Kandy, the Tamil King, Sri Vikrama, expanded the city by ­ adding five squares or blocks in order to create 21 wards in total, which precisely matched the number of provinces in the kingdom. On an urban scale, Kandy also paralleled Borobudur as a complex, composite symbol. As evinced from its grid,

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major roads, quadripartition, and placement of temples to specific deities, the city ­microcosmically recreated the ideal social order as well as Mount Meru, the abode of the gods. As Duncan notes (1993: 239): “By reproducing within the western rectangle, through the parallelism of like numbers, the provinces in the kingdom, he [King Vikrama] could magically control the province from his palace at the centre of the world.” Moving beyond the design of temples and city sectors, symbolic accumulations in ritual depositions could take on more scaled-down forms, comparable to the medicine bundles discussed previously, and they often evoked different meanings (Field Murray and Mills 2013; Jervis 2018). To consider a few examples, a ritual cache of turquoise figurines at the Middle Horizon Wari provincial Centre of Pikillacta (650–900 CE) in the Cuzco region of Peru were depicted with notably different clothing and headdresses, and Cook (1992: 353–355) has argued they indexed the diverse lords who collaborated with the Wari state (thus comparable to a Versailles in miniature). The 80 greenstone carvings with distinctive dress and headgear were found in two ceremonial caches of 40 figurines each under the floor in Sector 2 (Structure 34–2B). Twenty of the figures in each set are identical, leading Cook to suggest they represented the founders of the Wari Empire (1992). Hence, the figurines at Pikillacta expressed a peculiar ethos of a unity in plurality (e pluribus unum) that may have defined the Wari civilizational mission. Placed in a massive monument that appears to have corralled local peoples of the Cuzco region to participate in feasts and likely building projects, the caches symbolically reaffirmed the bundling function of the centre and its efficacy in uniting Wari lords and local elites. Archaeologists have interpreted the famous cache of miniature figurines and celts of the Olmec site of La Venta in Veracruz, Mexico (1200–400 BCE) in a comparable manner, a settlement whose main plaza of Complex A was laden with semiotically potent caches, including the famed Massive Offerings (huge pits ­containing striking standards of inlaid serpentine blocks). Indeed, La Venta exemplifies a semiotic machine based on the interplay of submerged (invisible) and visible signs (Gillespie 2008). The Famous Offering 4 buried under the plaza floor consisted of a circular assembly of 16 stylized, human figurines framed by a backdrop of six celts. The remarkable miniature may depict a historical meeting of Olmec representatives of elite kin groups or ritual sodalities. Interestingly, the bundling, condensation, and “exhaustion” of accumulated difference are evident in the salient variation in the figurines. They were made in different periods (some were repaired, curated heirlooms), and each figure seems to index distinct territories and social groups, comparable to the Wari figurines discussed above (Gillespie 2008). Maya city plazas and associated monuments were also seeded with offerings of this kind during renovations that coincided with world renewal rites. As Gillespie notes (2008: 125): “Foundation caches in Mesoamerica typically reference cosmic totality via the patterned use of objects or materials that signify cosmic levels or

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segments—the earth, sky, sea, and underworld.” In fact, Gillespie interprets the great Olmec ceremonial plaza of La Venta’s Complex A, with its myriad foundation caches placed on central axis lines, as a scaled-up “altar.” Assuming a shared rectangular form and indexing the four directions, both Mesoamerican plazas and altars (that “metonymically referenced larger spaces,” from courts, to temple, to the cosmos) served as “seats of exchange between spirits and humans,” as enabled in particular by the bundling of sundry semiotic mediators within their delimited confines (Gillespie 2008: 125–126; Vogt 1993: 11). Similar to cached offerings, then, “Altars, as still built today by ritual specialists in Mesoamerica, are also iconic ­models of cosmic totality” (Gillespie 2008: 125). However, Gillespie notes that altars and caches acted as complementary opposites (negatives) in terms of the ­interplay of the above ground and visible with the subterranean and invisible. In a sense, the juxtaposition of occluded and visible sacra at once concretizes and delivers from abstraction what signs actually do.19 As discussed above, the sign, an object that stands for another, invokes and potentially conjures the latter, whose “presence” or “immanence” often remains equivocal to the interpretants it creates, especially in ritual contexts. Hidden caches of symbolically condescend things—known, remembered, but unseen—encapsulate the generative and creative processes of semiosis in general while enshrouding it in an aura of mystery, the protean, and uncanny.20 For Newell, sites laden with “condensed” symbols (sensu Sapir and Turner) are the most efficacious as their power rests on “their lack of clarity.” He argues (2018: 11–12): The mask, the fetish, or the box of stored possessions are examples of signs whose materiality allows for rich bundlings of contradictory and surprising meanings, especially because their potency draws precisely on the potentiality of their concealed and unknown contents. It is this fascinating interplay of concealment and disclosure that secures the great power and efficacy of such rarefied spaces as Olmec ceremonial centres. Such a process is evocatively evinced at La Venta, where archaeologists determined that after its interment, the aforementioned Offering 4 was partially unearthed at a later date. The stratigraphy suggests that just the heads of the 16 figurines and the top of the six celts were exposed in this reverential reopening—perhaps to confirm their existence as recorded in maps or to momentarily release their contained power. Soon after, the offering, left unmolested, was buried and sealed under a new floor (see Gillespie 2008: 115). As Gillespie argues (2008: 125): The invisibility of the buried constructions [In Complex A of La Venta] may have been a sign of their potency, and the processes of making the offerings and rendering them invisible may have generated more political resonance than their display, engendering remembering rather than forgetting.

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Commenting on the liminal and heterotopic force of stored artefacts in general, Newell similarly notes (2018: 5): “the stored object’s semiotic capacity is affect itself: not the pinning down of representation but the opening of represence—the partial return of the past into the present.” Indeed, in many traditions, including Vodun of West Africa, to convert house compounds into shrines, ritual specialists first excavated a number of pits around the structures awaiting consecration. These pits enclosed offerings of special earthenware vessels that contained mixtures of blessed water, herbs, leaves and alcohol. Depending on the spirit worshipped at the shrine, other sundry things, comparable in composition to medicine bundles, could form part of this ritual assemblage, including sea water, skulls, beads, and miniature metal tools (thus materializing a cosmic totality, like Mesoamerican plaza offerings and altars) (see Norman 2009: 209–210). The display of the visible, outer collection of ritual implements in the shrine could only follow the burial of the pit offerings (occasionally marked with low mounds), and the two ensembles appear to have formed an efficacious chiasmus of sacred mediation (Norman 2009: 209–210). The long tradition of inserting foundation deposits into public buildings and temples of ancient Mesopotamia, spanning the Early Dynastic Period (3000–2350 BCE) to the Neo-Babylonian era (626–539 BCE), appears to have been based on a similar understanding of the mediating power of the occluded sign (Tsouparopoulou 2014). The constructions of temples were conceived as votives to the gods, and the deposition of figurines and texts (so-called foundation nails/pegs and cylinders) in the walls and under the floors of the religious monuments semiotically replicated and reinforced major acts of “architectural offering” (Bahrani 2008: 126).21 Indeed, as classic semiotic mediators, the inscriptions communicated messages and solicitations between kings and gods (Oppenheim 1964: 146–148). However, caches of clay cylinders bearing self-praising eulogies, temple dedications, solicitations of divine protection, and the thanksgiving of the kings who founded and renovated temples were often intended to be rediscovered by later leaders who actively sought out such offerings in excavations proceeding their own rebuilding and re-consecration of temples (Miller 2018; Tsouparopoulou 2014: 28). We thus encounter a practice that strikingly parallels the re-excavated figurines at La Venta discussed above. Mesopotamian Kings would place their own votive inscriptions alongside that of their predecessors, and the cylinder inscription offerings of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (668–627 BCE) and the neo-Babylonian monarch Nebuchadnezzer (reign 605–562 BCE) were addressed to future rulers in anticipation of the eventual rediscovery of the magic texts. Ashurbanipal’s inscription deposited under an armoury in Nineveh reads: Just as I found an inscribed object be[ar]ing the name of [Senn]acherib, the father of the father who had engendered me, anointed (it) with oil, made an offering, (and) placed (it) with an inscribed object bearing my name, you should be just like me, find an inscribed object of mine and (then) anoint (it) with oil,

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make an offering (and) place (it) with an inscribed object bearing your name. May the great gods, as many as are recorded on this inscribed object, constantly bless your kingship (and) protect your reign. (Trans. Novotny and Jeffers 2018, RINAP 5: 3 viii 78–86) (Miller 2018)22 In a similar manner, a prismatic offering inscription, now in the Glencairn Museum in Pennsylvania, celebrates Nebuchadnezzer’s renovation of temples in the great city of Babylon. It declares: “I found (the original foundations), and firmly fixed its foundation on the platform of Naram-Sin, a remote ancestor. I made my inscription and put it in its interior.” In a second inscription commemorating the same renovation, Nebuchadnezzer states: I made a trench searching for the old foundation deposits […], and I found the foundation of Naram-Sin [reigned 2254–2218 BCE], the king of Babylon, a remote ancestor, and I did not remove his inscription, but put my own inscription together with his inscription. (Da Riva 2008: 27) (cited in Miller 2018) Such depositions engineered the union of rulers and gods as well as kings from different, even antagonistic, regimes while conflating the venerable past, present, and future. Such a process not only conferred great sanctity and legitimacy to the temples in question but materialized a historically specific kind of ritual ­condensation—the semiotic effects of which appear formidable given the millennial longevity of the practice.23 The consecration caches in Hindu temples of Southeast Asia provide one more example of how structured depositions of condensed and accumulated sign objects fostered communion between others and created machines of efficacious ­causation—comparable to the Korowai feasting house or the cache of figurines at the Olmec site of La Venta. In sites such as Prambanan (Loro Janggrang) (9th century CE) in Java and Angkor, Cambodia (802–1400 CE), the interment of caches of diverse and precious things, often in deep shafts, commemorated the founding of temples and the consecration of deity statues, a tradition that has origins in South Asia (Higham 2001: 58; IJzerman 1996; Ślączka 2007). The contents of a stone case (pripih), discovered in a shaft measuring nearly 13 m deep in the main shrine to Śiva of Prambanan exemplifies the bundled and condescend nature of such caches. The sediment in the shaft itself was composed of different soils varying in colour as well as charcoal, likely cremation ash, burnt bones of diverse animals (including goat and poultry), and a gold foil sheet. The stone box, situated at a depth of 5.75 m within the shaft, contained a wide array of objects and iconic figures that indexed and exhausted a “cosmic totality.” For instance, the casket contained rectangular gold leaves bearing different letters, while one was inscribed with the name of the sea god (Varuna) and another with the name of the god of the mountains (Parvata). The compartmentalized stone container also enclosed ash,

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charcoal, glass, beads, sheets of copper, 20 coins, precious stones pried from rings, a seashell, silver leaves, as well as 12 gold iconic figures (carefully cut from sheets). Indexing different worldly beings and cosmic powers (expressing oppositions), the latter included representations of a serpent, altar, egg, and a lotus (IJzerman 1996: 121–125). Neighbouring shrines contained comparable offerings, and a copper box was retrieved in the main sanctuary to Viṣṇu within its subterranean shaft. Its contents included: a gold lotus flower, a silver tortoise worked in relief, a silver disc similarly worked, … a vajra (tantric ritual scepter), and a flat silver cross with triangular chamfered points; besides these there were several stones from rings, some of which showed traces of having been ripped out, including an agate with an incised fish; and finally some silver and gold clippings. (IJzerman 1996: 127) Similar gold leaf offerings were discovered in shafts at Ak Yum, the West Mebon temple, and Angkor Wat at Angkor. In the latter (with a shaft 27 m deep), Georges Trouvé also recovered sapphires (Higham 2001). Perhaps significantly, the taller the shrine tower, the deeper the shaft at Prambanan (IJzerman 1996), and the link between the visible statue incarnating the deity and the invisible subterranean offerings (materializing the enigmatic working of indexical signs—as a hidden, semiotic entelechy) finds parallel with the cache laden religious landscapes of the Olmec and Vodun discussed previously. Interestingly, the archaeological evidence indicates that the subterranean offerings were emplaced prior to the construction of the superstructure and the installation of the statue, and “in all temples the closing of the pit was simultaneous with the laying of the base of the foundations” (IJzerman 1996: 131) Supplicating the deity standing above a miniature, accumulated cosmos may have ultimately intended to influence and properly order said cosmos. The interplay of visible ceremonial architecture and invisible caches in the various case studies discussed above invites comparison with traditional approaches in anthropology to infrastructures as hidden networks that “underlie and give rise to the phenomenal world” (e.g., Marxist infrastructure/superstructure and linguistic langue/parole dyads) (Larkin 2013: 328). The purported invisibility of physical infrastructures critiqued in the last chapter could possibly be interpreted in this light or even in the reverse direction, where the standing visible architecture, such as Tiwanaku’s Akapana (see Chapter 3) made possible and enlivened vast agricultural networks that sustained past cities. As Larkin notes (2013: 329–330): “The simple linear relation of foundation to visible object turns out to be recursive and dispersed.” Regardless of the relationship (which is historically specific), what is worth stressing is the inherent semiotic structure of the “infrastructural/superstructure dynamic” that becomes remarkably explicit in ritually structured depositions that are intended to maintain or refashion phenomenal worlds.

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4.4

Conclusion: Temples as Machines

In light of the many examples examined in the previous section, one could protest that I am simply highlighting the semiotic efficacy of exemplary centres and microcosms famously theorized by Wheatley, Geertz, Shils, Eliade, and others. However, I wish to stress the potential for archaeologists to identify and interpret such contexts in the archaeological record, and I acknowledge that the ideal spaces (Lefebvre’s conceived spaced) created by such architectural projects and structured deposits did not necessarily align with the perceptions, metapragmatics, and lived experiences of different stakeholders. At the same time, attention to the context of such bundled depositions can shed light on significant differences in the meaning and indexical targets of such coded assemblages. In this vein, “indexicality’s ambivalent ground,” so prevalent in ritual semiosis in particular, is based on the dialectical but historically specific relationships of immediacy/mediation (Nakassis 2018). Indeed, the indexical effects of ritually assembled signs could variably entail a “relation of causality, contiguity, or co-presence” (e.g., the consecration or animation of a statue) or “a highly mediated relation of encompassment, transposition, and incorporation” (e.g., the Eucharist) (Nakassis 2018: 292). To reconsider an example first mentioned in Chapter 2, African American “tobys” (alternatively referred to as “bundles,” “hands,” or “mojos”), discovered cached at points of transition and access within houses of colonial Annapolis, consisted of assemblages of disparate elements including buttons, bones, and crystals. Comparable to some of the other examples considered above, they were arrayed in cosmographic configurations. However, these bundles did not facilitate communion with ancestors or gods, coax the coming of rains, nurture maturing grubs, or summon Olmec emissaries; instead, the tobys likely served to protect house slaves and hex abusive masters (see Leone 2005: 203–208). Therefore, the political ramifications of semiotically dense bundles, including religious buildings, were complex, varied, and irreducible to social or psychological functions. In fact, they could evoke diverse desires, affective responses, and expectations, including fear, joy, reassurance, confusion, obedience, ambivalence, alienation, or equanimity. The case studies in the following chapters will identify some shared features of the material semiotic processes discussed above, while also highlighting differences in the intended effects and semiotic ideologies of ritual mediation performed by distinct sacred landscapes. Before turning to the case studies, I conclude this chapter with a brief discussion of why Deleuze’s and Guattari’s concept of the “machine” proves useful in making sense of temple structures as nexuses of alterity, semiosis, and the (re)making of places and subjects. As made clear by the above discussion, religious structures bundle together multiple materials, substances, things, people, signs, and other powers, and they exemplify the reterritorialization of distinct but highly networked and diverse assemblages. Jones and Alberti (2013) argue that a focus on such assemblages permits appreciation of more than the frame and context of meaning

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but its underlying cause and effect dynamics. Indeed, the indexical, etiological power of buildings as diverse as the Korawai feasting house, Complex A at La Venta, and the sanctuaries of Prambanan resoundingly affirm this point. Machinic assemblages denote precisely these kinds of causal and efficacious spatial confederations. As Ben-Arie notes (2016: 180): “The concept of machine might seem very similar to that of the assemblage, but Deleuze and Guattari make a distinction between them, giving the machine the prerogative of transformation within and of assemblages.”24 Adam T. Smith similarly argues that machines actively change or reproduce social assemblages; they do more than articulate social-material collectives but are ­fundamental to their operation. He clarifies: “What separates a synchronic assemblage from a diachronic machine is the capacity to operate in the world, to make a difference in social life over time” (Smith 2015: 49–50). According to Guattari, cities epitomize “megamachines” “node(s) at the core of a multidimensional network” (1986: 460), and such nodes were often anchored by temple complexes in pre-industrial cities (see Chapters 2 and 3). Just as medicine bundles assemble disparate elements in a cosmic totality to engineer ritual transformations—to variably territorialize and deterritorialize other assemblages indexed in convergent microcosms—religious structures commonly operated on a comparable basis. For instance, in his examination of “monupower” (the agency of assembled monuments) in Neolithic Britain, Harris argues (2021: 193–194) that architecture operated as a machine for world making. Deleuze and Guattari say that a machine ‘may be defined as a ‘system of interruptions or breaks’ ­[coupures] (2009: 36, original emphasis]. By this they mean something that intervenes in the world, something that does something…. Harris adds that “machines make a difference,” and they “differentiate something new.” This emphasis on interruptions and breaks complements the propensity of ritual to rework, harden, or blur boundaries as they unite, separate, or bring into often tense communion ontological others and distinct cosmic plains (Seligman et al. 2008: 13). Indeed, the multiplex, mediating role of religious edifices demonstrate their capacity to act as “social machines” that link “bodies and regimes of signs over technical machines” (the spatial and material content of assemblages) (Bonta and Protevi 2004: 107; Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 398). As a logical extension, scholars have fruitfully analyzed the mediating and machinic functions of temple-like constructions as “mesocosms.” The cosmic symbolism and astronomical alignments of such buildings “geometrically link the celestial realm of macrocosm with human realms of text, tradition, and ritual” (microcosm). (Singh and McKim 2015: 17). In fact, Deleuze argued that machinic entities are fundamentally “productive” and order heterogeneous entities into an assemblage amenable to diagrammatic figuration. Described as the “map of ­destiny” (Deleuze 1988: 36), “the diagram defines the relationship between a

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particular set of forces,” and it serves as “a code or arrangement, by which an assemblage operates” (Livesey 2005b: 18). This description of a machinic assemblage is reminiscent of Peirce’s notion of a diagrammatic icon and Silverstein’s definition of ritual as an indexical icon, and it reinforces the argument that mesocosmic religious edifices could serve as powerful semiotic (or even mega) machines that mediate between distinctive worlds, remaking them in the process. As discussed in the previous chapter, such worlds were also dramatically territorialized in terms of the diverse peoples, animals, technologies, things, infrastructures, and megamachinic labour parties that temple constructions creatively bundled together. Chapters 5–8 apply these combined insights to make sense of the sacred infrastructures of ancient Angkor and the Jequetepeque region of Peru. Notes 1 As J.Z. Smith notes (1987: 109): “ritual is, above all, the assertion of difference.” Baron similarly contends: “ritualization is a strategy meant to establish a privileged contrast” (2016: 232). Seligman and colleagues (2008: 11) seem to concur that “Ritual both posits boundaries and allows the move between boundaries.” Indeed, ceremonies powerfully mediate either unification or schismogenesis and can thus engender radical ­communitas (antistructure) or rigid hierarchy (Bateson 1958; Bloch 1989; Houseman and Severi 1998: 25–26, 169; Turner 1969). 2 Interestingly, Indigenous cognates of what we might translate as “sacred” or “religion” (deriving from the Latin word to “set apart” and “bind together,” respectively) often connote openings or portals linking distinct entities or domains. For instance, Gilli (1976: 9–10) interprets the etymology of Vodun as consisting of the Ewe word vo (meaning “hole” or “opening”) combined with dou or odu, the “divination signs associated with Ifá” (see Norman 2009: 188). Norman goes as far to translate Vodun as “the messenger of holes.” Similarly, the central concept of wak’a in the Andes, referring to sacred, morethan-human powers, derives etymologically from a word meaning “crack,” “fissure,” or “opening.” (Mannheim and Salas 2015; see Chapter 5). In the end, Pauketat (2013: 1–2) also stresses the coming together of ontological others in his particular definition of religion: “the amalgam of practices whereby people associate and align themselves with the cosmos and its otherworldly powers.” 3 In foregrounding the intensified semiotic frame of the ritual process, I stress in particular the density and proliferation of symbols and their polyvalent meanings and effects. In addition, this notion acknowledges that religious signs create “double interpretants.” The meanings evoked in ritual are interpreted both “representationally and practically” and most often reference expected social codes and moral conventions while indexing the “world-constructing boundary” of the “finite/infinite” (Shults 2010: 85–86; see also Neville 1996: 113). Quack and Sax (2010: 6) similarly critique anthropologists’ inability to transcend the dichotomy between ritual as “instrumental” or “expressive/symbolic.” 4 As Ponzo and colleagues note (2021: 2): “Properly understood, semiosis is nothing other than a form of mediation; while religious praxis is largely structured by the dialectic of mediation and immediacy.” Shults (2010: 73) also notes that religion is fundamentally concerned with creating, maintaining, or transgressing “boundaries” (see also Neville 1996: 55). 5 In this same vein, theorists have argued that ritual creates “subjunctive universes,” in which an ambiguous “as if” or “could be” reality is created. Such “imaginary” worlds brought into being by ritual (Smith 1982: 53–65) demonstrates its creative, semiotic, and transformative possibilities (see Seligman et al. 2008; Grimes 2011: 83).

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6 Ball adds (2014: 153): “Any activity may be ritualized to degrees, turned into a process of active interpretation that is at the same time a performative process of actualization, a poetically structured text that uses iconicity to generate indexical connections” (and see Silverstein 2004: 626). 7 Gregor (1977: 327) discusses a reverse process: how figurines restore souls to the sick among the Mehinaku of the Amazon (Stahl 1986: 137). To consider another scenario, Farber (2004) discusses a fascinating middle Babylonian exorcist text written in Akkadian that recounts a healing ritual involving the marriage of a dressed wooden female figurine to a demon causing an illness in a sick man. The man shares his bed and food with the doll over the course of three days, an act accompanied by incantations that weds the demon to the miniature icon. The nuptial and removal of the figurine from the quarantined room expels the demon (and thus illness) from the cured host. The text suggests that all associated materials within the sealed space (beddings, vessels, etc.) were either fumigated or set to the torch to prevent further contagion. 8 As Lambeck notes (2013: 7): “Religion is a source, means, idiom, context of human creativity, through imagination and craft, in realms from dreams to dance, the musical and plastic arts, as well as captivating performances of various kinds from preaching sermons to shamanic voyages.” In his classic work, Cosmologies in the Making (1990), Fredrik Barth identifies the extraordinary work performed by material culture—often beautiful items employed exclusively in ceremonial events—in inculcating values and establishing basic orientations both within and outside the ritual frame. He compares ritual specialists among the Baktaman of Papua New Guinea to poets and artists in terms of the creative influences they exert within their societies. 9 Larkin (2013: 335) further remarks that the poetic “places attention on the materiality of the signifier itself” as exemplified by rhyming and musical performances. 10 Repetition characterizes both acts within a rite and the repetition of ritual writ large. In terms of the latter, periodic or seasonal recurrence can convey different meanings. The weekly Catholic mass at once commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus and his Apostles, while reaffirming the new covenant with believers. Indeed, the recurring transubstantiation of bread and wine in the rite of the Eucharistic directly indexes priest and congregant with Jesus (the Lord) (Silverstein 2004: 626). Thus, comestibles and altar furnishings (chalice, paten, incense) provide clear examples of the central role of semiotic mediators in religious ceremonies. Repetition, then, can also include the diagrammatic reenactment of archetypes. For instance, periodic reenactments of cosmogonic myths in Mesoamerican sacrificial practices intended to ensure social renewal and continuation of the cosmos. Regardless of the scale of repetition, and returning to Yelle’s point, this key semiotic mode works to secure ritual’s legitimacy and efficacy. 11 Seligman et al. (2008: 148): further note: “Indeed, as the basis of rhythm, the patterning of repetition, has been identified… as the most fundamental and earliest way that order was imposed on the chaos of existence.” This emphasis on order has also led scholars to argue that architectural repetition is also intimately tied to communicating and enforcing authority. In a letter to Siegfried Kracauer, commenting on his work, Mass Ornament, Meyer Schapiro argued that repetition is “notoriously a device about absolute power,” as exemplified by the “endless rows of columns in Egypt, India, Baroque Italy, Versailles” (cited in Levy 2004: 114; and see M. Anderson 1991). 12 The numerous pillars and gopuras (entrance pavilions) of the Bayon, the state temple of Jayavarman VII (r. 1181–1218), were decorated with 6,250 dancing goddesses or apsaras (Sharrock 2009: 147). 13 It is worth citing Jarvis in length who recognizes that the degree to which deposits are coded and territorialized can shed light on their virtual properties and intended functions and meaning (to protect, conjure, animate, ratify, bless, neutralize, convert, etc.). He states (2019; 56–57): Coding is most visible in the development of what Garrow (2012) terms ‘odd deposits’, which might include hoards, caches or objects treated in unusual ways.

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Simply identifying such deposits as ‘odd’, ‘special’, or ‘ritual’ is unsatisfactory however. It homogenises these deposits and creates a generalised approach which masks the specificity and vibrancy of each deposit as a territorialisation of objects and materials. Furthermore, such generalisation masks the fact that such deposits had a purpose within past ontologies, with their potential for protection, for example, being a real, actualised, capacity of these assemblages rather than a belief. (Brück 1999) 14 In defining condensation as “a sequence of action” founded on the “simultaneity of nominally incompatible modes of relationship,” Houseman and Severi (1998: 44–45) differentiate their meaning of this key term from Freud, Firth, Tambiah, Sapir and others. For the latter scholars, condensation refers more generally to the fusion of multiple meanings and sensoria into a single symbol. For my purposes, this distinction is not so important, and instead I recognize that ritualized structured deposits in archaeological contexts can often entail the condensation (exhaustion or accumulation) of multiple signs, at once compatible, contradictory, and ambiguous. Interestingly, Kapferer also recognizes the force of condensation in the specific aesthetic and performative structure common to ritual—and such convergence become especially pronounced at moments of transformation or metamorphosis. He notes (1983: 8): Sinhalese excorisms, and rituals elsewhere in the world which similarly engage in a complexity of performance modes, combine in the one context of action many of the ways through which human beings generally communicate and realize their experience. Exorcisms place major aesthetic forms into relation and locate them at points when particular transformations and transitions in meaning and experience are understood by exorcists to be occurring or are to be effected. (original emphasis) 15 For instance, the conflation of the opposing symbolism of femininity/masculinity, birth/ death, and so forth in initiation rites works to ensure the “two-fold metamorphosis” of initiates who are at once “differentiated from uninitiated women” as they become progressively transformed into men (Houseman and Severi 1998: 276–277). 16 As Stasch notes (2003: 378): The force of what Freud called ‘condensation symbolism’ is not simply that it contains many metaphors in one, or even that it serves as a ‘converter’ among its constituent images, but that the image with these properties attains a synthetic singularity beyond the meanings of its constituent possibilities. Lévi-Strauss also argued that ritual reduces “to a minimum, in the experiential content of the ritual itself, the critical distinctions established by the classificatory thought characteristic of mythology… and it thus “cultivates the illusion of a reconciliation of opposites…” (Houseman and Severi 1998: 180). 17 Stasch’s work ultimately demonstrates that the Korowai “approach much of the work of feast longhouse construction with an ideology of iconic causation, according to which iconic work has indexical purposes and indexical effects” (2003: 361). Indeed, the amplified semiotic frame of ritual is exemplified by the fact that its choreographed performance often acts as a kind of “cause” to index an “effect.” In many instances, such as a footprint or a bullet hole, the index works in an inverted sense as an effect that indexes a cause. We can understand in part ritual’s propensity to index or bring about effects in terms of its intended or anticipated etiological outcomes (to heal, convert, initiate, etc.) (Grimes 1990; Rappaport 1999: 56; Robbins 2001: 594). 18 Borobudur’s reliefs encode a specific semiotic ideology in which more didactic icons and transparent illustrations of the Buddha’s lives (as recounted in the Jatakas and Avadanas) predominate in the lower terraces of the structure as a means to instruct the less educated and the farthest removed from enlightenment. In contrast, the designs and symbols become more abstract, tantric, and difficult to decipher in the upper tiers

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of the monument (Miksic 1990: 22–23). The hundreds of life-sized Buddha statues in their stupa shelters also encoded sacred numerology in multiples of eight, such as the 104 statues ringing the lowest two tiers of the monument (and 104 is a sacred number in Indic Religions) (Miksic 1990: 34–35, 40). The numerous Buddha statues also served as scaled down nested icons of the monument itself and they formed nested relationships in turn with the thousands of clay miniature votives (stupika) discovered at the temple. Finally, Borobudur’s condensed semiotic density is further evinced in its simultaneous representation of Mount Meru (the abode of the gods), the tripartite realms of existence (desire, form, and formlessness), as well as a mandala of initiation (Miksic 1990: 44–46). It brilliantly combined mountain, stupa, and mandala into a single semiotic machine. 19 Turner explains that the etymological root for their equivalent word “symbol” among the Ndembu of Central Africa derives from the verb “‘to blaze a trail,’ in effect connecting the known and unknown (Turner 1967: 48), thus making them part of the Peircean process of signs growing outward into the world” (Newell 2018: 11) (emphasis added). Newell (2018: 11) continues: “Turner insists on the polyvalence of symbols, and their communicative power in ritual often relies upon this ambiguity and even semiotic ambivalence.” 20 The deposit of ritual caches in enclosure ditches or in comparable boundary zones in Neolithic Britain likely precipitated similar semiotic effects (Pollard 2008: 50–51). Hidden material signs could at once consecrate, protect, or render dangerous and fearsome the spaces they indexed and empowered. They could also commemorate and celebrate interregional confederations, as exemplified by the placement of “deposited treasures under burial mounds in the Hopewell Interaction Sphere [100 BCE–400 CE] centred in the Paint Creek and Scioto River valleys of Ohio.” These deposits were “piled up in extraordinary quantities” and included “quartz-crystal arrowheads, mica and obsidian from the Appalachians, copper and silver from the Great Lakes, conch shells and shark teeth from the Gulf of Mexico, grizzly-bear molars from the Rockies, meteoric iron, alligator teeth, barracuda jaws and more.” (Graeber and Wengrow 2021: 457– 458). Thus, the cached, exotic items microcosmically bundled together North American ­religious and trade networks. 21 The “pegs” or “nails” assumed this explicit form as they symbolically acted to hold the temple together. In the Early Dynastic Period, cached deposits were buried directly below the temple foundations, inserted vertically between bricks or emplaced “in significant points, including entrance, corners, and other important wall intersections” (Tsouparopoulou 2014: 18). The plano-convex brick shape of many of the recovered votive tablets symbolized a literal “building-block,” and it indexed in miniature the king’s integral role in the construction and upkeep of the temple. In fact, beginning with Gudea of Lagash (2144–2124 BCE) and becoming common in the UR III Period (2112 BC–2000 BCE), votive figures were deposited depicting the king carrying aloft baskets of earth used in the construction of temples (Tsouparopoulou 2014: 22–23). 22 Nebuchadnezzar’s successor, Nabonidus (reigned 556–539 BCE) deposited a similar inscription in his commemoration of the renovation of the temple of the sun god Shamash in Babylon. His description declares: I removed the debris of that temple, looked for its old foundation deposit, dug to a depth of eighteen cubits into the ground and then Shamash, the great lord, revealed to me the original foundations of Ebabbar, the temple which is his favorite dwelling, by disclosing the foundation deposit of Naram-Sin, son of Sargon, which no king among my predecessors had found in 3,200 years…. On the foundation deposit of NaramSin, son of Sargon, not a finger’s breadth too wide or too narrow, I laid [the temple’s] brick work…. The inscription in the name of Naram-Sin, son of Sargon, I found and did not alter. I anointed it with oil, made offerings, placed it with my own inscription

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and returned it to its original place (Beaulieu COS). (Beaulieu, “The Sippar Cylinder of Nabonidus (2.123A),” in Context of Scripture, ed. W. Hallo). (Miller 2018) 23 Imprecations in the inscriptions also threatened that the gods would curse those who removed or desecrated the sacred texts. In invoking ritual condensation in this context, it deserves mention that cached Mesopotamian ritual inscriptions encoded highly symbolic content, and they contained fewer concentrated elements than Amerindian medicine bundles or Egyptian foundation sacrifices (distinguished by miniature tools, raw building materials, the full spectrum of food and other offerings bequeathed to the gods) (Tsouparopoulou 2014: 18). Nevertheless, foundation deposits excavated in Mesoamerica often bundled together sundry, microcosmic tokens. As Tsouparopoulou explains (2014: 18): “A Mesopotamian foundation deposit usually consisted of a copper peg-shaped figurine and a plano-convex brick made of stone often both inscribed with similar texts. It also occasionally included beads, wooden objects or fragments and chips of stone.” By the UR III period, a standardized package of materials were placed in baked brick boxes sealed with reed matts, bitumen, and capping bricks. Buried below the temple foundations (often in multiples in single structures) they marked doorways and perimeters and contained the figurines and inscriptions, along with beads, fig pits, and wooden figures (Tsouparopoulou 2014: 23). 24 Ben-Arie further differentiates machines and assemblages in a manner useful for ­interpreting ritual architecture. He writes (2016: 181): Mechanisms are closed specific functions with pre-given outcomes. Machines on the other hand, are productive in unpredictable ways. Machines function within assemblages, setting them in processes of transformation through the production of new connections and relations between flows of matter and bodies and flows of ­statements and expression, new machinic assemblages of content and new collective assemblages of enunciation. Guattari also notes that Machinic arrangements (agencements) enhance the enuciative effects of assemblages (1995: 41).

5 SACRED INFRASTRUCTURES AND RITUALS OF PLACE-MAKING IN THE ANCIENT ANDES

5.1 Introduction

The chapters that follow provide in-depth analyses of religious infrastructures from ancient Peru and Cambodia to illustrate how the application of the theories developed in the previous three chapters can shed original light on the role of ritual and place-making in the creation of distinct political ecologies. I selectively apply the approaches discussed earlier in the book when pertinent to a specific problem and to interpret a particular landscape or architectural complex. The approaches range from analyses of the semiotic ideology encoded in structured depositions within sacred structures to investigations of the aesthetic effects of the segmentation of space characterizing built environments (Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 210). As a baseline, I make use of these perspectives to approximate a reconstruction of how landscapes were variably conceived, perceived, and lived in the spirit of Henri Lefebvre, and how these registers may have aligned or clashed (see Chapter 2). In other words, I examine built environments, infrastructures, and rituals staged within specialized buildings to demonstrate how archaeologists can better infer past ontologies, ideologies of time and place, cosmologies, and historically specific political struggles. The analysis in the remaining chapters attempts to accomplish this ambitious goal by bringing social theory into dialogue with the philosophies and cosmologies of the Andes and Angkor. I engage with these diverse discourses on equal footing but mobilize Indigenous traditions to redress the limitations of anthropological conceptual frameworks. Thus, Chapters 5 and 7 provide the background on Andean and Angkorian religious infrastructures and ideologies of landscape that will inform the interpretations of the case studies presented in Chapters 6 and 8 respectively. In this chapter, I turn my attention to the Andes, while in Chapter 6, DOI: 10.4324/9780429356063-5

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I focus on the religious landscape of the Jequetepeque Valley, Peru where I have conducted archaeological research over the past 25 years. Ultimately, I aim to show how much we can infer about the history of this particular region through an application of the trilectic approach developed in the first half of the book. In contrast to the imposition of evolutionary typologies to ascertain whether a culture such as the Moche (200–900 CE) constituted an urban society or a state, we have much to gain in examining the actual construction of worlds as mediated by infrastructural projects and the semiotic machinery of rituals of place-making. A comparison of conceived space, as informed by Indigenous worldviews and codified ideologies of place, with lived realities and the experience of ritualized third space offers valuable insight into past power relations and the success of institutions in assembling specific political regimes. A common refrain of this work, an investigation of a subject as complex as an Andean urban settlement must avoid determinisms; a singular theoretical framework, whether semiotic, new materialist, or so forth, would obviously fail to capture diverse experiences of a particular place. A more nuanced approach is required, but attention to ritual contexts in particular, in the framework of theories discussed in Chapters 3 and 4, often provides among the most illuminating archaeological data by which to make interpretations on everything from ontology and subjectivity to the effects of the built environment in reifying power structures. 5.2

Andean Conceived Space and Ideologies of Place

The Andes immediately evoke awesome feats of construction as exemplified by the wondrous ocean of terraces sculpted into the high slopes of the impressive mountainous environment (Swenson and Jennings 2018). The term “Andes” actually derives from the Spanish word for “terrace,” and agricultural expansion formed an integral strategy of imperial conquest and ideology (Kosiba 2018; Quilter 2014: 4). Inca reclamation projects and capital investments in infrastructure constituted a civilizing mission that reenacted the moral exploits of creator deities. Agriculture as cosmogony underwrote the belief systems of a number of Amerindian people, and the vast infrastructures of the Inca or of the earlier Moche and Wari raise as many questions about religion as they do about political economy (Joyce 2021). More accurately stated, such traditions expose the limitations of our purifying categories (sensu Latour 1993) and validate a multi-pronged approach that foregrounds semiotic processes and place-sensitive heuristics discussed in the previous chapters. A single chapter could never adequately cover the long and fascinating ­history of Andean built environments, and in this introductory section, I focus more narrowly on Andean ideologies of place as relates in particular to sacred geographies and religious infrastructures. I stress overarching commonalities among a few select archaeological cultures as well as important differences. The objective of this discussion is to provide some of the needed contextual background for the comparative analysis of the Jequetepeque region that follows in Chapter 6.

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Some common denominators shared by differing traditions of Andean placemaking include: the inextricable relationship of the monumental with the religious and infrastructural; temple architecture that formed part of larger living landscapes; ideologies of the “centre” based on concentric dualism and synecdochal geographies; and an overriding concern with the socio-cosmic ordering of space. These key characteristics were often mutually reinforcing, but they became manifest in accordance with historically specific cosmologies and the ritual priorities of a given tradition. Indeed, the kinds of rituals that made or reproduced place commonly prescribed the form and media of construction. In the Andes, the most prominent rituals traditions included feasting (at different scales), ancestor veneration, shamanistic encounters, initiation, vision quests, agricultural and water rites, oracular divination, curing ceremonies, astronomy and calendrics, pilgrimage, mortuary practices, and sacrifice. The latter fulfilled diverse functions, such as the feeding of ancestors, appeasing ontological others, re-enacting cosmogonic myth, and restoring cosmic order to ensure the rejuvenation of place and the proper unfolding of time. Certainly, these genres were not mutually exclusive; for instance, a revered ancestral mummy, a recipient of sacrifice, could serve as an oracle and preside over grand feasts that united a community with their divine progenitor (Curatola 2008; Gose 1996; MacCormack 1991). However, certain kinds of ritual often played a privileged role in a given religious tradition and left an indelible mark in the archaeological record. For instance, the Moche site of Huaca Colorada served as a great monument for the sacrificial restoration of space-time, while simultaneously providing an arena for large-scale feasting. As explored in Chapter 6, the huaca differed strikingly from the neighbouring ceremonial centres of Jatanca and Tecapa in terms of architectural design, semiotic ideology, and ritual affordances. In this chapter, I will thus provide a brief survey of how different ritual traditions did indeed produce radically divergent landscapes. However, I first outline some overarching convergences of Andean built landscapes, focusing on the common denominators identified above. This survey will permit the definition of key terms, including wak’a and tinkuy among other concepts, which I mobilize to interpret the archaeological record of the Jequetepeque Valley. 5.2.1 The Ontological Indivisibility of the Monumental, Infrastructural, and Sacred in the Andes

Andean people rarely perceived the environment as an inert object or a geometric extension of vertical and horizontal space. Instead, places, including architecture, often constituted living subjects that directly participated in larger social collectives (Allen 2015; Dillehay 2007; Swenson and Jennings 2018; Tantaleán 2019). Thus, Andean built landscapes formed part of enlivened ecosystems, and animist and relational ontologies underwrote perceptions of the environment (Alberti and Laguens 2019; de la Cadena 2010: Lunnis 2019). Communities engaged rivers, trees, rock outcrops, and mountain peaks as well as religious architecture as living

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social actors that played a decisive role in human affairs (Allen 1998; Lund Skar 1994; Salomon and Urioste 1991; van de Guchte 1990, 1999). As such, sociality in the Andes constituted an intrinsically topographical ­phenomenon. The all-important concept of wak’a (huaca) proves this point. Beings of creative power and the progenitors of landforms and human social groups, Andeanists commonly translate wak’a as comparable to deity, sacred being, ­oracle, or “supernatural” (Curatola 2020; Meddens 2020). Despite their ontological ­otherness, however, wak’as formed an immanent and indivisible part of the natural world (Brosseder 2014; Curatola 2020; Tantaleán 2019). A myriad of different phenomena were denoted wak’a, but they shared a similar capacity to create, carve landscapes, bestow fertility, divine the future, and punish wrongdoers. In her exploration of the meaning and history of this phenomenon, Bray (2015) notes that Andean communities engaged wak’as as persons who spoke, ate, and wore woven garments. Mannheim and Salas note that wak’a also evokes striking topographic imagery as the word relates linguistically to fissures, caverns, crevices, and even butt cracks (Mannheim and Salas 2015: 55; and see endnote 2 in Chapter 4). In a similar manner, the decidedly emplaced power of wak’as is evinced in the linguistic parallels drawn between landforms and living body parts (van de Guchte 1999: 149–150). In this vein, scholars have recognized a homologous relationship, or a “structure of correspondence,” binding the corporeal, spatial, social, ecological, and cosmic realms in the Andes (Classen 1993; Duviols 1973: 158; Salomon and Urioste 1991: 19–20; Sherbondy 1992). As Classen notes (1993: 3): The fundamental structure of Inca cosmology—the dualities of the right and left, high and low, male and female—were, in fact, derived from structures of the human body. The processes of the cosmos in turn, were modeled on the processes of the body—the intake and outflow of air and fluids, the digestion of food, the circulation of blood, reproduction, aging and death, and so on. As discussed in the examination of Huaca Colorada in Chapter 6, the homological interrelationship of ecology, body, and cosmos, commonly extends to infrastructures and religious monuments, and wak’as ultimately formed emplaced and ­cosmically charged bodies. Thus, in the Andean setting, a “place” subsumed not only a locale but presupposed an identity and a series of relationships, events, and potentialities (Ødegaard 2011). This convergence is apparent in the Quecha word, llaqta, a designation defined as a region, a set of relationships, a community of integrated ayllus (Andean kin groups or lineages), and a “deity-locale” (Salomon and Urioste 1991: 23–24). As Mills notes (1997: 47): “A llacta in its old sense might be defined as a triple entity: the union of a localized huaca (often an ancestor-deity) with its territory and with the group of people whom the huaca engendered.” According to Salomon and Urioste, communities identified revered wak’as with specific places perceived as

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both geographic areas and social persons. However, Mannheim and Salas (2015) admonish that archaeologists and anthropologists have unduly “entified” the wak’a phenomenon. They argue that this term refers as much to an action verb or quality as it does to a noun. In fact, this critique accords well with an Andean understanding of place as an animated state of being and becoming, something eventful and subjectified, a reterritorializing agent to use Deleuzian terms, rather than a strictly fixed, bounded territory. In sum, wak’a commonly refers to powerful, sentient, reciprocating beings of creation who acted as key protagonists in mythic histories and related cosmogonies (for a full discussion see Bray 2015). As Trever notes, it designates not so much a thing “but an extraordinary sense of being” (2011: 41), a quintessential other of great power who nonetheless formed part of the material world—­especially landscapes—and sustained living communities through reciprocal, sacrificial exchanges (Bray 2015). A wak’a, then, is a “sacred place, person, animal, or thing that is especially imbued with the activating, mana-like force known in Quechua as camay” (Trever 2011: 40). Camay or camaquen denotes a vitalizing, creative energy that connects beings of different ontological status and charges them with life (Bray 2009: 357; Salomon and Urioste 1991: 16; Tantaleán 2019: 19–21). All sentient beings, designated camasca—tangible manifestation of camay, are energized and given substance through camac, a supernatural “vitalizing prototype” (Taylor 2000). Individual social formations, monumental architectural complexes, and landscapes were the creations of specific camac, usually their wak’a of origin (Arriaga 1968: 50; Hyland 2011: 9; Salomon and Urioste 1991: 16). Camay philosophy does not align with Platonic idealism for camay signifies a generative heat, fructifying liquid, or electrical energy and not a mental archetype (Salomon and Urioste 1991: 16). Andean religious practice endeavoured to “supplicate the camac to ever vitalize its camasca, that is, its tangible instance or manifestation” (Salmon and Urioste 1991: 16), and the camasca often constituted an emplaced, extended collective—such as an ayllu or village. Wak’as, commonly including remarkable features of the built environment, served both as the source of camay and were infused with an extraordinary amount of this animating energy (Tantaleán 2019). It comes then as no surprise that the great religious monuments of the Andean past are often referenced as “huacas” and directly named thus (e.g., Huaca de la Luna, Huaca Colorada, etc.). Even if this Quechua concept represents a later imposition on the much earlier, pre-Inca monuments of the north coast of Peru and elsewhere (in line with Mannheim and Salas’ critique of the entification of the term), it strongly suggests that local communities engaged with the built environment as enlivened, powerful beings comparable to later understandings of wak’a. Andean mythohistory further confirms this understanding of wak’as as extraordinary persons that made, shaped, and embodied powerful places (Swenson and Jennings 2018). Cosmic powers were manifested in the “remarkable abilities to transform the living landscape” (Mills 1997: 51), and such transformations ranged from building houses to bringing forth springs through acts of divine urination

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(Duviols 1973: 159–160). In the Huarochiri Manuscript, a unique compendium of an Indigenous religious tradition from the Huarochiri region in the mountains east of Lima, the great deities were builders of infrastructure (Salomon and Urioste 1991; Chase 2015). For instance, one of the preeminent gods of the account, Paria Caca, expanded and widened an irrigation canal, an act that symbolized his sexual union with the female wak’a, Chuqui Suso. The construction also fertilized the landscape and ushered in an entirely new ecological and social order. In general, Andean people held that in ancient times deified cultural heroes built irrigation networks and agricultural infrastructures and invented farming. Thus, the god Huari and his ancestral avatars in 17th-century Cajatambo in north-central Peru served as “the authors and fathers of irrigation,” and the extirpation of idolatry literature reveals that socio-cosmic order was created through the building of puqios (wells), irrigation networks, terraces, and fields (Duviols 1973: 159). Such building projects often transpired as a contest between competing wak’as or cultural heroes (Duviols 1973; Salomon and Urioste 1991). In other words, Andean ideologies of space (space as conceived) directly identified authority with the capacity to create and alter meaningful places. As discussed in Chapter 7, this core Lefebvrian tenet also distinguished Angkorian divinity and kingship. Inca statecraft also imitated the exploits of heroic world-makers, and the obsessive desire to rebuild the landscape underwrote imperial expansion (D’Altroy 2015; Kosiba 2018; Mills 1997: 100; Morris 1998; Niles 1999; Swenson 2013: 481; Swenson and Jennings 2018). The Inca straightened out river systems as a means to define and hierarchize social space (D’Altroy 2015: 137), and their monumental reclamation projects reveal that infrastructures constituted a fundamental “technology of government” (McFarlane and Rutherford 2008: 366). Religious convictions and a civilizing mission further propelled the imperial imperative to constantly reconstruct the world (MacCormack 1991; Swenson 2013: 482). Thus, imperial expansion was driven in part not only by the need for new emperors to acquire territory beyond the landholdings of former mummified Inca kings and their panaqas (royal ayllus) (Conrad and Demarest 1984) but to demonstrate their divine power to renew and improve the world (Kolata 2013; Swenson and Jennings 2018). The above discussion explains the seamless unification of infrastructural and sacred landscapes in the ancient Andes. The extraordinary Inca terraces built at sites such as Ollantaytambo, Tipon, Moray, Machu Picchu and Choquequiro in the Sacred Valley near Cusco served as much ceremonial as practical functions (Nair 2015; Niles 1999; Salazar and Salazar 2001: 68). A few are decorated with stone reliefs of Andean crosses and llamas (Choquequiro, Ollantaytambo), while other network of terraces harmonized with naturally figurative landmarks (especially mountain crags) to form massive geoglyphs. The latter assumes the shape of condors (Machu Picchu, Pisac), world trees (Ollantaytambo), and llamas (Ollantaytambo) (Salazar and Salazar 2001: 70–71, 102–105, 142–144). These oversized glyphs find equivalence in the capital city of Cusco configured as a puma, and the construction of enormous icons perceptible only from afar (above) constitutes a distinctive feature

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of Inca semiotic ideologies that made sparing use of perceptible icons. These ­massive icons may have served as mesocosmic “transistors” of sorts that directed the flow of camay to Inca fields, camelid herds, and elite estates from macrocosmic camacs (vitalizing prototypes) inhering in mountains or the dark constellations of the Milky Way (Salazar and Salazar 2021). Among the Inca, for instance, the llama constellation as camac infused a llama-specific ­generative essence to all llamas on Earth that allowed camelids to reproduce and prosper. Immense and imperceptible icons also find parallel in the famed Nasca lines of the south coast of Peru (1–750 CE). The complex radiation of lines extending kilometres across the dry pampa, along with the massive geoglyphs of zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figures, seems to have functioned as a kind of infrastructure that mapped the region’s hydrology. Simultaneously serving as routes of pilgrimage to ceremonial centres, mainly the great pyramidal complex of Cahauchi, the ­network of lines worked to stimulate creative movements, especially the flow of water ­necessary for agriculture in the dry deserts of Nasca (Aveni 2000; Silverman 1993). Examined briefly in Chapter 3, the Akapana pyramid of the Middle Horizon city of Tiwanaku on the shores of Lake Titicaca further exemplifies the indivisibility of the cosmic, religious, and infrastructural. The impressive canals that meandered through this tiered artificial mountain transformed the imposing edifice into a gushing fountain and integrated the structure with the irrigation network that provisioned the vast raised field systems of the centre. Thus, the Akapana sanctified and fertilized the life-giving waters of the Altiplano aquifer (Janusek 2020; Kolata 1993, 2003). This circulation of water through the monument perhaps intended to transmit a camay-like essence between monument and fields, a liquid energy charged by the Akapana that vitalized the field system. I have described the close association of moving water and camay in Andean religions as a “circulatory ontology,” and the ritual elaboration of hydraulic infrastructures distinguished diverse Andean traditions (Swenson 2018c; see also Cummins and Mannheim 2011; Gose 2018; Weismantel 2018). The Inca are similarly famed for their marvellous fountains that combined finely worked stone landings and channels with coursing ­liquid, and such “fluid communicators” (Moseley 1985) characterized monumental religious architecture in earlier Andean civilizations beyond Tiwanaku, including Chavín de Hunatar (1000–500 CE) and the Lambayeque/Sicán city of Batán Grande (Klaus and Shimada 2016). For instance, archaeologists have interpreted the numerous and colossal U-shaped temples of the Initial Period (1800–1000 CE) of the desert coast of Peru as beacons of fertility, magnets of water, and fluid communicators (Burger 1992; Moseley 1985; Pozorski and Pozorski 2017; Quilter 2014). The mounds forming the arms of the U-shaped pyramid built of earth, rock, and stucco, most often point east towards the mountains, the source of water required for irrigation agriculture on the dry coast. Archaeologists have interpreted this consistent embrace of the rising sun and mountain peaks as an indication of the newfound importance

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of mountain veneration and possibly ancestor worship, and both high summits and ancestors became the arbiters of water distribution in later Andean culture. Moseley writes: “the U-shaped centers literally turn their back to the sea to face the mountains, with their great arms reaching out to the rising sun and the sacred apu sources of desert water” (2001: 129).1 The Initial Period temples were commonly adorned with magnificent plaster friezes of menacing jaguars and other predatory beings, and jaguars in particular served as cosmic stewards of water, agricultural fertility, and generative forces in South American worldviews (Saunders 1998). In fact, archaeologists have also interpreted the characteristic U-shape structure as iconic materializations of the jaws of jaguars or caymans (Burger 1992; Isbell 1976; Lathrap 1985; Moseley 2001) and entering such temples likely entailed a terrifying ingestion by the enormous architectural beasts. For instance, the imposing frieze of fangs at Cardal, in the Lurín Valle south of Lima, framed both sides of the entry stairway that provided access to the summit atrium. One had to step into the fanged aperture in order to reach the top of this pyramid mound (Burger and Salazar 2008). Similar to the Akapana, the stone drainage channels forming a dense network of tunnels in the stony body of the magnificent U-shaped temple of Chavín de Huántar in the central highlands of Peru (1000–300 BCE) also integrated the monument into the natural water cycle of the Callejón de Conchucos in the highlands of the Department of Ancash in Peru. Water coursed through drains as blood flowed in arteries, and the rushing water made the monument roar and shake like a jaguar (Burger 1992; Weismantel 2015). The fanged staff deity defining the Chavín horizon throughout the Andes during the Early Horizon is also closely associated with fertility, agricultural abundance, and life-giving waters. To provide a final example, coastal polities in the Moche era (200–850 CE) and later built mimetic adobe mountain pyramids as instruments to replenish the rivers originating from the sierras. The monuments’ function to attract water was likely deemed essential for agriculture in the dry desert pampas of the North Coast (Shimada 1994: 37–38; Swenson and Warner 2016: 27). Adobe pyramids effectively acted as microcosmic mountains, and they were built at the distal ends of canals—as integral components of infrastructure—to ensure the maximum flow and distribution of water to agricultural fields (Koons 2022; Quilter 2002). In other words, mountains, both real and simulated, formed the termini of some of the most complex irrigation networks ever constructed in the Americas (Billman 2002). Moche ceramics also depict mountains as the abode of gods, sacrifice, and flowing rainwater in the form of human blood (Donnan 1978: Figure 225). Art historians have argued that the common step-fret (escalonado) motifs decorating Moche pottery often depict a stepped summit or pyramid combined with gushing water in the form of rolling waves. This particular motif likely symbolized temples as mountains and arenas of sacrifice (de Bock 2003: 312–315; Jackson 2008: 126– 129). Therefore, the iconographic and architectural evidence reveals that Moche pyramid mounds directly simulated the life-giving power of mountains to bring

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water to the dry coast through sympathetic rituals of bloodletting (de Bock 2003; Rostworowski 2008; Uceda 2001). 5.2.2 Synecdochal Geographies, Concentric Dualism, and Ideologies of the Centre

The Moche pyramid, Tiwanaku’s Akapana, and Chavín’s main temple reveal that in the Andes, parts commonly formed parts of larger wholes, which they microcosmically condensed in powerful, central spaces where ontological others and socio-cosmic forces converged. In fact, Andean theories of place are predicated on the material interconnections linking wholes and parts, originals and copies, progenitors and progeny, as well as hierarchically nested and replicated peoples and ­landforms—an ecology that resembles a vast geographical “synecdoche” (see Swenson and Jennings 2018). As Allen (1997) argues, the synecodochal exchangeability of the whole and part underwrote important dimensions of Andean geographic and religious thought (see also Spence Morrow 2018, 2019; Swenson 2015a: 701–702; Swenson and Warner 2016: 26; Yaya 2012: 15). She writes (1997: 81): Synecdochal thinking comprehends the world in terms of mutually enveloping homologous structures that act upon each other: ayllus [Andean lineages] are contained in ayllus; places are contained within places; every potato field contains its own vertical ecology; thus every microcosm energizes its macrocosm and vice-versa. Synecdochal thinking resembles the modular organization of space based on the hierarchical integration of replicated, homologous, and standardized units (Lockhart 1992; Kolata 2013: 58). Thus in the Andes, the lineage-based landholding group of the ayllu consisted of nested moieties of families (micro-ayllus) characterized by responsibilities, institutions, and leadership positions that were replicated at ever-larger scales to encompass the macro-ayllus that controlled larger territories (llactas). The integration of ayllus in dualistic relations of complementary ­opposition—that maintained the parts in the whole—was expressed in the idiom of gender and hierarchy, including the spatial registers of upper and lower as well as low plains and high mountains. Ayllus, then, consisted of nested, ranked, homologous groups of moieties counterpoised in dual and quadripartite social divisions, and the place of interaction in which contingent social affiliations were negotiated largely shaped identity. Thus, a leader or “primero persona” within a micro-ayllu assumed the role of a segundo persona when interacting with the chief (kuraka) of the upper half of the moiety. When this larger community engaged with outside ayllus, the primero persona either continued to assume this role at this higher level of integration or served as the segundo depending on the hierarchical relationship at play (Yaya 2012).

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During the era of Inca ascendency, such “dual corporate organization” ­structured all levels of society from the state to the lowest-level kin group (Gelles 1995; Kolata 2013). Nested synecdochal oppositions also spatially ordered Tawantinsuyu, the Inca “realm of the four quarters,” and the four major jurisdictions of the empire radiated out from the ultimate centre of Cusco. Archaeological evidence demonstrates that dualistic ideologies had a profound impact on the social production of space in the ancient Andes as exemplified by the U-shaped structures of Chavín and the similarly configured temples of the earlier Initial Period (Dillehay and Netherley 1986; Isbell 1977). Dualistic orders are further evinced in the dyadic plaza and settlement organization of Inca Cusco and at many other sites, including the Wanka settlement of Tunanmarca dating to the end of the Late Intermediate Period (135–1450) (Earle 2006). Two plazas, converging to make one (but maintaining a tense distinction) further reveal that synecdochal philosophies underlay Andean place-making. Indeed, the dual and quadripartite divisions of settlements and political landscapes physically mapped in space the hierarchical but complementary interplay of segmentation and unification that defined a core aspect of Andean sociality (Netherley 1990, 1993; Zuidema 1990 and see below).2 Mannheim and Salas (2015: 63) explore how in the Andes “all named places are persons… that “have a fractal quality,” as personified places had the capacity to distribute their essence in multiple, partible tokens. As a corollary, named places may also have instantiated such tokens, the scaled-down extensions of mighty persons, including mountains or powerful oracles. For instance, this sharing or partibility of being is evident in the brother images or huauques of the Inca, who acted as personified, living embodiments of the Inca king in regions outside of Cusco (Meddens 1997: 10; Ramirez 2005; Swenson and Jennings 2018). In this regard, we can interpret the microcosmic function of Andean architecture, whether a Moche pyramid replicating the form of a mountain or the cityscape of Cusco designed in the shape of a puma, as culturally varied exemplars of “fractal” or “synecdochal ecologies” (Swenson and Jennings 2018; Swenson and Warner 2016). The efficacy of such monuments lies not simply in communicating authority but in their capacity to incarnate and channel cosmic power (camay)—as extensions or living surrogates of personified powerful places. These religious constructions exemplify the generative potential encapsulated in the profoundly spatial notions of tinkuy, yanantin, masintin, and chaupin. These core concepts of Andean philosophy pertain to moments (space-times) in which opposing forces were fused and thus liberated, neutralized, synthesized, or reformed into something new and more powerful. In other words, these ­unusual places were flash points of alterity, forming nexuses of agentive possibilities and nodes of power within the interlocking and synecdochal landscapes of the Andes (Lau 2012: 19). Indeed, the actual physical space of separation and convergence— in which parts became whole or reverted back into smaller constituent parts— constituted especially powerful places in the ancient Andes. In this regard, “concentric” dualism (Maybury-Lewis 1960) can effectively describe Andean

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synecdochal landscapes, as hierarchy, mediation, and the delineation of a centre defined the union of opposites, whether the city of Cusco as the capital of the Inca Empire or the central shrine housing the main deity-image in the U-shaped structure of Chavín de Huántar. Concentric dualism differs from the perfect symmetry and balanced reciprocity exemplified by “diametric dualism” (Gelles 1995; Maybury-Lewis 1960: 38–41). The juxtaposition and unification of paired parts that create a charged centre is captured by the Quechua word tinkuy or tinku, a term that refers to the act (and place) of conjoining. More specifically, tinkuy in Quechua describes the harmonious union of binary forces symbolized by the confluence of two rivers; it also signifies a sense of balance and prosperity (Burger 1992: 130; Dean 2007; Duviols 1973; Salomon and Urioste 1991; Staller 2008: 283). Variably symbolized by two moieties engaged in ritual warfare, the confluence of river tributaries, or the twining of threads in the weaving process, tinkuy activates the sexual union of the male and female principles (yanantin/yanatin), a synthesis that defines and renews the world (Platt 1986; Swenson 2012b; Swenson and Jennings 2018; Yaya 2012: 14). It is telling that the famous Early Horizon site of Chavín de Huántar in the central highlands is situated at such a confluence (similar to many Formative ceremonial sites). As the Theresa and John Topic note (2009: 29): In cosmological terms, yanatin [the principle of the conjugal pair] would refer to the masculine and feminine elements that are necessary for the renewal of the world, while tinku would describe the union of those gendered elements that enacts the renewal.3 Tinkuy refers not simply to a peaceful unity but can potentially engender conflict and violence (Allen 1988: 205–206). In fact, tinkuy also designates ritual battles fought between opposing moieties forming larger social wholes. These skirmishes, staged in convergent, liminal, and “dialectical” spaces, include town plazas or marginal and barren pampas, potent places of conjunction and differentiation (Harris 1994: 47; Sallnow 1987: 136; Skar 1985). The outcome of battles would realign social relations and often resulted in the reapportionment of fields and land boundaries. The closely related concepts of yanantin (yanatin) and masintin share much in common with tinkuy, and the former was recorded at the time of the conquest, and ritual specialists in the region of Cusco still employ the terms today (Webb 2012: 37; see also Platt 1986). Yanantin “refers to a complementary pair in which both parts are necessary to the proper functioning of the whole” (González Holguín 1989 [1608]: 181, 364; Tantaleán 2019). Masintin denotes the ritual activation or material-physical experience of yanantin, and it entails the creative reconciliation of complementary opposites exemplified by the union of the male-female dyad.4 Materialized and channelled in ritual events, masintin charges places with exceptional power. Indeed these spaces formed the actual fertilizing nodes of “synecdochal conduction” and circulation, where reciprocal transfers occurred, and where parts potentially merged and reformed into more encompassing and formidable

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wholes. Such places enabled encounters between different ontological and social entities (ancestors, humans, wak’as, ethnic others, etc.), and included a diversity of locales, including paqarinas (the dawning place of ancestors—especially caves), pilgrimage centres, public plazas, and shrines. For instance, Cusco’s great double plaza of Kusipata and Awkaypata with its centripetal usnu, along with the Qorikancha (Temple of the Sun), formed the ultimate place of dialectical synthesis and convergence in the Inca Empire, from whence the four quarters of the empire and the 41 z’eke (ceque—processional paths and sight lines) radiated outward (Christie 2007: 182; and see below). The usnu exemplified the Andean “fluid communicator,” as it consisted of an altar or throne-like structure equipped with elaborate basins and subterranean drains that received and circulated libations of liquid including chicha (aqha—corn beer). A great sacred orifice in the heart of Cusco, it constituted a point of convergence and distribution of liquid camay. Ultimately, the usnu served to foster exchanges between different cosmic realms through the circulation of liquids (Allen 2014, 2015; Meddens 2014, Zuidema 1980). The Quechua word chawpin or chawpi, meaning centre, middle region, or zone of mediation could also describe Cusco and resonates with the concepts of masintin and tinkuy (Depaz 2015: 81; Tantaleán 2019: 18). It similarly designates a condition and place that harnessed creative, fertilizing power through the merger and reconciliation of opposing, often asymmetrical, but complementary forces (Platt 1986: 232; Webb 2012: 87). As mentioned above, archaeologists have interpreted the U-shaped pyramids of the formative central coast (1500–800 BCE) and the Chavín horizon (1000–300 BCE) in this manner. The name of Chavín itself appears to derive from chawpin, underlying the central, mediating role of this great temple complex (Burger 1992: 128). Summarizing Isbell’s classic argument, Burger notes (1992: 62–63): the central building at the apex of the U represents the synthesis of … opposing forms. In this view, the plaza become a neutral field mediating between opposing cosmic domains, while the center of the central mound is the critical point of synthesis and resolution. (Isbell 1977; see also Lathrap 1985) In the end, a distinctive ideology of the centre, defined as a place where wholes emerge from the coalescence of opposed but complementary parts, characterized diverse religious and political landscapes in the ancient Andes. Semiotic ideologies that privileged synecdoche resulted in the territorialization of landscapes highly amenable to archaeological interpretation. 5.2.3

(Re)Territorializing Andean Sacred Landscapes

The above discussion reveals that Andean people investigated great effort and resources to construct space in conformance with socio-cosmic ideals. Among pre-industrial civilizations, the Andes are far from unique in this regard, as the

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case studies from Angkor will demonstrate. However, the degree to which Andean ­polities territorialized and thus assembled worlds is rather astounding, as exemplified by the kilometres long skein of Nasca lines and the extraordinary z’eke (ceque) system that radiated outward from the Inca capital of Cusco. The zeq’e system consisted of 328 wak’as arrayed on 41 sight lines or processional waves, and these numerous shrines were analogous to knots tied onto quipu chords, the Inca recording device (see below; Bauer 1998; Cobo 1979 [1653]; Swenson and Roddick 2018; Zuidema 1964). The wak’as consisted of rock formations, hydraulic installations, astronomical landmarks, or other ritual constructions that were distributed in all four of the suyus, the gross provincial divisions of the Inca Empire that converged at the Temple of the sun (Qorikancha) in the heart of the city. The remarkable z’eke complex functioned as an integrated agricultural and water shrine, a monument to Inca conquest and mythic history, a sidereal-lunar calendar, and a materialization of the social and ethnic identities of the circum-Cusco region (Bauer 1998; Kolata 2013). The performance of rituals by specific communities at prescribed times and places created a vast, living calendar that served as a mythic charter for social action (Aveni 2015; Zuidema 2010). The ­spatial arrangement of specific types of wak’as also expressed principles of homology and hierarchy, and each individual shrine was organized in relation to a particular z’eke line according to a tripartite schema of status based on the degree of genealogical relatedness to the Inca king (Collana, primary kin; Payan, subsidiary kin, and Callao, no relationship to the ruler) (see Aveni 2015; Zuidema 1964, 2010). As mentioned, the entire complex emanated from Cusco, the sacred navel of the empire, but separate social groups (ayllus) maintained the individual wak’as. Among the 328 wak’as arrayed around the 41 z’eke lines, only a few appear to have been ritually activated on any particular day of the agricultural year, and time was thus materialized in place and set into motion by rotating sacrifices orchestrated at individual shrines (Cobo 1990; Swenson and Roddick 2018).5 The geo-astronomical measurements made possible by the z’eke system permitted the precise scheduling of agricultural tasks, infrastructural projects, communal work activities, and the religious liturgy (Aveni 2015; Zuidema 2010). The z’eke provides a striking example of the extreme measures adopted by the Inca to assemble a political world tightly focused on Cusco, a centre that powerfully deterritorialized and subsequently reterritorialized the world around it in its image (comparable to the ritual process described in Chapter 3). Deleuzian terminology seems especially appropriate in this regard, as the network of lines literally tied together and territorialized wak’as and their dependents into a precisely ordered and highly codified landscape that celebrated Inca social and cosmic norms as well as ideologies of space and time. The z’eke network further reveals how the conceived space of priests, engineers, and elites could dramatically shape the everyday, perceived realities and temporalities of the ayllus who lived in the Cusco region. Numerous other examples prove this point, including the engineering ­marvel of the

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Inca highway system, the redistribution of farm land to support the state cult in local communities (Cobo 1979), the dedication of sun temples ­throughout the realm, the construction of a network of warehouses (qollqas) and waystations (tambos), and the wholesale resettlement of peoples throughout the Andes (mitmae). Historians claim that the Inca state displaced up to one third to one fourth of the population from their ancestral territories (D’Altroy 2015). In fact, the Inca exploited the profound attachment to personified places by uprooting peoples and resettling them in potentially hostile lands. In light of the inseparability of geography, sociology, and cosmology in Andean worldviews, radical alterations in place could have proved especially devastating or at least necessitated major adjustments to origin myths and ritual observances (Salomon and Urioste 1991). The obsession with reterritorializing the landscape in conformance with a master cosmic plan, as exemplified by the z’eke system, seems to have deep roots in Andes. For instance, the proliferation of vast monumental temples in multiple ceremonial centres in surprisingly close proximity characterizes the remarkable Preceramic Period (2800–1500) of the north-central coast of Peru. In fact, the archaeological visibility of these multiple ceremonial nodes dwarfs the often difficult-to-identify wak’as of the z’eke system (Bauer 1998). The Preceramic era is not only remarkable for the apparent lack of synchronicity between certain technologies and political complexity, but also for the absence of clear-cut correlates of pronounced social inequalities (Burger 1992). Communities distinguished by advanced architectural, managerial, and engineering skills built massive pyramids and plaza complexes before the inception of full-scale farming and ceramic production. Indeed, the prodigious construction campaigns and advanced engineering evident in the multiple centres of the Supe, Fortaleza, Pativilca, and Casma valleys of Peru point to a religious fervour that completely transformed the landscape (Haas and Creamer 2006; Shady 2006). The numerous monuments suggest that the renewal of the time and cosmic order was incumbent on a large segment of the population to continually remake and revitalize the environment. In a certain sense, human populations became captivated and subservient to the needs of the living landscape (Smith 2015). The monumental sites with their high, symmetrical mounds, fire shrines, ample plazas, and related arenas of public performances (such as the amphitheater of Caral) may have intended to territorialize the de-territorializing and vitalizing agents of the cosmos, perhaps early forbearers of wak’as. However, the Preceramic religious centres built by the sea and riverbanks no doubt differed in important ways from the much later Inca z’eqe system. Although future research is needed, they point more to a competition between stages than to an integrated political machine that territorialized diverse communities and their wak’as into an overarching spatial and temporal regime. Indeed, the discussion of some of the underlying commonalities in Andean built landscapes does not intend to dismiss obvious differences in cosmology and place-making, the subject of the subsequent section.

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5.3

Variation in Andean Religious Landscapes

At the scale of the longue durée, Andean landscapes also present a remarkable study in contrast in the realm of aesthetics and the way they variably “distributed the sensible” (Rancière 2009, 2013). In fact, the above examination of the shared features of the Andean built environment serves first and foremost to provide a comparative basis to identify and explain variability in the religious infrastructures in Jequetepeque examined in the following chapter. The vibrant stone sculpture of deities and zoomorphic hybrids at the Early Horizon Centre of Chavín de Huántar (1100–300 BCE) located in central Peru (department of Ancash) differ notably from the towering adobe architecture and painted murals of the Moche (200–800 CE) of Peru’s North Coast. The built environments of these two prominent archaeological cultures depart in turn from the precision-fitted, cyclopean stonework of Inca architecture and terracing, an imperial tradition that favoured abstract, aniconic designs over figurative representations. As discussed above, the layout of Chavín’s Old Temple invites comparison with the dualistic configuration of Inca dyadic ceremonial plazas and the similar U-shaped sanctuaries of the preceding Initial Period built along the central and central-northern coasts of Peru (1800–900 CE). However, the contrasts are also striking. Chavín’s U-shaped temple consists of two projecting arms framing a sculpted circular plaza, while the main, unifying shrine connecting the arms housed the principal cult object—the magnificent stone carving of a fierce deity image named the Lanzón by archaeologists. The main building is honeycombed with an arterial network of vents, tunnelled passageways, and elaborate drainage canals. The interplay of exterior plazas depicting processing supernaturals and the labyrinth interior of passageways that led to the occluded Lanzón monolith, bearing the image of a fearsome fanged deity, indicates that Chavín’s larger templescape was designed for processions, initiations, and dramatic encounters with ontological others (Weismantel 2013). The discovery of beautifully carved tenon heads that once adorned the outer walls of the temple further reveals that the temple intended to facilitate shamanistic transformations and vision quest-like epiphanies. The tenonheads, arrayed in a sequence, clearly depict mortal-to-jaguar-shamanic transformation. As the heads progressively become feline and less human in appearance, the three-dimensional sculptures were carved with exaggerated nasal extrusions induced by the consumption of psychoactive substances, mainly the mescalinebearing San Pedro cactus and possibly ayahuasca, an Amazonian vine.6 The inhalation of grounded hallucinogens (snuff) stimulates hyperactive mucus discharge, and elaborate snuff tablets are common at Chavín (Burger 1992). In contemporary Peru, shamans still consume hallucinogenic substances, especially San Pedro, to achieve an altered state of consciousness, transform into jaguars, and commune with other-than-human powers (Joralemon and Sharon 1993; Sharon 2019). The striking iconographic cannon of Chavín also greatly enhanced the hallucinatory sensorium and created an aesthetic force field (a “distribution of the

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sensible”) that differed notably from other Andean traditions. The intricately carved sculptures of deities and zoomorphic creatures wrapped around monoliths and engraved on panels made effective use of anatropic illusions, hypnotic repetitions of modular units, and kennings (Burger 1992; Rowe 1962). Anatropic designs create a trompe l’oeil effect in which a figure rotated 180 degrees morphs into another representation, demanding protracted and distinct forms of viewing (which Weismantel describes as entailing “slow” and “interactive” seeing 2013: 25). For instance turning the head and refocusing one’s vision, the snarling caiman of the Raimondi Stella becomes the headdress of a deity holding serpentine staffs. Kennings, a concept borrowed from the analysis of Old Norse literature, induces “perceptual confusion,” by substituting one element for another, such as snakes for hairs, eyes for spots, or jaws for vaginas (Burger 1992: 146–147; Rowe 1962). This aesthetic regime contrasted significantly from Inca ceremonial architecture designed for mass feasting or to celebrate the supremacy of the sun God Inti. Weismantel (2013) even suggests that the great disorienting interior of the temple, which she evocatively identifies with the entrails of a rocky beast, induced effects similar to that of a haunted house at an amusement park. The processional landscape at Chavín finds parallel in the nesting of plazas of Pachacamac fronting adobe pyramids and the elongated concatenation of courts leading to U-shaped temples of the Initial Period—also commonly adorned with friezes of fearsome feline supernaturals. As mentioned in Chapter 2, Pachacamac was the great, pan-Andean oracular centre of the Late Horizon that preceded the Inca and reached its ascendancy under Inca patronage (Makowski 2013). It constituted the premier node of divination and peregrination at the time of the conquest and formed the head of a system of integrated oracles linked to Pachacamac through kinship relations. Based on the discovery of differently sexed Chavín staff gods in far-flung regions of the Andes (e.g., the famed Carhua textile from the Ica Valley), Burger (1992) proposes that Chavín de Huántar also stood at the top of an oracular network of subsidiary, branch shrines of the main cult. Indeed, the Early Horizon is commonly defined by the spread of Chavín art, architecture, and religious paraphernalia (Brown 2022). Therefore, Chavín likely served as a fulcrum of shamanistic revelation and transformation as well as a portal to enlightenment and divinatory knowledge. At Pachacamac, months of strict ritual observances and austerities (abstention from eating chilli or sexual intercourse) were required to obtain audience with the great oracle of the centre. Supplicants would progress through nested plazas proceeding from more public to private spaces over long periods of time (sometimes many months) as they approached the small sanctuary housing the all-powerful deity (a wooden image) of Pachacamac (Eeckhout 2008, 2013; Estete 1924 [1533]). The interplay of exteriors and interiors, especially the progression from public to more enclosed and intimate spaces at Chavín possibly prescribed a comparable ritual progression. This form of linear segmentarity (see Chapter 2) also appears to characterize the site of Jatanca in Jequetepeque discussed in Chapter 6.

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Even the built worlds of the two great polities defining the later Middle Horizon (600–1000 CE), Wari, based in the Ayacucho region of Peru, and the Altiplano city of Tiwanaku in present day Bolivia, afforded completely different sensual experiences of identity and place (Isbell and Vranich 2008). Often argued to have formed two of the earliest empires in South America, Wari and Tiwanaku are remarkable for their shared material culture—especially similarities in polychrome ceramics often depicting images of a prominent god holding staffs (the origins of which are found in earlier civilizations, including Chavín). However, they present entirely different urban and religious landscapes. Tiwanaku appears to have served as a cosmic place of origins and the possible abode of the great staff deity itself. Thus, its stone and earthen pyramids, including the Akapana and Puma Punku, the great elevated compound of the Kalassasaya, and sunken court adorned with stone deity images, possibly corralled from throughout the Lake Titicaca region, likely staged great cosmogonic dramas that attracted pilgrims from across the Andes (Kolata 1993; Isbell and Vranich 2008). The craft producers and farmers who inhabited the large adobe compounds of the city appear to have hosted the many visitors of this revered religious centre (Janusek 2008). In contrast, Wari’s dense concentration of rectilinear architecture, consisting of multi-story gallery rooms surrounding internal courtyards—an architectural configuration known as a kancha in Quechua— most likely housed ancestral mummies and their elite descendants who engaged in more exclusive rituals and feasts. Even the D-shaped temple of the Wari tradition, possible sun temples that inspired later Inca equivalents, were of small scale and often found in multiples at well-studied sites such as Conchopata near the modern city of Ayacucho (Cook 2015). The Wari also constructed enormous provincial outposts across the Peruvian cordillera, including most notably Pikillacta, Azangaro, Sondondo, Jincamocco, and Viracochapampa, among others (Anders 1986; Isbell and McEwan 1991; McEwan 2005). They were built of high walls of stone that enclosed multiple sizeable kancha arrayed in the ice-tray-like configuration of conjoined precincts. Adjunct plazas, notably smaller than Inca equivalents, and kitchens likely formed arenas for smaller scale, elite feasting tournaments (Jennings 2006), and archaeologists have interpreted the multiple room blocks as possible barracks for corvée labourers or even shrines for wak’as (Andean divine others) and their retainers (McEwan 2005). Therefore, they may have warehoused the god images of surrounding people and united them in great congresses of socio-cosmic unity. Scholars have drawn parallels between these Wari settlements and the so-called New Cuscos the Inca established in conquered provinces and described briefly in Chapter 3. However, the two types of sites separated by more than 500 years differ in fundamental ways, even beyond the scale and location of the plazas. For instance, Stone-Miller and McEwan (1990) demonstrate that the modular and atopographic compounds of the Wari contrasted with Inca architectural traditions (also see van de Guchte 1999). Comparable to Wari textiles that obscured the shape of the human body, the former were rigidly imposed on the landscape regardless of topographic anomalies.

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In contrast, certain styles of Inca architecture harmoniously accommodated and accentuated the contours of the natural terrain (Dean 2010; Hyslop 1990; Niles 1999). As described above, Moche pyramids also functioned as fluid communicators, but the emphasis on blood letting and human sacrifice distinguish the Moche from the Inca or Chavín. The massive adobe platform mounds of the Moche (200–850 CE), often adorned with striking murals (Trever 2022), served as arenas for sacrificial rites. Scholars largely agree that the art and material culture of the “Moche” best describe a specific political theology rather than an integrated polity or ­ethnic group (Bawden 1996; Donnan 2010; Quilter and Koons 2012; Swenson 2003, 2012b). The iconography depicts a troupe of easily identified deities (or wak’as?), including the main fanged or rayed god and the priestess figure, among others, who are presented with goblets of human blood drawn from warriors captured in ritual battles. The discovery of elite figures in elaborate tombs at Sipán (Lambayeque), San José de Moro (Jequetepeque), Ucupe (Zaña), Cao Viejo (Chicama), and Huaca de La Cruz (Virú), dressed like the deities in question (including the inclusion of goblets and other paraphernalia such as characteristic headdresses identifiable in the iconography), reveals that high-status figures impersonated supreme Moche gods or wak’as. Perhaps in re-enacting cosmogonic myth, Moche rulers served as cosmic intermediaries who effectively channelled a camay-like life force that took the potent form of human blood. Consumptive destruction as a prerequisite for growth and reproduction, in which sacrificial death was equated with eating and possibly sexual reproduction, appears to have distinguished Moche ritualism, cosmology and religious thought (Swenson in press). It thus seems to have shared much in common with Mesoamerican theologies grounded in philosophies of “original debt,” and alimentary convents forged with creator gods (Carrasco 1990; Hamann 2002; Monaghan 1995; Read 1998). Among the Moche, then, transactions and reciprocal bonds with ontological others, forming the basis of cosmic process, pivoted on violence in a much more explicit manner than in some other Andean traditions. This distinct ideological imperative dramatically shaped Moche aesthetics and monumental architecture, as the case study of Huaca Colorada will illustrate in the following chapter. 5.4

Concluding Thoughts

In the end, and as argued in Chapter 2, differences in religious cosmologies can often account for the remarkable variation in place-making and semiotic ideologies, both in the Andes and elsewhere. These variations can compellingly explain the striking diversity of ceremonial landscapes discussed above and distinguish the Jequetepeque Valley analyzed in the next chapter. Nevertheless, widely shared concepts such as tinkuy or wak’a also prove useful in making sense of the meaning, perception, and experience of the built environments of my study, especially when examined in dialogue with the theories discussed in the first half of the book. At the

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same time, the ideologies foregrounded in my analysis are irreducible to “belief” but were complicit in the creation of material worlds and lived actualities that were nonetheless amenable to challenge (see Chapters 2 and 3). Notes 1 Apu, a Quechua word, designates living mountain gods and creator beings (Bastien 1978). 2 Scholars have long debated the central role of dualism as a spatial, structuring, and cosmological principle in South American cultures. Lévi-Strauss (1969) contended that the pervasiveness of dual thinking and social organization represents a universal manifestation of the reciprocal ethos (and the exchange of wives configuring kinship relations), while Andeanists often give priority to either its cosmological foundations or its practical sociopolitical functions (Yaya 2012). In the end, dualistic ideologies have no singular origin, nor are they simply products of static structures or modes of thinking. Instead, they varied significantly in the ancient Andes and constituted powerful instruments of process, social change, and (re)territorialization. As idealized modes of conceived space, dual social organization constituted “a system [at once social and cosmological] for discerning an order in the scheme of things and imposing it on the unruly complexity of events” (Maybury-Lewis and Almagor 1989: viii). 3 In her analysis of Inca landscapes of stone, Dean (2007: 504) also provides an interesting analysis of the interrelationship of the Quechua term qhariwarmi, meaning manwoman or “conjoined complements,” and tinkuy, “conjoining of complements.” 4 As explained by the shaman don Ignacio, “Masintin is what is materialized. It is what is self-realized, not what stays in theory. Masintin is to enter into the spirit and essence of anything, of the thing… it is to create, recreate, and procreate” (Webb 2012: 37). 5 Based on the monumental research of Tom Zuidema (see Zuidema 2010), Aveni (2015: 112) interprets each wak’a of the z’eke as materializing 1 of 328 days of a 12 month sidereal-lunar calendar, with an average month consisting of 27.3 days. He suggests that 328 days may possibly have coincided with the gestation period of the llama. Moreover, Aveni proposes that each z’eke corresponded to a week and that a grouping of z’eke, usually 3 in number, materialized a month within the z’eke calendar. As recorded in other calendric systems (Bali), the number of days in a week likely varied, as dictated by the growing season or ritual round. 6 Other candidates include Anadenanthera (vilca), Trichocereus pachanoi (huachuma), and Brugmansia; the latter is often added to San Pedro snuff or brews by modern day curanderos (Torres 2008).

6 A TALE OF THREE TEMPLES The Changing Religious Landscape of the Southern Jequetepeque Valley, Peru

6.1 Introduction

The survey of Andean ideologies of place and conceived space in the p­ revious chapter sets the scene for the examination of the southern Jequetepeque Valley in northern Peru. This region is famed for its numerous ceremonial centres, and the 16th-century Jesuit, Blas Valera, stated that the valley housed one of Peru’s most prominent oracles (Hyland 2011: 69; see also Calancha 1977 [1638]: 1253). This is especially evident in the Late Moche era (650–900 CE), as exemplified by the temple of Huaca Colorada in Cañoncillo region in the south valley and the proliferation of ceremonial architecture distributed in the region beyond the primary centres. However, I will investigate developments both preceding and immediately following the Moche period. The Cañoncillo region witnessed a thriving cult that spanned nearly 2,000 years with some lengthy interruptions (500 BCE–1450 CE). The elaborate ceremonial constructions attracted pilgrims and were built in part to venerate the striking coastal massif of Cerro Cañoncillo with its prominent stone monolith. The four neighbouring ceremonial centres of Jatanca, Huaca Colorada, Tecapa, and Dos Cruces, each reaching their florescence in distinct periods, form part of the Cañoncillo sacred landscape. Since 2007, comprehensive archaeological analyses of the first three centres have significantly advanced our understanding of the changing political and religious history of the region. Although they all anchored a cult related to the worship of the nearby mountain of Cerro Cañoncillo, the building techniques, ritual regimes, and architectural configuration of the three sites differed notably, pointing to changing “constructions” of community, authority, and personhood as well as differing conceptions of time and history. I base my conclusions on interpretations of the distinct territorializing effects of the three ­ceremonial centres, the machinic and assembling capacities of temple DOI: 10.4324/9780429356063-6

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architecture, as well as the distinct semiotic ideologies of detectable ritual practices and ­structured deposits. In the end, the analysis illuminates how rituals of placemaking reconstituted gender relations, realigned regional politics, and altered the temporalities of everyday practice on the North Coast of Peru. 6.2 Brief Introduction to the Jequetepeque Valley and the Cañoncillo Region

The Spanish chronicler Cieza de León visited the Jequetepeque Valley in 1548, a little more than a decade after the conquest, and described it as the “most fertile and thickly settled” region in all of Peru. He noted that its “natives, before they were dominated by the Incas, were powerful and feared by their neighbors, and had great temples where they performed sacrifices to their gods” (Cieza de León 1959: 320–321; Kosok 1965: 119). Indeed, the rich archaeological record confirms Cieza de León’s observation that dense settlement and an extensive religious landscape founded on intensive agriculture characterized the lower valley. The valley, located 7º 45′ latitude south and from 79º 45′ to 78º longitude in the dry coastal desert of Peru (Eling 1987), is dominated by a large river system that flows east to west from the Andean highlands to the Pacific Ocean (highland precipitation waters the rainless coastal desert) (Figure 6.1). Irrigation of the Jequetepeque River permitted intensive cultivation that supported high populations and large settlement systems in an otherwise dry region characterized by minimal annual precipitation. The Jequetepeque region constitutes part of the northern north coast, a region that spans the region from the Cupisnique Quebrada in the south to the Piura Region in the north, and lies between the Zaña and Lambayeque watersheds to the north and the Chicama and Moche Rivers to the south (Figure 6.1). The valley, described by Kosok (1965) as the “crossroads of cultures and empires,” secured a critical geographical and cultural juncture, lying at both the frontier of the distinct northern and southern Moche spheres and at the coastal pass providing access to the highland Cajamarca Basin to the east (Bawden 1996; Castillo and Donnan 1994a; Donnan and Cock 1997; Shimada 1994; Swenson 2004). The lower valley is comprised of a fertile river bottom, an undulating desert plain crisscrossed with quebradas and erosional washes, dune fields, and ten coastal ranges. Among the most prominent of the coastal “cerros” is a roughly linear chain in the central portion of the north bank (named the Charcape or Kanchape Range) and a massive cluster in the central-east portion of the south valley (Cerros Espinal, Cerro Cañoncillo, Cerro Yugo) (Figure 6.1). These massifs protected agricultural fields from the deleterious effects of sand and wind, and the region contained the largest extension of cultivable land shielded from aeolian degradation during the Moche and Chimú Periods (Eling 1987: 105–107; Swenson 2004). The most impressive archaeological remains in the valley include e­ xtensive irrigation systems (mainly canals and aqueducts), related agricultural infrastructures, road systems, and monumental architecture dispersed in the desert or concentrated

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FIGURE 6.1 

Map of the Lower Jequetepeque Valley

in civic-ceremonial centres, including most notably, Limoncarro, Puémape, Jatanca, Dos Cabezas, Cerro Chepén, Talambo, San José de Moro, Huaca Colorada, Pacatnamú, and Farfán. Inhabitants of Jequetepeque have participated in the florescence of coastal cultural traditions since the Formative Cupisnique (Guañape) Period (1500–300 BCE). The most important religious and political centres of the formative era include Limoncarro, with its feline friezes gracing U-shaped

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architecture, in the north near Cerro Calera, and Puémape and Jatanca on the south side of the valley (Elera 1994; Sakai and Martínez 2008). However, the great majority of sites date to the Moche, Lambayeque, and Chimú Periods (500–1470 CE) (Castillo and Donnan 1994a; Dillehay et al. 2009; Hecker and Hecker 1990), as evinced by an explosion in settlement, agricultural infrastructures, and ceremonial architecture in rural zones of the valley (Swenson 2006, 2007). The Moche era centres of San José de Moro and Cerro Chepén in the northern valley thrived during this period of expansion. The former mortuary site housed the elaborate tombs of the priestess figure depicted in Moche iconography, and the latter hilltop citadel was associated with highland colonists allied with the cult of the priestess. Both will prove critical in understanding Huaca Colorada and Tecapa in the Cañoncillo region and the changing religious and political history of the region during the Middle Horizon era (650–900 CE). This 1,000-year period beginning with the spread of Moche material culture also witnessed the greatest extension of the irrigation network (Dillehay and Kolata 2004). Indeed, archaeological research has revealed that prehistoric inhabitants of Jequetepeque exploited the maximum hydraulic potential of the river system during this time (Eling 1987). Irrigation technology in Jequetepeque and much of the north coast was based on a network of “boca tomas” or canal intakes constructed of compacted earth reinforced with stone, wood, and wicker framing. A toma system consists of channels that funnel river water into the main intake (the boca toma itself) as well as conduits that regulate the flow of water within branch canals and field systems (Eling 1987). The alluvial fans on both banks of the river were intensely cultivated as were eastern zones closer to the maximum elevation canals. Archaeological research confirms that four major irrigation networks distributed water to large field systems in Jequetepeque by the 7th and 8th century CE (Castillo 2010: 92; Eling 1987; Swenson 2004). Wide expanses of relic serpentine or linear field beds interspersed with adjacent water troughs are common throughout the lower valley and are especially prominent in the Pampa de Faclo in the north and Pampa de Mojucape in the south valley. These field systems (called surcos) were connected to elaborate networks of feeder channels that drew water from the major canal networks. The circulation of water in the troughs reduced the effects of salinization and provided nourishment to various crops (cornmaize, pepper, cotton, beans, etc.) planted on the higher cultivation beds (Eling 1987). We have documented extensive ridged fields of this tradition surrounding the ceremonial centres of the Cañoncillo region in the southern portion of the Jequetepeque Valley. My study focuses on this region dominated by the dune-covered Pampa de Mojucape and its prominent coastal massif of Cerro Cañoncillo, which appeared to have secured centre stage in the cult practices of the three ceremonial centres of the study (Figure 6.2). In fact, the exceptional location of the cerro most likely explains its revered sacrality for it straddles a remarkably convergent landscape of contrasting ecological and topographic zones. Rare lakes, forests, expansive deserts and agricultural fields all converge at the base of the majestic summit

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FIGURE 6.2 Map of the southern Jequetepeque Valley illustrating the location of Cerro

Cañoncillo, the Late Formative site of Jatanca, and the Moche centre of Huaca Colorada.

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(Figure 6.3). The mountain assembled different worlds that radiated outward from the ­massif. The northern and western slopes of the mountain are flanked by the Bosque de Cañoncillo, one of the largest stands of algarroba trees (Prosopis humilis) in coastal Peru. The Middle Horizon, civic-ceremonial site of Tecapa is located in the western fringe of the forest adjacent to Huaca Colorada. Despite recent deforestation, the extant forest covers an area of 3,360 ha and is composed of more than 100,000 trees (Goicochea 2011: 147, 150; Swenson and Warner 2016; Warner 2010: 113). El Bosque de Cañoncillo was much larger in antiquity, and it is presently a protected natural reserve containing varied habitats exceptional for the dry coast (Goicochea 2011: 150). The algarroba forest supports a number of species of birds and animals including deer, squirrels, humming birds, thrushes, eagles and a number of lizards including iguanas and cañanes. The latter is still prized as a delicacy in the Jequetepeque Valley, and hunting parties armed with stones and slings commonly frequent the dense forest (Goicochea 2011: 147; Holmberg 1957). The carob fruit of the tree also provided the principal source of fodder for the sizable llama herds bred at Huaca Colorada and likely earlier at Jatanca (Burga 1976: 28). Until recently, they supported 2,000 heads of cattle (Burga 1976; Eling 1987: 141). Colonial records further document that the forest in the shadow of the great

FIGURE 6.3 Photographs

illustrating Cerro Canoñcillo’s three peaks (left upper register), the algarroba forest and the mountain enveloped in clouds (right upper register), an ancient canal on the Pampa de Mojucape (left lower register), and one of the shallow lakes of the Bosque de Canoñcillo (right lower register).

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cerro was celebrated as a hunting ground and that the wealth of the c­ ontact-period caciques (chiefs) of Lloc and Tecapa may have partly derived from the bosque (Burga 1976; Cock 1986: 175). A series of four interconnected lakes (lagos de Sondo, Cañoncillo, Gallinazo and an unnamed pond) are also located deep in the forest in the shadow of the mountain and the contiguous peaks of Cerros Espinal and Yugo (Figure 6.3). They seem to have been larger and more numerous in antiquity (Eling 1987), and the flora and fauna associated with the lakes are equally diverse, ranging from freshwater fish to parakeets. Eling (1987: 141) estimated the capacity of the extant lakes at 300,000 m3 with an average depth of 2.5 m. This water source, along with a high water table, supported the large algarroba forest that defined the western fringe of Cerro Cañoncillo. Eling argues that the seven lagunas formed a unified and sizeable lake in prehistory, with a likely capacity of approximately 6,000,000 m3. In fact, he contends that the lake formed an integrated irrigation system with the ancient Acequia Espinal and prehistoric Santonte and Jatanca canals, which together watered the extensive Pampa de Mojucape. In light of the central role that water sources played in Andean religion—as places of emergence and sacred nodes within the cosmic circulation of life-giving camay—the Cañoncillo lakes were most likely venerated in the past, especially given their close association with the mountain (Sherbondy 1992). Immediately to the west of the forest, the expansive Pampa de Mojucape was also characterized by one of the most sizeable and productive agricultural landscapes in the southern Jequetepeque Valley (Dillehay and Kolata 2004; Dillehay et al. 2009). Farmers cultivated much of the pampa for over 2,500 years, but the intensity of agriculture varied in different periods as determined largely by the movement and build-up of barchan sand dunes (Warner 2010: 153). Jatanca and Huaca Colorada are thus surrounded by a network of canals, many of which run parallel to the roughly north–south axis of Cerro Cañoncillo. Much of the irrigation network was constructed in the Late Intermediate Period as a system of parallel and redundant canals that agriculturalists opened and closed to anticipate dune-induced environmental perturbations (Dillehay and Kolata 2004). However, Warner’s excavation and radiometric analysis demonstrates that a substantial portion of the network was contemporaneous with the Late Formative site of Jatanca, and the core of the system was likely operative by the Moche period (Warner 2010: 306). Substantial canals extend between the monumental compounds of Jatanca, and they functioned to supply water to the site for drinking, cleaning and the construction of rammed-earth architecture. They also channelled water to irrigate ­surrounding field plots (Warner 2010: 340, 368). In fact, it deserves mention that Cerro Cañoncillo formed an effective boundary between the Cupisnique Quebrada and the Jequetepeque watershed, reinforcing its unifying or possibly liminal symbolism. It is especially significant that preliminary hydraulic analysis suggests that Cupisnique Quebrada carried water and was an important source of irrigation for the agricultural fields of Pampa Mojucape

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between 200 BCE and the first centuries of the common era (Dillehay et al. 2009; Warner 2010: 316–319; 607–609). If the canal networks from Jequetepeque to the north were also active in this earlier period, then the Pampa would have brought together the fresh water of two different river systems. Once the Cupisnique drainage dried up and became inundated with sand, water derived only from the Jequetepeque river, and one of the major canals of this network extended directly between Cerro Cañoncillo and the neighbouring coastal massif of Cerro Santonte to the northwest (Dillehay et al. 2009; Warner 2010: 612). Warner (2010: 608–612) has argued that the desiccation of Cupisnique led to the abandonment of Jatanca and the relocation of settlement to Huaca Colorada 2 km to the north, in closer proximity to canal intakes linked to the Jequetepeque river. In fact, the changing agricultural fortunes of the pampa might explain shifts in cultic practices and the mimetic functions of the monumental architecture of the three main temple complexes (see below). In contrast to the verdant northwest side of Cerro Cañoncillo, its southeastern expanse consisted mainly of dry desert during the Formative and Moche Periods, and the mountain marked the beginning of the expansive and inhospitable Paijan desert. Indeed, the agricultural installations, possibly irrigated by the Cupisnique drainage, cluster on the Pampa de Mojucape, and they are mostly absent to the south of this dry riverbed (Dillehay et al. 2009). Therefore, the archaeological record indicates that Cerro Cañoncillo formed the southern limits of the agricultural landscape of the Jequetepeque Valley. The broad Paijan desert to the south of the mountain is one of the largest expanses in coastal Peru south of the great Sechura desert. It separates Jequetepeque from the Chicama Valley and formed a cultural and political border during the Moche Period and probably earlier (Castillo and Donnan 1994a; Warner 2010). The Paijan desert also appears to have marked a linguistic boundary at the time of the conquest (Calancha 1977). In the end, the mountain dramatically materialized a convergent interface of different ­peoples, waters, landforms and resources, and it is precisely this ecological and social entanglement that the ceremonial centres of Cañoncillo seem to have commemorated and ritually managed. Before turning to an analysis of the ceremonial centres, a brief description of the cerro is warranted. Cerro Cañoncillo is composed of Lower Tertiary geological formations and constitutes the largest, westernmost isolate of a chain of coastal massifs that project from the foothills of the Andean range (Eling 1987: 109–110). It extends 3 km along its north–south axis and rises 390 m above the pampa, thus forming one of the highest hills in the western margin of the Southern Jequetepeque Valley. Cerro Cañoncillo is cut by three east–west quebradas, and these arroyos clearly delineate the three distinct summits of the hill (Figure 6.3). The central peak is the highest and slopes gradually to the southwest, while it descends more precipitously to the northeast, given the depth of the northern quebrada, which forms a formidable sand-filled saddle.

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Walking the spine of the hill, one eventually reaches the central summit, which is crowned by an unusual rock formation—a veritable wak’a. The vertical projection of the stone measures more than 3 m high and resembles a standing giant or phallus with a thick trunk supporting a higher and narrower pilaster on its south side (Figure 6.4). This pillar-like projection is reminiscent of a human head or perhaps the neck of a llama (Alaica 2021) and provides a perch for birds, as evidenced by its guano-stained surface. The boulder is unusual, appearing to arise as an independent entity from the summit of the mountain (Figure 6.4). In fact, the smooth igneous stone erupts from a surface of exfoliating rock and its distinctive colour and materiality accentuate its towering, singular presence. Numerous circular hollows that resemble eyes or orifices pockmark the prominent stone’s surface. Past devotees clearly worshipped the monolith as a wak’a as bits of Spondylus shell, copper, and fine ceramics, dating from the Formative to the Late Intermediate Periods, are scattered around its base (Warner 2010: 112). The bundled assembly of varied materials possibly served to mimic the synergistic gathering of ecologies and peoples characteristic of the Cañoncillo region as a whole. Evidently, pilgrims braved the steep climb to present offerings directly to the wak’a, which must have

FIGURE 6.4 

The stone wak’a perched on the central summit of Cerro Cañoncillo.

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anchored the power and personhood of the larger cerro. Significantly, the summit of the mountain affords sweeping and breathtaking views of the surrounding landscape, including the forest, lakes, agricultural fields and the ceremonial centres of Jatanca and Huaca Colorada. In fact, the head-like pilaster extending up from the stone torso appears to stare directly in the direction of these important religious sites. At the same time, the stone wak’a crowning the summit of the mountain is actually visible from Jatanca and Huaca Colorada, located several kilometres to the west. Another unusual characteristic of the cerro is that in the early morning, especially in the winter months, its summit is enveloped in a carpet of undulating cumulus clouds, which likely strengthened its association with life-giving water and fertility (Figure 6.3). The ceremonial architecture of Jatanca, Huaca Colorada, and Tecapa microcosmically commemorated the centripetal convergence of heterogeneous but complementary resources, landscapes, peoples, places and histories (pasts) characteristic of the unique Cañoncillo region. The distinctive bundled landscape thus materialized on a grand scale the semiotic process of “symbolic accumulation” discussed in Chapter 4 (Yelle 2013). Nevertheless, salient transformations in the spatial organization and ritual regimes of the centres indicate that the scale and meaning of such socio-cosmic convergence changed significantly between the Late Formative and Middle Horizon Periods. The following analysis provides a detailed discussion of the configuration, construction history, and phenomenological affordances of the three sites in rough chronological order. This discussion will inform reconstructions of the main kinds of ritual and other activities orchestrated in the monumental complexes of the three centres. The combined data will then permit interpretations of how the built environments variably “distributed the sensible” and conditioned experiences of time, place, and the sacred (ontological others). Finally, I propose hypotheses on the changing semiotic ideologies, machinic tendencies, and cosmological significance of the three sites of the analysis. 6.3 Jatanca 6.3.1 General Interpretations of Religious Architecture, Ritual Practices, and Political Organization

The dissertation research of John Warner (2010) and our later collaboration demonstrated that Jatanca constituted the largest Late Formative centre (500–100 BCE) in the Jequetepeque Valley (Swenson 2011, 2015a; Swenson and Warner 2016). The site is associated primarily with material culture traditionally identified as Cupisnique (Guanape), Salinar, and Gallinazo, and it reached its height at the end of the Late Formative Period (Warner 2010). Radiocarbon dates obtained by Warner and our subsequent excavations confirm that the site was occupied 2,500–2,100 years ago (Dillehay and Kolata 2004: 277; Warner 2010; see also Swenson et al.

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2010). The negative-resist pottery obtained from excavation is highly r­ eminiscent of Gallinazo fineline ceramics (also called Virú). Warner’s seminal study was the first to systematically map and interpret Jatanca’s elaborate spatial layout, and our joint research represents the first-large scale excavation of the settlement (Swenson and Warner 2016). Excavation clarified many of the emerging architectural ­patterns and exposed nine structures with ramps. Jatanca constitutes the southernmost of the three centres of the study and is located amidst the high, moving dune fields of the Pampa de Mojucape (Figure 6.2). The core of the ceremonial area of Jatanca occupies an area of 3 square kilometres and is dominated by extensive compounds that together contain over 200 rooms (Warner 2010) (Figure 6.5). Canals run between and around the precincts which are surrounded by dense pot sherd scatters, the only visible traces of a once expansive domestic area built of perishable cane structures (Swenson et al. 2008, 2009, 2010; Swenson and Warner 2016; Warner 2010). Six seasons of intensive investigations at Jatanca have yielded valuable information on the orchestration of ritual performance, as determined architecturally, and its interrelationship with settlement ­patterns, domestic life, identity politics and agricultural production. The five largest enclosures at Jatanca comprise expansive north plazas circumvallated by high walls built of rammed earth (tapia) that conjoin multi-chambered precincts to the south (Warner 2010: 339–342) (Figure 6.6). These open plazas range from 80 × 40 m to 60 × 35 m in area and could have contained hundreds of spectators. Despite discrepancies in size and internal configuration, adherence to established spatial codes dictated the construction and use of the major ceremonial structures at Jatanca (Swenson 2011: 292–298; Warner 2010: 339–342, 429–434). For instance, the expansive north plazas characterize the raised “Acropolis” in the east and the four other major compounds of the monumental sector.1 Proceeding south though the plaza of any of the five major constructions, one invariably comes to a demarcated elevated terrace. These prominent landings occupy an area of 15 × 20 m to 25 × 32 m, and they separate the large court from the mass of internal rooms, corridors and patios that constitute a considerable volume of each complex (Figure 6.7). This tripartite architectural division distinguished every one of Jatanca’s main compounds. These elevated terraces, housing two platforms with ramps in mirror opposition, served as the ceremonial nerve-centre of Jatanca’s separate precincts (Swenson 2011: 294; Warner 2010: 455–463) (Figure 6.8). The platforms built on the staging terrace and overlooking the plazas undoubtedly staged important religious and political rites given that similar structures with ramps would become prominent ritual spaces in both urban and rural settlements during the Late Moche and Lambayeque Periods (Swenson 2004, 2006, 2007) (see below). In fact, comparable platforms are depicted as key arenas of elaborate ritual events in both Salinar and Moche ceramic art. The ramped platforms likely staged rites of presentation, exchange and supervision, and ceremonies conducted on the daises would have been visible to large gatherings in the northern plaza. The duplication of smaller, interior plazas housing miniature stages and dyadic,

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FIGURE 6.5 

Map of the monumental core of Jatanca.

opposed platforms within particular compounds suggest that rites of procession related to pilgrimage or initiation were also staged within the monumental complexes (Swenson 2011) (Figure 6.6). The dyadic configuration of the platforms may have acted ritually to harness dualistic energies or cosmic powers. They could also have served as formal spaces

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FIGURE 6.6  Photograph

and Google Sketch-up Plan of Compound 1 illustrating the ­horizontal and rectilinear configuration of Jatanca’s monumental architecture.

for religious leaders or wak’as that represented two halves of a united moiety or religious sodality (Swenson 2015a; Warner 2010: 522–536). In other words, they materialized spaces of tinkuy and socio-cosmic convergence. Otherwise stated, the liminal placement of the dual platforms at once connecting and separating the vast public plazas from the more private and exclusive suite of internalized rooms signals the political and ritual preeminence of this mediating space. Elaborate but constricted ramped passages often connect the plaza to this ceremonial strip, further highlighting the pivotal and “threshold-like” symbolic qualities of this ritual stage. As such, we have described Jatanca’s ceremonial architecture as “scenographic,” and this centrally placed staging area is somewhat analogous to a proscenium in Greek theatrical architecture (Swenson 2011; Swenson and Warner 2016). Evidently, ritual specialists orchestrated important political and religious ceremonies here; the principal performers likely entered from the private sectors to the south in full view of a large assembled crowd in the plaza (Swenson 2011; Warner 2010). The platforms, which measure roughly 9 to 14 m long on average, form paired dyads and prominently overlook the plazas at their southern terminus (Figure 6.7). These stages with diametrically opposed platforms encapsulated a tension

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FIGURE 6.7 Plans

of Compounds 3 and 4 at Jatanca. Note the nested plazas and ceremonial proscenia supporting two ramped platforms in mirror opposition (adapted from Warner 2010: 356, 364).

between union and separation, and they clearly functioned as powerful thresholds ­delineating discrete architectural sectors within the individual compounds. The evidence of replicated ceremonial space at Jatanca implies a “competition between stages” and the existence of an ethos of ritual and political pluralism at the site. Nevertheless, this pluralism was obviously tempered by a widely shared ideology predicated on invariant modes of ritual action and a highly codified conceived space, to invoke Lefebvre’s terminology. We thus read Jatanca’s built environment as reflecting a social organization based on semi-autonomous ritual sodalities or parcialidades (dual, hierarchical lineages). These nested kin-groups appear to have confederated into a larger political community legitimized by a particular cosmological and moral understanding of the world (Warner 2010). The six principal constructions expressed the joining of different communities in a manner that mirrored Cerro Cañoncillo’s complementary union of different resources, landforms and topographic zones. In fact, Warner (2010: 612) suggests that Jatanca anchored a confederacy that brought together mid-valley inhabitants from the Tembledera region to the east with coastal occupants of the earlier centre of Puémape located on the Pacific coast 14 km to the southwest of Jatanca (Elera

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FIGURE 6.8  Photographs

of an adobe platform constructed on the elevated terrace overlooking the enclosed plaza of Compound 1 at Jatanca.

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1998; Warner 2010: 69). The early construction of the Acropolis resembles the architectural design of many of the religious platforms of mid-valley sites dating to the Middle Formative Period, thus lending support to his hypothesis (Ravines 1982; Tellenbach 1986; Warner 2010: 599–602). Moreover, the Acropolis’s angle of elevation and ascent is comparable to the mid-valley ceremonial constructions (Warner 2010: 600–603). In addition, this argument is reinforced by certain continuities in ceramic styles at Jatanca with earlier mid-valley sites and the Salinar phase of the centre of Puémpae (Warner 2010: 180–181). The expansion of agriculture at the beginning of the Late Formative and the opportunities afforded by the available water in the Cupisnique drainage perhaps motivated the confederation, along with the other diverse ecological resources provided by the lakes and forest. Indeed, the Cañoncillo region presented an ideal economic and symbolic locale for the hypothesized union; the mountain seems to reach for the ocean (and Cerro Puemape is visible from Jatanca), but remains connected to the mass of the Andean foothills surrounding the abandoned centres of the mid-valley. Based on his analysis of the distribution of Late Formative settlements in Jequetepeque, Warner (2010: 613) argues that Jatanca not only served as the most important ceremonial centre during this period, but also formed an important node of exchange and ­distribution for the valley as a whole. The ephemeral domestic areas surrounding the main monumental constructions point to the periodic but large gathering of peoples who likely originated from smaller satellite settlements in order to partake in festivals, fairs, and religious ceremonies. Jatanca thus served as a place of ­religious and economic convergence, and different communities may have identified with one of the social or religious “corporations” materialized by one of the six monumental compounds. Radiometric assays and ceramic analysis indicate that the Acropolis was the first monument constructed at the site, and it predates the building of the five other compounds by 200 to 300 years (Warner 2010: 596–598). It is significant that this building constitutes the only elevated construction at Jatanca, and its tapia ‘exoskeleton’ encases a large, stationary sand dune. The structure measures 160 × 45 m and rises 9 m from the surface of the pampa (Warner 2010: 379). The Acropolis was clearly built to mimic the form and orientation of Cerro Cañoncillo that looms over the east side of the site. Oriented on a north–south axis, the edifice mirrors the north– south profile of the mountain (Figure 6.9). Moreover, the tripartite configuration of the Acropolis, consisting of an expansive north plaza, elevated stage and higher labyrinthine terrace of walled rooms, courts and benches replicates the distinctive zonation of the mountain (Figure 6.10). Architects maintained this basic spatial grammar in the construction of the four major compounds to the west. Looking east, the elevated ceremonial stage with dual ramped platforms aligns with the stone huaca atop the highest peak of the mountain, while the highest southern sector of the Acropolis corresponds visually with the peaked projection of the southern end of the mountain (Figure 6.9). This southern terrace was one of the few areas of the Acropolis built with chamber-and-fill construction, and it is fronted in the

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FIGURE 6.9 The

Acropolis and Cerro Cañoncillo in the background, which it mirrors in orientation and form.

FIGURE 6.10 Architectural

plan of the Acropolis at Jatanca illustrating access patterns, and an isometric illustration of the main staging area of this compound (isometric plan courtesy of John Warner).

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lower portion of the labyrinthine sector of the edifice by an elegant plastered bench that was associated with fine artefacts, including a beautifully crafted spear point. The dual platforms on the ceremonial stage are also oriented on a north–south axis, unlike their counterparts in the lower compounds to the west, which are all oriented on an east–west alignment. The Acropolis is equally unique for its stairways that connect the three major sectors of the structure, an architectural style characteristic of earlier middle valley sites (Ubbelohde-Doering 1967: 108; Warner 2010: 383). One stairway connects the plaza with the ceremonial stage while the other joins a series of rooms in the southern labyrinth with the highest, southernmost landing of the construction. Movement across the stairs and the higher landings to the south accentuated a sensation of ascent that reproduced the north–south trajectory of movement along the spine of Cerro Cañoncillo. Therefore, it would seem that the Acropolis intended to replicate the space, ­mysteries and experience of Cerro Cañoncillo, and it is possible that an oracle or wak’a associated with the mountain was housed and propitiated within the Acropolis itself. The construction of a microcosmic simulator of the mountain perhaps intended to channel the creative energy of the mountain directly to the fields and communities residing on the pampa. This mimetic reproduction would conform to the synecdochal ecological thought of Andean peoples described in Chapter 5 (Allen 1997), and the original construction may have served as an infrastructural “earth shrine” to recharge the emerging agricultural landscape of the Pampa de Mojucape (Kolata 1996). As an instrument of homoeopathic ritual, its other function could also have entailed the balancing and reordering of complementary forces that converged at the mountain’s base. The number of chambers on the summit of the Acropolis culminating in an atrium with bench may have housed the lesser wak’as of the region. Alternatively, they could have stored the diverse agricultural, maritime and forest resources that were exploited in the Cañoncillo region. In fact, the Acropolis differs from the later compounds in that its floors and deposits contained a higher concentration of diverse organic remains, including both wild and domesticated animals such as deer, dog, llama, and a variety of birds and fish (Swenson et al. 2008; Swenson and Warner 2016: 47). We also recovered the highest concentration of maize and the greatest variety of plant species from the Acropolis. Furthermore, the ceramic repertoire is characterized by exceptional diversity; earlier Guañape and Cupisnique sherds are intermixed with the standard Late Formative Jatanca wares (see Warner 2010, Chapter 3). This “mixed context” points not only to the chronological breadth and continued maintenance of the edifice, but also to the creative juxtaposition of different times and peoples. It is thus tempting to interpret the building’s diverse associations as a kind of ritual bundling that at once acknowledged and ultimately recalibrated the distinctive relational fields coalescing in Cañoncillo’s unique social and natural landscape (see Chapter 4). Although lacking the vertical elevation of the Acropolis, the five compounds to the west were spatially and symbolically gridded to the mountain of Cerro

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Cañoncillo. In fact, the Acropolis was continuously maintained and in use well into the 3rd century BCE, when the west compounds were first built. Interestingly, the Acropolis does not occupy the centre of the site as a kind of axis mundi, but dominates the eastern horizon of the centre in direct imitation of the cerro (Figure 6.5). In other words, the monumental nucleus of the site, with its multiple compounds and intra-site canals, simulated the larger agricultural landscape of the Pampa de Mojucape. The eastern horizon, dominated by the massive mountain, was probably revered for its association with the rising sun as well as a source of water essential for life and agricultural production. The four major compounds also replicate the tripartite division of the cerro and preserve the north–south axis of movement enshrined in the mimetic mountain of the Acropolis (Figures 6.6 and 6.7). As discussed above, this trajectory of procession was ideal for initiation rites or for peregrinations entailing drawn-out encounters with oracles or wak’as. Indeed, the ramped platforms in mirror opposition are aligned with the main peak of the mountain. An individual standing on the slightly larger eastern platforms would have been framed by the dramatic backdrop of the mountain, while a celebrant

FIGURE 6.11 A

photograph of an excavated ramped complex oriented towards Cerro Cañoncillo in an internal plaza of Compound 3 (upper register), and a photograph of a burial discovered in a chamber in Compound 1 (lower register). The Skull of the internment tilts towards the cerro.

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positioned on the western dais would have faced Cerro Cañoncillo directly (Figure 6.11). It also deserves mention that, among the few burials excavated at the site, the best-preserved example was placed below a floor in a supine position with the head placed to the south and the feet to the north. However, the skull of the burial was tilted to the east in such a manner that the head gazes directly at the mountain (Figure 6.11). The replicated compound architecture at Jatanca suggests that separate groups, whether lineage or cult based, maintained their own wak’a shrines allied with the tutelary Cerro Cañoncillo. It seems that the different communities originated from within the lower and middle Jequetepeque valley, and their wak’a representatives may have been related to each other and the apical mountain in terms of a loose hierarchy of affinal and sibling relations, a mythic charter for social, political and economic interdependencies defining the larger polity. Therefore, the surrogate ceremonial constructions at Jatanca materialized the creative power of the mountain at once to unite and distinguish complementary socio-cosmic forces. If visitors to the centre celebrated the mountain as a cornucopia of ecological and agricultural bounty, the separate compounds may also have been designed to tap and distribute its genesic powers to their subsidiary wak’as as a means to ensure the fertility of fields, fisheries, herds and human offspring. Our excavations have also identified a general pattern underlying the organization of ritual performances and social practices at Jatanca. Centrally placed ­chambers, often with baffled entrances and aligned to the south of the ceremonial stages, were associated with formal furnishings, ritual caches, large post emplacements with spondylus bead offerings, and aligned concavities to hold ceramics (Swenson 2011: 298; Warner 2010: 463–464) (Figures 6.12 and 6.13). More exclusive rituals were no doubt performed here and these well-constructed precincts may also have served as the residences of ritual specialists or the shrines of revered wak’as. In contrast to the more elaborate and centrally aligned series of rooms, peripheral chambers located beyond the main axis of ceremonial architecture are usually characterized by irregular hearths, shallow deposits of garbage, and internal partitions built of cane (Swenson et al. 2008, 2009, 2015a). Therefore, the side chambers within the compounds appear to have served as the literal “backstage production” area supporting the ritual economy of the settlement (Swenson 2015a). However, these spacious quadrilateral chambers were also delineated by the formidable tapia walls and formed an integral part of the individual monumental compounds. The excavation of nine ceremonial platforms overlooking the monumental plazas further corroborates the strict compartmentalization of activities at Jatanca. Unlike the plaza or excavated rooms in the compounds’ southern sectors, evidence of burning and accumulated detritus was rare on the tested platforms (Figure 6.8). The analysis of the ramped complexes reveals that these focal ceremonial structures were kept fastidiously clean and free of debris and were never decommissioned and re-dedicated as was documented for the platforms at Huaca Colorada (see below).

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FIGURE 6.12  Architectural

plan of Compound 1 at Jatanca showing the location of small chambers and bench constructions located in a restricted zone of this massive complex. Caches of fine ceramics were deposited in these rooms (plan and isometric drawing courtesy of John Warner).

Excavations have further revealed that Jatanca is marked by the intense ­nesting of ceremonial architecture, and the internal replication of smaller plazas with ramped structures suggests that the monuments were designed for attenuated processions perhaps related to initiation or pilgrimage (Swenson 2011, 2015a) (Figures 6.7 and 6.13). Therefore, the duplication of iconic ceremonial space and the phased, reiteration of key rites characterized the orchestration of ritual events at Jatanca. The architectural design of the precincts would have enhanced the emotional and psychological effects of encountering secluded wak’as, an encounter that may have been at once prolonged and momentous. Compounds 3 and 4, for instance, located in the western portion of the site, are defined by two interconnected plaza complexes with their own separate stages, each associated with dual ramped platforms placed in mirror opposition (Figure 6.7). In other words, the two westernmost precincts are distinguished by a duplication of Jatanca’s iconic ceremonial space. The replicated and scaled-down plazas are smaller in size than their larger counterparts and are situated at a greater depth within their respective compounds. In both

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FIGURE 6.13  Architectural

plans of Compound 3 demonstrating the nesting of replicated ceremonial space at Jatanca. Base-map adapted from Warner 2010: 356.

complexes, one could have only accessed the smaller plaza and associated staging terrace by proceeding initially through the larger courts to the north. The architectural design of these precincts appears ideally suited to stage rites of procession and perhaps even initiation, wherein the built environment was complicit in conferring distinctions, shaping identities, and creating or transforming subjectivities. Interestingly, in Compound 3, the internal plaza (“plaza menor”) is in direct line with its larger counterpart, while in Compound 4 it is offset to the west, separated from the “plaza mayor” by a long and enclosed corridor (Figure 6.7). The differing configurations of these dual plaza systems suggest that separate corporate groups independently managed ceremonial events while adhering to a shared and perhaps rigid religious orthodoxy (expressed in a standardized regime of ritual performance). Thus, a progression from public to semi-public to private ritual space is indelibly inscribed in all of the compounds’ hierarchically configured architectural design. The greater depth and seclusion of the internal plaza of Compound 3, for instance—which would have held three to four times fewer individuals than the great court dominating the north of the complex—reveals that movement through the enclosure became increasingly more restricted.

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For instance, the deepest chamber in Compound 3 was distinguished by a formal platform fronted by a patio containing two rectangular daises or altars (Swenson et al. 2009: 91–99) (Figure 6.13). A powerful huaca or official was likely stationed in this exclusive room, a chamber that could only have been accessed by first passing through the two separate but nested plazas with opposed, dual platforms. Large spondylus shell beads were placed in postholes within this southernmost precinct, and Warner’s syntax analysis demonstrates that this sheltered space was associated with one of the highest depth values in Compound 3 (Warner 2010). The intimacy and secrecy (mystery) of ritual performances would have intensified as individuals moved from the sole entrance at the north end of the capacious open plaza through the concatenation of nested ceremonial arenas to the south. In a similar manner, one of the deepest and most secluded chambers in the southcentral end of the Acropolis was adorned with a beautifully plastered bench associated with fine ­artefacts including an exquisite spear point (Swenson et al. 2008: 40–36). A series of private rooms in Compound 1, similarly aligned with the ceremonial architecture of the plaza, was also characterized by an elaborate bench complex and a cache  of ­fineline ceramics (Swenson et al. 2009: 45–61; Warner 2010) (Figure 6.12). Therefore, a salient progression from inclusive to more exclusive space is experienced in every compound as one proceeds south from the monumental plaza through the staging ground with platforms and into the internal mass of labyrinthine chambers, corridors, and patios (Warner 2010; see also Swenson et al. 2008). In fact, the circumvallated plazas strongly suggest that a complicated palimpsest of “insider-outsider” (inclusive-exclusive) identities characterized political relations at Jatanca (Inomata and Coben 2006). The plaza walls once enclosing a large assembled audience spatially bounded a formidable group of “insiders,” separating and demarcating them from excluded communities who possibly occupied neighbouring compounds (see Warner 2010). In fact, ramped structures also guard the narrow and restricted doorways leading to the enclosed plaza leading into the main plazas of Compounds 2 and 3. A pair of platforms actually frames either side of the single entrance to Compound 3 (Figure 6.13). These platforms are the only examples not constructed on the staging terrace, and they likely regulated movement in and out of the monumental courts. 6.3.2

Ritual Constructions of Time, Place, and Cosmos at Jatanca

A more detailed examination of the construction history of Jatanca’s compounds along with how its architecture prescribed movement, perception, and ritual practices provides a window onto the religious communities’ conceptions of materiality, space, time, and cosmology. The centre’s horizontal and labyrinthine configuration indicates that ritual acts were rigidly sequenced in space and time. The replication and relative standardization of the multiple compounds at Jatanca indicate a high level of planning—where construction conformed to pre-conceived

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blueprints likely imbued with cosmological meaning or ­normative conceptions of sociospatial practice (Warner 2010: 539). As mentioned, the rectilinear geometry of the compounds’ architecture, much of which was built during one construction event, created a formidable and perceptually disruptive horizon on the flat terrain that powerfully entrained perception, movement, and orientation. The Quechua word pampa “(a flat stretch of ground devoid of landmarks) connotes openness and potentiality, a condition of being undefined, as yet unmarked by distinguishing features.” (Allen 1997: 77; see also Isbell and Roncalla 1977: 25). The imposition of Jatanca’s rectilinear compounds seems to have closed the open space of the Pampa de Mojucape and stifled or limited the pampa’s potential for creative movements. To employ Deleuze and Guattari’s terms, a “smooth space” was transformed into a decidedly “striated” one (Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 474–499). The evidence suggests that Jatanca’s compounds afforded an experience of ­protraction through time, an extended and dilatory temporality; for the select few that could pass through its imposing labyrinthine walls, time felt drawn out and decelerated, an alternative temporality removed from the regular rhythms of daily life (Swenson 2018d). Fasting and other rites of self-abnegation, endured over possibly extended periods, may have permitted initiates to enter the deeper chambers and confer with powerful wak’as or political leaders, as was documented for later Andean religious complexes including the famed pilgrimage centre of Pachacamac discussed in Chapter 5. Time was not simply retarded within the ritual field, but its duration and feel appear to have been topologically inseparable from one’s place within the disorienting maze of the compounds. In other words, the centre’s architecture engendered a distinct if heightened sense of anticipation. In fact, the movement through Jatanca’s labyrinthine corridors and concatenation of chambers likely induced an affective time (see Locke 2010) of suspense, anxiety, and expectation. This apprehension of time was likely intensified by the alternation of periods of prolonged, even tedious waiting with peak moments of ritual theatre involving dance, music, and memorable encounters with ritually charged peoples and things (Swenson 2018d). Interestingly, the materiality of Jatanca’s horizontally configured architecture also points to a temporal ideology of permanence, transcendence, and prolonged duration. Construction of the solid tapia (rammed earth) perimeters demanded the coordinated and synchronized labour of a large number of workers to construct the oversized wall moulds, mix the clay and water, and pour the vast quantities of liquid adobe into the wooden frames (Campana 2000: 130–131; Swenson 2015a; Warner 2010: 338–339). The canals passing through the site and dating to the Formative Period no doubt provided the water for the construction of the tapia perimeters (Warner 2010). Although the building of the walls conforms to McFayden’s notion of “quick architecture” (McFadyen 2006), a process which involves the rapid and coordinated movement of labourers, the entire construction event must have been

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a time-consuming and protracted affair (Swenson 2015a: 699). In fact, building large tapia wall segments leaves little room for improvisation, and a pre-conceived architectonic plan, entailing precise scheduling and long-term planning, underwrote architectural construction at Jatanca. The solid tapia walls are ­remarkable for their preservation and durability. Over 2,000 years old, they materialized an enduring temporality of hard stone as opposed to degradable adobe (Swenson 2015a: 700). Indeed, the compounds were built to last, and their fixity and “powerful persistence” attests to their “negentropic” spatial and temporal effects (see Witmore 2007b: 217). Significantly, architectural re-modelling was rare at Jatanca. Chambers, corridors, and daises were fastidiously curated spaces, and buildings were seldom demolished or rebuilt. In most precincts, one massive tapia floor was laid down between the walls, and when reflooring episodes occurred (rarely more than 3–5 floors), they almost always respected and maintained the original wall layouts of the precincts in question (Swenson 2015a: 700; 2018d; Swenson and Warner 2016: 23). Thus, the painstaking conservation of the buildings appears to have denied or resisted a conception of change based on cycles of growth, decay, death, and regeneration. The few examples of remodelling documented at the site are equally significant in that the new constructions deviated completely from the original plan, unlike the multiple renovations at Huaca Colorada (Swenson 2015a, 2018d). The reconstruction events at Jatanca razed earlier walls (they were not carefully buried as at Huaca Colorada), and these renovations seem to have intended to standardize the replication of ceremonial space between the different compounds (Warner 2010: 385–397, 429–434). Maintaining the integrity and physical constancy of the monument is further reflected in the general lack of burials at the settlement. The people of Jatanca clearly interred their dead elsewhere (most likely at the mortuary site of Puémape—see below), and the four human burials discovered at the centre appear to have been intrusive and anomalous (Swenson 2015a: 700). Taboos may even have been in place that prohibited the regular interment of the dead within the confines of the centre. In contrast to the later funerary sties of San José de Moro and Pacatnamú, Jatanca did not experience the ongoing growth of new cemeteries and the accumulation of interred bodies. The great precincts were monuments to permanence, an eternalized time that endured beyond the lifecycles and practical rhythms of the communities that visited and maintained the ceremonial compounds. The high walls would have also blocked vistas of the surrounding and ephemeral domestic areas, forming a unique topology that compartmentalized distinctive time frames. In fact, the expansive residential areas surrounding the complexes lack permanent constructions and appear to have been occupied episodically by encampments of visitors, possibly pilgrims. The fleeting temporalities of the everyday were thus juxtaposed with the transcendent, eternal time of the ceremonial enclosures. As possible shrines for oracular wak’as, it seems that the compounds of Jatanca materialized an ideology of timelessness and intransience. In other words, the centre seems to have created

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a safe haven of constancy and ontological security where diviners prognosticated and ultimately reduced the uncertainties of the future. In a similar manner, the compounds of the centre appear to have celebrated an ethos of commemoration and conservation (Swenson and Warner 2016). The primordial acts of founding wak’as possibly provided a mythic (and architectural) charter for fixed political relationships idealized as stable and predictably cyclical (Assmann 2006: 38). In fact, the rigid symmetry and dualistic layout of Jatanca’s architecture created a topology of balance, complementarity, and continuity (Swenson and Warner 2016; Warner 2010). As discussed above, the platforms positioned in mirror opposition seem to conform closely to Andean notions of history founded on a tinkuy-like dialectic of conflict and complementarity (Salomon and Urioste 1991). The eastern platforms at Jatanca tend to be slightly larger than their western counterparts (Swenson 2015a: 695; 2018d; Warner 2010: 522–536), and they may have been associated with the rising sun, an upper moiety, an ascendant huaca and the present/future. By extension, the western platform may have related to the sun’s setting, a lower moiety, a subsidiary huaca, the past, and possibly the female life principle. Among The Eastern Timbira of the Amazon, the passage of time was also dramatized in terms of the alternation between the eastern and western halves of the main ceremonial plaza, a rite that played a fundamental role in introducing initiates to the mythic history of the society (Nimuendajú 1946: 89–92). Jatanca’s architecture was clearly gridded to the cardinal directions, and the movement from the northern plazas to the southern inner sanctums of the compounds probably held cosmic, astronomical, and spiritual significance. Exiting the compounds could also have entailed the return from a mythic space-time to the world of everyday temporal routines. It is also worth considering that multiple compounds (or plaza groups within individual precincts) may have been active only at given days, seasons, or calendar rounds, as characterized the Inca z’eqe system described in Chapter 5. 6.3.3 Perceived Space and the Phenomenology of Ritual at Jatanca: Segmentarity and Territorialization

To invoke the terminology of Lefebvre and Rancière, Jatanca’s built environment distributed the sensible in a manner that ideally bent perceived space to the expectations of the conceived plans of the builders and ritual specialists that designed the impressive compounds. The symmetry and orthogonal layout of Jatanca’s precincts created a decidedly striated and hierarchical space (Deleuze and Guattari 1987) in which place-specific activities were found to be remarkably uniform and compartmentalized, and where there seems to have been little room for improvisation (Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 474–500; Swenson 2011: 298; Warner 2010: 539). A semiotic ideology of synecdoche governed this highly territorialized and striated space as manifested in the assembling of the distinct compounds into a singular

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settlement and the further nesting of scaled-down plaza complexes within larger ones—where wholes replicated parts and vice versa (Swenson 2015a). Indeed, the segmentarity of Jatanca’s compounds further reveals that the ­architecture afforded very specific kinds of embodied experience. All three configurations—linear, binary, and circular (concentric) (see Chapter 2)—are evident at the centre (Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 210). The platforms with ramps in mirror opposition exemplify the binary mode, while movement from the capacious plaza, through the mediating proscenium framed by the platforms, into the labyrinthine depth of internal chambers manifests a profoundly linear experience of space. However, the circular or concentric configuration appears dominant, and this “higher-level order” of spatial organization founded on the semiotic ideology of synecdoche effectively subsumed the other two modalities. As discussed in Chapter 2, circular segmentation denotes nested and interlinked spaces—such as the scaled relationship of bedroom to home, home to neighbourhood, and the neighbourhood to city. A comparable configuration is manifest in the replicated ceremonial stage precincts in Compounds 3 and 4 and in the general aesthetic of repetition prevalent at the centre. In a circular and increasingly enveloping fashion, movement progressed from larger to smaller enclosures (or vice versa). Thus, Jatanca’s striated and “tree-like” space clearly worked to shape bodily and subjective sensations (Dovey 2010: 20). The binary division of the opposed platforms perhaps emplaced social differences (moiety divisions), linear movement enhanced the anticipated encounter with wak’as, while the nested hierarchy of enclosures afforded an intense and possibly overwhelming experience of tinkuy. 6.3.4

Jatanca as Semiotic Machine

Ultimately, the architectural ensemble acted as a great mediator and thus a ­formidable semiotic machine that linked Cerro Cañoncillo to the south valley’s diverse ecology and irrigation network. Indeed, Jatanca’s extraordinary semiotic density permits interpretations of its meaning and presumed ritual efficacy in terms of the processes of repetition, substitution, symbolic accumulation, and intimate parallelisms outlined in Chapter 4. We can immediately detect a salient pattern of repetition in the multiplication of compounds, proscenia and ramped platforms, as well as in the maze of innumerable, finely finished rooms. Once again, this repetition operated within a logic of synecdoche and fed into the bundled accumulation of compounds, peoples, signs, and ecological zones within the site itself as a great emplacement of tinkuy. Similar to the numerous Chaac masks (Maya rain god) that adorned the façade of temples in Yucatan (discussed in Chapter 4), the repetitive force of the ramped platforms, all gridded to Cerro Cañoncillo, likely worked to channel the waters, camay, and generative essence of the mountain to which they were oriented. This repetition would have closely aligned with “substitution” if the compounds or ceremonial plaza groups operated at distinct times, perhaps as dictated by a calendar round.

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In any event, such repetition and substitution closely relate to the semiotic ­process of intimate parallelism or dicentization introduced in Chapter 4. I already described how the Acropolis mimetically simulated the mountain itself, and as argued earlier, the “exemplary nature of the religious image” is “not a copy of a copied being, but an ontological communion with what is copied” (Gadamer 1986: 125, cited in Descola 2013b: 47). Although Ball’s (2014) notion of “dicentization,” in which ritual converts sign relations of likeness into sign relations of creative connectivity, seems to describe the semiotic affordances of key constructions at the centre, the iconic qualities of ritual architecture diminished later in Jatanca’s occupation. The establishment of the horizontal compounds housing the internal stages and ramped daises postdate the earlier construction of the decidedly iconic and mimetic mountain of the Acropolis (Warner 2010). The platforms with ramps certainly “point” and thus index the mountain in a very explicit and visible manner (see Figure 6.11), but the indexical sign appears to have sufficed, and the actual rituals conducted on the daises aligned with the mountain might account for this privileging of the indexical in later phases. In fact, the prevailing semiotic ideology at Jatanca tended towards the aniconic; unlike the later Moche, figurative art on ceramics were rare and wall murals seemed completely absent. Interestingly, we recovered more iconic imagery on earlier ceramics from the Acropolis, and the predominance of abstraction (geometric and punctate designs in particular) in later phases eludes full interpretation. However, the religious community of Jatanca was far from iconoclastic. Comparable to the singularity of the Acropolis, iconic representations may have been reserved for more powerful objects that occupied the ramped altars in question or the innermost sancta of the compounds. The latter, then, as immovable architecture, may have oriented and physically indexed possibly iconic, mobile sacra with fixed features of the landscape. Interestingly, the few structured depositions of bundled objects and occluded sign-objects discovered at Jatanca (see Chapter 4) derived from deep and elaborate precincts with benches and daises lying on direct axis with the ceremonial stage of the Acropolis and Compounds 1 and 3. These offerings included fine vessels of different forms (bridge-spouted pots and bowls in Compound 1), spondylus beads (Compound 3), and a fine lithic point deposited with a ceramic spoon (Acropolis) (see Figures 6.12 and 6.14). These offerings may have intended to initiate the “­efficacious chiasmus of sacred mediation” linking the concealed and revealed precisely in rooms that housed the most power wak’as and possible oracles of the centre (see Chapter 4). If oracular divination played an important role in the ritual regimen of the site, then the presence of such occluded depositions in these shrines should come as no surprise. In this light, the compounds of Jatanca were ideally designed to territorialize a potentially awesome and deterritorializing force (a possible wak’a or oracle) as the latter were literally concealed behind a thick maze of massive walls. In this regard, Jatanca resembles other temple buildings discussed in Chapters 3 and 4.

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FIGURE 6.14 Photograph

of a bench structure (upper register) associated with a spear point and ceramic spoon (lower register) excavated in one of the highest and most private chambers of the Acropolis at Jatanca.

6.3.5

Lived Space and the Power of Ritual at Jatanca

In the end, all six intersections of ritual and power explored in Chapter 3 (see Table 3.1) prove relevant in interpreting Jatanca’s religious landscape. Fearsome sacra (formidable others), appear to have been enshrined in the depths of the compounds (Point 1), while individuals or communities likely sought wisdom (empowerment) or experienced emotionally charged revelations in possible initiations as they moved through the intensely controlled and scripted environment of the complexes (Points 2 and 5). If the individual compounds indexed particular lineage groups and their wak’as, who united at the centre to venerate Cerro Cañoncillo, then ritual would undoubtedly have negotiated identity politics and ideological disagreements (Points 3 and 4). Similar to the heterotopic effects of ceremonial architecture in general, Jatanca no doubt induced thirdspace experiences that heighten consciousness of one’s social obligations and subjective positions (Point 6). Nevertheless, the degree to which conceived space may have overwhelmed or contradicted perceived and lived space remains a challenge to decipher. The discovery of a few rare graffiti and intrusive burials reveals that individuals were unquestionably moved and affected by the Jatanca’s impressive architectural tableau. Unlike Huaca Colorada, graffiti is exceptionally rare at this earlier centre, and we identified only three examples

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from our excavation of over 50 large units opened at Jatanca. The two main graffiti derive from rooms on the west side of Compound 1, where production and storage activities occurred, and we exposed an hourglass design on the face of a low platform situated at the north end of the plaza of Compound 2, near the sole entrance into the complex (Figure 6.15). The graffiti from Compound 1 consists of rectangular motifs and reticulated lines that perhaps depict fishing nets. Strangely, in all three cases, they were engraved near the floor. Different from Huaca Colorada, no figurative images of people, animals, or landforms were identified among these rare abstract and geometric wall etchings at Jatanca. As discussed in Chapter 2, Graffiti is often viewed as a thirdspace practice in which individuals wish to leave their mark in a place that has moved them. Also possible, the graffiti may even have expressed a kind of critical social commentary of the evocative space (Swenson 2012a, 2018b). Unlike Huaca Colorada, most of the walls at Jatanca were not decorated by etchings, and the somewhat hidden graffiti suggest that this was not a common or condoned practiced. However, the discovery of graffiti in the production areas of Compound 1 and in the most public sector of Compound 2 indicate that graffiti were confined to certain areas of Jatanca. Interestingly, we identified no such etchings in the central axis of

FIGURE 6.15 

Rare examples of graffiti discovered at Jatanca.

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ceremonial architecture and elaborate internal rooms, and the few graffiti may only have been tolerated in subsidiary production and storage rooms. The isolation and relatively low placement of the graffiti are mysterious, for the artist must have knelt (or even laid down) on the floor to make the rendering. Perhaps the etchings served as apotropaic signs that were not meant to be easily seen. Two burials of adults, identified in rooms within Compounds 1 and 2, may have served as possible foundation sacrifices, as they were interred without offerings of any kind. However, they were placed in the hard floors after the construction of the room (as evinced by crude seals patching the floor), and thus they were not buried when the chambers were actually built. The sealed floors may suggest continued use of the two rooms in question, however. As noted above, it seems highly significant that the head of the male individual in Compound 1 tilted directly towards Cerro Cañoncillo (Swenson and Warner 2016). This subtle homage might provide additional evidence that the individual in question constituted a ritual offering of some sort. This interment was placed in the same chamber in Compound 1 containing the graffito of a possible fishing net. Later, two subadult burials were placed in wall melt above the floor following the abandonment of the site (after the room became inundated with sand and the walls began to erode). Perhaps the memory of the much earlier adult interment could explain the burial of these two subadults in the same room. In any event, later peoples clearly held the site as a venerable place to inter the dead, even if this was clearly a rare occurrence. Despite these later burials, it is extraordinary that Jatanca was left virtually untouched by later peoples, and it constituted a curated as much as an abandoned citadel. The horizontal stratigraphy of the Cañoncillo region is remarkable, and Moche and LIP ceramic scatters are almost completely lacking at Jatanca. In fact, when the Cupisnique River dried up and sand dunes began to choke the fields, irrigation canals, and ceremonial architecture of the site, this region ceased to serve as one of the main religious centres of the Jequetepeque Valley until approximately 600 years later with the founding of Huaca Colorada, the subject of the following section. However, the later Moche were no doubt aware of Jatanca, but this Late Formative centre was never reoccupied or modified, perhaps under the spell of a feared taboo. Rather remarkably, and despite the salient differences between the two centres, Huaca Colorada also anchored a cult tied to the veneration of the mountain of Cerro Cañoncillo, a testament to Jatanca’s aura and profound place (thirdspace) in the social memory of the communities of the southern Jequetepeque Valley. 6.4

Huaca Colorada

6.4.1 General Interpretations of Religious Architecture, Ritual Practices, and Political Organization

After the abandonment of Jatanca before 100 CE, monumental architecture and large-scale cultic practices disappeared from the Cañoncillo region until the

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founding of the Late Moche site of Huaca Colorada roughly 600 years later. However, after an interruption of 100 years or so, the south side of the Jequetepeque Valley once again became an important agricultural zone, especially during the Middle Moche Period (c. 400 CE) (Dillehay et al. 2009; Donnan 2007; Moseley et al. 2008). During this era, the south bank appears to have served as the breadbasket of the valley, but this abruptly changed by the mid-7th century (Moseley et al. 2008). Indeed, profound social transformation and dislocation characterized the Middle to Late Moche Period transition in Jequetepeque. By 650 CE, a combination of a severe El Niño Southern Oscillation event and subsequent sand encroachment led to the demise of the paramount centre of Dos Cabezas on the shore of the south bank of Jequetepeque (Donnan 2007; Moseley et al. 2008). The fall of this urban centre coincided with the shift of political and economic power from the south to the northern half of the Valley (Dillehay and Kolata 2004; Donnan 2007; Moseley et al. 2008). The large settlements of Cerro Chepén, Talambo and Pacatnamú were founded or expanded north of the river, while Huaca Colorada in the Pampa de Mojucape emerged as an elite ceremonial centre in the heavily dunated south valley (Castillo 2010; Dillehay et al. 2009; Donnan and Cock 1997; Shimada 1994; Swenson 2012b). These environmental and demographic fluctuations can explain in part the ascendancy of the priestess cult in the north at San José de Moro and the general decentralization of political power in the region (Castillo 2010; Swenson 2012b). Marked changes in ceramics and other material culture, including the introduction of beautiful fine-line ceramics manufactured at San José de Moro, often depicting the priestess, also distinguishe the Late Moche era (McClelland et al. 2007). Despite the demographic shift north, the impressive ceremonial centre of Huaca Colorada, situated just 2 km northeast of Jatanca was built in the vicinity of a reduced but still viable system of agricultural fields in the Pampa de Mojucape. This irrigation system contracted to the area around and to the north of the huaca in closer vicinity to the bocas tomas of the Santonte and Jatanca canal systems (Swenson 2007; Warner 2010). Huaca Colorada was built adjacent to Cerro Cañoncillo’s algarroba forest with its abundant resources discussed above, and it represents the dominant Moche cult centre on the South side of the valley. It deserves mention that the political landscape of the Jequetepeque Valley differed notably from the Moche Valley to the south and the Lambayeque Valley to the north during the Late Moche Period (650–850 CE). The massive urban centres of Huacas de Moche and Pampa Grande dominated these two regions, respectively. Huacas de Moche was comprised of elaborate and multi-generational residential compounds that housed a large urban population (Van Gijseghem 2001). In contrast, a polycentric settlement system distinguished Jequetepeque. Both rural and ceremonial sites located in the hinterland proliferated around larger centres, including San José de Moro, Talambo, Pacatnamú, Cerro Chepén, Huaca Colorada, and Tecapa (Castillo 2010; Castillo and Donnan 1994b; Castillo et al. 2008; Dillehay 2001; Swenson 2006, 2007, 2017; Zobler and Sutter 2016) (Figure 1). Recent

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archaeological research indicates that the region was defined by the regular ­movement of people, and a certain value was placed on circulation and temporary habitation among a large segment of the Jequetepeque population (Dillehay et al. 2009; Swenson 2018d: 198; Swenson and Chiguala 2019; Swenson and Warner 2012). The ephemeral and seasonal occupation of settlements—ranging from hamlets to large ceremonial centres—differs notably from the permanent habitation documented at Huacas de Moche and Pampa Grande (Shimada 1994; Van Gijseghem 2001). Nevertheless, it is evident that Jequetepeque was characterized by high populations, sophisticated religious and agricultural infrastructures, a cosmopolitan international style, and flexible corporate structures that negotiated local and global political networks (Castillo 2010; Swenson 2019). The unique social geography of the region was the product of specific religious and political ideologies that worked materially at various (and often overlapping) scales of sociospatial interaction, including ephemeral households, elite temples, more permanent structures, and large public gatherings. In sum, it is evident that Jequetepeque populations spent a portion of the year tending fields, cleaning canals, fishing, maintaining camelid herds, etc., and spent shorter but not insignificant periods congregating into much larger confederations at impressive religious centres such as San José de Moro or Huaca Colorada. A ceremonial calendar and economic and military schedules may have governed residential cycling and rotating feasts (Dillehay et al. 2009; Swenson 2012b, 2019; Swenson and Warner 2012). The great priestess centre, with its multiple platform mounds, is largely devoid of permanent domestic contexts, and communities congregated here in great numbers only at specific moments in time to participate in funerary and feasting rites (Castillo et al. 2008; Chiou 2017: 95; Muro 2019). The assembly, disassembly, and reassembly of peoples, places, and things defined the pulsating social landscape of Jequetepeque in the Late Moche Period—and ceremonial centres and their associated infrastructures played a vital role in this territorializing process. Our excavations at Huaca Colorada have revealed that it served as the headquarters of a powerful Moche polity and as a setting for elaborate ceremonies, including copper production, feasting, human sacrifice and cyclical rites of architectural renovation (Swenson 2012b; Swenson and Warner 2012). The local wak’a associated with the Cañoncillo region was possibly incorporated into the Moche pantheon during this time and was perhaps identified as a hypostasis of a widely revered Moche divinity comparable to the priestess deity based at San José de Moro in the North Valley (Swenson and Warner 2016: 43). An elongated platform built on a modified hill of sand dominates the sacred landscape of Huaca Colorada. This central construction measures 390 m × 140 m and rises 20 m at its central highest point (Figure 6.16). The plain surrounding the great mound largely lacks visible architecture, apart from a southern wall that appears to have demarcated the southern boundary of the site. However, the dense scatter of ceramics, traces of relic fields and feeder channels, and scattered looted

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FIGURE 6.16 Topographic

map of Huaca Colorada, illustrating the three main sectors and major architectural complexes.

burials indicate that the entire site occupied an area of approximately 20 hectares. The ample and elevated expanse of the huaca, the main focus of our investigations, is differentiated into three sectors that delimit Huaca Colorada’s principal ceremonial and manufacturing/residential areas (Figure 6.16). Similar to the Acropolis, the main platform of Huaca Colorada was built as a mimetic simulation of Cerro Cañoncillo. In fact, a juxtaposition of air photos of the monument with the mountain itself reveals a striking resemblance (Figure 6.17). Like the Acropolis, the huaca replicates the same profile and contours of the mountain, and it is also comprised of three main zones that mirror the height and general shape of the cerro’s principal summits. At the same time, the cerro looms majestically over the eastern flank of the ceremonial centre in the same way that it defined the eastern horizon of Jatanca (Figure 6.17). The elaborate ceremonial structures of the site cluster in the highest, central zone of the site, and this monumental sector may have corresponded with Cerro Cañoncillo’s central peak with its prominent stone wak’a. Moreover, many of the excavated ceremonial platforms that clutter Huaca Colorada’s central, ceremonial zone were either built facing the mountain or oriented on a north–south axis in alignment with the main arc of the cerro.

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FIGURE 6.17 Cerro

Cañoncillo looming over excavations of Huaca Colorada (upper register) and Google Earth air photographs of Cerro Cañoncillo (left lower register) and the main ceremonial Mound of Huaca Colorada (right lower register).

There is little doubt that Cerro Cañoncillo was central to the ritual performances orchestrated at this Moche temple. For instance, a tri-cornered adobe astronomical installation was discovered at the northeastern end of the ceremonial sector. Standing within the opening of the construction, its central point aligns with the sunrise during the winter solstice, while its right corner forms a direct line of sight with the highest peak and the stone wak’a of Cerro Cañoncillo itself (Figure 6.18) (Swenson and Warner 2016). The peculiar shape of the installation forming multiple lines of sight with prominent features of the surrounding topography indicates that it functioned in rituals related to astronomy, time-reckoning and communion with the sacred landscape of Cañoncillo. It also deserves mention that graffiti depicting both schematic and semi-realistic mountains were etched on the walls of the chambers of the monumental zone. One such rendering even appears accurately to capture the triumvirate of summits comprising the massif of Cerro Cañoncillo (Figure 6.19). In addition, excavated burials and sacrifices at the site were often oriented to the mountain (Swenson and Warner 2016). The core ceremonial complex of the site (Sector B) occupies the central and highest prominence of the mound. It consists of a series of adobe brick platforms

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FIGURE 6.18 An

adobe brick astronomical apparatus in Sector B of Huaca Colorada.

FIGURE 6.19 Graffiti

from Huaca Colorada depicting a likely representation of Cerro Cañoncillo with a human figure and a possible rainbow (upper register). Graffiti representing stylized mountains and huacas (lower register).

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(stepped altars), corridors, patios, stairs, and ramps, and it formed the arena for elaborate feasting and sacrificial ritual, described in greater detail below. The lower southern (Sector C) and northern (Sector A) sectors consisted mainly of expansive residential and production areas where pilgrims and artisans lived during specific times of the year. In the extensive domestic zones of Sectors A and C, the intercalation of thin lenses of aeolian sand, indexing short-term abandonment, with both compacted sand surfaces and plaster floors, demonstrates that a good number of the huaca’s inhabitants only lived there during certain periods of the year (Swenson and Chiguala 2019; Swenson and Warner 2012). Periodic occupation is further indicated by sequential building events that deviated from the layout of earlier floor plans. During other temporal intervals, perhaps associated with the growing season, visitors to the site likely resided in smaller agricultural or fishing hamlets or in defended hillside settlements with dispersed ritual constructions (Dillehay 2001; Swenson 2007, 2019). Despite the impermanence of the domestic architecture, the large residential zones were associated with a much higher quantity of Moche finelines, decorated ceramics, and copper artefacts than the numerous

FIGURE 6.20 Moche

fineline ceramics in both Moche V and San José de Moro styles recovered from Huaca Colorada.

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hamlets or intermediate-sized ceremonial sites in the region (Duke 2016; Swenson 2019). Therefore, the huaca was apparently much more cosmopolitan and inclusive than neighbouring settlements. In fact, Moche fineline ceramics at Huaca Colorada include both San José de Moro wares from northern Jequetepeque and Moche V styles characteristic of the Chicama and Lambayeque regions (Figure 6.20). We also recovered an abundance of imported Cajamarca sherds from dense feasting middens surrounding the monumental Sector B, a style largely absent at smaller settlements (Figure 6.21). These ceramics are originated from the highland polities of the same name located immediately to the east of the centre (Cajamarca). In addition, we identified a greater number of utilitarian ceramic styles at Huaca Colorada than at smaller settlements, and numerous communities converged at the centre from throughout the region, likely on prescribed feast days (Lynch 2013; Swenson 2018a, 2019). Huaca Colorada is equally unprecedented for the vast quantities of camelid remains, shellfish, and maize beer (chicha) decanters recovered from both domestic deposits and large feasting middens. Artisans and pilgrims journeyed to the centre to consume prodigious quantities of corn beer and animal protein, especially llama meat and seafood (Alaica 2021; Duke 2016; Swenson 2014). Evidently, fishing communities, farmers, and herders all congregated at the

FIGURE 6.21 

Highland Cajamarca ceramics from Huaca Colorada.

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Huaca, and unlike large centres such as Cerro Chepén in the northern valley, both shellfish and lama remains are in great abundance (Chiou 2017: 195). Interestingly, the actual tools of primary production, including fish hooks, net sinkers, clod breakers and farming tools are notably absent at the huaca, unlike their relative ubiquity at both small residential sites and hinterland ceremonial settlements (Dillehay et al. 2009; Swenson 2006, 2018a, 2019). However, craft production, including especially small-scale copper and ceramic industries constituted an important pursuit of the congregants of the domestic area. Different communities resided at the huaca during prescribed seasons to participate in fairs, feasts, and great ritual celebrations centred on sacrifice and renewal, likely in honour of the presiding wak’a of the cult. As discussed in Chapter 3, ritualized events are commonly defined by an altered material frame, as was apparent at Huaca Colorado, given the stark imbalance between objects of consumption (feasting) and primary production. The dense admixture of material remains and seasonal occupation at the huaca points to the momentary erasure of social and occupational differences between lineages and producers, possibly fostering a more inclusive ethos of communitas (Turner 1967). We also identified permanent and elaborate architecture in very confined zones of Sectors A and C. For instance, the southwestern quadrant of Sector A (Sector A-West) is marked by superimposed platforms and sacrificial offerings of women and children, including a pregnant woman with a rope tied around her neck recently discovered overlaying a massive stepped platform. In total, two women (including the pregnant individual) and three infant burials were interred around a set of three large ceremonial daises. At least four platforms, most dating to different phases occupy this area. We also recovered offerings of a fine ceramic trumpet with one of the child sacrifices and precious stone pendants. As with Sector B, where we ­discovered another pregnant woman interred within nested daises, female fertility and biological reproduction constituted important objectives of ritual practice at the site. Interestingly, after the closure of the ceremonial constructions, Sector A-West became associated with make-shift workshops and residences, similar to the rest of this ample residential area. The southeastern edge of Sector C appears to have served as the residence of more permanent and high-status residence, as concatenated linear buildings consisting of solid adobe walls, well-prepared floors, work benches, a ramp and large postholes that once supported a formidable roof. We have argued that officials of the temple may have sponsored and supervised craft production in this zone, especially metallurgy that occurred in the more ephemeral dwellings in much of the rest of Sector C. Returning to central and elevated temple zone of Sector B, seven years of excavation in the ceremonial core of Huaca Colorada indicates that four major modes of ritual were orchestrated at the centre: (1) the dedication and termination of architectural constructions including rooms, patios, and most notably ceremonial platforms; (2) the interment of offerings of human and animal sacrifices in tandem

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with this architectural renovation; (3) large-scale commensal rites involving both elite diacritical banquets and more inclusive patron-client feasts; (4) rituals related to copper metallurgy (see Swenson 2012b; Swenson and Warner 2012). However, these rites were all interrelated and served ultimately to promote fertility and rebirth through the camay-like circulation of food, bodies, and offerings between peoples, places, and other-than-human powers (Swenson 2020). The principal religious constructions at Huaca Colorada consist of a number of elaborate daises built in and around an impressive ceremonial chamber in the west and an elevated and roofed terrace to the east (Spence Morrow 2018, 2019; Swenson 2018a). In fact, Sector B was bisected by a monumental dividing wall into east–west halves, both of which were anchored at their southern end by a roofed, stepped platform (Figure 6.22). These altar-like landings are commonly depicted in Moche iconography and are associated with key ritual practices including feasting and sacrifice (Spence Morrow 2019; Swenson 2012, 2015a; Wiersema 2015). The ritual remodelling of both sides of the huaca coincided with human and

FIGURE 6.22  The

stepped platforms anchoring the southern ends of the Western Chamber and the Eastern Terrace, the dyadic sectors forming the ceremonial core of Huaca Colorada. The Moche fineline depiction of a roofed dais closely resembles the excavated platforms (redrawn from Donnan 1978: Figure 104).

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FIGURE 6.23 

Human and animal sacrifices (camelid) at Huaca Colorada.

animal foundation sacrifices along with the occasional offering of copper prills and ­finished ornaments (Swenson 2018c; Swenson and Warner 2012) (Figure 6.23). The renovations in the east were defined by vertical additions and the construction and termination of a number of daises, while the Western Chamber was reduced both vertically and horizontally through time (Spence Morrow 2019). The roofed platforms of the West chamber and East terrace were ritually terminated and rededicated and then terminated one last time. The western dais was buried in tons of sand, while its eastern counterpart was immolated in fire before being sealed under its carbonized roof and a clean floor. Most termination events were associated with human offerings, including those associated with additional platforms located in the northeast and southwest zones of Sector B. The marked differences in the material media structuring the ritual closure of the two platforms, one involving suffocation in dry sand and the other entailing fiery destruction, likely speak to ideologies of complementary dualism and tinkuy described in Chapter 5 (Spence-Morrow 2018, 2019; Swenson 2018a, 2018c). Indeed, it seems likely that the two platforms were contemporaneous and used concurrently. It even appears that a liturgical calendar synchronized the multiple renovations and eventual termination of the two precincts. For example, four major,

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superimposed use-surfaces distinguish both the lower chamber and the eastern ­terrace. Thus, despite differences in elevation, the history of renovation and reflooring are near identical on both sides of the huaca. Moreover, both altar platforms form the focal point of the two halves of the central ceremonial precinct and are fronted by spacious patios (Figure 6.22). Therefore, in its early iteration, the spatial configuration of Sector B appears to have materialized a political and religious ideology celebrating dualism and opposition. Perhaps the near identical platforms anchored the rituals and identities of two confederated moieties or religious sodalities associated with the wak’a of Cerro Cañoncillo. In fact, we interpret the higher and lower elevations of the platforms as symbolizing a socio-spatial order of asymmetry and complementary (i.e., hanan and hurin), similar to the dual placement of ramped platforms at the earlier and neighbouring site of Jatanca (Warner 2010). The differential termination of the platforms may have expressed the distinctive qualities or “life forces” (fire and earth) of the separate moieties that were ritually and dialectically unified at the huaca to ensure the regeneration of social and cosmic order (Harris 1994; Platt 1986). Therefore, the peculiar dualistic nexus of the pyramid recalls Andean philosophical and spatial concepts discussed in Chapter 5 (yanantin-masintin, chaupin, tinkuy, etc.) In any event, it is evident that the summit of the huaca constituted an immensely powerful place of convergence, separation, and transformation, where generative powers were released through the raw force of ritually encapsulated violence. In effect, the ceremonial precinct of the site was in a constant state of renovation, and the repeated termination and rededication of altars, rooms, and platforms, as possibly dictated by a religious calendar or festival round, constituted core rituals as important as the feasts and sacrifices staged on the daises. The Western Chamber was reduced in size at least seven times by the construction of higher floors and a succession of perimeter walls in the north, which were continually inset further to the south (Spence Morrow 2019; Swenson 2018c, 2018d). These sequential renovations entailed the continual plugging of doors that provided access to the Eastern Terrace which was also remodelled approximately seven times. The immolation and closure of the roofed platform in the south end of the East Terrace was followed by the construction of five successive platforms directly to the north. In sum, Huaca Colorada’s monumental core was an enlivened and mutating place, and individuals moving through its precincts or involved in ritual rebuilding were no doubt transformed in body and mind by the kinetic power of the ­monument. In this regard, the dialectical co-constitution of space and people represents more than an etic theoretical problem, as it directly underwrote Moche ideologies of place and architecture. Similar to the religious objectives of human sacrifice, ritualized architectural construction served as a tool of social ­engineering, an attempt to control people, their lifecycles, and the creation and circulation of vitality itself (Swenson 2012a). Indeed, time and society assumed a concrete spatiality in the cyclical reconstructions of the site’s monumental nucleus. As such, Huaca Colorada’s ceremonial architecture expressed an aesthetic that conflated violent

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death, creation, rebirth, and fertility. This aesthetic codified a particular conception of the life cycle as generated and renewed by the cyclical unification of different but interdependent entities including peoples, buildings, and things. In this light, it seems highly significant that young women constituted 13 of the 19 human sacrificial victims offered in conjunction with the ritual termination and re-dedication of ceremonial architecture in Sector B and Sector A-West. Four additional foundation offerings consisted of subadults of indeterminate sex, while the two male victims were actually placed outside the main ceremonial precinct of Sector B (see below; Swenson and Berquist 2022). The discovery of two female offerings and cache of copper prills deposited to commemorate the ritual closure of the pillared platform in the West Chamber might point to the transference of the youthful vitality of the offerings to the sacred space in question. In Andean culture, the capacity of women to create and animate things (textiles, corn beer, food) was conceived as equivalent to their powers to create people. Perhaps this association might explain why scenes of sexual intercourse in Moche iconography are commonly depicted with representations of feeding, death, sacrifice, and rebirth (Bourget 2006; Weismantel 2004). The fact that Huaca Colorada was a centre for the manufacture of copper tools and ornaments might explain the prevalence of female sacrifices at the site. As a further analogy, the Quechua term for artisan, kamayu, translates to someone who possesses creation or is the holder of creation, and the verb camay signifies the “authority to reorder matter into new configurations,” and the root of the word is camay discussed in Chapter 5 (Allen 1998: 21; Swenson and Warner 2012: 316; Taylor 2000). The constant ritual renovations of the monumental chamber, vitalized by the sacrifice of young women and copper artefacts, exemplify a concern to control and regulate the movement of life itself. Therefore, the peculiar offertory and aesthetic nexus indicates that the biopolitical regime of the centre was founded on the ritual re-formation of bodies, at once architectural, artefactual, and human. In the end, the sacrifice of childbearing women and children coinciding with the termination and revival of platforms strongly suggest that controlled rituals of death intended to ensure the rebirth of both the monument and the dependent community. The constant ritual renovations of the monumental chamber, vitalized by the sacrifice of young women, children, animals, and copper artefacts, exemplify a concern to harness the life force of the wak’a by offering to the monuments vital beings in their procreative prime. Feasting also played an important role in the ritual life of Huaca Colorada. The monumental core of the huaca is surrounded by thick feasting middens containing high quality and diverse food remains and fine serving vessels (Swenson 2017). Exotic imported pottery, predominantly highland Cajamarca tableware, was recovered in statistically high concentrations from these dumps, and it is evident that elites staged exclusive “diacritical feasts” to showcase their authority and religious pre-eminence. In contrast, Late Moche finelines predominate in the lower and expansive domestic areas beyond the central and elevated ceremonial zone,

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and patron-client feasts forged political and economic dependencies between ­high-status officials and the larger community of transient artisans and pilgrims (Dietler 2001; Lynch 2013; Swenson and Warner 2012). As mentioned, excavations in both the lower residential areas and higher ceremonial sector show that diverse inhabitants partook in feasts entailing the consumption of prodigious quantities of corn beer, shellfish, and camelid meat. 6.4.2 Ritual Constructions of Time, Place, and Cosmos at Huaca Colorada

The archaeological record indicates that communities from throughout the ­valley and beyond congregated at Huaca Colorada; these gatherings entailed an ­immersion into distinct material, spatial, and temporal worlds. In fact, the huaca’s distinctive landscape was likely held in reverence as it occupied a pivotal, even liminal ­location of convergence and assembly in the southern valley, as discussed earlier. The bundling together of copper, humans, daises, and animals also points to a distinct relational ontology peculiar to the Moche (Swenson and Warner 2012). The layout and architectural history of Huaca Colorada reveal a tradition of ritualism, place, time, and social memory that differed significantly from Jatanca’s unique architectural tableau. Indeed, the underlying spatial grammar and political context of ritual performance changed significantly between the two sites, and the distinctive architecture distributed the sensible in a way that likely created very different subjects and experiences (Swenson 2015a, 2018a). Unlike the disorienting maze of walls at Jatanca which divided and occluded, the elevated pyramid afforded broad vistas of the surrounding landscape. In fact, excavation reveals that quotidian taskscapes at the centre were more tightly interwoven with the timing of ritual events than at Jatanca. As described earlier, the juxtaposition of divergent but parallel temporalities distinguishes Jatanca’s unique timescape; the unchanging and timeless monumental compounds coexisted with the ephemeral constructions of the surrounding residential area. In contrast to Jatanca’s negentropic compounds, which were built to last, Huaca Colorada’s decidedly entropic precincts were built to change, and platforms, chambers, and walls underwent regular termination and rededication (Swenson 2015a). Therefore, the cyclical reconstructions of the monument may have synchronized the comings and goings of pilgrims. The decommissioning of at least 11 individual ceremonial platforms exemplifies the ritualized and sacrificial nature of reconstruction, and all these daises were painstakingly sealed under hard floors or buried under thick deposits of clean sand. Unlike the undying tapia walls at Jatanca, the structures at Huaca Colorada were built of smaller adobe bricks, an architectural medium that facilitated rapid, improvised construction and demolition. In fact, adobes were commonly robbed from walls and recycled at the site (Swenson 2015a: 700). This technology of wall assembly also entailed a different temporal regime than the construction of tapia perimeters. Multiple ­workers

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could stack and mortar bricks in a more piece-meal and improvised manner. Adobe brick construction thus allowed the Huaca to potentially grow or contract in an incremental fashion. In contrast, pouring wet adobe into larger cane frames to construct the large tapia segments at Jatanca demanded the close coordination and timing of tasks—with little wiggle room for modifying pre-conceived layouts (Campana 2000). Therefore, the periodic rededication of ceremonial architecture, as perhaps dictated by a ceremonial calendar, defined Huaca Colorada’s dynamic architectural history. The succession of renovations corresponds directly with the sacrifice of mainly female victims and young children, whose deaths likely served to ensure rebirth and the continuation of life. Human and animal sacrifices accompanied the renovation of at least 11 distinct ceremonial platforms, and we discovered an additional sacrifice incorporated in construction fill associated with incremental reductions of the West Chamber prior to its termination. In engineering the consubstantiation of people and vibrant architecture, Huaca Colorada acted as monumental chronotope, emanating a specific temporality centred on gestation and cycles of growth, destruction, and renewal (Swenson 2015a: 691). In contradistinction to the solidity and constancy of Jatanca’s tapia perimeters, Huaca Colorada’s adobebrick walls were built to live, die, and regenerate, and their material fabric finds analogues (homologues) with flesh or vegetation. The interment of two pregnant women in association with ritually terminated platforms further reveals a structural equivalence between sacrificial death and rebirth, and rites of growth and empowerment required controlled forms of sacred violence. In contrast, our extensive excavations at Jatanca reveal that sacrificial victims did not activate or commemorate acts of architectural renovation. The few examples discussed above were interred in s­ hallow and intrusive pits placed in the room after the precinct and plaster floor were constructed, and architectural re-dedication did not occur in direct ­conjunction with a foundation sacrifice. Ritual practices that materially synchronized the life cycle of people and buildings were notably absent at Jatanca, pointing to the ­distinct temporal ontologies of the two centres (Swenson 2015a: 700; 2018d). The palimpsest of shifting floors, sand fill, human offerings, and superimposed altars suggest that congregants celebrated Huaca Colorada for its kinaesthetic force, and the temple may have assumed the status of a living, metabolizing organism (Swenson 2015: 692; 2018c, in press). In fact, the ambivalence between inside and outside, frame and content, and natural terrain and built environment resonates with Deleuze and Guattari’s particular notion of a topology or folded spacetime (Deleuze and Guattari 1987 see also DeLanda 2005: 84–86; Harris 2005: 45–51; Lynn 2004: 10, 40–42; Witmore 2007b: 195–196). Folding architecture designates a “fluid logic of connectivity that integrates unrelated elements within a continuous mixture” (Harris 2005: 44). It thus designates a place of pure possibilities celebrated for its creative virtuosities. Following Delueze and Guattari (1987),

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“virtual” refers to an abstract temporal condition, an emergent force “that has the possibility of becoming actualized, often in a variety of possible configurations” (Lynn 2004: 10). The Huaca was built on a modified and stationary sand dune, and sand was used to both inter ritually killed spaces and to provide a foundation for sacrifices and later structural additions or reductions. Therefore, the geometry of the site’s architecture was remarkably pliable with the sandy exterior folded to the inside of the building and the monument folded to the outside—just as sacrificial victims and copper offerings were enfolded within the literal pleats of the edifice’s monumental body (Figure 6.23) (Swenson 2015a: 693, 2018d). The huaca thus appears to have enfolded time and space into a dynamic and vitalizing material matrix (Bennett 2010: 50). The massive middens surrounding the ceremonial complex were filled with food remains including llama bones, peanut, shellfish, and high-quality feasting bowls in the Cajamarca style. In fact, an alimentary ontology of ingestion, digestion, and growth appear to have underwritten ideologies of socio-cosmic process at the site (Swenson and Warner 2016: 23). Both the monument and celebrants were continually transformed by ingesting the outside world of food, corn beer, human offerings, and sacred altars. As another point of contrast, feasting did not seem to play an important role in the ritual economy of Jatanca (Swenson 2011; Warner 2010). In the end, the organic and vertically accretional biography of the huaca differs from the rigidly linear and horizontally configured compound architecture characteristic of Jatanca. An extraordinary “mark of repetition” also characterized Huaca Colorada’s numerous renovations, and the sequential reconstructions followed a predictable pattern with middens superimposed on middens, ceremonial architecture built over altars, and kitchens overlaying earlier kitchens. Once again, this architectural history contrasts starkly with the Jatanca’s immutable and timeless religious landscape. The affective time of the huaca thus departs from the feelings of anticipation and suspense engendered by the horizontal and labyrinthine compounds of Jatanca. Although procession and encounters with wak’as must have structured certain rituals at Huaca Colorada, the sacrifices and cyclical demolition of ceremonial architecture also created a potent sense of expectation. The emphasis on killing and destruction no doubt intensified feelings of insecurity and of the impermanence of individual lives, whether architectural, human, or cosmic. Anticipation of such events no doubt affected the outlook and subjective position of participants. Affective time commonly springs from “disruptions in the field of being, like death, grief, and violence,” an experience of rupture defined by “suspension of the present, a folding of past in the present in ways that do not fit” (Locke 2010: 147). Such intensely felt moments of time often entail a discontinuity of selves, ­communities, and meaningful places (even if deemed essential for their ­reconstitution). In a­ddition, the ingested platforms and buried bodies no doubt invoked strong memories for celebrants who revisited Huaca Colorada during ­prescribed seasons.

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6.4.3 Perceived Space and the Phenomenology of Ritual at Huaca Colorada: Segmentarity and Territorialization

Similar to Jatanca, Deleuze and Guattari’s three modes of segmentarity prove ­useful to interpret the varied perceptions and experiences of space at Huaca Colorada. The juxtaposition of the elevated East Terrace and the sunken West Chamber, which together comprise the central core of the temple, exemplifies the binary emplacement of difference. In fact, despite their similar layouts and synchronized renovations in early phases of use (see above), they seem to have expressed the convergence of complementary opposites. Beyond their differential termination described earlier, our cumulative excavation data suggest that the higher, more ample, eastern half of the monument was associated with avian symbolism, and bird imagery commonly decorated various artefacts recovered from the east half of the monument (Figure 6.24). In addition, the fill deposited to bury the immolated platform of the East Terrace incorporated the scattered bones of nine different bird species (ranging from duck and geese, dove and crow, to pelican, owl, parrot and cormorant) (Alaica 2021: 222; Swenson 2018a; Swenson and Berquist 2022: 120). This symbolism contrasts with the noted emphasis on canine imagery and offerings in the West Chamber. A painting of a canine graced the front step of the main platform, and a dog sacrifice was buried with two female victims in the patio fronting the altar. In addition, we discovered another such interment just beyond the west wall of the chamber and recovered a beautiful Moche fineline sherd depicting two fighting dogs in the sandy fill immediately above the main altar of the West Chamber (Figure 6.24). Significantly, we identified the remains of wild animals only in the East Chamber (Alaica 2021: 216). Along with the numerous bird bones, they included a feline (a likely pampas cat, Felis sp.) buried below a floor level by the north façade of Sector B and a sea lion skull (Otaria sp.) interred by a ramp of a large decommissioned platform. In contrast, excavations only identified domesticated animals in The West Chamber, including the two dogs, a guinea pig offering, and three sub-adult llamas. The latter were interred alongside the burial of a man near the ramp leading directly to this precinct (Alaica 2021). Therefore, the adjacent two halves of the monument separated by a massive wall appear to have symbolized the tense union (tinkuy) of east and west, upper and lower, sky and earth, wild and domesticated, as well as possibly male and female. The assemblage of offerings in the two precincts was clearly enchained by an explicit ideological “code” (DeLanda 2016: 40–41; Jervis 2019: 56). For instance, excavations of the East Terrace yielded the same motif of a lizard-bird creature on a diverse array of artefacts. This design decorated a copper tumi (ceremonial knife or chisel), a carved bone spatula, and a spindle whorl placed in the mouth of a sacrificed, pregnant woman. This motif likely reinforced the east half of the monument’s association with wild animals, avian symbolism, and possibly sky deities. Analyzed together, the original twin precincts were near identical in spatial layout and phases of renovation but differed remarkably in terms of their offerings.

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FIGURE 6.24 Avian

symbolism on artefacts from the Eastern Terrace (upper register). Dog symbolism and burial associated with the West Chamber (lower register).

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The East Terrace is also larger, unsurprising if it anchored the hanan-like half of a tinkuy union. The cumulative evidence indicates that two sub-assemblages were territorialized into an integrated assemblage that formed an all-powerful, cosmic centre. This evocative architectural ensemble materialized unification, and it may have served as a general metaphor for the convergence of diverse people, things, animals, and life forces at the huaca. This binary segmentation (opposition) of space also shaped the changing ­linear progression through Sector B, and the latter mode seems subservient to the ­former. The East Terrace provided a public arena for ritual spectacles visible from the plains below the huaca (Spence Morrow 2019). In a later phase, this eastern precinct was approached to the north by a public stairway, the only direct entry that provided ingress through the formidable and high adobe façade that separated Sectors A and B (Figure 6.25). However, proceeding from the north, one could enter the sunken West Chamber only by walking through doorways on its west side or south end via a series of arched ramps and steps built along the west wall of this precinct (see plans in Spence Morrow 2019). Thus, access to the West Chamber appears to have been highly regulated and restricted, and more exclusive rites (including diacritical feasts) occurred in this walled space (Spence Morrow 2019). The architecture of the ceremonial core thus stipulated tightly scripted linear processions from residential areas to the ceremonial zone. Differences in status and the actual rituals staged in the two precincts likely determined the possibilities for how space was ultimately accessed and perceived.2

FIGURE 6.25 Adobe

flight of stairs that provided access to the East Terrace during a late phase of occupation.

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Similar to Jatanca, however, the concentric mode subsumes the linear and the binary forms of segmentarity, and a variant semiotic ideology based on synecdoche engineered Huaca Colorada’s built environment. Scaling from the micro to the macro, the nested offerings, altars, dual precincts, and larger ceremonial sector all constituted homologous parts of larger wholes, and together Sectors B combined with Sectors A and C to form a microcosmic icon of Cerro Cañoncillo itself (Figure 6.17). As mentioned above, the huaca thus powerfully territorialized diverse peoples who peregrinated to the site and established temporary homes in the two domestic zones. Sectors C and A also seem to contribute to the scaled envelopment of dualistic spaces at Huaca Colorada. Although they both housed temporary pilgrims and artisans, copper production was especially intense in the southern end of Sector C, while spinning and weaving implements proliferated in Sector A-West. In addition, in Sector C, we recovered predominately Late Moche finelines, especially Moche V wares, while Sector A contained both Moche but also Cajamarca ceramics and other highland styles in fewer numbers. The differences in the permanent architecture also seem telling, and the Sector B style platforms found in replicate in Sector A-West find no equivalent in Sector C. Instead, the latter is characterized by elite residential and administrative buildings. In addition, we uncovered the remains of both adult and children burials in Sector A (seven in total), and only subadults in Sector C (four individuals). Finally, in line with an asymmetrical hanan-hurin complementary opposition, Sector C is conspicuously lower than the higher Sector A, and both are separated by the higher, mediating space of Sector B with its dense superimposition of ritual architecture. In sum, we can effectively analogize Huaca Colorada to a Deleuzian machine because it territorialized people, sizeable llama herds, objects, and buildings into a highly striated space where everything was properly put in its place. This assemblage was further bound together by an overarching code expressing a distinctly Moche style and aesthetic. Indeed, visible boundary walls separate the three sectors and the main activity areas within these zones are also highly compartmentalized and often divided by partitions (Swenson 2018a). However, and in stark contrast to Jatanca, this striated space was highly unstable and precarious. The continual termination and renovation of the ceremonial architecture reveal that the community pivoted around a constantly deterritorializing and reterritorializing epicentre. The rituals orchestrated in this mutating sacred nucleus achieved the objectives of transformation and empowerment literally through the performance of homologous processes of disassembly and reassembly. In this regard, and working with Deleuzean categories, Huaca Colorada materialized the tense embrace of smooth and striated space. Smooth space (espace lisse) understood as motile, intensive, rhizomatic, and characterized by “qualitative multiplicity” resonates with the continual renovations and layering of new foundations sacrifices within the folds of the temple’s main ceremonial precincts (see Chapter 2). In contrast to the enduring, tree-like array of Jatanca’s labyrinthine compounds, “rhizome” provides an especially apt metaphor to describe Huaca Colorada given the subterranean and telluric quality of the main

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monument; buried and occluded offerings along with terminated platforms appear to have directly indexed and animated visible constructions. 6.4.4

Huaca Colorada as Semiotic Machine

The profusion of hidden, physical signs enfolded within the adobe structure further reveals that Huaca Colorada functioned as a semiotic machine of the first order, comparable to Olmec La Venta and Prambanan in Java discussed in Chapter 4. Similar to Jatanca, the Moche temple’s amplified semiosphere permits interpretations of the sign processes of repetition, substitution, symbolic accumulation, and intimate parallelisms that structured ritual regimes at the site. In truth, these modes worked together to form a seamless semiotic continuum, and in the discussion that follows I tease them apart as heuristic aids to facilitate analysis. Repetition of formalized actions, such as the continual recitation of the same mantra, intends to secure the efficacy of ritual, reinforce its specific meanings, and secure its desired outcomes (Yelle 2013: 25, 55). Repetition then, so characteristic of the ritual process in general, literally built Huaca Colorada as evinced in the ceaseless recurrence of renovations and foundation sacrifices. Our excavations have uncovered 11 platforms, a number of which sequentially replaced one another through time (and this does not include the major refurbishment of individual daises) (Spence Morrow 2019). Repetition is thus evident in both acts of construction and presumably the iteration of expected, conventional rituals staged on the daises (including the deposition of foundation offerings). In Sector B, despite their likely synchronization, renovations differed between the West Chamber and East Terrace, and the successive replication of architecture seems to have adhered to the ideology of binary opposition described previously. In the East Terrace, north of the immolated plaza, later daises enveloped earlier altars, and this zone encapsulates incremental vertical superimpositions. Massive adobe post-brick emplacements that supported formidable roofs continually grew upward in tandem with the addition of new floors and later platforms (Spence Morrow 2019). In contrast, horizontal reductions prevail in the West Chamber. Stratigraphic analysis reveals that this ceremonial chamber was incrementally reduced in area with successive stages of renovation. This precinct anchored in its south by a ceremonial dais was larger in earlier phases but was scaled back in size with the construction of three northern walls built at different time intervals. These walls moved roughly 2–3 metres to the south with each successive construction event (Spence Morrow 2018, 2019: 119–128). The northernmost walls are significantly deeper and associated with the earliest and more expansive floors identified throughout the chamber, while the southern and shorter perimeter walls were built with increasingly later flooring episodes (see Figure 6.26). One such chamber reduction was associated with the sacrifice of a female victim deposited with a large wooden post buried within one of the gaps created by the receding walls (Spence Morrow 2019: 174). The multifaceted symbolism of this construction history eludes full

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FIGURE 6.26 Archaeological

evidence for the periodic and repetitive reduction of the West Chamber, as the construction of later walls repeatedly reduced the precinct to the south.

interpretation. However, the incremental diminution of the central chamber likely expressed the distinctive temporalizing functions of the monument. The need to repeat such ritualized renovations as part of an ongoing cycle also seems intimately linked to rites of social and cosmic renewal. The reductions may also have intended to render the precinct increasingly more exclusive and restrictive (Spence Morrow 2019). The West Chamber was eventually decommissioned entirely and buried in tons of sand (Spence Morrow’s Phase 6). Based on radiometric assays, this closure occurred in the late 8th or early 9th century and coincided with the establishment of the neighbouring citadel of Tecapa. In fact, an elevated corridor was constructed in this phase that linked the access route along the west side of the now-terminated West Chamber directly to a large dais on the East Terrace. This platform was the first oriented to the east, in the direction of the newly founded highland centre of Tecapa. In this late occupation, associated with the Transitional Period (800–1000 CE), the architectural renovations largely ceased, signalling major changes in ­religious ideology (see below).

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As made clear in the above analysis of the dualistic configuration of Sector B, the entire ceremonial zone of the Huaca constituted a great bundle of assembled signs, things, bodies, and enlivened architecture. The artefacts and offerings of humans and animals uniting sky and earth, male and female, domestic and wild, reveal that the huaca served as a great symbolic reservoir. The monument thus exhausted the world symbolically and incorporated “the complete enumeration of a particular set” by microcosmically condensing the constituent elements of the Cañoncillo landscape and Moche cosmos (Yelle 2013: 37). The notion of symbolic accumulation complements Andean categories, and as a great space of tinkuy, the temple concentrated antithetical and complementary forces to reterritorialize the world and exert ritual control over fertility, death, growth, and regeneration. As discussed in Chapter 4, ritual condensation refers to the activation of a liminal nexus in which multiple and often opposing conditions impinge and come into contact, a description that captures the huaca’s remarkable semiosphere (Shults 2010: 92). In other words, the ritual condensation of sundry things at the Huaca exemplified its creative power, and it constituted a womb of creation as much as a reservoir of symbols. Among the adult sacrifices, we recovered only women (ten in total) in the confines of the East Terrace and West Chamber, while the two male sacrifices were interred on an elaborate terrace immediately outside the walled ceremonial precinct. As mentioned briefly above, the discovery of two pregnant women interred within or over ritual platforms, further reinforces the huaca’s role as an engine of generative, reproductive processes, a territorializing machine in the spirit of Deleuze and Guattari (Swenson 2023). The bundling of multiple elements representative of an expansive cosmic assembly provided the literal raw materials for the machinic huaca to ritually manufacture and regulate the world. Thus, as a creative bundle that reterritorialized the world around it, the huaca operated predictably through the sign modalities of repetition, substitution, and the indexical linking of iconic media (dicentization or intimate parallelism). As mentioned, Huaca Colorada assumes the form and layout of Cerro Cañoncillo. Interestingly, the plurality of compounds and the “competition between stages” that characterized Jatanca disappeared at Huaca Colorada. Instead of a number of independent but united temples, one massive mimetic mountain incorporated both the ceremonial sector and the expansive domestic zones. However, the apparent centralization of religious observances at Huaca Colorada contrasts with the proliferation of ceremonial sites throughout the region in the Late Moche Period, especially in the north valley (Swenson 2006; 2007; 2012b). Many of these sites were built directly on coastal mountains, and it is intriguing that no such structures were constructed on Cerro Cañoncillo proper. Evidently, the mimetic temple was sympathetically linked but was spatially (but not visually) removed from the hill. This may suggest that the monument indexed the mountain (and channelled its camay) through a distinct iconic register that privileged resemblance (iconicity) over direct contiguity (indexicality). Perhaps the awesome power of the mountain,

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now possibly identified with a fearsome Moche god, demanded this distance. The same held for Jatanca, however, but following the construction of the Acropolis, the numerous platforms oriented to the cerro assume a decidedly more aniconic and indexical (pointing) character. Indeed, a semiotic ideology founded on a baroque iconicity predominate at Huaca Colorada, and figurative representations of humans, animals, supernaturals, and landscape characterize multiple material media including ceramics, figurines, musical instruments, graffiti art, copper artefacts, and the rare, surviving wall paintings. Such iconic depictions, along with musical instruments and figurines, are almost entirely lacking at Jatanca. Therefore, the distribution of the sensible varied significantly between the two sites, and a visit to Huaca Colorada entailed an aesthetic tsunami of colours, sounds, sights, tastes, and synesthetic sensations. Even today, a walk across the settlement can prove arresting, as serene faces of elite males or snarling felines stare up from dense potsherds scattered on the sandy surface. These decorations were applied by two-piece moulds to the neck of jars ubiquitous at the site that stored and decanted maize beer. Similar figures decorating corn beer jars, such as the Moche god wrinkle face, were also depicted on several ceramic mask fragments excavated from the dense middens surrounding the West Chamber and East Terrace (Figure 6.27). Ritual specialists at the site thus appear to have impersonated Moche divinities and dispensed drink to pilgrims and artisans who converged at the site (Swenson 2020). The diminutive “jar persons” participated directly in the distribution of maize beer to the congregants, and they seem to have iconically indexed the chiefs and cult officials who sponsored the great feasts. Indeed, the most common face neck jars ubiquitous at the site, the socalled “King of Assyria vessels,” depict male elites with stately gazes (Figure 6.27). The German archaeologist, Heinrich Ubbelohde-Doering named these jars “King of Assyria” because in his perspective the serene expressions, moustaches, headdresses, and the ringleted hair of the jars closely resembled sculptures of Assyrian rulers (Hecker and Hecker 1987: 46, 86–90; Ubbelohde-Doering 1967: 63).3 The drinking of maize beer (chicha, aqha) and the consumption of rich meals of camelid meat, seafood, fruits and other foods in vessels coded with Moche imagery appear to have underwritten many of the rituals of Huaca Colorada. Thus, corn beer in particular played a critical role in lubricating the distribution of the sensible at Huaca Colorada, and in Andean ritual, chicha constituted a sacramental substance that reified community structures by dramatizing dependencies between authority figures and their feasting subjects. As an interesting point of contrast, and as mentioned above, a political economy of large-scale feasting does not appear to have underwritten religious celebrations at Jatanca (Swenson 2011; Swenson and Warner 2016; Warner 2010). In the Andes, food sharing, and especially beer constituted the preeminent social act that reciprocally bonded wak’as and their human supplicants, a tradition that became especially widespread during the Middle Horizon coinciding with the Late Moche era (Goldstein 2003; Jennings and Bowser 2009). Indeed, the act of eating together fostered a sense of belonging to a larger social/cosmic body, and

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FIGURE 6.27 Face-neck

jars and ceramic masks of elites and supernaturals recovered from Huaca Colorada.

the consumption of shared food formed the basis of community affiliation in the Andes. Eating the same store of comestibles leads to the development of shared biologies (Weismantel 1995; 2004: 502). Stated in Andean terms, drinking and sharing beer between wak’as, elites, and subjects effectively transmitted camay (from camac to camsca). In this regard, ritual specialists, when donning ceramic masks, transformed into over-size beer jars (Swenson 2020). These performers, along with the multiple face-neck jars laden with beer, created a kind of camay transmission machine that transferred chicha, sustenance, and the life force to and from nested wholes and parts—from masked cult leaders and lineage chiefs to jar delegates and then to congregants. Interestingly, the shared ceramic medium crosscut vessel and masquerader, and both served as receptacles and distributors of beer. Ultimately, such a camay-like substance may have originated from the mountain that temple officials converted into beer. The sacrifices commonly practised at the site may have formed part of this transmission machine and reciprocal round. In other words, the whole and part, the original and its copy, prototype and replica, camac and camasca, nested together in a generative tension at Huaca Colorada (Swenson 2020). The ritual specialists, their masks, and the corn beer jars shared a

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clear resemblance, and the rituals initiated a process of dicentization that enlivened these icons and created an interconnected circuit of sustenance and power. In other words, iconic signs of likeness appear to have been rendered into signs of creative, indexical, connectivity (Ball 2014). Nevertheless, the intimate parallelism evident at the huaca placed emphasis on iconic chains—especially the face. In fact, other sign modes, ranging from the indexical (platform oriented to the mountain) to the conventional (maize beer as a symbol of reciprocity, growth, and materialization of camay) were simultaneously rendered iconic. Anthropologists have labelled this process of iconization, “rhematization” (after Peirce’s concept of the rheme), in which interpretants perceive signs as iconic in directly embodying the true, naturalized essence of a particular entity (Keane 2018: 75). Rhematization entails the expression of “formal characteristics of their objects” and converts potentially indexical and conventional signs into iconic ones (Ball 2014: 154). For instance, a corn beer jar may symbolize hospitality, but stamped with a realistic face it becomes a visible and tactile instantiation of the hospitable person. In the framework of Moche ontology, this iconization could have literally extended the personhood (essence) of the sponsors of feasts into the jars. Gal (2013) demonstrates how rhematization often draws from the sensuous materiality (or qualia) of things, people, languages, and places. Qualities such as the homology of ceramic and flesh and the iconic resemblance of jars to human bodies, enhanced the vessels’ indexical and causative properties. In truth, rhematization and dicentization are often interdependent and work seamlessly together, especially in ritual events, and my employment of the term differs somewhat from Gal’s understanding of rhematization as a process of political naturalization and essentialization (Swenson 2021a). The huaca populated by faces of all kinds, depicting content, menacing, serene, or festive countenances, induced an “iconized affect—in that they bear qualities that resemble the affective reaction they transmit (often facial expressions), allowing the recipient to recognize or even reproduce it without necessarily ‘understanding’ it” (Newell 2018: 2). The particular semiotic ideology, a heavily iconized dicentization, also structured other ritual practices at Huaca Colorada beyond feasting, including sacrifice and architectural renovation. For instance, the discovery of an altar enclosing an earlier dais, which in turn contained the remains of a sacrificed pregnant woman, exemplifies the profound symbolism of nesting, synecdoche, and interdependences between parts and whole at Huaca Colorada (Figure 6.28). The iconicity of the sign vehicles, including bodies, buried altars engendering similar altars, and ­figurative art is especially striking and differs from the structured depositions discovered at Jatanca (e.g., spondylus shell, conventional symbols of fertility, placed in postholes). The semiotic mode of substitution also worked within this semiotic ­ideology, and vessels substituted for humans, bodies for architecture, and the monument as a whole for the mountain. In fact, archaeological evidence suggests that the face-neck jars acted as animated persons since they were offered to the huaca in the same manner as human foundation sacrifices.4 For instance, a monkey-faced

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FIGURE 6.28 Foundation

sacrifice, nested altars, and offering of pregnant woman placed in an earlier trapezoidal dais discovered in the south-central sector of the East Terrace of Huaca Colorada (Sector B).

jar was placed under a ramp within an elaborate terrace of the ceremonial district, just west of the West Chamber (Figure 6.29), while King of Assyria vessels accompanied a burial of a seated woman and an offering cache in the domestic area of Sector A. In sum, at Huaca Colorada, congregants feasted not simply with elites but most probably with the wak’a of the cerro itself. Feasting and sacrifice formed part of a unified ritual complex, for both “ensured a steady circulation of biological energy” (Salomon and Urioste 1991: 9). Huge feasting middens laden with fine ceramic vessels and dense concentrations of faunal remains were incorporated into the architectural constructions surrounding the ceremonial zone of the site—a practice documented elsewhere in the Andes, including at Cahuachi and the Akapana (Isbell and Vranich 2008; Moseley 1992; Silverman 1993). Interestingly, the mounding of feasting trash as construction fill is lacking at Jatanca. Moseley (1992: 197) notes that the architectural encasement of trash commemorated largesse and “ceremonial lavishness,” but it also likely signalled alimentary bonds of nourishment defining a particular religious community. In fact, it is worth considering that the encased feasting garbage, along with the animal, copper and human sacrifices incorporated

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FIGURE 6.29  A

complete face-neck jar moulded with the face of a monkey placed under a ramp along the west perimeter of the ceremonial sector of Huaca Colorada.

into interior of the adobe huaca, were literally offered as food. These offerings nourished and supplicated the mountain and its mimetic surrogate, the everchanging and metabolizing temple. Consumption, implying breakdown and destruction, is fundamental to the metabolic process of ingestion, digestion, and growth (and hence provides a ready model of change) (Swenson 2018c). Gose (1986: 301) describes Andean sacrifice as based on just such a “principle of ­transformation,” which entailed the ritual bundling of disparate elements as food offerings to ­huacas. Similar to Huaca Colorada, these contemporary bundling practices entailed the juxtaposition of metals, liquids, and organics. Ultimately, eating, digestion, and growth underwrote rituals of cosmic and somatic re-assembly at Huaca Colorada. The importance of metallurgy at Huaca Colorada might also have promoted ideologies of alimentary transformation, given the metamorphic and recombinant qualities of such technologies (Swenson and Warner 2012). Perhaps eating with or being eaten by the wak’a at Huaca Colorada reinforced a sense of “convergence” with the mountain deity and the larger assembly of worshippers. In fact, the sacramental and alimentary basis of ritualism at Huaca Colorada was no doubt influenced by the adoption of Moche religious ­values and conceptions of space, time, and cosmic process.

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6.4.5

Lived Space and the Power of Ritual at Huaca Colorada

Huaca Colorada as a whole embodied and extended the ontological alterity of the nearby mountain that spatially fixed a hierarchy of being specific to the centre and its surrounding region. Indeed, much of the analysis presented above demonstrates the relevance of the first and second intersections of ritual and power discussed in Chapter 3 (see Table 3.1). The constant renovations and repeated sacrifices must have served in large part to placate greater beings and precipitate or perhaps prevent the unleashing of transformative powers (to effectively territorialize or deterritorialize). The intended efficacy of such violent rites seems beyond a doubt, and the individuals who directed these dramatic ceremonies likely accrued considerable authority, as did those who donned masks of fearsome Moche deities (who perhaps absorbed some of the essences of the latter). The increasingly shrinking and exclusive West Chamber surrounded by feasting middens further confirms the high status of the ritual specialists who took charge of the cult (intersection 3). These ceremonial dumps were laden with the highest quantity of Cajamarca serving vessels at the site, the best cuts of llama meat, highstatus foods including peanut shells, and an abundance of maize beer jars and fine vessels. Alaica’s (2021) isotopic analysis of animal remains recovered from the huaca also reveals that a higher percentage of the camelids deposited in the middens of the central monument (Sector B) derived from the highlands than did the remains recovered from the surrounding domestic areas, where coastal varieties overwhelmingly predominate. Despite the differential access to foreign tableware and food sources, the rituals conducted at the temple operated within the framework of a Moche aesthetic that inculcated specific values and materialized political ideologies embraced and disseminated by the leaders of the community (intersection 4). The degree by which this ideology became naturalized or hegemonic—rendering perceived space isomorphic with the conceived—defies full interpretation. However, the ritual regimes orchestrated at the huaca appear to have exerted a structuring force on identity, ritual itineraries, and everyday practices. Communities from throughout the region repeatedly returned to the centre, seemingly on a seasonal basis, to partake in lavish feasts and witness grandiose spectacles of sacrifice and other rites on the more ­public East Terrace. The immersion in a distinct aesthetic field clearly proved attractive to a large number of people (intersection 5). As previously mentioned, artefacts of primary production were lacking at Huaca Colorada, and excavations indicate that ceramics (including fine ­specimens), ­copper, textiles, and maize beer were produced in the residential areas to support the ritual economy of the cult. The material corpora of secondary production were often highly elaborated, including the discovery of a number of decorated spindles and spindle whorls recovered from Sector A (Swenson 2018a: figure 6). Therefore, communities likely resided at the centre for set periods (weeks, even months) to manufacture specialized and aesthetically-coded goods. The distinctive production

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regime further contributed to the materialization of a rarified place creating an “affective field” and “time out of time” that shaped subjectivities and dispositions (Falassi 1987; Harris and Sørensen 2010; Picard 2016). However, the extraordinary quantity of shellfish, llama remains, and organics excavated at the centre (maize, Andean fruits, peanuts, chilli pepper, etc.) also reveals that much of the surplus produced in the fields and coastal littoral during non-festive times was destined for the great ceremonies sponsored at Huaca Colorada and other centres such as San José de Moro (Duke 2016). In other words, the everyday routines pursued in sites beyond the temple made possible the great spectacles and specialized production regimes of the Huaca. Therefore, the authority of the temple reached well beyond the confines of the centre to regulate the quotidian practices and temporalities of different communities. As a greater “whole,” Huaca Colorada thus exerted influence and constrained the behaviour of its numerous parts or sub-assemblages— even when dispersed across the landscape (DeLanda 2016: 17–22). Seasonal peregrinations to the site also offered attenuated experiences of the landscape, and such migrations were likely synchronized by a calendar or festival round organized by Huaca Colorada and competing (or cooperating) centres (thus possibly analogous to the Inca z’eqe network). A wealth of archaeological evidence also indicates that Huaca Colorada was experienced as a charged thirdspace, a heterotopia that enhanced critical apprehension of identity and place. This is evinced not only in the craft activities staged at the site, but also by the graffiti etched onto the temple walls. Congregants were clearly not passive consumers of elite ceremonies, but they directly participated in extravagant feasts and other ceremonies. The importance of cottage industries in Sectors A and C also appears highly ritualized and aligned with the religious mandate of the temple. Excavations at the other major Moche settlements of Huacas de Moche, Mocollope, and Pampa Grande have similarly revealed the large scale of artisanal production at these settlements, and sizeable workshops clustered around the towering religious edifices of these centres. Indeed, the making of things and the veneration of the sacred were intimately associated in Moche religion, and at Huacas de Moche artisans secured high status and lived in compounds that housed craft-specific professions (Chapdelaine 2001). Similar to Huaca Colorada, the artefactual remains indicate that agriculturalists and fisherfolk did not inhabit this largest of Moche cities. Therefore, craft producers secured an elevated position in society and appear to have directly participated in the religious mission of a n­ umber of Moche polities. In fact, the ritual basis of technical transformation was widespread in Andean cultures. As mentioned, the Quechua term for artisan, ­kamayu stems from the word camay and translates to someone who “possesses creation” or is the “holder of creation.” In other words, artisans were at once a source of camay and transmitted this life-energy through their labour and finished products. The discovery of a series of child burials in the residential area of Sector C reveals how craft production at once made place and permitted an arena to assert

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and even refashion identity and community affiliation. The burials of four children unearthed in shallow graves in Sector C illuminate both the ritual observances and social affiliations of the pilgrims who visited the centre. One such child was buried with three obsidian blades arrayed around its skull. An additional blade was found in the fill near the interment, and pXRF analysis conducted by Branden Rizzuto has demonstrated that the obsidian originated from the well-known source of Quispisisa, located over 1,000 km away in the south-central highlands (Figure 6.30) (Swenson et al. 2019: 219–221). These striking objects may have signalled that the child belonged to a kin group specializing in lapidary work. In contrast, the burial of another child immediately to the east was interred with five copper objects placed within in its hands, feet, and mouth; this individual’s kinsmen possibly specialized in metal production (Figure 6.30). In fact, ethnohistoric sources report that at the time of the conquest, coastal communities were organized according to occupational specialization (Rostworowski 1989: 268, 271–272). Although difficult to test for the much earlier Moche, the distinctive goods interred with the two children suggest that artisans—even if part-time—specialized in particular crafts. Significantly, the two burials in question compare with another interment placed in a small platform 25 m to the west. Also a subadult, this child was grasping two cut potsherds and thus may have been born into a lineage that specialized in ceramic production (Figure 6.30) (see Swenson et al. 2012: 194–197). The only other burial discovered thus far in Sector C included a 14 to 17 year old female excavated 30 m to the north (Swenson et al. 2012: 154–177). A complete parakeet (perico--familia Psittacidae–guacamayo) was placed directly over this burial. Perhaps this individual’s community specialized in feather work. The burial of children in shallow graves, clutching singular tokens of their expected but never fully realized livelihood, may have served to ensure their care in the realm of ancestors who once pursued the same craft. Two of the interments show signs of perimortem trauma, and it also deserves consideration that they were sacrificed with symbols of community identity to ensure the well-being and success of their respective kin of occupational specialists. At the same time, the children, associated with implements of production, may have served as offerings to the huaca. Metaphoric seeds grasping emblems of creativity perhaps intended to reciprocate the life-giving camay of the wak’as venerated at the site. The discovery of the sacrificed pregnant woman in a series of nested altars within a later phase of the Eastern Terrace provides another striking example of how persons exemplifying the creative process were offered to harness or activate the generative power venerated at the temple. The only offering associated with the interment was an incised spindle whorl placed in the woman’s mouth depicting a raptor. Similar to the child burials of the domestic area, this singular artefact clearly indexed the individual’s status as a wielder of a specific technology, in this case, spinning and weaving. Hence, the twinned productive/reproductive power of the interred, as producer of people and things, was remarkably frozen in space and time within

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FIGURE 6.30 Three

children’s burials excavated in Sector C associated with ­obsidian (upper register), copper (middle register), and ceramic (lower register) artefacts.

the sealed dais. The constant ritual renovations of the monumental precinct, vitalized by the sacrifice of young women, children, animals, and manufacturing tools, exemplify a concern to harness the life force of the wak’a by offering to the monument vital beings in their procreative prime. Exemplars of social and material vitality—vectors of the creative process—were literally fed to the great wak’a so

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that the power of the latter would reciprocally revitalize the religious community associated with the temple. The three children interred in shallow graves suggest that among the itinerant artisans who peregrinated to Huaca Colorada, identity and personhood were defined in large part by specific technologies and occupations. Indeed, children buried with a singular material would support the argument that identity and ­status were rigidly ascribed and based on occupational specialization. However, it is especially intriguing that archaeologists have found little evidence of separate communities of craft specialists in the valley. In fact, the data from Huaca Colorada may indicate that the joint manufacture of specific peoples and things—in the spirit of Daniel Miller’s (2005: 7–10) understanding of “objectification,”—became especially pronounced at Huaca Colorada, a ceremonial centre in which the production of diverse objects was performed in small, make-shift dwellings. It even deserves consideration that the production of copper implements, textiles, ceramics, lithics, and other goods was as ritualized and freighted with meaning as the exchange of goods between different groups. The fashioning of diverse things orchestrated in the expansive domestic zones, just beneath the monumental temple, likely reinforced the ideological imperative placed on making, creating, and reproducing expressed in the complex ritual program of the huaca. For instance, offerings of copper in different stages of production—from prills to finished products—were found in association with a sacrifice of women in the West Chamber. The copper artefacts recovered from these offering contexts spanned the beginning and end of the production process, mainly a cache of prills yet to be melted and fashioned into finished objects, and a fine-worked spatula placed on a floor supporting a terminated dais (see Figure 6.24). People, then, directly participated in a larger, cosmopolitan world through acts of making and fabrication, even experimentation and bricolage when exposed to the possibly novel techniques employed by different communities of part-time artisans. In fact, pilgrims may have only assumed the identity of artisan at the huaca and identified as farmers and fishers within their home communities, and the monument clearly heightened consciousness of one’s identities and place in the world. As such, the “enchantment of technologies and the technologies of enchantment,” to cite Alfred Gell’s (1992) famed expression, at once materialized differences between communities of practice, while legitimating the generative and ordering power of the huaca to create a larger cosmic collective. In Chapter 3, I argued that it is within the aesthetically enhanced and sensual framework of ritual practice that social orders are particularly amenable to reification, modelling, reassembly, and misrepresentation. It is tempting to interpret the craft production occurring in Sectors A and C as an example of Graeber and Wengrow’s “ritual play,” in which individuals adopted novel identities and formed more complex associations centred on making things. In any event, it seems that the celebrants who congregated at Huaca Colorada exercised remarkable agency to craft and transform, and their creative participation in the ritual economy of the site suggests that they played an indispensable role in shaping and sustaining the cult.

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In considering the obsidian burial alone, it is especially remarkable that such a shallow and unelaborated grave of a 1–2 year old child was interred with four precious stone points, the raw material of which originated from 1,000 km away. Despite this offering, it seems the child did not belong to an elite family, and burials are relatively rare at the huaca. In contrast, other centres in the valley, namely San José de Moro and Pacatnamú, served as great arenas of death, massive mausoleums where people travelled throughout the valley to inter their dead of all classes and backgrounds. The children discovered in Sector C may have died unexpectedly when their families were sojourning for a short visit at the huaca, thus explaining the expedient nature of the interments wrapped in cotton shrouds and placed in residential contexts and workshops just under the sandy surface without cane coffins or other furnishings. Nevertheless, the fine obsidian points from Quispisisa reveal that the child’s kin had access to, possibly crafted, and even exercised ownership over a highly prize resource. In short, the evidence suggests that diverse communities directly negotiated the distribution of the sensible at Huaca Colorada, and the latter was not simply the creation of elite political institutions. Interring children with objects of specific crafts reveals the thirdspace affordances of the huaca, where communities literally reinforced old alliances or forged new identities altogether at the monument. Finally, in previous publications (Swenson 2012a, 2018b), I have explored how the graffiti etched onto the walls of the main ceremonial complex reveals the thirdspace effects of the monument to move people in body and mind. The numerous graffiti and informal murals adorning the walls of the two main precincts (West Chamber and East Terrace) demonstrate that the monumental sector was at times remarkably open and accessible. Individuals appear to have engraved the majority of the graffiti during the final use-phases of the ceremonial chamber. They may even have been drawn as part of the decommissioning rite prior to the ritual closure of the West Chamber. The depictions consist of crudely rendered warriors, multiple litter bearers carrying decapitated heads, birds, lizards, landscapes, fishing and maritime scenes, boats, and running figures (see figures in Swenson 2018b). Many of the representations resonate with Moche religious themes centred on warfare and death, and the ritual context of their execution seems probable, as archaeologists have documented in other Pre-Columbian ceremonial sites, including most notably, Tikal (see Haviland and Haviland 1995). Therefore, the informal sketches depart from contemporary connotations of graffiti as irreverent, subversive, or transgressive. Nevertheless, the elites of Huaca Colorada most likely did not commission the informal scratched figures as official artwork, and their haphazard application clashes with the overall aesthetic presentation of the monument. Instead, individuals appear to have informally commemorated ritual activities (such as decommissioning rites) staged within the ample ceremonial chamber. The figures express movement and transience, while their hurried applications are equally expressive of the momentary passage of the artists themselves, similar to

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religious tourists wishing to forever memorialize their fleeting encounters with the edifice. The etchings demonstrate that the huaca moved people to contemplate and scrutinize the evocative space of the temple. The buried superimposition of ceremonial altars, sacrificed bodies, and ­offerings no doubt evoked strong and possibly conflicting memories, emotions, and political stances. Indeed, it is difficult to reconcile the staging of formal feasting events that showcased exclusive serving-ware, along with the dramatic spectacles of sacrifice, as having occurred in tandem with the crude etchings of the graffiti. The actual engraving of roofs, structures, and other architectural elements identified on the northern and eastern walls of the West Chamber confirms that the huaca stimulated a critical consciousness of place—a quintessential thirdspace of becoming and introspection enabled by the intimate experience of the ceremonial chamber (Figure 6.19). The graffiti seem to express the vicissitudes of place at Huaca Colorada; as mentioned, they were etched on the final plastered surfaces of late walls and door-plugs built to sacrificially decommission the larger ceremonial space. This diachronic shift points to possible contradictions between ideologically mandated “representations of space” (conceived space) and lived spatial practices and perceptions. The complex thirdspace qualities of Huaca Colorada are thus reflected in changing rituals of place-making at the site, rites that may have subverted the original political authority of the settlement. 6.5

Enter Tecapa

6.5.1 Huaca Colorada, Tecapa, and Transitional Period Transformations

Indeed, the ideological program of Huaca Colorada changed significantly and abruptly around 800 CE. In this later phase, designated the Transitional Period (800–1000 CE) by North Coast archaeologists, the Moche religious mandate of the site was largely replaced by the more austere Early Lambayeque tradition, characterized by reduced ceramics depicting a narrower register of deities (Jennings 2008). The eclipsing of the Moche style coincided with the cessation of the cyclical renovations and foundation sacrifices of the main temple, and the West Chamber was shut down and buried at the start of this epoch (Spence Morrow 2019). The final large platform of the continually maintained East Terrace was reoriented to the east (not to the north like previous iterations), and this became the sole focus of ritual performance in the Huaca’s central monumental core (Spence Morrow 2019). The graffiti may have proliferated in this eventful moment of transition in tandem with the radical transformations of the larger cult. Interestingly, feasting continued at the site and pilgrims and artisans still visited the temple and partook in craft production and other rituals, a testament to the profound memories and enduring allure of the temple. In fact, the upper midden layers of the feasting

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dumps surrounding the main ceremonial precincts incorporated the characteristic Transitional reduced wares along with continued use of Cajamarca plates in high numbers (Swenson 2017). All of these developments corresponded with the foundation of Tecapa immediately to the west of Huaca Colorada. Due to space limitations and fewer years of excavation, I provide a briefer sketch of this impressive Centre to reinforce the value of the trilectic theoretical approach espoused in this study. Our recent investigations indicate that Tecapa was occupied at the end of the Middle Horizon Period (800– 1000 CE), much earlier than anticipated (Berquist 2021; Swenson and Berquist 2022; Ubbelohde-Doering 1967). The style of the architecture indicates strong highland influences, and we have argued that a polity from the sierras, most likely from the Cajamarca region, appears to have coopted or at least allied itself with the cult based at Huaca Colorada. A similar situation characterizes the North Valley of Jequetepeque. Here, the urban-scale site of Cerro Chepén was founded towards the end of the Late Moche Period, also characterized by highland style architecture and fine Cajamarca ceramics (Rosas Rintel 2010). Cerro Chepén appears to have formed an alliance with or subjugated the nearby Centre of San José de Moro, the site famed for its tombs of Moche priestesses (Castillo et al. 2014; Swenson and Berquist 2022). In fact, biodistance studies of human remains demonstrate that Jequetepeque witnessed an influx of highlanders from neighbouring Cajamarca during the Late Moche Period, a migration that intensified during the subsequent Transitional Period (Sutter and Castillo 2015: 766–770; Zobler and Sutter 2016). Tecapa occupies an area of 60 hectares and consists of a series of enormous and concatenated rectangular enclosures. The best-preserved complex consists of six separate but contiguous adobe brick compounds constructed on a north–south axis in the eastern half of the site (14.5 hectares) (Figure 6.31). There are also a series of comparable precincts to the west, adjacent to Huaca Colorada, which seem to have mirrored the main axis of eastern enclosures. In total, ten extant compounds comprise the larger site. Tecapa was built of towering walls of standardized bricks surviving up to 5 m above the modern ground surface and up to 2 m wide (Schloss 2020). The quadrilateral precincts contain lateral range rooms (galleries), small and elevated storage chambers, circular adobe post emplacements, and colonnaded landings. Large internal platforms and roofed halls with substantial niched walls characterize several compounds of the site, mainly in the north end of the eastern axis (Compounds V and VI) (Figure 6.32). The fine ceramics are predominately Cajamarca, but we have also recovered reduced transitional wares from our excavations similar to those obtained from the final midden strata at Huaca Colorada. The utilitarian ceramics also conform to Late Middle Horizon styles and resemble Late Moche wares common at the Huaca (Swenson and Berquist 2022). The architectural and artefactual evidence suggests that the citadel was likely occupied by a small cadre of highland elites, who resided alongside a larger local population indigenous to the coast. The outsiders may have intermarried with important

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FIGURE 6.31 

Map of the Citadel of Tecapa in relationship to Huaca Colorada.

families who were in charge of the temple at Huaca Colorada. These foreign elites seem to have directed construction and imposed their particular vision (conceived space) of architectural grandeur, but the adobe medium and some of the internal platforms with benches and ramps indicate that the actual builders were of likely coastal origin (Schloss 2020; Swenson and Berquist 2022). 6.5.2 Conceived and Perceived Space at Tecapa: Huaca Colorada Reterritorialized

In light of the highland inspiration of the architecture, Tecapa’s spatial sensorium and distribution of the sensible differed remarkably from Jatanca and Huaca Colorada. Although large enclosures characterize both Jatanca and Tecapa, the latter lacked the labyrinthine configuration and hundreds of modular rooms of the Late Formative centre. The spacious interior courtyards, with fine plastered floors that required considerable investments of labour to prepare, are largely open and often encircled with benches in the enclosures containing range rooms (Compounds II

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FIGURE 6.32 

Niched ceremonial halls and platforms, Compound V, Tecapa.

and IV). The elaborate compounds in the north (Compounds V and VI) are punctuated with “islands” of enclosed niched chambers, roofed halls, and an open platform with benches and ramps (Figure 6.32). These elaborate spaces likely served as the principal shrines of revered wak’as, including possibly mummy bundles. The segmentation of Tecapa appears to have promoted a perceived space of linear movement between axially aligned compounds and between separate and noncontiguous ritual buildings (islands) within the individual and spacious enclosures. Tecapa’s large, open compounds also depart notably from the dense compactness of Huaca Colorada’s superimposed and juxtaposed ceremonial architecture. Despite these radical differences in the built environment of the three religious centres, dualism, tinkuy, and scalar nesting of architecture underwrote Tecapa’s settlement planning. Hence, binary and concentric segmentarity (Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 210) also structured the experience of space of the site, though linearity appears especially pronounced, given the overall linear layout of the citadel (Figure 6.31). In fact, the site was designed following an asymmetrical, dualistic spatial plan and its architectural configuration closely matches highland building traditions, especially those documented in the Huamachuco and Ancash regions and to a lesser extent Huanuco, Pasco, Cajamarca, Junin, and Ayacucho (Berquist

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2021; Swenson and Berquist 2021). For instance, the axis of eastern compounds at Tecapa is distinguished by the replication of specific architectural constructions at its north and south ends. This alignment of six enclosures appears to have formed the ceremonial nucleus of Tecapa, and it extends 477 m from Compound 1 in the south to Compound VI in the north (Figure 6.31). Freestanding platforms and niched and gabled structures characterize the square-shaped Compounds V/VI, and Compound I, at the extremes of the axis, while the intermediate Compounds II and IV are characterized by the presence of large lateral galleries surrounding internal courtyards (Figure 6.33). In other words, diametric dualism and mirror opposition appear to have structured the relationship between the northern and southern halves of the elongated complex (Gelles 1995; Maybury-Lewis 1960: 38–41). The multi-storied and narrow range room surrounding the large interior patios of Compounds II and IV conform to the kancha architecture that first emerged in the highlands in the Early Intermediate and Middle Horizon Periods. This characteristic construction became a diacritical building style in later periods (Topic and Topic 2000). Berquist (2021) has identified this structural form as emblematic of both ayllus (Andean lineage corporations) and later imperial ideologies that exploited ayllu social institutions.

FIGURE 6.33 Drone

photograph illustrating range rooms of Compound II, and excavated range rooms in Compounds II and IV, Tecapa.

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The ill-defined space of Compound III is situated between Compounds II and IV. It seems to have formed a public, buffer zone between the northern and southern suite of enclosures positioned in mirror opposition, and thus a concentric dualism also underwrote the design of the citadel (Figure 6.31). Recent excavations in this space have recovered the only feasting midden yet identified at Tecapa along with an ill-defined internal partition wall. The feasting dump was filled with ash, organics, as well as Early Lambayeque ceramics and Cajamarca bowl fragments (Figure 6.34). We also recovered scattered sling stones, perhaps indicating that tinkuy battles were staged in this liminal space separating the hypothesized upper and lower moieties of the settlement (Figure 6.34). In fact, a massive wall formally bisects the eastern ceremonial axis into two halves in Compound 3 (forming its north wall), highlighting the dyadic organization of the centre (Figures 6.31 and 6.35). This wall stretches 265 m to the base of Huaca Colorada and actually ascends and bisects the entire pyramid, thus extending an additional 195 m to the west. Strikingly, this massive axis wall does not itself enclose any area of the site, and it could not have functioned defensively. Like a tendril projecting from Tecapa and pulling the huaca east towards the mountain, this massive boundary

FIGURE 6.34 Decorated

ceramics and sling stones recovered from the excavation of a feasting midden in Compound III, Tecapa.

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FIGURE 6.35 Massive,

central dividing wall, 460 m long, bisecting Tecapa and Huaca Colorada into northern and southern halves.

wall demonstrates that the establishment of Tecapa intended to reterritorialize the huaca into a completely new religious and political order. Therefore, this particular construction demonstrates the machinic power of the highland citadel as an engine of reassembly. Interestingly, this wall served to enforce the explicit dualistic code of the earlier Moche pyramid for it bisects the monument precisely between Sectors C and B and may have intended to partition the huaca into two moieties (Sectors A and B with Sector C). Our excavations at Tecapa further suggest that the north and south poles of this main chain of enclosures anchored specialized religious and political activities, while the two enclosures with range-rooms abutting the large space of Compound III served as domestic compounds for highland lineages or allied coastal communities of higher status (Figures 6.32 and 6.33) (see Berquist 2021). Compounds IX and X in the extreme western side of the site may have served as the western, bilateral counterpart of the eastern chain of structures (Figure 6.31). In other words, our mapping project suggests that the dualistic scheme characterized not only the northern and southern parts of the site but also the extreme eastern and western halves of the centre. Therefore, a highly striated and quadripartite plan also guided the construction of the settlement. Compounds IX and X are both configured on a north–south axis and were comparable to the dimensions of the contiguous compounds to the East. They are similarly divided by the massive, bisecting

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wall that stretches further west to the Huaca. These compounds were associated with a higher percentage of Moche ceramics, and along with their proximity to Huaca Colorada, the data would suggest that coastal ayllus may have resided in the western sector of Tecapa. In the end, we contend that the massive dividing wall separated Tecapa into upper and lower moieties, possibly with junior lineages of the two primary group segments situated to the west. The archaeological record further suggests that the hanan segment was in the north and hurin occupied the enclosures to the south of the wall. We base this interpretation on the presence of more elaborate architecture in Compounds V and VI which were also characterized by a higher quantity of fine ceramics and a seemingly longer occupation (often 2–3 use-floors) (Berquist 2021; Swenson and Berquist 2022). In fact, the nearly 460 m long wall delimiting the two moieties may have marked a zone of tinkuy, chaupi, or taypi “a place of conjoining, and an example of qhariwarmi” or the conjugal union of man and woman (Dean 2010: 88; see also Netherley 1993: 21). This charged arena of convergence is associated with archaeological remains of mass congregation, mainly the aforementioned feasting midden and possible sling stones excavated from the intermediary zone of Compound III. The spatialization of tinkuy and qhariwarmi may in fact have guided coastalhighland relations in Jequetepeque at the onset of the Transitional era. As mentioned earlier, interactions between coastal and sierra communities intensified in the Late Moche and Transitional Periods, as indicated not only by the abundance of Cajamarca ceramics at Huaca Colorada but also by recent isotopic and biodistance studies. The evidence from the huaca would suggest that this relationship was mediated in part by the gendered opposition of coast and highland societies and possibly their respective, tutelary deities. In fact, Indigenous mytho-histories from throughout the Andean highlands defined the political union of geographically separate ethnic groups as consummated by nuptial alliances; conquering, foreign warriors associated with the high puna, mountain peaks, celestial deities, and camelid pastoralism clashed with but then literally wedded conquered, autochthonous agriculturalists identified with the lower intermontane valleys, farming, water, telluric gods, and female fertility. In other words, the integration of opposed but complementary social units into a single community was realized in a marital relationship between a conquering male divinity and a vanquished female wak’a— the respective progenitors of the pastoralist and agricultural groups in question (Duviols 1973). We have argued (Swenson and Berquist 2022) that such gendered oppositions could effectively explain the remarkable union of the radically different but nonetheless architecturally conjoined monuments of Huaca Colorada and Tecapa. Huaca Colorada, with its female sacrifices, striking associations with pregnancy, and iconographic links to the priestesses of San José de Moro likely came to embody the female life principle, while Tecapa, housing highland residents in novel structures, materialized the male life force. The construction of the citadel in between the huaca and Cerro Cañoncillo to the east seems significant, and Tecapa

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may have assumed the role of intermediary with the massif and highland authorities in general. In sum, bilateral symmetry and dualistic architectural layouts distinguish all three centres of the Cañoncillo sacred landscape, but this commonality should not obscure significant differences in construction history and the spatial proxemics of ritual experience. For instance, the construction history of the Tecapa shrines differs notably from Moche conceptions of space and temporality documented at the neighbouring centre of Huaca Colorada. The Moche platforms were constructed with the foreknowledge that they would be ritually killed and reborn in the same or different location in the future. In contrast, the niched chambers and platform excavated at Tecapa are reminiscent of the curated ramped daises analyzed at Jatanca, celebrating perhaps a temporality of ancestral permanence as opposed to constant becoming and change (Swenson 2018d). In other words, Tecapa lacks major renovations or “architectural sacrifice.” In addition, the decidedly “tectonic” construction of Tecapa (based on the principle of the rectilinear frame) and the “stereotomic” architecture of Huaca Colorada may have symbolically reinforced the complimentary and possibly gendered coupling of the two sites (Semper 1989). Stereotomics refers to “compressive mass … constructed through the piling up of identical units” (Frampton 1990: 24). Frampton notes that cross-culturally, tectonic architectural designs invoke “the aerial and the dematerialization of mass, whereas the mass form is telluric, embedding itself ever deeper into the earth.” Following Semper, he also interprets the two architectural modalities as commonly enshrining the “cosmological opposites of sky and earth, light and dark, immateriality and materiality” (Frampton 1990: 24). Although, it is questionable whether such “transcultural values” (cf. Frampton) accurately applies to the Huaca ColoradaTecapa dyad, their profoundly distinct architectural styles are striking and no doubt formed part of a conscious plan, at least for the builders of the latter site. As a mimetic mountain of creation, the “telluric” and agricultural symbolism of Huaca Colorada’s stereotomic mass conforms well to the indigenous and feminine pole of the twinned settlement. Similar to agricultural soils (from whence adobe bricks are made), the Moche temple was constantly opened, penetrated (ploughed), sown with seeds (myriad offerings), and perhaps “harvested,” as old platforms were occluded under new daises. Indeed, the adobe temple may have acted indexically to coax water (semen?) from the mountains (just as earthen soils require water to grow plants and manufacture adobe bricks). Tecapa’s construction seems to have intervened and possibly enhanced this efficacious process. The twin ceremonial edifices thus formed an integral component of the south valley’s infrastructure of canals, fields, and nearby roads. The fascinating transformation in the general spatial organization of the three neighbouring ceremonial centres through time proves illuminating in interpreting shifts in place-making in the larger Cañoncillo complex. The dualistic pairing of ramped platforms and related architectural units at Jatanca was documented in all of the five major architectural complexes, while the entire settlement design

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of both Huaca Colorada and Tecapa was bilaterally configured. However, this schema is further scaled up with the later construction of Tecapa, a centre that was clearly built in direct association with the earlier, Moche site. As mentioned, the final decommissioning of the West Chamber and the construction of a single platform on the East Terrace at Huaca Colorada coincided with the highland incursion at the end of the Late Moche Period culminating in the establishment of Tecapa (Spence Morrow 2019). This major renovation appears to have negated the dualistic ­organization of Huaca Colorada, perhaps forcibly, and transposed this dualistic scheme into a larger and novel dyadic configuration with Tecapa (Swenson and Berquist 2022). Interestingly, the latter site is built closer to Cerro Cañoncillo and the mountains to the east. Moreover, the last daises commissioned at Huaca Colorada no longer look north but were actually reoriented to the east to directly face Tecapa. To reiterate, the discovery of female sacrifices in the monumental core of the huaca and the Moche religious charter of the cult, associated with the priestess of San José de Moro, may have cast the pyramid as the female counterpart to the masculine and highland-affiliated Tecapa. Certainly, the identifiable fineline scenes recovered from Huaca Colorada almost exclusively depict the Priestess, in contrast to the more masculine-themed iconography of Compounds V and VI at Tecapa. 6.5.3

The Distinctive Semiotic Machine of Tecapa

Unlike Jatanca and Huaca Colorada, Tecapa appears to have lacked architecture that functioned as indexical icons to activate a relationship of intimate parallelism with the mountain that oriented many of the constructions at the former two sites. In other words, we found no equivalent of Jatanca’s Acropolis or the great mimetic mountain of the larger site of Huaca Colorada. At the same time, the niched shrines and platform at Tecapa do not indexically point in the direction of the cerro, as characterized most of the daises of both Jatanca and Huaca Colorada. Of course, I would not claim that the mountain lost its importance or was simply replaced by the citadel of Tecapa, but this shift in semiotic ideology seems especially telling. Indeed, the new architectural tableau of Tecapa, including kancha architecture, freestanding niched halls, as well colonnaded viewing platforms were lacking at Jatanca and Huaca Colorada. The range rooms surrounding interior courtyards defined the kancha architectural tradition and became widespread in the Middle Horizon with the expansion of Wari influence. As mentioned, it may very well have indexed ayllu inspired political values and a novel focus on recently deceased ancestors as wak’as (Berquist 2021). Indeed the proliferation of niched buildings, a hallmark of Wari and later ceremonial architecture, likely served to house venerated human remains and related sacra. Thus, semiotic processes of dicentization and rhematization, prominent at Jatanca and Huaca Colorada respectively, no longer played an important role. Instead, conventionalization, a sign modality expressed through more abstract symbols, such as the kancha, may have served to represent

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alternate social ideals and other powers harnessed in the ritual ­performances performed at the site. In fact, after three seasons of excavation at Tecapa, we have identified no ­examples of bundled, structured depositions as characterized the deeply placed chambers aligned with the public proscenia at Jatanca or the foundation sacrifices of Huaca Colorada. The latter, consisting of bundled bodies, animals, artefacts, and terminated architecture, exemplified symbolic accumulations that activated intimate parallelism to ensure the efficacy of key rites. Of course, the bundled sacra (including possibly mummy bundles) at Tecapa placed in the now empty niches may very well have fulfilled similar functions. Significantly, one example of a bundled offering at this centre consisted of a burial tower or chullpa that was affixed to the exterior wall of Compound V (Berquist 2021; Swenson and Berquist 2022). Although it was missing its occupant beyond a few foot bones, the floor of this deep construction was strewn with fine Cajamarca ceramics, the only Moche sherd identified at the site, and remarkable face-neck jars of skeletized ancestors and whistling shamans. Certainly tombs exemplify structured deposits, and this sole example likely demonstrated the newfound emphasis on ancestor worship; perhaps dead ancestors, especially those from the mountains (and of the mountain?), became an especially important focus of religious veneration (Berquist 2021). This shift in religious practice may have possibly displaced if not demoted the centrality of Cerro Cañoncillo venerated by coastal communities. 6.5.4

Lived Space and the Power of Ritual at Tecapa

Although certainly differing in their meaning and execution, the rituals performed at Tecapa also served as a critical instrument of political power, in a manner similar to Jatanca and Huaca Colorada explored above. The finest architecture, of an explicit ceremonial function, along with the highest quality artefacts were concentrated in the northernmost compounds of the citadel, our hypothesized ritual headquarters of the upper moiety. In Compound VI, we even uncovered a formal kitchen or brewery where maize beer was produced and fermented in face-neck jars sporting visages of whistling shamans, ancestors, and llamas (Berquist 2021; Swenson and Berquist 2022). In fact, Compounds V and VI parallel the exclusivity and opulence of the West Chamber at Huaca Colorada, and the varied intersections of ritual and power explored in Chapter 3 can also aid interpretation of the political landscape of Tecapa. Solemn rites and diacritical feasts (showcasing elite status and restricted access to prized food and drink) were likely conducted among a privileged few in the northern compounds, while patron-client banquets incorporating the larger community were staged in the open space of Compound III separating the two moieties. The same may have occurred in the enormous open plazas of Compounds VII and VIII that divide the east and west chains of contiguous compounds at the site (Figure 6.31). Here Moche ceramics were appreciably more abundant than in the eastern chain (where they were lacking), and the plaza

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walls were lined with impressive and colonnaded viewing platforms where elites and other dignitaries most likely presided over great feasts and other ritual spectacles (Berquist 2021). The highly innovative kancha architecture (at least in the coastal context) must have made a dramatic ideological statement and symbolized a new moral and social world, but one that appears to have been off-limits to a large segment of the population. Thus, the conceived (second) space inspiring this emblematic architectural form only appears to have directly shaped the perceived (first) spatial encounters of Tecapa’s leaders. Nevertheless, this building type no doubt engendered a critical consciousness of place that provoked reflection on alternate cosmic and political orders. In fact, the only graffito discovered at Tecapa consists of a grid of four conjoined squares that seem to symbolize the quadripartite layout and rectilinear configuration of the kancha architecture dominating the site (Figure 6.36). This etching was scratched on a plastered wall below a large niche within an elaborate precinct just to the west of the brewery discovered in Compound VI. Similar to the

FIGURE 6.36 Graffito

of a probable compound structure on the niched wall of a ceremonial precinct in Compound VI, and similar etching on a bowl fragment excavated in Compound III, Tecapa.

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West Chamber and East Terrace at Huaca Colorada, graffiti marked the walls of the most impressive religious constructions, and the etchings both depict “spaces,” including mountains and stylized pyramids at the huaca and the quadripartite architecture of Tecapa (see Figure 6.19). Such renderings of place reveal the thirdspace power of both the Huaca and Tecapa as quintessential “spaces of representation,” where people pondered and scrutinized the highly meaningful places invoked by the ceremonial architecture of the two sites. Interestingly, we also identified etched marks on both a Cajamarca bowl sherd and on the base of an in-situ storage jar that depicted similar gridded designs. On the bowl sherd, even the characteristic range rooms were scratched along the sides of the drawn kanchas (Figure 6.36). We recovered the Cajamarca sherd from the feasting midden excavated in the ­public and liminal space of Compound III, and this provenience suggests that possibly non-elites contemplated this new spatial form and its profound and possibly conflicting symbolism. It deserves mention that the semiotic ideologies of Huaca Colorada and Tecapa even seem to have permeated the different ­traditions of graffiti at the site (though admittedly, like Jatanca, the examples are much fewer at Tecapa). Figurative and iconic graffiti (personages, mountains, litters, etc.) predominate at the huaca, while we have only identified more conventionalized but equally iconic symbols at Tecapa. 6.6

Concluding Thoughts

In the end, Tecapa was only occupied for a short period (possibly 50–75 years?), and it was soon abandoned along with the Huaca. Its distinctive architecture never took hold, and it remains a unique outlier in both Jequetepeque and the larger North Coast. In the following Late Intermediate Period (LIP: 1100–1350), the religious centre of Cañoncillo moved several kilometres to the north and west, to the expansive site of Huaca de los Dos Cruces. Here at least four mounds were built in alignment with and assuming the form of the great cerro. Therefore, we can detect continuities with Jatanca and Huaca Colorada, suggesting that the long-term effects of the Tecapa “experiment” were limited. Nevertheless, it seems probable that the highland incursion into the region during the Middle Horizon, and the ideas, institutions, and material culture these groups introduced, forever changed coastal ­societies (including possibly a new emphasis on the ayllu and novel forms of ancestor veneration) (Berquist 2021). It seems significant that like Jatanca, Tecapa  was left alone and never reoccupied or modified. Another example of a seemingly “curated” landscape, later peoples never razed the citadel’s formidable walls or recycled its bricks. Perhaps a taboo discouraged later visitations and modifications. Interestingly, in the LIP period, the irrigation network and accompanying agricultural fields witnessed a dramatic expansion throughout the south valley, and preserved ridged fields (surcos) radiate around the northern and western perimeter walls of Tecapa, but they never encroached within the capacious interiors of the

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citadel. Most of these fields are associated with ceramics dating to the LIP, and we excavated a massive trunk canal (measuring 8 m wide) that terminates just 75 m to the east of Compound V and stretches for several kilometres towards the Guereque pass. C14 analysis dates the canal to the LIP as well. Branch canals and extensive field systems also surround the new religious monuments at Huaca de los Dos Cruces to the northwest. The distribution of the fields, in proximity with but never entering the ghostly citadel of Tecapa, points to its continued if changing thirdspace affordances. The mention of these elaborate field systems serves as a reminder of how all three, neighbouring religious complexes examined in this chapter formed a seamless continuum with critical infrastructures. Jatanca was located in closer proximity to the Cupisnique drainage before this dried up and thus spanned two irrigation watersheds (Warner 2010). When sand dunes rolled in and the river dried up, the latter site of Huaca Colorada and then Tecapa were settled further north in the vicinity of viable canals drawing water from the Jequetepeque River. We could even fruitfully analogize Jatanca and Huaca Colorada, with their mimetic mountains and architecture laser-focused (as indexes) on Cerro Cañoncillo, to power plants that bundled together and energized the surrounding landscape and ecology. This comparison certainly departs from the recognition of modern infrastructures (including say, electrical plants) as often operating out of sight (and out of mind), unless they break down. However, in Chapter 3, I criticized this claim as far from universally applicable. In the next chapter, we turn to ancient Angkor, where ritual landscapes also inextricably assembled infrastructures that operated in tandem with temple architecture. In Chapter 8, I then analyze two traditions of religious place-making drawing from the same theoretical registers applied in this chapter to make an array of interpretations similar to the Andean case studies featured in this book. Notes 1 A misnomer, the so-called Acropolis was named by German archaeologist Heinrich Ubbelohde-Doering (1967). 2 Spence Morrow’s (2019: 119–166) study illustrates how access patterns changed significantly with each major renovation of the ceremonial core of Sector B at Huaca Colorada. For instance, the construction of the formal stairway fronting the continually maintained East Terrace actually coincided with the closure of the West Chamber. 3 Mass-produced with two-piece moulds, these jars depict elite personages adorned with nose ornaments, large earspools, headdress, and braided or straight hair. The King of Assyria forms are often distinguished by moustaches (Hecker and Hecker 1987: 54–56) or swollen areas near the cheek, a likely representation of the bulge created by chewing a quid of coca. Moreover, floral and concentrically beaded earspools, rendered in a variety of attractive configurations, often characterize these distinctive vessels (Swenson 2020: 197). 4 Jesuit records of the extirpation of idolatry reports the worship of a pot clothed in female dress as the ancestor of a particular ayllu (Bray 2009: 357; Polia 1999: 205).

7 KARMA ECOLOGIES Khmer Place-Making, Infrastructures, and Ideologies of Space

7.1 Introduction

The Angkorian Empire (802–1431 CE) is renowned for its magnificent temples and awe-inspiring infrastructures, including the famed barays (huge reservoirs) that formed part of extensive irrigation networks that supported one of the largest preindustrial cities in world history (Angkor). These massive reservoirs exemplify the indivisibility of the religious and infrastructural in ancient Angkor as they at once served as critical lynchpins of the rice-based political economy supporting the high populations of the extensive, low-density metropolis, while also microcosmically symbolizing the oceans surrounding Mount Meru, the abode of the Hindu Gods. The barays worked within a sophisticated hydrological network of tanks, channels, moats, and embankments that ingeniously distributed water to fields during the dry season and stockpiled and diverted excess rainwater during the monsoons (Fletcher et al. 2007; Fletcher and Evans 2012; Groslier 1979; Hawken 2013; Klassen and Evans 2020).1 Klassen and Evans observe (2020: 1): The scale of the hydraulic system is perhaps unparalleled in the pre-industrial world, and includes channels 20 km in length and 40–60 m wide, reservoirs with surface areas of up to 16.8 km2, and a vast network of walled fields used for flooded rice agriculture. As we will see when we turn to King Yaśovarman āśrama (hermitages, ­monasteries) in the next chapter, the barays were steeped in religious significance and placed under the direct protection of his royal monastic network. In fact, the numerous Khmer temples were intimately linked with hydraulic infrastructures and agricultural fields, both in urban and rural settings, and religious foundations managed DOI: 10.4324/9780429356063-7

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both centralized and local, non-state directed irrigation systems (Hall 1992, 2011; Klassen and Evans 2020). The sizeable moats of great sanctuaries contained ­millions of gallons of water, and workers excavated 1.5 million cubic meters of earth to construct the enormous moat of Angkor Wat (Dumarçay and Royère 2001: xxiv). The West Baray alone in the city of Angkor occupied an area of 8 × 2.1 km and contained 48,000,000 m cubic m of water (Coe 2008: 717). In Chapters 3 and 5, I discussed how the over-engineered drainage channels within the monuments of the Akapana (Tiwanaku) and Chavín in the Andes were interlinked with the broader water catchment critical for agriculture. In a similar fashion, Angkorian temples functioned as “fluid communicators” (Moseley 1985) that purified the irrigation waters channelled to the rice fields supporting the enormous population of Angkor located to the north of the Tonle Sap Lake. As discussed in Chapter 3, the remarkable sculpture of hundreds of liṅgas and yonis, carved on the riverbed of Kbal Spean in the Kulen region of Cambodia, just to the east of Angkor, initiated this protracted benediction of life-giving waters (Figure 7.1). The lattice of sculptures depicts the phallic, aniconic manifestations of Śiva projecting from stylized wombs (the yoni), and the river water immersed and flowed over these remarkable carvings. The Kulen region, adjacent to the Kulen hills, where the Angkorian dynasty was founded in 802 CE, forms the headwaters of the principal rivers that irrigated the vast grid of fields of the capital city region. Indeed, the

FIGURE 7.1 The

liṅga-yoni carved in the riverbed of Kbal Spean, Cambodia.

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carved riverbed celebrating divine sexual congress dramatically fixed Angkorian territory and blessed, fertilized, and inseminated the downstream rice paddies that formed the foundation of the Khmer political economy (Mody 2018; Tawa 2001). This seamless incorporation of infrastructures into extensive “templescapes” distinguishes both the ancient Andes and Angkor but one might object that the two macro-traditions, especially in the realm of religion, differed so fundamentally that a broader comparison would yield few insights. Certainly, the complex process by which Indian theologies were repurposed by the Khmer constitutes a vast and contested topic, and Hindu and Buddhist philosophical concepts obviously lack direct equivalents in the Andean sphere. The approximately 1,400 inscriptions carved on temple doorjambs, stelae, statue pedestals, and artefacts provide an extraordinary if somewhat narrow range of information on Angkorian temple ritual, deities, religious sects, royal genealogies, kingly exploits, and temple economies, as well as the Indian scriptures and sects popular in certain periods (Sanderson 2003–2004; Soutif and Estève 2023). Sanskrit inscriptions poetically addressed the gods, eulogized kings and high officials, commemorated the construction of temples and other such foundations and stipulated religious observances and proscriptions (Bhattacharya 1997). In contrast, texts in the Khmer language usually consisted of more prosaic proclamations on donations owed temple estates, administrative matters, worker and slave allotments, and court proceedings (Soutif and Estève 2023: 25). Although the palm-leaf manuscripts that recorded literary traditions and theological treatises have long perished, the surviving Khmer inscriptions provide a font of information obviously lacking in the Andes, and one that permits more thorough and precise interpretations. It is partly for this reason that anthropologists and historians working in Southeast Asia readily investigate religious questions and have devoted less attention to problems of ontology, materiality, or posthumanist theories (but see Hara 2017). In fact, those who have considered such matters, even if obliquely, usually focus on pre-Indic traditions based on purported animistic beliefs (Janowski 2020). Thus, many scholars have argued that only a small cadre of the Southeast Asian elite adhered to esoteric Brahmanical theology and religious observances. In contrast, the majority of the population maintained traditional ritual practices centred on the veneration of nature spirits (called neak ta in Cambodia), residing in trees, mountains, stones, and so forth (Lavy 2003: 36; Legge 1992: 7–8; van Leur 1955; Vickery 1998). In other words, most Khmer (including many in authority) only engaged superficially with the state religion, and abstract, philosophical concepts such as bhakti, ātman, mokṣa, karma, and so forth, were little understood and had minimal impact on the mass of agriculturalists that constituted a large part of the population. Therefore, the life or a monk or yogi who sought training in ascetic austerities to achieve a blissful merger with a compassionate god or to escape endless rebirths (saṃsāra) was open to only a privileged few, as was familiarity with the agamas and epics, including the Rāmāyana and Mahābhārata. One could go as far as to claim that different ritual and religious traditions in ancient Southeast

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Asia were grounded in part in distinct ontological orders. However, I agree with Forest (2012: 84) and others (Michon 2011; Wolters 2008) that the influence of Indic belief systems on the larger population in Angkor was likely much more profound than is commonly recognized.2 The extraordinary remaking of the landscape—bristling with an extraordinary number of stone temples, almost unrivalled in the world—no doubt distributed the sensible in ways that radically refashioned subjectivities (Rancière 2009, 2013). The numerous sanctuaries with their lotus-shaped prasats (towers of shrines housing god images), corbel vaulted ambulatories, imposing enceinte walls and elaborate subsidiary buildings decorated with striking Hindu or Buddhist iconography, must have structured the outlook and dispositions of diverse communities. The latter included workers building the religious foundations, slaves (khňum) running the temples’ everyday operations, or the priests who ensured the gods were properly worshipped. Forest notes that the sroks (village territory and fields) were consistently organized around the prasat that dramatically territorialized the larger population. In addition, the songs and myths of bards, the sought-after rituals of Brahmans in quotidian life, and the corvée labour to build the temples created “an intense religious atmosphere… even if this religious intensity was concerned with benefits in the here-and-now” (Forest 2012: 84).3 The labour required to construct the distinct Angkorian templescape further constituted a highly meritorious act, not only for the kings and dignitaries who commissioned and endowed the foundations, but also for the labourers and slaves who built the impressive edifices (Burgess 2010: 25, 92; Forest 2012: 72; Jacques 2008: 7; Hall 2011: 163, 170, 185; Higham 1989: 344; Lustig and Lustig 2013: 31; Pou 2002: 321).4 Indeed, most workers likely had a good sense of the expected karmic benefits of their contributions, even if fully aware of the ideological ramifications of such expectations (i.e., enrichening the dominant Brahman class). In this regard, the notion of “karma ecologies” featured in the title of this chapter highlights how religious philosophies based on accruing merit (Sanskrit: puṇya, Pali: puñña) profoundly engineered the political landscape of ancient Southeast Asia. At the same time, non-elite communities in the Angkorian realm no doubt gained familiarity with the feats of Rama or the might and benevolence of Śiva, Viṣṇu, or the Buddha, even if incomplete or interpreted according to traditional idioms (de Casparis and Mabbett 1992; Sanderson 2003–2004). In the past and continuing today, the Rāmāyana (Reamker in Khmer) remains a highly popular epic (Jacob and Haksrea 1986). As a point of comparison, “superficial” would certainly fail to capture the disruptions and ramified transformations wrought by the introduction of Christianity (and its distinct materiality) in the 16th-century Americas. Of course, Amerindian cosmologies and institutions played a critical role in the creation of unique and diversified Christian traditions, similar to the distinct brands of Indianized religions of Southeast Asia (Aeusriwongse 1976; Miksic and Goh 2017: 10–11; Stark 2004). This brings me to a recurring theme of the book: we should resist casting the philosophical, cosmological, and, by extension, the representational as mere

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e­piphenomena to something seemingly more real, material, or prediscursive. Instead, as materialized phenomena combining complex affective and semiotic processes, they have profoundly transformed broader ecologies. Andean concepts such as tinkuy¸ yanatin, and wak’a explored in Chapter 5 are no less philosophical than karma, bhakti, and so forth, and they equally (but variably) shaped landscapes, bodies, and minds and constructed distinct worlds and cosmopolitical regimes. What is so especially remarkable about the Khmer is that they more than any other peoples adopting Indic theologies went to extraordinary lengths to render the abstract, ideal models of the Hindu universe—the conceived space of a moral and cosmically perfected universe—into a perceptible, material reality (perceived space and on the ground spatial praxis) (Lefebvre 1991). As Thompson notes (2016: 55–56), citing Meister: The mountain-temple was a Khmer innovation translating in a radically ­realistic three-dimensional manner Indic cosmopolitical conceptions…. The Khmer mountain temple’s contribution was in ‘the humanizing of concepts that in India can seem greatly abstracted… making cosmology both material and practical.’ (Meister 2000: 266) Hence, it is striking that the Khmer dutifully modelled their built world from Indian texts (not known precedents or blueprints) to achieve the “exact proportions of temples and statues” that resulted in the “creation of cities that were uniquely Khmer, and provided power and legitimacy to their rulers” (Stuart-Fox and Reeve 2011: 107–108; Zéphir 1995: 13–15). Koller (2017: 112) similarly observes that there is even a temptation to argue that the Khmer–and by extension the Javanese… developed the idea of the artificial temple mountain entirely from Indian literary sources, in a purer form, as it were, than anywhere in India ­without reference to actual built structures on the Subcontinent. Stuart-Fox and Reeve (2011: 120) go as far as to claim that the construction of Jayavarman VII’s great city of Angkor Thom (see Chapter 8) “demonstrates the remarkable impact that symbolism had on city planning in Cambodia—far greater than in the Middle East or India, or for that matter China, or Central America.” Recent investigations have revealed that Angkor Thom was orthogonally gridded by an extensive network of symmetrically aligned furrows, roads, and canals, prompting Gaucher (2004) to conclude that it represents the most authentic realization of a utopian Indic city. 7.2

The Religious Construction of Place among the Khmer

As discussed in Chapter 5, in the ancient Andes, wak’as proved their worth and manifested their exceptional powers by making place, especially irrigation systems and related agricultural infrastructures. Similarly, in the ancient Southeast Asian

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context, kings drew inspiration from the creative feats of the gods Śiva or Viṣṇu by taming water and earth through the construction of canals, raising embankments, and physically altering the terrain (Bhattacharya 1997: 37; Lavy 2003: 24–25). Some of the earliest inscriptions in Southeast Asia dating to the 5th to 7th centuries in Java, the Cham polities (in present day Vietnam) and the early Khmer kingdom of Funan (150–550 CE) and Zhenla (Chenla) (500–802 CE) celebrate the building achievements of kings as godly creators (de Casparis and Mabbett 1992: 289–290; Higham 1989: 249). In a similar manner, pre-Angkorian inscriptions commemorated rulers for founding temples and āśrama (hermitages or monasteries) (Hall 2011: 163). As Lavy notes (2003: 37): “elite-sponsored ‘religious’ foundations were an important means of consolidating control over an area and, consequently, were instrumental in the development of centralized kingdoms in early Southeast Asia.” The early title of pon, referred to a chieftain in charge of a reservoir and associated community, whose authority rested on the production of rice and cloth in temple-run estates (Higham 2001: 47–48; 2012: 284). This title was inherited through the female line (matrilineal) and was often conferred on rural notables by early royalty (Vickery 1996: 399; 1998). The endowment of temples and associated infrastructure constituted one of the most important duties of the pon, who took charge of religious ceremonies to honour both Indic gods and indigenous Khmer ancestors and nature spirits. The establishment of religious foundations also underwrote the office of the mratan during the Zhenla and Angkorian periods (district leaders that eventually replaced the pon) (Higham 2001: 50). Soon after the founding of the Angkorian Kingdom in 802 CE by Jayavarman II on Mount Kulen (Mahendraparavata) to the east of Angkor, royal place-making and the construction of religious and agricultural infrastructures began to follow an ideologically sanctioned sequence (Chea 2018: 27–28; Chea et al. 2023; Higham 1989: 325; Stern 1951). Following his enthronement, the king was expected to build a public work that would benefit the kingdom, often an impressive agricultural or religious facility, such as Jayavarman VII’s hospitals and waystations (see Chapter 8). The construction of an ancestral temple to commemorate the reigns of preceding monarchs followed such public endowments. Finally, the king ­commissioned the state temple, often in the form of a terraced mountain housing cosmographically arrayed shrines (prasat towers). In the central sanctuary, the liṅga was erected and named after the king as a manifestation of Śiva. This powerful monolith merged the essence of the king with Śiva and all the creative elements of the universe (Kulke 1978). Ultimately, it sanctified the monarch as the protector and benefactor of the realm. To provide an example of this “rhythm” of kingly place-making (to use Stern’s original term), the inscriptions record that King Indravarman I started building his great basin, the Indratataka (Lolei Baray), only five days after his enthronement in 877 CE (Stern 1951: 664). One of the largest reservoirs ever built, it occupied an area of 3,800 m long by 800 m wide (Chea 2018: 28) and created one of the

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most dramatic landmarks at his royal capital of Hariharālaya (Roluos Group), the city founded by his uncle Jayavarman II prior to the establishment of the city of Angkor by Yaśovarman I.5 The king then initiated the construction of the brick towers of the ancestral shrine of Preah Kô, also in Hariharālaya, in honour of his uncle and founder of the Angkorian dynasty, Jayavarman II. Named Parameśvara, the temple commemorated the posthumous name of the deceased dynast. Finally, the king embarked on the construction of the great Bakong, the mountain temple that housed the Śivaliṅga called the Indreśvara, which merged the name of the King with a common appellation of Śiva. This towering edifice would become the cosmic and ceremonial nerve centre of Indravarman’s kingdom, and it may have witnessed the supreme rites of the devarāja or kamrateṅ jagat ta raja in Khmer (“master of the universe”) (Thompson 2016: 27). Variably translated as the godking or Śiva as King of the gods who served as the principal divinity of the ruling monarch, this ritual involved the arcane spells of revered Brahmans and the likely animation of the ultimate power object that served as the palladium of the realm.6 This potent icon may have consisted of a liṅga, a mobile statue of Śiva as an emissary of a fixed liṅga, a dancing Śiva (Nataraja), or a sacred flame and fire container (Bourdonneau 2016; Coedès 1952a; Kulke 1978; Woodward 2001). Along with the accompanying rites and personnel, the devarāja seems to have bestowed divine protection and the legitimate mantle to rule as cakravartin (universal king, literally meaning wheel-turner) (Mabbett 1969: 208). Described in the famous inscription of Sdok Kok Thom in eastern Thailand, the is inscription (K. 235, CE 1052) makes clear that on his ascension the king took possession of the devarāja and moved it to his newly built palace or state temple. For instance, Yaśovarman I transported the kamrateṅ jagat ta raja to his new city of Angkor in 889 CE. (Forest 2012: 77; Kulke 1978: 29; Mabbett 1969: 206). In theory, then, the royal sequence of place-making demanded continual building with the construction of public infrastructures and the foundation of a new state temple defining the ascension of each king, events which repeatedly re-centred city, state, and cosmos. Indeed, former state temples were often converted into the mausoleums of deceased monarchs (Kulke 1978; Stern 1951). This ideological expectation can explain the extraordinary number of royal temples in the city of Angkor, and kings also commonly built new palaces and cities following their enthronement. The sequence of public works, ancestral temple, and mountain temple would characterize the building campaigns of a number of prominent kings, including Jayavarman IV (928–941 CE), Rājendravarman II (944–968 CE), and Sūryavarman I (1001–1050 CE), among others (Chea et al. 2023; Stern 1951). As we will see, it clearly underwrote the statecraft of Yaśovarman I and Jayavarman VII. For instance, construction began on the great East Baray and the principal āśrama during the first year of Yaśovarman’s reign. The commissioning of the Lolei temple to his father and mother at the former capital of Hariharālaya followed suit and its four brick towers and accompanying statues transferred merit to the

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deceased to ensure their salvation (Indravarman and wife). The building campaign then culminated with the construction of the state temple of Bakheng on the only high hill on the Angkorian plain (Chea 2018; and see Chapter 8). Even beyond such royal building endeavours, the entire Angkorian realm ­operated through temples, and they dramatically anchored everyday life and structured local and regional political economies (Klassen and Evans 2020; Pottier 1999; Vickery 1998). The foundation of thousands of Brahmanical or Buddhist religious foundations occurred in tandem with the expansion of agriculture and the complete reengineering of the productive landscape (Klassen and Evans 2020; Michon 2011; Pottier 2012: 25–26). In fact, temples were built successively on the peripheries of the expanding realm to domesticate and convert the untamed forest to cultivated lands, especially during the reigns of centralizing Kings, including most notably, Sūryavarman I (Hall 2011; Klassen and Evans 2020). The conversion of wild terrain into bountiful fields finds some interesting parallels with the religious drive to expand the agricultural frontier among the Inca (see Chapter 5). As Sanderson notes (2003–2004: 552): The sheer number of the Khmer’s temples, the vast scale of them, and the inscriptions that detail their endowments, reveal that the creation and support of such foundations was central to the economic, cultural, and political life of the whole society. They channeled and promoted agricultural production, engaging a very substantial proportion of the region’s human and material resources, they integrated the realm, and they legitimated the tenure of land and power. Hall (1985, 2011) describes the operation of the Angkorian state at its height (1000–1200 CE) as based on a temple hierarchy, in which temples served as the key nodes of production, administration, and distribution. The endowment of temples legitimated elite claims to land and the agricultural surplus it would generate; the latter would support the temple and its personnel, while the remainder could be channelled to aristocratic patrons and higher-level religious foundations with a final cut allotted to the royal court. Alternatively, the king would grant tax exemptions to sanctuaries and benefit from the spiritual merit of endowing such foundations. Therefore, aristocrats often pooled their resources in temple estates that served as de facto “banks” that would at once benefit the participating elites both spiritually and in terms of the financial returns of their investments (de Casparis and Mabbett 1992: 303; Hall 2011: 184; Stark 2004: 108).7 Local temples also shared donated gifts and resources with royal religious establishments, and workers of the former often laboured for the latter at prescribed times. Especially in later periods, donations of rice and textiles were supplemented by copious gifts of statuary, jewellery, perfume, fine metal objects and ceramics as well as other precious objects. Therefore, religious foundations also spurred craft production and market exchange (Burgess 2010: 62). As such, temple-estates served as critical nodes of revenue collection and distribution (Hall 2011: 162).

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Ideally, the entire Angkorian economy was sanctioned by the gods to achieve greater spiritual and material boons, and as Hall remarks (Hall 2011: 162–163): “temples assumed the leading role of, as one scholar describes it, limiting and disguising the play of economic interests and calculations (Bourdieu 1977: 172).”8 In other words, high-status individuals who donated lands to temples often continued to administer their former holdings, and they drew income from the sacred estates while distributing some of the proceeds to the temple’s upkeep. The inscriptions commonly provide specific information on the terrain donated, including the exact boundaries and areal extent of the gifted estate. As summarized by Hall (2011: 185), Angkorian temples served as investment banks, seats of education and technological knowledge (financially supporting scholars, artisans, and astrologers), centres of political supervision and administration, and fulcra of security, community, and identity. Recent archaeological investigations prove that temples and their water installations often prescribed the emplacement of Angkorian agricultural fields and associated hamlets. In fact, most shrines throughout the realm were moated and associated with a small reservoir or basin called a trapeang in Khmer (Pottier 2012: 18). These basins supplemented agricultural needs, and like the barays, provided drinking water and fish. Klassen and Evans (2020) refer to this coupling of thousands of temple and artificial ponds as “trapeang-prasat configurations” around which fields and house mounds radiated (Evans et al. 2007; Hawken 2013). This association of basin and shrine mirrors the building program of Khmer kings in microcosm, even if lacking the formalized “rhythm” of construction identified by Stern for the royal establishments. Hawken’s analysis of rice-field bunds in the greater Angkorian region further reveals that in both local, decentralized farming and state-directed agriculture, “shrines and temples were clearly the nodes around which rice fields were generated” (2013: 355). Often the “melding” of separate field grids occurred at the precise boundaries of individual temple estates, and the large plantations of state-managed rice bunds were aligned with the cardinal directions and the prevailing orientations of religious architecture (Hawken 2013). Thus, to evoke Lefebvre once again, the conceived space of the larger templescape saturated the taskscape of farming and quotidian living. The latter occurred in wooden houses elevated on stilts that clustered around temples, and along roadways and canals (Coe 2008). In the end, the perceived space of the average Khmer was overwhelmed in large part by the design of the temple, a topic explored in greater detail in the following section. 7.3 The Mandala: Alternate Strategies of Territorialization in Angkor

In light of the above discussion, it might come as a surprise that social scientists specializing in pre-modern Southeast Asia contend that the control of people and their labour—and not land—defined the early states of this region (Forest 2012:

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52; Tambiah 1977: 81; Thompson 2016).9 However, this realization does not imply the lesser importance of space as concept and lived reality, and I already mentioned the unprecedented degree to which the Khmer endeavoured to build a perfect, utopian society from literary sources—Lefebvre’s “representations of space” par excellence. In fact, anthropologists assert that the complex symbol of the mandala (máṇḍala—meaning circle in Sanskrit), a microcosmic diagram of the universe in Tantric Hindu and Buddhist ritual practice, provided the template for the planning of temples, cities, and polities. As a form of political organization, Wolters (1999) conceived of the mandala as cosmographically emplaced courts led by charismatic “men of prowess” that lacked bureaucracies, fixed territories, and law-based rules of governance or succession. As a sacred circle of space and time, in competition with other such mandalas, these loosely bounded, “galactic” polities (Tambiah 1977) expanded at the expense of homologous formations thanks to the exceptional magical, political, and military capabilities of leaders to attract followers. In this regard, scholars have argued that Southeast Asian states differed significantly from those documented in ancient Europe, China, or elsewhere. Higham (1989: 240) writes: “Wolters has aptly likened mandala organization to a concertina, expanding and contracting as lesser centres of influence seek the security of larger ones, and overlords expand their adhesions and spheres of influence.” Spatially, the mandala consisted of comparable settlements exhibiting little functional or administrative differentiation. They were anchored by cosmically perfected temples that staged assiduously and precisely performed rituals to ensure the well-being of the realm through the harmonious union of microcosm and macrocosm (and the union of the king with gods, such as Śiva) (Forest 2012: 53; Mabbett 1969: 217–218).10 This multiplicity of concentrically nested microcosms, in which the centre of the universe cyclically shifted (or co-existed) from place to place depending on the waxing fortunes of a divinely inspired leader, defines the mandala as a unique urban and heterarchical political formation, at least in the theories of Wolters, Mabbett (1978) and others (Higham 1989: 258–259; Miksic and Goh 2017: 25, 241–243). In a sense, the mandala epitomizes “cosmopolitics” (Abramson and Holbraad 2014). Although control of “manpower” appears paramount in the Mandala-like polities, scholars have perhaps overstated the relative unimportance of territory, especially in Angkor (Thompson 2016: 9–10). Alternatively, other researchers argue that Angkor either evolved beyond the mandala or more effectively centralized and even bureaucratized this political system (Higham 1989: 321; Wolters 1999). Thompson stresses the obsession with “cadastral geometries” in the temple inscriptions, and following Mus (1975), even calls the religions of Southeast Asia “cadastral religions” (Thompson 2016: 79). Burgess (2010: 81) notes that in many inscriptions, including the famed text of Sdok Kok Thom: “land was on the Brahmin’s mind [Sadasiva, the likely author of inscription] to the point that his text in places might be called a collection of real estate deeds.” Even if the mandala, as an “unmapped,” evanescent political institution ­dependent on charismatic leaders, fails to capture the complexity of early southeast

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Asian states (Thompson 2016: 60), the concept proves useful in making sense of place-making in Angkor (Pottier 2012: 12). In Khmer polities, land was marked and territorialized through the imposition of a cosmic diagram of sacred creation and order that took the form of temple mountains that effectively united macrocosms with microcosms. The construction of these sacred edifices in the form of Mount Meru in particular, the abode of the 33 Hindu gods, provided a conceptual basis for the cadastral organization of the landscape while ensuring the prosperity and reproduction of the realm. In this regard, we should keep in mind how the ritually prescribed and highly methodical implementation of this conceptual design must have fundamentally structured the perceived space of engineers, builders, priests, devotees, and slaves. The search for such cosmic precision, to better understand and manipulate the phenomenal world, required the subsidization of an entire political economy and educational system. As Stuart-Fox and Reeve note (2011: 105): City planning was a matter of great concern in all the Indianised kingdoms of Southeast Asia. The location of cities, their orientation and their layout were not decided at the whim of kings: they required the combined talents of the most learned men at court—astrologers, geomancers and court Brahmins well-read in the religious texts of ancient India, notably the treatises known as śāstra on such diverse subjects as law, statecraft and architecture. We can compare such intense planning—attempts to make idealized conceptions of space a material and practical reality (Lefebvre 1991)—to the complex exigencies of constructing an airport or to building office towers that meet green-standard environmental codes. A nesting of macro/microcosms, evident in Angkorian royal temples, resembles the Moche project of constructing artificial adobe mountains on the flat desert pampas, a fascinating parallel given the very different theologies defining the cultural traditions in question (see Chapters 5 and 6).11 These remarkable architectural ensembles exemplify symbolic accumulation, as they condensed a multiplicity of signs, meanings, and things in a sacred, cosmic centre (Jacques 1999: 30–31; Yelle 2013). Machines of creation, the power they emanated assembled the world around them. In both the Andean case studies considered in Chapter 6 and in Angkorian temples, such symbolic accumulations materialized correspondences between distinct phenomena and thus activated intimate parallelisms to ensure the efficacy of cosmographic buildings and their equivalents. In Angkor, these equivalents included the human body, king, liṅga, and capital city. I argued that the impressive architecture of the Jequetepeque Valley fixed spaces of taypi and chawpin, in which antithetical forces and complementary oppositions were juxtaposed, balanced, or dialectically merged. In contrast, the axis mundi of the Hindu and Buddhist temples created a vast field of material and metaphysical signs that find no direct equivalent with the structuring principles of synecdoche, partibility, substitution, or envelopment common in the Andean cosmologies. The power of replicated Mount Merus

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fulfilled many spiritual and practical functions, ranging from the facilitation of spiritual ascent, enlightenment, and the obliteration of the ego via monistic union with Śiva, to ensuring agricultural fertility and divinely sanctioned political order (Bhattacharya 1997; Mabbett 1983b). This last objective also characterized Moche landscapes, which is unsurprising given the intensive agricultural foundations of the two civilizations in question. The dense allegorical meanings materialized in Angkorian temples provide one of the clearest and most evocative examples of how sacred places in general create arenas of intense semiosis and material (re)assembly (see Chapters 3 and 4). Indeed, Hindu and Buddhist sanctuaries reveal the difficulty of disentangling fundamental ontological orientations from profoundly esoteric and metaphysical propositions. Similar to the religious edifices in Jequetepeque examined in Chapter 6, the Angkorian temple as Mount Meru melded perceived and conceived spaces into charged lived (third) spaces of creative becoming and heightened consciousness (Swenson 2012a). As we will see, when we turn to Yaśovarman I’s building campaigns, by the end of the 9th century, Angkorian kings commissioned state shrines in the form of the quincunx (pañcāyatana design), or four towering prasats placed at the cardinal directions surrounding a centrally situated shrine (see Figure 8.2). This plan iconically indexed Mount Meru’s configuration, which Hindu and Buddhist religious texts (especially the purāṇas) describe as consisting of a central peak encircled by four buttress summits (Mabbett 1983b: 66). The latter harnessed the magical energies of the four cardinal directions and the power of their associated deities and life forces. The eastern buttress, Mount Mandara, served as the cosmic stick with which the gods and demons (devas and asuras) churned the Ocean of Milk by pulling the ends of the giant snake Vasuki that was wrapped around the mountainous pivot. Mount Mandara (often assimilated with Meru) rested on the tortoise Kurma, the second avatar of Viṣṇu, to churn the ocean. This cosmogonic act created the world, the heavenly nymphs, the goddess of beauty (Śrī/Lakṣmī), and the elixir of immortality (amrita), among other phenomena. The peak of the central shaft of Meru housed the palaces of the 33 Hindu gods (Trāyastriṃśa) ruled by Indra and provided the main conduit between the underworld to the empyrean (and to the formless and infinite realms further above—arūpaloka). Located in the Himalayas, Meru as centre of the universe was surrounded by the cosmic seas and continents (either four or seven depending on the tradition) and was the source of the Ganges that originates from the celestial lake of Anavatapata (Mabbett 1983b: 67). Fixed to the pole star, the seven planets revolved around the central peak, and Surya (the sun god) blessed Meru as the great pivot of the universe around which the sun crossed the firmament (Mabbett 1983b). As Mabbett explains (1983b: 67): The clockwise passage of the sun around Meru is reflected by the circumambulation ritual of pradaksiṇā, which defines or creates sacred space and thereby

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makes possible the ascent or projection from the plane of mundane life to that of the sacred. Such rituals of circumambulation secure centre stage in Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist sanctuaries (Forest 2012: 86). The Angkorian temple dramatically materialized the schema of the mountain mandala, and it much more than symbolized Meru but brought it to life in its microcosmic manifestations (Stuart-Fox and Reeve 2011: 107). Indeed, the Sanskrit nomenclature for temple architecture exemplifies the intimate equivalence between sacred mountain and building. For instance, the lotus-shaped prasat tower was called the śikhara, literally meaning mountain peak, while Mount Meru itself was equated with a lotus consisting of a central pericarp emanating unfurled leaves (the four buttress summits) (Bosch 1960; Filliozat 1954: 534; Mabbett 1983b: 71). The garbhagṛha (garbhagriha), meaning the “womb-house,” referred to the adytum (main chamber) of the shrine, a quintessential machine of creation that nurtured and stored the “mystic essence” that projected upward through the towering śikhara (Mabbett 1983b: 72–73). The liṅga was placed here, fastened in its yoni, and it played a key role in the spiritual and sanctifying functions of the shrine. In fact, ontologically, the stone temple constituted a living being, and its corporeal structure mirrored that of the human body. Meru and the śikhara also incarnated the world tree, growth in general, and an axis that could unite and rupture cosmic planes (Bosch 1960; Mabbett 1983b: 75). To stress the point, the intimate parallelisms afforded by Meru and its earthly manifestations are evident in the ontological-cosmic interchangeability of Meru with the human body, the person of the king, statues of the gods, temple buildings, political institutions and the capital city (Filliozat 1954: 551). Mabbett (1983b: 66) explores the many layers of symbolism that exchange Meru for the cosmic man, for the temple at the center of the universe, for the office of kingship, for the stupa, for the mandala, and for the internal ascent undertaken by the tantric mystic. Significantly, only temples could be built of stone, and this durable material symbolized the mighty stature and timeless authority of the gods housed within. Of course, temples provided dwellings for the gods where the divine and human could directly interact, and the replication of the divine abode (Meru) served in part to ensure the blessing of the mortal world (Soutif 2009). The temples also indexed in enlarged form the body of the sheltered icon (a statue or liṅga). As Rowland notes (1970: 274): a temple was at once the house and body of the deity, its fabric the very substance of the divinity …. The rituals accompanying its entire construction, from

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its foundation through to the awakening of the image housed in the inner cella (garbha grha), all reinforced this identification. (Stuart-Fox and Reeve 2011: 107) Similarly, the different components of the temple building find direct correspondence with the body parts of the sacrificed purusa (cosmic man), while the king embodied the macrocosm of Meru in an equivalent manner as the temple edifice. Thus, the body of the monarch was cosmically linked to god, the mountain, court, and religious buildings (Haendel 2005: 247). Even early 20th-century Cambodian coronation rituals assimilated the king to Meru, with his eyes materializing the sun and moon, his head the heavens, and his limbs the four buttress summits of the mountain (Mabbett 1983b: 83). The burial of the ashes of the Angkorian king in a container within the floor of the main shrine of the mountain temple finalized his cosmic merger with god, temple, and cosmic mountain (Wheatley 1971: 250). The cakravartin as wheel turner served as the unique conduit who mediated the flow of dharma and cosmic powers between the macrocosm of the heavens to the iconic microcosms of the temple and capital city (Stuart-Fox and Reeve 2011: 107). The potent and exclusive rituals performed by the king activated such intimate parallelism, or dicentization, as discussed in previous chapters. These ritualized acts paralleled the goals of yogic meditation that aims to merge the microcosm of the self with the macrocosm of the god and universe. Southeast Asian political organization also simulated the divine order of Mount Meru, and the ancient Kingdoms of the Pyu (150 BCE–1050 CE) of Burma consisted of 32 districts led by vassal lords who were subservient to the king in his central city, thus mirroring the 33 deities of the heavenly mountain (Stuart-Fox and Reeve 2011: 110). Throughout Southeast Asia, government hierarchies were similarly ordered according to a numerology based on “four, eight, or thirty-two” demonstrating “a preoccupation with the magic of ritual orientation to the compass rather than… practical convenience” (Mabbett 1983b: 81). In Burma, the king’s throne fixed the centre of the universe for his coronation ritual, and he was named Meru, while the hall in which the ceremony took place was called “Indra’s palace.” During the ceremony, the king was surrounded on four sides by his ministers, eight guardians (lokapāla—protecting the eight directions), four maids, and four undersecretaries (Mabbett 1983b: 81). In both Cambodia and Java, four chief ministers (called the four pillars) counselled the king, and the five principal authority figures evoked Mount Meru’s main peaks (Mabbett 1983b: 83). Today, Cambodians ­construct miniature central towers from sand surrounded by four smaller mounds as a simulation of Mount Meru. This sandy microcosm activates rituals of renewal ­during New Year celebrations, and the central tower also symbolizes the Buddha and the four buttress mounds his most beloved disciples (Forest 2012: 83–84). It deserves repeating that the foundation of temples by both kings and non-royalty continually imposed a sacred, perfectly ordered mandala-Meru on the terrestrial

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plain. This consummate mode of place-making invariably entailed the consecration of a liṅga or statue and the carving of stone inscriptions. For instance, the liṅga incorporating the essence of the king fixed the epicentre of the polity-wide mandala (Higham 1989: 321). At the same time, the consecration of a liṅga by nobles and Brahmans beyond the state temple also constituted “a juridical event” that named a parcel of land and delineated a specific territory (Thompson 2016: 27). This official practice harkens back to pre-Indic veneration of stony “gods of the soil” and the contract it sealed with village heads and followers (Mus 1975: 30–31). In fact, the liṅga also embodied the mountain in miniature and incarnated Śiva, who was closely associated with mountains (and his domain was Mount Kailasa in the Himalayas). As a microcosmic mountain, the liṅga served a comparable function to the temple. The latter, integrated with its moats and barays, blessed, fertilized, and purified the waters destined for the rice fields (Harris, I 2005: 19). In a similar fashion, liṅgas and their stone predecessors present “a limited surface which can easily be sprinkled with water or anointed, actions which, by sympathy, would ensure rain and fecundity for the whole surface of the territory which the stone is considered to represent in abbreviated form.” (Mus 1975: 13). Following Mus, Thompson (2016: 85) interprets this “limited surface” of the stone as an index of the recorded parcel of a demarcated territory. Thompson also interprets the commissioning of liṅgas in the numerous temples of the Angkorian kingdom as re-enactments of the founding rites of Jayavarman II in 802 CE, who inaugurated “an independent Kamvudeśa” on the summit of Mount Kulen (Thompson 2016: 45). Kulen was named Mahendraparvata, the city of Indra, and this highest of massifs in central Cambodia instantiated a Mount Meru. Recent archaeological investigations prove that Kulen became the seat of a vast settlement, including numerous temple towers and a large royal palace, and it served as one of Jayavarman’s main capitals before his return to Harirharālaya (Roluos) (Chevance 2011, 2013; Chevance et al. 2019). Rong Chen, the only known templemountain in Mahendraparavata, likely housed the principal liṅga of Jayavarman II and staged the elaborate rites of the devarāja that secured Angkor’s sovereignty and the supremacy of its founding king (Chevance 2011). Thus, the consecration of each liṅga may have identified their respective temples with Mount Kulen and by extension the sacred axis of cosmic creation. At the same time, the dedication of each yoni-liṅga would have confirmed the ascendancy of the Angkorian state as a macro-mandala (Thompson 2016). Indeed, the mandala diagrams an emanating concentricity, and its outer reaches (or limits) constitute “an effect of the centre” that assumed the properties of emerging centres in their own right (Thompson 2016: 84). This particular modelling of space seems especially useful in making sense of how the extraordinary templescape of Angkor were conceptualized, at least by the royal and priestly elites. The semiotic density of the liṅga is further apparent in its condensation of land, mountain, god, earth, leader, and delineated territory into a single monolith. The yoni (womb) from which the monolith projects connotes the undifferentiated earth

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of virtual possibilities (Thompson 2016: 79). The liṅga itself inscribes and signifies this unmarked, feminine earth and materializes the claims of the temple’s founders to land and resources (just as the king’s liṅga dramatically staked suzerainty over the entire domain). At the death of the king or lesser noble who dedicated a liṅga, the deceased’s spirit would merge with phallic stone and continue to protect and bless kin and estate, a tradition unique to the Khmer and Cham of Southeast Asia. As mentioned, the inscriptions commemorating the foundation, along with the consecration of the statue or liṅga, codified the assemblage of temple, trapeang, and associated fields that were concentrically integrated into the larger mandala of court, barays, and state temples. As Thompson notes (2016: 35): “When a land grant is made, a sculpture—almost always a liṅga—is erected. In the Khmer texts as in the Sanskrit, the inventory of cadastral donations constitutes at once an inventory of statuary.” Therefore, such “ecclesiastical colonization” (Mabbett and Chandler 1995: 102)—entailing the dedication of a liṅga to officially establish a temple and clear land for agriculture—was almost invariably commemorated in writing that was carved in stone, the materiality of the gods. In fact, Sanskrit inscriptions did much more than record histories and genealogies or please the gods with fine poetry. Instead, engraving texts generated merit and emanated great mystical powers (Pou 2002: 318). Ultimately, they intended to guarantee the success of the mission they commemorated and make the claims they declared uncontestably real. Comparable to the semiotic machinery of temples in general surveyed in Chapter 4, the Angkorian shrine territorialized a highly coded assemblage involving a plethora of sign modalities ranging from the iconic and indexical to the highly conventional (as exemplified by the inscriptions). This sacred assemblage was anchored by a contained but awesome and limitless power, mainly gods and kings incarnated in their statues and liṅgas (who were literally bundled together). According to Deleuze and Guattari (2009: 36), machines operate according to a “system of interruptions or breaks” that permit ruptures between assemblages that lead to reterritorialization and thus the creation of new assemblages. Comparable to machines, mandalas also bring into contact distinct ontological and cosmic planes, and as ­discussed in Chapter 4, Deleuze stressed how machines assemble heterogeneous entities into diagrammatic figurations, especially through cohesive expressive codes. Paradoxically, then, such highly codified and fixed diagrams constitute premier engines of creation, transformation, and becoming (deterritorialization). In other words, cosmic and social order is only made possible by unleashing the forces of reterritorialization as executed by highly territorialized machines. Phenomena as different as spiritual liberation, the conversion of wild jungle into ordered rice paddies, the blissful union of a king with his liṅga at death, and channelling the ­blessings of gods, required the ritualized machinery of the temple as mandala.

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7.4 Variation in Khmer and Southeast Asian Religious Landscapes

In light of the above discussion, the Angkorian templescapes were obviously not epiphenomenal to the cynical and aggrandizing megalomania of elites who s­ imply cloaked their greed and unvarnished political aspirations in devotional piety. The distribution of the sensible afforded by the Angkorian landscapes engendered specific experiences and expectations; kings as much as slaves were beholden to the remarkable worlds territorialized by the construction of the numerous religious foundations that assembled together rice fields, villages, roads, canals, and so forth. However, those who actually cultivated the fields and laid the innumerable courses of stone may not have understood or accepted the codes of the assemblage, and similar to the Andes, different religious ideologies and political movements resulted in highly variable perceptions of the official built environment, as the two cases studies in Chapter 8 intend to demonstrate. Despite drawing from a common repertoire of religious concepts, including the mandala, temple as Mount Meru, Indic numerology, and the cosmic symbolism of hydraulic infrastructures, Yaśovarman I and Jayavarman VII’s building projects reflected the political agendas and religious imperatives of their respective regimes. Indeed, salient differences in construction, architectural design, aesthetics, and semiotic ideologies reveal distinct conceptions and experience of place. Of course, such diversity characterized Southeast Asia as a whole, and I briefly outline a few examples in this section to provide some context for the case studies that follow. The “Indianized” Southeast Asian polities promoted religious tolerance, and kings and their administrations often adopted ecumenical policies to support different foundations and sects (Estève 2009, 2023). However, in Angkor, and preceding Khmer polities, including especially Zhenla, Śaivaism came to predominate by at least the 7th century CE (Harris, I 2005; Lavy 2003). Śiva’s associations with fertility, mountains, and storms as the Vedic god Rudra (and hence as bringer of Monsoons) facilitated the assimilation of this all-powerful god with autochthonous sky and earth deities (Stuart-Fox and Reeve 2011: 111). As paragons of kingship, both Śiva (as creator-destoyer) and Viṣṇu (as protector) also proved highly attractive to the early kings of the region, and the worship of these deities spread accordingly (Lavy 2003). The striking Pre-Angkorian Harihara statues sculpted in stone depict the union of Śiva and Viṣṇu, with attributes of the gods confined symmetrically to the two sides of the same statue.12 This tradition of statuary derives largely from the area of Angkor Borei and Phnom Da in southern Cambodia and is largely confined to the pre-Angkorian Khmer kingdoms. Lavy (2003) argues that they symbolize the conquest of the lower Mekong by a kingdom to the north with its capital at Sambor Prei Kuk (Isanapura, Kompong Thom Province) during the 7th century, as dramatically materialized in the merger of the two divine role models of kingly sovereignty. The northern and southern polities are often designated

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Zhenla and Funan, respectively following the Chinese records (but see Jacques 1979). The fused statues thus reflected the newly integrated kingdom (or such an aspiration), and the sculptures acknowledged the popularity of Śiva in the northern realm of Zhenla and Viṣṇu in the vanquished south (Funan). If Lavy’s thesis proves correct, it provides an example of how political developments led to aesthetic and religious innovations specific to the Khmer. A Chinese report documenting the persecution of Buddhist monks in Zhenla during the mid-7th century points to religious intolerance in certain times and places, but this was certainly the exception and not the rule, even during this period when Śaivism became ascendant in state and aristocratic cults (Harris, I 2005: 8–10; Mabbett and Chandler 1995: 286; Revire 2016: 48).13 Unsurprisingly, however, religious differences resulted in variation in landscape design and architectural constructions, and monarchical regimes often privileged one denomination over the other. Thus, Angkor Wat, built in honour of Viṣṇu, the favoured god of Sūryavarman II (1113–1150 CE) who commissioned this famous temple, faces west, the direction identified with this divinity (Mannikka 1996). This orientation contrasts with most foundations that face east (the direction of Śiva). The remarkable bas-reliefs of Angkor Wat’s third gallery, the longest and continuous series of carved reliefs in the world, also depict epics associated with Viṣṇu’s avatars, including the Ramayana (the battle of Lanka) and the Mahabharata (the battle of Kurukshetra) (Stencel et al. 1976: 286).14 Despite the shared philosophical and theological foundations of Brahmanical religions and Buddhism, the latter differed doctrinally and ritually, especially Theravada orders. In everyday practice and within temples, the former privileged elaborate ritual programs to express devotion to all-powerful gods. In contrast, in Buddhism, emphasis was placed on the Sangha (order of monks) and adhering to the dharma of the Buddha to attain the ultimate goal of liberation from saṃsāra (the round of rebirths). However, devotional practices were not absent in Buddhism, and they played an especially prominent role in Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism, as exemplified by the worship of Bodhisattvas, great divinities who compassionately postponed nirvana to help the less fortunate attain liberation or at least to achieve rebirth in a higher paradise. Both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism were known at a very early date in the Khmer lands prior to the emergence of Angkor (Estève 2009; Harris, I 2005). At the same time, ascetic practices, monastic fraternities in āśrama or Buddhist vihāras, textual exegesis, concern with merit-making, yogic meditation, and esoteric tantric rites characterized both Brahmanical and Buddhist denominations. Prior to Jayavarman VII, the Buddhist temples of the Angkorian period closely resembled foundations dedicated to Brahmanical gods, and they differed little in terms of aesthetics or architectural construction. They often consisted of three aligned prasats built of brick or stone on a shared, raised platform, with the central shrine dedicated to the Buddha and two adjacent prasats dedicated to Bodhisattvas (Harris, I 2005: 15; Woodward 2015: 232).15 This tripartite ensemble also commonly characterized shrines dedicated to Hindu deities (Pottier 2003: 199–200).

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Nevertheless, the religious landscapes of the kingdoms where Theravada Buddhism became prevalent, such as Dvaravati (Dvāravatī) (300–950 CE) in central Thailand and the kingdom of Bagan in Burma, differed notably from earlier Khmer and Angkorian built environments.16 In most instances, Pali also became the language of preference in regions where Theravada took hold at an early date, alongside Indigenous languages such as Mon and Burmese (though Sanskrit was also used) (Miksic and Goh 2017: 249). In Dvaravati settlements such as Nakon Pathom and U Thong in Central Thailand, the Caityas, stupas, and more spacious vihāras, (prayer halls) presented an aesthetic and architectural ensemble that contrasted significantly from the gridded and cosmographic temples of Angkor, with their more exclusive brick and stone shrines to house the gods. In Dvaravati, the circular stupa with its peaked hemispheric dome housed relics and was linked to a square caitya or shrine that sheltered sacred icons, usually a statue of the Buddha (Higham 1989: 275). This assemblage of buildings finds no direct equivalence in Angkor, where stupa constructions never took hold until later periods (Koller 2017: 99). Carved mainly in the late 7th century, sculptures of dharmacakra (“The Wheel of the Law”), stone spoked wheels that symbolize the communication of Buddha’s revelations to the world, constituted a key medium of Dvaravati religion. Brown (1996) argues they may have served as emblems of kingship and royal palladia similar to the Śiva liṅgas in Angkor. The landscapes of Bagan and Angkor, two empires that reached their heights in approximately the same period, also differed dramatically (Koller 2017). Founded in the 9th century, Bagan became the capital of an expanding Burmese Empire during the reign of the capable king Anawrahta (Anawratha) (r. 1044–1077 CE). A regime that patronized Theravada Buddhism, it was during this period of expansion that the city witnessed an explosive growth in massive brick temples and stupas. The spherical gu of Burma, the temple house, contained one or more (often four) towering Buddha statues, and in close association with stupas, they were much more spacious and accessible than the Angkorian prasat defined by its exclusive garbhagṛh. Only priests could access the latter, fronted by a vestibule or ­mandapa, while monks and pilgrims could enter the gu, built in a wondrous multitude. Beginning in the 10th century, Khmer temples assumed a “longitudinal ground plan” with the construction of deeper mandapas that often connected to the main prasat by a roofed and elongated passageway (antarāla) (Koller 2017: 105). It was also in the 10th century that Khmer temples transitioned from brick to stone constructions. The longitudinal and axial configuration (which intensified with the building of concentric galleries surrounding the main shrines) contrasts with the emphasis placed on the cavernous verticality of Bagan’s edifices. The axiality and concentricity of Angkorian buildings limited vision within architectural interiors and prescribed protracted movements that afforded revelations as shrines or entrances suddenly appeared (Koller 2017). The Burmese construction of the true vault in many styles (as opposed to the corbelled arch in Angkorian buildings) permitted the sheltering of larger congregations of devotees in one demarcated space, a necessity in Buddhist ritual (Koller 2017: 109–110). Therefore, the Bagan

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gu afforded radically different experiences of place than the more labyrinthine Angkorian temples. The four large doors and even clerestories of the former bathed the inner ambulatories with light, and in some temples, the gigantic Buddhist statues are visible through the doorway from the exterior.17 In sum, place-making in 11th and 12th centuries Cambodia and Burma was based on very different strategies of territorialization, understood in the Deleuzian sense of how construction binds and encodes larger spatial assemblages. At Bagan, hundreds of temples were added by various kings to increase the merit of monarchs and kingdom and support a large community of monks. As a consequence, the larger urban landscape grew organically independent of an overarching spatial plan (Koller 2017). The individual endowments played a more important role in ritual practice and the assertion of royal authority than did the ordering and religious experience of an expansive, structured terrain. In contrast The Khmer architect … designs complexes rather than individual structures, he encloses and opens space(s) through the means of exterior features (walls, galleries, gopuras, and moats). Starting from a centre, in a ritual, compositional and philosophical sense, he orders the space around this centre in a symmetrical and geometrical fashion, thus regulating access and determining lines of sight. (Koller 2017: 138) Bagan’s open and numerous gu lack the enceinte walls of Khmer temples with their few, guarded points of entrance. Furthermore, in an effort to demonstrate their close ties with Śiva or Viṣṇu, Angkorian kings “dominated and re-ordered the natural world so as to turn it into an architectonic one,” as exemplified by state campaigns to divert rivers and integrate temple architecture with expansive agricultural infrastructures (Koller 2017: 133). The imperative to build new temple mountains alongside public infrastructures, palaces, and even new capital cities further demonstrates this expectation to significantly reterritorialize place. In contrast, the authority of Theravada kings was more unambiguously a product of their karma and the great store of merit they accumulated in past lives. Therefore, the legitimacy of Theravada cakravartin (Pali: cakkavatti) did not depend on the establishment of an intimate relationship with a Hindu god via the medium of a liṅga. Nor did it rely so explicitly on the construction of an earthly microcosm to secure the boons of a heavily macrocosm. Instead, the conferral of legitimate authority proceeded through supporting monks as well as “distributing alms, endowing the saṅgha, and ruling in accordance with the Dhamma” (Stuart-Fox and Reeve 2011: 122, 124–125). The construction of numerous monasteries in wood reflects this particular ethos, as it would in the terminal and post-Angkorian era when Theravada came to predominate (Harris 2020). To provide one final example, later Theravada kingdoms in Thailand and Laos (Tai speakers) during the 16th century and later materialized power relations not by

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constructing integrated mandala-like microcosms (though this tradition in ­modified form did not entirely disappear) but through the placement of different social groups and associated buildings along the course of river ways. In other words, the directional flow of the river mapped out hierarchy with the elites progressively located upstream from the lower classes. In cities including Luang Phrabang, built on the Mekong in Laos, and Ayutthaya and Bangkok founded on the banks of the Chao Phraya in Thailand, the king’s palace and principal temples were situated upstream from the aristocratic residences, while further downstream resided court officials and then artisans, who established dwellings beyond the city’s defensive walls (Stuart-Fox and Reeve 2011: 125). In sum, historically specific cosmopolitical agendas can largely explain the ­salient differences underwriting the social production of space distinguishing Angkor, Bagan, and later Theravada kingdoms. The same held for the analysis of the contrasting landscapes of Jatanca, Huaca Colorada, and Tecapa explored in Chapter 6. 7.5

Concluding Thoughts

Such diverse spatial ideologies and strategies of place-making are evident not simply between different periods and religious traditions of pre-modern Southeast Asia, but within and between the reigns of Angkorian kings, as the next chapter will demonstrate. It compares the revolutionary infrastructural projects of Yaśovarman I, the founder of the city of Angkor, with the temple-hospital system commissioned by the later Buddhist king, Jayavarman VII (r. 1182–1218) to demonstrate the applicability of the theoretical approaches developed earlier in the book. The massive building projects of these two influential kings exemplify the integrated infrastructural/religious nexus underwriting the construction and experience of Angkorian landscapes, as both were inherently spiritual as well as fundamentally practical. Indeed, a regional hospital network and a centralized monastic order for study and religious retreat resonate with our understanding of hospitals and schools as critical infrastructures in the modern era. A comparison of the machinic properties (as nodes of assembly and territorialization), semiotic ideologies, aesthetic affordances, and the phenomenological prescriptions of the kings’ building campaigns demonstrates how an archaeological analysis of built environments and ritual contexts in particular can permit novel interpretations of variations in Angkorian political and religious histories. When relevant, I will extend the ­comparison to the Jequetepeque database investigated in the previous chapter. Notes 1 It deserves mention that the role of the barays in ancient Angkor remains a contentious subject among archaeologists. Groslier (1979) was the first to propose their dual economic and ceremonial functions, while the Dutch archaeologists Van Liere and Stott argued that the lack of canal outlets prove that the great reservoirs fulfilled a strictly

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symbolic purpose. However, recent investigations have identified the integration of the barays with substantial canals and water distribution networks (Fletcher et al. 2008). Still, archaeologists debate the acreage of land that the barays could have actually ­irrigated. Acker (2012) contends it was insignificant and argues that the high water tables and the excavation of water pits to tap the ground water supported the high populations of the capital regions. Regardless, what is lost in this debate is that many Khmer clearly viewed the baray as critical in ensuring agricultural bounty, as testified by the infrastructural integration of the reservoirs with the larger hydraulic system. 2 The inscriptional record demonstrates that the Khmer priestly elite were well versed in Indian philosophy and theology. For instance, the well-known Sdok Kok Thom inscription records that the purohita (chief priest) of Indravarman I, Śivasoma, apparently studied with the famed Vedanta scholar Śaṅkara in India during the 9th century (the ­purported founder of the Advaita Vedanta) (Coedès 1964: 205). To provide another example, the inscription (K. 806; 961 CE) of the Pre Rup temple mountain of Rājendravarman (944–961 CE) is the longest of its kind inscribed in stone in the Indic world (298 stanzas). Many epigraphers considerate it to represent among the most beautiful Sanskrit poetry written in the medium (Bhattacharya 1971: 99, 1997: 44; Haendel 2005: 214). The highly erudite author demonstrated his mastery of “the great range of Indian literary and philosophical thought, even referring to two important concepts of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy, representation only (vijñaptimātra, and emptiness (śūnyatā)” (Harris I. 2005: 15). 3 I am paraphrasing Forest’s original statement (2012: 84): ...la représentation dans le théâtre d’ombres ou la récitation par conteurs et bardes des épisodes mythiques et épiques ne peuvent que susciter une atmosphère d’intense religiosité même si, au niveau populaire plus encore au niveau des castres dirigeantes, elle est largement orientée vers la recherche d’une efficacité magique pour le bienêtre ici-bas. 4 Scholars continue to debate the role and status of slaves in ancient Angkor. Some question the privations and bondage of the khňum, commonly translated as slaves, and Higham (1989: 258) argues that the term more accurately signifies an honorific as “slaves or servants of the gods” (see also Burgess 2010: 25; de Casparis and Mabbett 1992: 303; Filliozat 1981: 80; Mabbett 1983a; Mabbett and Chandler 1995: 173). Although ­slavery, understood as abject servitude to a higher authority, rightly describes the institution in Angkor, the evidence suggests that the numerous khňum dedicated to the temples enjoyed higher status than the average slave (Hall 1985). 5 The reservoir measured “150 times bigger than that of any of his predecessors” and contained 10 million m3 of water (Higham 1989: 325). 6 The devarāja as cult object, ritual complex, the possible divinity it conferred on the king, and its importance to Angkorian statecraft are the subject of intense debate among Khmer scholars, and space limitations preclude a full discussion of this topic (but see Burgess 2010; Coedès 1952a; Mabbett 1969; Mannikka 1996; Thompson 2016). In brief, the devarāja, as king of the gods, possibly fusing Śiva with a supreme Indigenous territorial spirit, may have presided over all the deities of the ancient Khmer, including autochthonous and Indianized divinities (Jacques 1999). Thus, it may have served to reinforce a profane hierarchy and the unrivaled pre-eminence of the Angkorian king as cakravartin. However, this cult is rarely mentioned in later inscriptions, and the rituals of the devarāja may only have played an important role in the foundation of an independent Khmer dynasty during the reign of Jayavarman II (to free the Kambuja from the hegemony of “Java”—probably a Cham polity) (Kulke 1978). For Kulke and others, the unified essence of the king and Śiva in the main liṅga of the state temple secured a more central place in kingly ceremonies of political legitimation, especially in the 10th century.

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7 As Hall notes (2011: 164): The Khmer aristocracy concentrated economic resources under a temple’s administration, whether to acquire the spiritual merit associated with such donations, allow for a more efficient management of elite resources, or avoid the revenue demands of those political authorities claiming rights to a share of the local authority’s possessions. 8 This overriding ideology is summarized by Wheatley (1971: 254–255): it is scarcely an exaggeration to regard the economy of the country in its entirely as one great oblation organized for the appeasement of the gods of the Indian pantheon, and thus designed to maintain that harmony between the macro-cosmos and the microcosms without which the state and its peoples could not prosper. 9 This excludes, however, the Chinese influenced states of the Dai Viet to the East (Forest 2012). 10 As Forest (2012: 52–53) notes: the perfect harmony between gods, humans, animals, and other-than-human powers was contingent on the perfect microcosmic organization of the capital. The best defence of the territory and the guarantee of the happiness of its inhabitants thus rests in the perfection of the centre. 11 Of course, scholars have long recognized the cross-cultural prevalence of sacred mountains as the navel of creation, as axis mundis, and the source of order, divinity, and inspiration for religious architecture, ranging from Mesopotamian ziggurats to the construction of the Temple on Mount Moriah (Eliade 1974; Mabbett 1983b; Swenson and Warner 2016). The Khmer words for mountains, vnam and bnam “became synonymous with ‘sanctuary,’” evidence that demonstrates the central importance of mountains in Angkorian religion (Estève 2009: 503; Hara 2017: 53; Lewitz 1967:415). Commenting on the Angkorian temples as “imago mundi” Jacques notes (1999: 29): If such a word as “icono-cosmic” existed, it would describe [Khmer] architecture perfectly. 12 The left side of the statue depicts Viṣṇu (Hari) adorned with his characteristic mitre (kirīṭamukuṭa), while the right portrays Śiva (Hara) with his distinctive tangled locks (jaṭāmukuṭa). Lavy (2003: 22) argues that this fusion represents the “concentration of two forms of royal power” and not the syncretic reconciliation of rival sects. 13 This episode was recorded by the Chinese traveller and Buddhist, Yijing in the 7th ­century, who recorded the oppression of Buddhists at the hands of an “evil king.” He likely never visited the Khmer lands (what he called “Banan,” likely Zhenla), but was stationed temporarily in Sumatra in his search for Buddhist texts (Revire 2016). 14 The evidence also suggests that Angkor Wat served as a great shrine to the sun (and Sūryavarman means “protected by the sun”), and its western orientation permitted the architectural plotting of solar movements. In fact, Stencel and colleagues (1976) contend that the sun illuminated the differently themed bas-reliefs during precise periods of the year. Thus the scene of world creation in the east, the Churning of the Ocean of milk, was illuminated during the spring equinox, a time of rebirth and renewal, while the great destructive battle of Kurukshetra adorning the western gallery was bathed in sun at the time of the fall equinox. The bas-relief depicting all the assembled gods of the north gallery was awash in light between the spring and autumn equinox, while Yama’s land of the dead depicted in the south gallery became illuminated in the dry season (a time of death) between the six months separating the autumn and spring equinoxes. 15 For instance, the Buddhist temple of Bat Chum at Angkor, founded by Rājendravarman’s architect, Kavīndrārimathana in 953 CE, housed in three separate shrines the Buddha, Avalokiteśvara-Vajrapāṇi, and Prajñāpāramitā (Harris, I 2005: 15). 16 Most scholars agree that a strict ideological divide between Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism poorly describes Southeast Asia, and many Buddhists of the region drew from both traditions (Estève 2009; Miksic and Goh 2017: 250).

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17 As Koller summarizes (2017: 127): In a Hindu temple, the garbha-grha is the home of the deity in an exclusive sense; it is entered only by the officiant, not by the masses of faithful. The garbha-grha does not provide light, air or space; it is purely the sphere of the deity, in a sense a mere tabernacle. The gu, on the other hand, is the place where the faithful encounter the Buddha in the form of his monumental image. Thus, the main shrines of the Angkorian temples were appreciably small (rarely more than 4.5 m × 4.5 m) (Jacques 1999: 29).

8 THE ĀŚRAMA AND HOSPITAL FOUNDATIONS OF ANCIENT ANGKOR

8.1

Ascetic Geographies: The Āśrama of Yaśovarman I

The founder of the city of Angkor, Yaśovarman I (889–910 CE), embarked on an ambitious building project and commissioned four āśrama (hermitages) in his new capital city and hundreds more in the provinces of the expanding empire. The inscriptions referred to the entire royal network of religious orders as the “Yaśodharāśrama,” and they were named in honour of this important king. The sizeable hermitages in the capital were built around the vast East Baray, also named for the monarch (the Yaśodharataṭāka), a massive water reservoir (7 × 1.8 km) that intensified agricultural production and supported Angkor’s growing urban population. The āśrama served in part to concentrate the protection of the gods around the newly founded capital and its hydraulic infrastructures (Chea 2018; Chea et al. 2023; Estève and Soutif 2010–2011; Pottier 1999). The monasteries are also remarkable for they were dedicated to different religious sects (Śaivite, Vaiṣṇava, Buddhist), expressing the inclusive and ecumenical spirit of Yaśovarman’s imperial project. Corroborating the textual evidence, our excavations (2011–2023) at three of the āśrama in the city of Angkor confirm that they were standardized in form and function and fell under the direct authority of the king (Estève and Soutif 2010–2011). They measured on average 375 (east-west) × 150 (north-south) m and were usually partitioned into three main zones. Religious buildings, educational facilities, and lodgings for esteemed gurus occupied the eastern third of the rectangular complex, while a residential and production area for hermits, pilgrims, and servants dominated the centre of each of the three excavated hermitages. The western third of the āśrama appears to have been dedicated to gardens for religious ascetics, perhaps recreating the ideal forest environments of the Hindu purāṇas.

DOI: 10.4324/9780429356063-8

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Yaśovarman’s regime designed the āśrama network in part to spread Khmer high culture and to exert greater control over the human and material resources of the empire. Founded in conjunction with expanding road and field systems, the āśrama intended to centralize the political economy, refashion political subjects, and formalize territorial boundaries in 9th and early 10th century Southeast Asia (Bergaigne 1893; Chea 2018; Chea et al. 2023; Coedès 1932; Estève and Soutif 2010–2011; Hara 2017). The monastic orders further aimed to enhance the intellectual and spiritual well-being of the Khmer people, and state tribute was set aside to care for the poor and sick. The royal, top-down subsidization of the monasteries inverted the ideal image of an “ashram” as a humble abode for world-renouncing hermits. 8.1.1 Yaśovarman’s New Capital: The Semiotics of the Bakheng and the Overcoding of a Kingdom

In this section, I briefly introduce the larger building projects of Yaśovarman I to provide the context required for the more detailed analysis of the epigraphic and archaeological evidence of the Yaśodharāśrama. The latter will then permit the spatial, phenomenological, and semiotic analysis of Yaśovarman’s infrastructural campaigns. Angkorian scholars have argued that Yaśovarman ascended the throne in 889 CE after a bitter war of succession (Jacques 1999: 51; 2001: 75; Higham 2001: 63). He may have moved his capital to the new city of Angkor (forever after named in honour of the king as Yaśodharapura) in search of a fresh start and due to the possible destruction suffered by Hariharālaya, the previous capital located approximately 15 cm to the southeast of Angkor. However, there is little evidence of a major conflict, beyond a reference to a naval battle on the Tonle Sap in one of Yaśovarman’s inscriptions (K. 282), which may have occurred after his enthronement (Chea 2018: 24). Nor have excavations recovered any traces of destruction at Hariharālaya (Pottier et al. 2012: 291–294). Instead, the foundation of Angkor was likely inspired by “the advice of the learned Brahmans that the geography was auspicious” (Stuart-Fox and Reeve 2011: 114–115). Adopting the sequence of place-making established by his predecessor Indravarman at Hariharālaya, and thus following the initial construction of his public works (the East Baray and the āśrama), and ancestor temple at Lolei, Yaśovarman, commissioned his state temple on Phnom Bakheng, one of the few sizeable massifs north of the Tonle Sap lake (Figures 8.1 and 8.2). The hill was deemed sacred given its location between the Siem Reap and Roluos Rivers, and it was strategically placed on the fertile plain north of the Tonle Sap and halfway between this lake and Phnom Kulen to the east (Chea 2018: 32). Both rivers flowed from Phnom Kulen 30 km to the east, the great Mahendraparavata of the founder of the Angkorian dynasty, Jayavarman II.1 The rivers likely symbolized the Ganges as well as the annular seas surrounding Yaśovarman’s new Mount Meru. In fact,

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FIGURE 8.1 Map of central Angkor illustrating the location of major landmarks, includ-

ing the Bakheng, the barays, and the Bayon of Angkor Thom (LIDAR map and plan courtesy of Dr. Sarah Klassen).

early in his reign, engineers constructed the main branch of the Siem Reap River by diverting and canalizing the Puok River about 10 km north of the capital region (Higham 1989: 350). This diversion, a “mammoth job” of landscaping, no doubt intended to enhance the new capital’s cosmographic efficacy, and the Siem Reap and Roluos Rivers also constituted the main source of water for the East Baray (Acker 2012: 31). The Yaśodharataṭāka measured 7.5 (east-west) × 1.8 m (northsouth) and was constructed not by excavating a huge pit but by raising an enormous rectangular embankment 3 m high. In total, it held 40–60 million cubic m of water and four inscriptions fixed the four corners of the enormous reservoir (Acker 2012; Chea 2018: 65). In his novel script (see below), the texts eulogize the king and extol the beauty and meritorious benefits of the baray (ISCC: 473, 502–503, 525). As discussed earlier, the reservoir simulated the cosmic sea, placed auspiciously to the east of Phnom Bakheng. In this larger cosmic scheme, Yaśovarman also staked claim to the other two isolated mountains on the plain, and he built impressive if smaller temple complexes on Phnom Bok to the northeast of his capital and on Phnom Krom to the

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southwest, not far from the Tonle Sap (Figure 8.1). Along with the Bakheng, these two temples were configured to astral phenomena and steeped in cosmological and religious symbolism. The main shrines of both Phnom Bok and Phnom Krom were dedicated to the Trimūrti of Śiva, Viṣṇu, and Brahmā, while a gigantic sandstone liṅga (4 m tall and 1.2 m in diameter) was also venerated at Phnom Bok, the largest known in Cambodia and a testament to Yaśovarman’s devotion to Śiva (Chea 2018: 54–55; Chevance 2011: 252–255; Glaize 1940). As mentioned, the royal mountain temple of the Bakheng constituted the centrepiece of this impressive ensemble, and its construction entailed an extraordinary investment of labour and resources.2 Filliozat’s (1954) analysis revealed the extraordinary symbolic load and deep cosmological significance of the centrally located Bakheng temple. A mesocosmic semiotic machine of the first order, it exemplifies Mount Meru in miniature and constitutes the first Khmer monument that unambiguously assumed the quincunx form (a central tower surrounded by four shrines situated at the cardinal directions—see Chapter 7) (Mabbett 1983b: 82; Wheatley 1971: 436–437) (Figure 8.2). It was also the first time in Khmer history that the towers were built entirely in sandstone (Jacques 1999: 59). The hill rises

FIGURE 8.2  Drone

photograph of the Bakheng temple, and multiple prasats on the tiered monument (Drone photograph, courtesy of the World Monuments Fund).

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60 m above the surrounding plain and Chea’s (2018: 39–40) recent analysis of the inscriptions places its construction around 895 CE, several years after the foundation of the ancestral temple of Lolei in Hariharālaya. The bilingual Sdok Kok Tom inscription, among others, documents that Yaśovarman founded his temple on the central Mount (Vnaṃ Kandāl in Khmer), described as the “king of the mountains.” In Sanskrit, Phnom Bakheng assumed the name Śrī Yaśodharagiri, meaning the mountain (giri) of Yaśovarman (Chea 2018: 44–45; Filliozat 1954: 530; Goloubew 1933: 320). An artificial mountain rising from the peak of a volcanic massif of natural sandstone, it was constructed of five ascending terraces that each housed 12 sandstone sanctuaries arrayed symmetrically across the landings—one at each corner and two framing the four axial stairways on every terrace (Figure 8.2). The lower pediment below the terraces provided the foundation for 44 additional shrines that circled the base of the towering temple. The five main prasats of the quinqunx, likely all housing liṅgas, crowned the summit of the monument, with the central sanctuary once providing shelter to Yaśodhareśvara, the liṅga fusing Śiva’s essence with the king’s being. The 44 brick shrines of the base, the 60 of the five ascending terraces, and the four prasats surrounding the central sanctuary equalled 108 shrines in total, one of the most sacred and astronomically significant numbers in Brahmanical religions (Filliozat 1954: 531–532, 538–539).3 As one approached the temple’s axial stairways, situated at the cardinal directions, to ascend the Bakheng, 33 shrines would come directly into view—the exact number of deities in the Hindu pantheon residing at Mount Meru. At the same time, from this same vantage point, only three of the five towers of the quincunx are visible. Remarking on this “double symbolism,” Filliozat notes that the three visible towers do not in this instance represent Mount Meru but the mountain cities of the Trimurti of Śiva, Viṣṇu, and Brahma. They thus correspond with Yaśovarman’s triadic shrines dedicated to the three principal deities at Phnom Bok and Phnom Krom (Filliozat 1954: 537, 547). Furthermore, the seven distinct tiers of the mountain-temple represented the seven heavens as well as the seven planets. Filliozat argued that together the 108 towers simulated and chartered the four phases of the moon and the 27 lunar mansions (nakṣatras) (4 × 27 = 108). In other words, the central prasat fixed the polar axis, and the 108 shrines circling this axis mundi materialized the four phases of the moon thus concretizing and activating the cosmic cycle (Filliozat 1954; Mabbett 1983b: 82). Filliozat further contends that the 60 towers grouped in “five sets of twelve, one set on each of the five terraces, represented the approximately twelveyear Bṛhaspaticakra or Jupiter cycle which, in multiples of five, was used as a dating era from early in the 5th century AD” (cited in Wheatley 1971: 437; see also Filliozat 1954: 547–548). He even argues that the 12 shrines on each of the 5 terraces symbolized the 12 animals of the Cambodian Zodiac. As explored in previous chapters, the Bakheng exemplifies how the ­semiotic ­process of symbolic accumulation (exhaustion) configured and activated microcosmic religious landscapes. Filliozat (1954: 553) refers to the monument as a

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totalizing symbol (“un symbolisme de totalité”). A powerful chronotope comparable to Huaca Colorada, it bundled together diverse cosmic cycles and calendars and their associated spaces. Consequently, the divine temporalities the temple materialized were multiple and shifting depending on the towers visible and the specific rituals and liturgies performed. The numerology of the Bakheng further evoked cosmogonic sacrificial rituals of the Vedas and divine exploits described in the purāṇas and agamas (Filliozat 1954). The Bakheng thus epitomizes a semiotic machine that materialized “the complete enumeration of a particular set,” an “insurance policy” that ensured the efficacy of the sacred place “by enumerating all contingencies… as an index of its goal” (Yelle 2013: 37). This ultimate goal entailed the creation of an ordered, moral world, with all elements consigned to their rightful place and ultimately indivisible from the operation and legitimacy of the state. In other words, the cosmic perfection of the monument intended to empower and legitimize the kingdom, and the intimate parallelisms condensed in the mountain-temple extended to and incorporated Yaśovarman’s other foundations, including the āśrama. Indeed, as instantiated by the central liṅga, this central icon of the Bakheng also accumulated the mountain and heavens together with the king’s body and sovereign realm. In this regard, the presiding semiotic ideology of Yaśovarman’s reign was based on a materially-grounded indexical iconicity in which the sign modalities of both resemblance and contiguity came equally into play. The Bakheng was built directly on the summit of a mountain and formed a literal extension of the massif while symbolizing Meru more generally. In contrast, the Moche temple of Huaca Colorada discussed in Chapter 6 was constructed on the plain and simulated the strikingly visible but distant Cerro Cañoncillo that loomed over the site. At Huaca Colorada, resemblance (iconicity), not direct contiguity, indexed the mountain and channelled its energies and creative powers (“dicentization”). This indexicality was redoubled in Yaśovarman’s temple constructions established directly on the peaks of all the prominent hills north of the Tonle Sap (Phnom Bok, Phnom Krom, Phnom Dei). Yaśovarman was also the first king to endow a foundation at the famous sanctuary of Preah Vihear on the Dangrek Mountains in northern Cambodia. In fact, the evidence strongly suggests that the mountains formed a seamless part of the temple, as the double moats of the aforementioned monuments in the Angkor region were built at the base of the hills and not directly around the sanctuaries in question (Chea 2018: 56). This association is further reinforced by the lack of construction fill at the Bakheng, and the main landings directly encased the core of the mountain revealing the indivisibility of hill and shrine (Chea 2018: 40). Such a construction technique rarely if ever characterized the building of later Angkorian temples. This “unambiguous” (physically contiguous) indexical iconicity also characterized the āśrama discussed below. The present archaeological evidence makes it difficult to ascertain whether Yaśovarman’s new city of Angkor was cosmographically arrayed in a similar

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fashion to his temple-mountain. Victor Goloubew (1933) was the first to correctly identify the Bakheng as Yaśovarman’s main shrine, and his study of aerial photographs led him to conclude that the city was circumvallated by an enormous enceinte, 12 sq. km, and thus considerably larger than Jayavarman’s later walled city of Angkor Thom (9 sq. km). Goloubew based his interpretation on the discovery of a huge cornered embankment, a presumed portion of a wall and moat, located to the southwest of the Bakheng. However, later archaeologists proved this L-shaped feature (CP807) dated to the mid-11th century and likely formed part of a massive hydraulic feature (Jacques 1999; Pottier 2000, 2012). Goloubew’s study nonetheless demonstrated that the city was likely divided into four main quarters as delimited by four raised causeways, 13–14 m wide, which extended outward from the centrally placed Bakheng to four cardinal directions (Goloubew 1933, 1934). These causeways originated directly beneath the laterite stairways that allowed access to the summit of the central mountain (Stuart-Fox and Reeve 2011: 115). In other words, all roads led to the state mountain temple. Other impressive roadways linked the urban āśrama to the east and to Yaśovarman’s temple in honour of his ancestors at Lolei in the former capital of Hariharālaya to the southeast. Recent LiDAR assays have shown that the impressive causeways consisted of composite constructions of four dikes that formed two causeways separated by a canal 20–30 m wide (Chea 2018: 71–75). New roads were no doubt also built to connect the provincial āśrama network with the capital, and the main urban monasteries were situated just north of the principal eastern causeway that led to Beng Melea to the East (Chea 2018: 70). Pottier’s (2000) research further revealed that early Angkor was not enclosed by an enceinte but constituted an “open city.” However, a clear hierarchy of space underwrote Yaśovarman’s urban planning, and he identified three concentric clines defining the urban landscape: the central core of temples and religious buildings within the double moat surrounding Phnom Bakheng; a dense urban settlement of house mounds and associated basins and fields symmetrically arrayed between the four principal causeways; and an outer circle of more dispersed residences and expansive agricultural installations to the east, mainly south of the East Baray and the urban āśrama. This plain south of the monasteries, watered by the baray, constituted the largest cardinally oriented system of rice fields in Yaśodharapura that stretched all the way to the floodplains of the Tonle Sap (Hawken 2013: 357). This 6,500 ha expanse of paddies may have fallen in part under the jurisdiction of the āśrama. In the end, Yaśovarman’s new capital appears to have exemplified a mandala that scaled up the microcosm of the Bakheng; both are marked by a concentrically quadripartite configuration that is essentially open but with delineated zones and symbolic boundaries. The Bakheng is framed on either side by the temples on the hills of Phnom Bok and Phnom Krom (both roughly 15 km from the central temple) and by the great cosmic ocean of the East Baray (Chea 2018: 53; Sanderson 2003–2004: 439). Thus, the plan of Yaśodharapura mirrored Mount Meru and

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the continents and oceans that surrounded it. This concentric organization also ­distinguishes the relationship of the urban and provincial āśrama, as I describe below. Yaśovarman’s foundation of a new capital city and his regime’s innovations in architectural construction and infrastructural investments exemplify how reterritorialization commonly underwrites profound political change. The East Baray alone was six to eight times larger than his predecessor’s reservoir, the Indrataṭāka at Hariharālaya (Chea 2018: 65; Jacques 1999: 45). As epitomized by the extraordinary semiotic density and accumulated cosmological symbolism of the Bakheng, Yaśovarman’s state apparatus also adopted an innovative aesthetic and spatial “code” that underwrote the foundation of the new capital, and the Bakheng style of sculpture and architecture came to define a distinctive artistic horizon in late 8th and early 9th century Angkor. As discussed in Chapter 2, coding as theorized by Deleuze and Guattari (1987, 2009) refers to “expressive elements” in assemblages that “fix identity” and impart meaning onto territorialized, social-material ­collectives (Jervis 2018: 38–39). Territorialization denotes the degree to which an assemblage of peoples, places, and things are bounded and interrelated, while coding refers to the explicit ideologies that signify and actively reproduce such territories (DeLanda 2016: 48). Codes thus meaningfully enchain objects, signs, and interpretants that cohere and fix material-spatial assemblages. As mentioned in Chapter 2, Lucas (2012: 200) offers the example of a church as an institution (and place) that is at once highly coded and territorialized, and this applies equally well to the East Baray, Bakheng, and Yaśovarman’s larger political landscape. As discussed in Chapter 2, for Deleuze and Guattari (1987: 427; 2009: 199), “despotic states” operate by means of “overcoding” (surcodage) social practices and institutions (Bonta and Protevi 2004: 122; Patton 2000: 91, 100). As a reminder, I define overcoding as signifying the superimposition by archaic states of standardized norms, aesthetics, performative genres, architectural templates, and material symbols—a dominant code of sorts—over the quotidian routines and traditions of local peoples. Such practices could have diverse objectives and consequences, including the promotion of a global sense of community (say, fostering economic ties or shared religious worldviews) or the hardening of boundaries between ethnic groups or between subjects and the elites of the state apparatus. Despite problems with Deleuze and Guattari’s underlying evolutionary scheme of “machinic” socio-spatial transformation, the notion of overcoding proves useful in interpreting Yaśovarman’s revolutionary program of place-making.4 The drive to devise a new code to more effectively reterritorialize the Angkorian world is evident in the bestowal of Yaśovarman’s name on his many building enterprises, including the state liṅga, āśrama, the East Baray, and his capital city. In fact, Yaśovarman broke from the usual Khmer tradition of naming cities after gods (Indrapura, Amarendrapura, Lingapura, Shivapura, Mahendraparavata, Hariharālaya, etc.) and conferred his regal appellation on the newly founded capital (Yaśodharapura) (Stern 1951: 656). In his efforts to centralize his regime, the king

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also reorganized provincial government districts, and institutionalized and fully imposed the ­administrative regions called pramān first developed during the reigns of Jayavarman II and Indravarman I (Chea 2018: 88–89; Dupont 1952: 172; Higham 1989: 342; 2001: 67). During his reign and that of his predecessor Indravarman I, most inscriptions record kingly commissions and feats, which contrast with the many pre-Angkorian commemorations celebrating temple foundations of nobles and aristocrats. This dominance of royal inscriptions, pointing to the centralizing policies of Yaśovarman, also characterized the later regime of Jayavarman VII (r. 1182–1218 CE), but less so in the intervening reigns (Chea 2018). In addition, Yaśovarman’s reign witnessed the development of an entirely new alphabet called kamvujākṣara, or the “writing of Kamvujā,” and the king was celebrated as the actual inventor of the script (Chea 2018: 82–83; Chea et al. 2023: 279–280; Estève and Soutif 2010–2011; Soutif 2009: 452; ISCC: 368, 376, 402, 411).5 The alphabet derives ultimately from the family of nāgarī w ­ riting of northern India (ISCC: 349), and Salomon contends (1998) that it originated from the siddhamātṛkā sub-tradition. This writing system developed in north India between the 6th and 10th centuries and is distinguished by angular letters, which in Cambodia became more florid in design (Estève and Soutif 2010–2011: 341–342). It likely spread to Cambodia from Java possibly via commercial ties, and it was discontinued at the end of Yaśovarman’s reign (ISCC: 349–351). The older, classical Khmer alphabet (which first appeared in the 5th century), originating from the Pallava script of Southern India, resumed its role as the main writing system at the death of the king.6 Nevertheless, the new alphabet was engraved on the famous “digraphic” stelae of the provincial Yaśodharāśrama that displayed the old and new scripts conveying comparable information on the same monolith. Side A was carved in the novel alphabet, while the traditional script was used on the other face (Side B). This overcoding of sorts intended to ensure that those unversed in the novel calligraphy could still read the inscriptions. In addition, they fulfilled a didactic function to propagate and impose Yaśovarman’s new writing system. Thus, the many āśrama of the provinces, the principal institutions of education in ancient Angkor (Pou 2002), appropriately housed these unusual digraphic stelae. The novel siddhamātṛkā alphabet was employed exclusively in the capital city āśrama (they were thus not “digraphic”), and the regime clearly expected urban elites and Brahmans to have mastered the script (Chea 2018: 83–84; Esteve and Soutif 2010–2011). The degree to which Yaśovarman’s regime codified the newly territorialized city is even evident in the inscription stelae erected at the four corners of the East Baray. These panegyrics, eulogizing the king, were carved with 27 stanzas on each of their four sides equalling 108 in total (Filliozat 1954: 553; ISCC: 432). In addition, all of the four stelae of the principal urban monasteries described below were engraved with precisely 108 stanzas (Estève 2009: 349–350). This consistent numerology clearly bound the inscriptions, the āśrama, and the great reservoir they commemorated with the cosmography of the Bakheng and the cosmic cycles it materialized.

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It further positioned Yaśovarman, fused with the great liṅga in the centre of the Bakheng and thus the city, as a living Meru and the divine representative of dharma and world order. The āśrama founded by Yaśovarman also worked to territorialize and codify his expanding regime, and Estève and Soutif (2010–2011: 346) describe the construction of the monasteries and the dedication of the digraphic stelae as an imperial strategy that served to map the sacred cartography of the kingdom and centralize (assemble) the realm (Dagens 2003: 29; Jacques 1999: 52).7 Much earlier, Abel Bergaigne referred to these unusual inscriptions as “posters in stone” (affiches de pierre) to express his understanding of the propagandistic and political intent of the standardized dedications (Coedès 1932: 265). The distribution of the provincial stelae and other sources reveal that Yaśovarman’s kingdom extended from the Cham regions of Vietnam in the east to southern Laos in the north and the likely the present-day Thai-Burmese border in the West (Chea 2018) (Figure 8.3). The subject of the following sections, the Yaśodharāśrama thus played a decisive role in the spatial production of empire. 8.1.2

The Yaśodharāśrama: Epigraphic Evidence

The inscription at Lolei (K. 323), the ancestral shrine commissioned by Yaśovarman in approximately 893 CE to honour his parents at Hariharālaya, proclaims that the king built four āśrama in his new capital in the vicinity of the East Baray and 100 additional monasteries in the provinces in “all four cardinal directions” (Chea 2018: 28–29; ISCC: 398–399). The stelae of the four corners of the Yaśodharataṭāka also praise how the foundation of 100 hermitages generated merit and honoured the king’s ancestors (ISCC: 442, n. 6). Furthermore, the stelae of the urban āśrama declared that the four supervisors of the religious orders must unite to protect and bless the great reservoir of the East Baray, providing a striking example of the indivisibility of the infrastructural and religious in ancient Cambodia (Chea 2018: 66–67; Pottier 2003). Recent archaeological research conducted by the Mission Yaśodharāśrama have confirmed earlier investigations that the four āśrama were founded along the south side and at the northeast corner of the Yaśodharataṭāka, thus corroborating the inscriptions (Chea 2018; Chea et al. 2023; Coedès 1932; Estève and Soutif 2010–2014; Esteve et al. 2015–2018; Pottier 2003; Trouvé 1932) (Figure 8.4). In addition, of the 100 hermitages commissioned in the provinces, 17 dedicatory stelae have been recovered in Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos (Chea et al. 2023; Estève and Soutif 2023: 332), and we have identified the characteristic cult buildings of the Yaśodharāśrama in at least seven provincial sites (four of which were associated with the digraphic inscriptions of the king). Since most of the monastery facilities were built of perishable wood that decomposed in the tropical climate, the figure of 100 provincial hermitages is unlikely hyperbole but probably approximates the past reality (or at least an accurate metaphor to signify a great multitude).

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FIGURE 8.3  Map

illustrating the location of known āśrama of Yaśovarman I, Sūryavarman I’s vīrāśrama, and Jayavarman VII’s hospitals in Southeast Asia. (Courtesy of the Yaśodharāśrama Research Program; GIS data of Angkorian roads, M. Hendrickson).

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FIGURE 8.4 Lidar

image indicating the location of East Baray and four urban āśrama of Angkor, and Lidar images of Prasat Komnap South. (Courtesy of the Yaśodharāśrama Research Program).

Similar to the “repetitive foundations” of later kings, including Sūryavarman I and Jayavarman VII, Yaśovarman commissioned the hermitages in the most venerable temples of the realm, including Wat Phu in Laos and Preah Vihear in northern Cambodia (Chea et al. 2023; Estève and Soutif 2010–2011: 334) (Figure 8.3).8 As discussed below, the founding of the āśrama in these prestigious sanctuaries, often dedicated to the pre-existing god of the temple in question, intended to co-opt and reterritorialize the most sacred and powerful places of the realm into a tightly centralized kingdom (Chea 2018: 132–133). The provincial inscriptions indicate that most āśrama were dedicated to Śiva (11 in total), but others were founded in honour of Viṣṇu (Narayana), Gaṇeśa, and other deities, including Nidrā, the Hindu goddess of sleep (K. 223) (Aymonier 1901: 332–333). The plurality of foundations matches the ecumenism of the capital city. However, the king dedicated two of the four foundations at Angkor to Śaiva sects, thus revealing the king’s adherence to this particular tradition as also reflected in the predominance of Śaiva monasteries in the hinterland (Estève 2009: 357). To facilitate the following analysis, I provide some background on the four āśrama of the capital (location, denomination, associated stelae, etc.). I then describe the inscriptions of the extant stelae before presenting the results of our

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archaeological excavations in both Angkor and the provinces in the subsequent section. Prasat Ong Mong designates the westernmost āśrama and the probable Buddhist monastery (saugatāśrama) likely associated with inscription K. 290 discovered by Étienne Aymonier at Tep Pranam in 1882, a later Theravada Vihāra in Angkor Thom (Chea 2018: 110). It is located along the central-western portion of the southern embankment of the East Baray, 2 km west of the temple of the Pre Rup temple (Figure 8.4). The vaiṣṇavāśrama of Prasat Komnap South, dedicated to Viṣṇu, is situated approximately 3 km to the east on the same axis, and the rules of this order are inscribed in inscription K. 701 found in situ. Prei Prasat, the brāhmaṇāśrama is located 1 km to the east of Prasat Komnap South, not far from the southeast corner of the Yaśodharataṭāka, and a portion of the inscription of K. 279 was discovered within the grounds of this Śaiva monastery. Finally, Prasat Komnap North, the likely māheśvarāśrama, named in the recently discovered K. 1228, is situated north and approximately 1 km west of the northeast corner of the East Baray (Figure 8.4) (Estève and Soutif 2010–2011: 32, FN 7).9 This monastery also housed a Śaiva denomination. The Mission Yaśodharāśrama has conducted excavations at Prasat Komnap South, Prei Prasat, and Ong Mong, and Socheat Chea undertook additional excavations at the latter Buddhist monastery as part of his dissertation research (2018). As intimated, over the years, scholars have found all four of the inscriptions of the urban monasteries, including two partially in situ. Trouvé discovered the ­complete stela in its original plinth at Prasat Komnap South (K. 701) within the largely destroyed aedicule (stela shrine). Fallen pieces of the vault revealed it was identical to the inscription pavilions identified at Ong Mong and Prei Prasat. The unique design of the laterite aedicule, with a square, vaulted roof resembling a “priest’s bonnet” (“bonnet de prêtre”), also housed the stelae of the four corners of the East Baray, and they formed an important component of Yaśovarman’s ­spatial and aesthetic “code” (Figure 8.5) (Boisselier 1966: 87; Trouvé 1932: 122–126). Aymonier discovered the base of the four-sided monolithic stela (K. 279) of Prei Prasat near

FIGURE 8.5 Characteristic

stela shelters (aedicule) of the Yaśodharāśrama from a) Pre Rup; b) Prasat Ong Mong; and c) Kuk Ta Prohm. (Photos courtesy of the Yaśodharāśrama Research Program).

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the southeast angle of the baray, while George Trouvé (1932: 121) recovered its top portion just 16 m to the northeast of the likely stela shrine and characteristic “Long Building” (see below).10 As mentioned, the stela of the saugatāśrama was likely moved after the abandonment of the monastery of Ong Mong to the later Buddhist sanctuary of Tep Pranam. The well-preserved aedicule of Ong Mong is missing its stela, and given the clustering of later Buddhist structures (Ta Prohm, Banteay Kdei and Bat Chum) in the vicinity of the hermitage, it most likely sheltered K. 209. Finally in 1994, the stela of K. 1228 was discovered at the site of Kôk Ta Soeng, but reports indicated that it was moved from Prasat Komnap North, thus indicating that this monastery was the māheśvarāśrama (Estève 2009: 339–344; Pottier 2003). Based on the discovery of the stelae at Prei Prasat and Prasat Komnap South, as well as their shared architectural styles, Coedès (1932: 266–268) and Trouvé (1932) correctly surmised that the āśrama clustered along the south embankment of the Yaśodharataṭāka. Many years later, Pottier’s research confirmed the location of the monasteries (2003), and his detailed survey revealed standardized and elaborate constructions consisting of rectangular and partitioned enclosures delineated by dikes and embankments. Our subsequent research further demonstrated that the visible bâtiment long (“Long building”) at Prei Prasat and associated stela aedicule to the northeast also characterized Ong Mong, Prasat Komnap South, and Prasat Komnap North. The inscriptions engraved on the four sides of the tall monoliths of the urban āśrama provide invaluable information on the operation and political significance of the Yaśodharāśrama, and I present only a synopsis here.11 As a kind of overcoding, the inscriptions are near identical in their writing, poetic meter, and the information conveyed (and set verses are also identical to the inscriptions of Lolei and the baray stelae) (Coedès 1932). They differ, however, in terms of the denomination specified and in stanzas (śloka) that detail distinct rules and rituals specific to the monastery in question. Thus, in the nearly identical stelae of the urban and provincial āśrama, the first stanzas pay homage to the divine triad (Brahma, Viṣṇu, Śiva) united in Śiva, while the next 15 stanzas provide a detailed genealogy of Yaśovarman and his association with Khmer cities (Coedès 1932: 244; ISCC: 402, 369–371). They also recount his relationship to the founder of the Angkorian dynasty, Jayavarman II. The next 30 or more stanzas eulogize the king, glorifying his power, beauty, bravery, strength, sacrifices, generous donations, and military victories often through poetic metaphor and allusions to mythic events and godly exploits (Esteve and Soutif 2010–2011: 333). The Yaśodharataṭāka is also invoked as the divine reservoir that “drowned the pride of all kings” (Coedès 1932: 252, stanza XLVI). The stanzas that follow stipulate the rules and regulations of each āśrama, and though often identical, sectarian differences explain some of the variations between texts (see Coedès 1932). Among the shared rules, non-ordained men were denied entrance to the sanctuaries, and the āśrama were off-limits to common women and

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prostitutes. However, the inscriptions report that they provided a refuge for persecuted innocents (from commoners to black cows) who received access to care, medicine, and food (Coedès 1932: 258; Pottier 2003: 202). The inscriptions also prohibit the killing of animals within the monasteries or along the dike of the baray (Coedès 1932: 259). The texts further explain that the orders would accommodate any hermit or monk seeking enlightenment in the subjects of grammar, science, and doctrinal exegesis. Subsidized by the state, hermits, students, Brahmans, and monks (bhikṣu, in the saugatāśrama) were provisioned with daily rations of rice, areca nuts, betel, firewood, chalk, and toothpicks. The inscriptions also note that revered ascetics received writing equipment, ewers, and incense burners every four months as well as a new divan, scissors, and a razor once a year (Coedès 1932: 259). The institutions as a whole received allotments of gold, silver, and alms bowls during specified periods of the year, while the quantity of goods distributed depended on the age and standing of the individual monastics. The rules even ­specify that 10 servants would attend the head professor (adhyāpaka), while 20 or so attendants assisted the superior (kulapati/kulādhyakṣa). Each āśrama was allocated two scribes, two librarians, two guardians of the royal suite (rājakuṭi), two distributors of betel, two porters of water, six sheet makers, two supervisors of slaves, four torch bearers, eight cooks, and twelve female slaves to prepare rice (Coedès 1932: 260–261). Finally, all four inscriptions stipulate that at the end of each month, āśrama dignitaries would offer a funerary cake (most likely a rice dumpling) to the unfortunate deceased, including those who perished in battle, starved to death, or expired without living descendants (Chea 2018: 156; Coedès 1932: 258). This elaborate ritual occurred at the edge of the Baray, and it clearly functioned in part as a fertility rite and as a benediction to protect the great reservoir. Remarkably, archaeological research has identified sizeable, processional causeways that link all of the monasteries directly to the embankment of the Yaśodharataṭāka (Pottier 2003: 204) (Figure 8.4). At Prasat Komnap South, we discovered the dispersed vestiges of an altar or shrine built of brick in alignment with the causeway and directly on the upper ridge of reservoir. At Ong Mong, the survey team also recovered fragments of stone sculpture in the Bakheng style on the south embankment of the great ­reservoir near the terminus of the causeway (Chea 2018: 186). Hence, the archaeological evidence supports the epigraphic record. As mentioned, differences between the four inscriptions also shed light on the hermitages’ sectarian practices and unique rituals and educational mission. For instance, the Śaivite māheśvarāśrama included hermits of vipra (learned ones) and dvija (twice born) status, both of the Brahmanical caste. However explicitly named “Brahmans” (brāhmaṇa), are only referenced in the inscription of Prei Prasat (brāhmaṇāśrama) along with vipra and dvija.12 Estève (2009: 357) argues that the latter monastery, as also apparent in its name, possibly housed an exclusive class of Brahmanical priests (brāhmaṇa) (Coedès 1932: 263). Nevertheless, as a whole,

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the inscriptions rank Brahmans above the Buddhist masters (ācārya) (Woodward 2015: 219–220). In addition, celibacy was expected only of the monastics of the vaiṣṇavāśrama (Prasat Komnap South), and in this hermitage, students pursued the study of the doctrines of the pañcarātra sect, a core philosophical and devotional school in Vaiṣṇavaism (Bhattacharya 1955a, 1961). In contrast, the Pāśupata order played a central role in the Śaivite hermitages of the brāhmaṇāśrama (Prei Prasat) and māheśvarāśrama (Prasat Komnap North) (Estève 2009). Ordinary and caustic ash, used for ritual bathing and to anoint the chignon (hair bun) of ascetics (­tapasvin, yati), common practices of this influential Śaiva order, are mentioned in K. 279 and K. 1228, and ash was regularly donated to these two monasteries along with ewers and incense-burners (Bhattacharya 1955b; Estève 2009: 355).13 In addition, Buddhists of suspect morals and ignorant of the doctrines were declared ineligible for dwelling in the hermitages, while the Vaiṣṇava did not depart their monastery to seek alms, unlike the Śaivite hermits and Buddhists (Bhattacharya 1961). Alms bowls formed part of the rations provisioned to the saugatāśrama, while an officiant of sacrifice (yajvan), mentioned in the other stelae, is unsurprisingly absent in the Buddhist hermitage (Coedès 1932: 263). The digraphic stelae of the provinces convey similar information as the urban āśrama but in a much more abridged and streamlined manner. Although ­dedicated to particular deities, the inscriptions suggest that the provincial monasteries were more inclusive (thus, less sectarian) than the four capital āśrama and open to ascetics of different denominations (Coedès 1932: 262). Although the two-sided slabs of stones often varied in size, they assumed the same form, distinctive to Yaśovarman’s reign, with their upper end carved in a truncated peak or accolade (Chea 2018: 84). In addition, all the recovered digraphic inscriptions were engraved with identical texts. However, Stanza 36 consistently differs for it specified the god and religious order to which the āśrama was dedicated (Coedès 1932: 264–266; Estève and Soutif 2010–2011; ISCC 374). In the 17 extant provincial stelae, Face A is engraved with 50 stanzas in Sanskrit in the new script, while Face B was carved with 49 stanzas in the classic alphabet of Cambodian Sanskrit with the final line in Khmer. Stanza L (50) in Sanskrit on one side and Khmer on the other, explicitly mentions Yaśovarman’s introduction of the new alphabet to educate the people (Estève and Soutif 2010–2011: 341). Unlike the urban monasteries, the provincial stelae indicate that the orders were founded explicitly as a Yaśodharāśrama in 889 CE (śaka 811), and then the deity of the specific foundation is invoked. The provincial stelae also mandated a modest dress code (only white, simple clothing was permitted) and declared that high-status individuals were expected to descend from their chariots when approaching the monasteries. Similarly, parasols, common symbols of high status, were forbidden on the grounds of the hermitages (Estève and Soutif 2010–2011: 340). In addition, the provincial inscriptions specify punishments meted out to those who transgressed the rules of the monasteries, the severity of which was based on one’s status. For instance, nobles had to pay a much higher fine in gold than commoners (Jacques

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1999: 53). If one was too poor to pay the fine, then the transgressor was punished with 100 strokes of a cane. In their analysis of the digraphic stelae of Wat Phu (K. 1005) and Houay Tomo (K. 362) in modern-day Laos, Estève and Soutif (2010–2011: 342–343) discovered that an addendum in Khmer was etched into the stone below the last stanza of Face B (line 50) in both inscriptions. This verse was engraved in smaller letters and at a shallower depth than the preceding text. It declares that the devotees of the monastery did not fall under the command of the governor of the province but were responsible solely to the chief of the religious community, who was ultimately subservient to the king. These stanzas assert the political and economic independence of the monasteries (from the temples to which they were affixed) and the great authority of the Angkorian monarch who commissioned the hermitages. The epigraphic record of the āśrama of the capital city and the 17 extant stelae of the provinces reveal that the Yaśodharāśrama shared little in common with conventional understandings of an “ashram.” The state-sponsored, “top-down” institutions differ significantly from the humble, forest abodes housing world-renouncing anchorites seeking peace, repose, enlightenment, penitential austerities, and abnegation of the material world. Unlike the āśrama celebrated in the Indian epics, The Yaśodharāśrama did not provide a means to escape civilization (the city) or the prevailing political order but served to promote and institutionalize state ideology (Estève and Soutif 2010–2011; Hara 2017: 73). As indicated in the inscriptions, the āśrama were prosperous, well-endowed, and lively institutions of learning, elaborate rituals, and production, as also confirmed by our recent archaeological investigations. Therefore, the hermitages conform more closely to our understanding of “monastery,” a word I have purposively employed throughout the chapter. Indeed, Pou’s (2002) detailed study reveals that in ancient Cambodia “āśrama” could refer to different kinds of places and institutions (hospice, refuge, school, home of the deity, sacred fire, etc.), ranging from the isolated caves of reclusive hermits seeking god to wealthy and influential monastic orders (Chea 2018: 123). In the Angkorian Period, the term commonly denoted the latter, while in the Medieval era (beginning in the 15th century) the former understanding became increasingly prevalent. The dedication of hundreds of āśrama by Yaśovarman may have been inspired by the great Indian sage Śaṅkara’s establishment of Śaiva “monasteries” (maṭha) throughout India (Harris, I 2005: 13–15), and apparently the purohita (chief priest) of the preceding king Indravarman I, Śivasoma, studied with this revered guru (Coedès 1964: 205). The texts make clear that as early as the pre-Angkorian period, the commissioning of āśrama conferred great merit on the founder, whether king, high priest, or lesser officials (Pou 2002). These institutions also served as important centres of learning where students pursued study in Sanskrit, grammar, astrology, arithmetic, medicine, sculpture, architecture, law, and, of course, religious ritual and philosophy (Pou 2002: 326–327). Similar to the later Buddhist temples and vihāra, the earlier Angkorian āśrama qua monasteries served as critical fulcra of socialization and education in ancient Cambodia (Pou 2002: 335).

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In any event, both kinds of āśrama (individual and collegiate; Pou 2002: 320) existed in Angkor, and Chevance’s (2013) archaeological investigations at Mount Kulen have demonstrated that this forested hill, with its caves and streams, provided a popular haven for highly esteemed anchorites and recluses from the early Angkorian period until recent times. Of course, in India, āśrama also varied in size and social organization, and the distinction between hierarchical institution and holy place of asceticism, renunciation, and spiritual discovery was often blurred (Vyas 1967: 267). The location, distinctive materiality, and spatial configuration of the Yaśodharāśrama strongly suggest that Yaśovarman and his gurus embraced the multiple meanings of the āśrama. Alternate connotations may even have extended, at least obliquely, to the other meaning of “āśrama” as denoting the four sequential stages of life of the devout twice-born Hindu: the celibate student (brahmacarya); married householder (gārhasthya); forest hermit (vānaprasthya); and renunciant (samṇyāsa).14 Each āśrama or stage, ideally occupied ¼ of a Brahman’s life span who progressed from participation in social life to pious withdrawal from the material world (Olivelle 1993: 31–34). It seems telling that the king founded exactly four monasteries in the capital, and this number plays an important role in the king’s inscriptions and architectural symbolism (thus providing another example of “symbolic accumulation”).15 It also deserves mention that scholars have argued that finding God (Brahman) in the forest through prayers and austerities (tapas) led to the eventual eclipse of the traditional Vedic sacrifices, and the ashram significantly shaped Hinduism as a whole (Desjardins 1972). As a place of intense prayer and devotion, anchored by a sacrificial fire (agni-sala), the forest ashram, whether inhabited by one rishi or an entire order of hermits, constituted one of the most important institutions mentioned in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, two epics popular in Angkor (Olivelle 1993: 22–24; Vyas 1967).16 For instance, Rama, exiled from Ayodhya, sought refuge in multiple āśrama on his journey to Lanka. The Brahmanical sources indicate that the traditional hermitage should be established by a flowing river, a role perhaps fulfilled by the nearby baray. Further described as a “place of plenty” associated with flowers, fuel, and abundant food (Vyas 1967: 266), the location of the Yaśodharāśrama between the great baray and the most extensive agricultural fields in the Angkorian heartland no doubt conveyed multiple meanings. The archaeological investigations of the Yaśodharāśrama confirm the complex and overlapping symbolism of this remarkable institution. 8.1.3

Archaeological Investigations of the Urban Yaśodharāśrama

Archaeological investigations of the urban āśrama of the capital and recent surveys and preliminary excavations of the provincial foundations have confirmed Pottier’s (2003) mapping and remote sensing assays that Yaśovarman’s monasteries were remarkably standardized in construction and layout. The four in Angkor, however, differ in important ways from the hermitages in the hinterland. The following describes the general patterns identified in the intensive excavations of Prasat

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Komnap South, Ong Mong, and Prei Prasat, but to facilitate comparison, I leave out much of the specifics and focus on general trends and insights. My analysis draws from the technical reports of our excavations over the years (Estève and Soutif 2010–2014; Estève et al. 2015–2018; Swenson et al. 2020, 2022). I also reference the dissertations of Socheat Chea (2018), who conducted research at Ong Mong, and Kristyn Hara (2017), who undertook an anthracological study of brunt wood remains from Ong Mong and Prasat Komnap South.17 In total, the team has excavated long trenches (some more than 40 m long) and block units at three of the urban āśrama, totalling hundreds of square meters, including approximately 60 units at Prasat Komnap South, 14 at Prei Prasat, and 13 at Ong Mong (Socheat 2018: 190–191). As mentioned, the āśrama in Angkor consisted of rectangular enclosures that measured on average 375 × 150 m with their long axis paralleling the East Baray, which they mimic notably in shape and orientation (Figure 8.4). The enclosure walls constructed of mounded earth (elongated dikes) measure 2 m high and 15 m wide and were surrounded by moats on either sides of comparable dimensions (15 m across). Prei Prasat, Prasat Komnap South, and Prasat Komnap North were divided into 3 main sectors delineated by interior dikes, canals, and earthen partitions. These interior dividers run north-south and abut the large embankments forming the monastery perimeter walls. For instance, topographic survey revealed

FIGURE 8.6 Air

photograph of Prasat Komnap South, illustrating the three main partitions of the āśrama, the trapeang, and the causeway leading to the Eastern Baray. (Courtesy of the Yaśodharāśrama Research Program).

264  The Āśrama and Hospital Foundations of Ancient Angkor

that a canal framed by two dikes separated the westernmost and central zones of the āśrama at Prasat Komnap South (Hara 2017: 124). The eastern and central sectors are larger and cover a roughly square area, while the western zone is smaller and rectangular in shape (Pottier 2003) (Figure 8.6). Ong Mong, the Buddhist āśrama, appears to have been bisected into just two sectors, and it was framed on either side by small basins (Chea 2018: 182). This contrasts with the larger and more prominent eastern trapeang built to the east of Prei Prasat, Prasat Komnap South, and Prasat Komnap North. As discussed briefly above, the easternmost sector was associated with religious buildings, educational facilities, and possibly lodgings for esteemed gurus. The structures were footed on an elevated earthen terrace, and subsidiary mounds and ponds were also maintained within this sector, with a basin consistently found in the northeast corner of the enclosures of the excavated monasteries (Chea 2018: 271–273). The central zone served as a residential and production area for presumably hermits, students, pilgrims, and servants, and habitation mounds and a number of basins distinguish this sector. The western third of the āśrama appears to have been dedicated to gardens for possible spiritual retreats. They may also simply have provided pastureland and a source of fruit and other such resources. Ground Penetrating Radar assays (2010–2011) and subsequent excavations of the āśrama confirm that the main religious and educational facilities were located in the auspicious eastern third of the site. The same basic architectural template distinguishes this eastern zone of the four urban āśrama. They include the main cult building (“Bâtiment Long”/“Long Building”), the stela shrine or aedicule, and elongated galleries that consisted mainly of wooden structures supported on laterite foundations. These structures surrounded the aedicule and Long Building on all four sides, and the latter clearly formed the cultic epicentre of the āśrama. A causeway and elaborate trapeang were also built immediately east of the enclosures just beyond the perimeter wall of the monastery. The elevated walkways consist of flat, long dikes that run more than 300 m north-south and measure 16 m wide (Figures 8.4 and 8.6). They tend to fan out as they meet the reservoir (expanding to a width of 70 m), and they link the northeast corner of the rectangular enclosures of the three southern āśrama to the south dike of the Eastern Baray (Chea 2018: 261). The counterpart at Prasat Komnap North connects the southeastern corner of the north embankment of the monastery enclosure with the north embankment of the Yaśodharataṭāka. These causeways correspond precisely with the processional paths traversed in rituals mentioned in the inscriptions that entailed the offering of funerary cakes on the banks of the baray. The round but somewhat squared eastern basins of the monasteries measure between 45 to 70 m across (with the largest at Prei Prasat) and seem to index in miniature the East Baray in terms of shape and relative location (Figure 8.7). Excavations at Prasat Komnap South confirm that a short causeway connected these ponds with the eastern entrances of the āśrama, directly on axis at Prei Prasat or aligned with the southern ridge of the pond at Prasat Komnap South (Pottier

The Āśrama and Hospital Foundations of Ancient Angkor  265

FIGURE 8.7 

Trapeang still containing water at Prasat Komnap South.

2003). Excavations at the latter site further reveal that the basins were renovated multiple times and were thus maintained throughout the centuries-long history of the monastic complexes (Hara 2017). The trapeang no doubt fulfilled ritual and symbolic functions, while also providing a stable source of water for each of the hermitages. Excavation and survey further demonstrated that the main cult buildings of the monasteries occupied the centre of the eastern quadrant of the āśrama (Figure 8.8). The two principal edifices consisted of the stela pavilion with its characteristic vaulted roof and the approximately 25 to 35 m Long Building (“bâtiment long”) constructed of laterite walls that supported a wooden superstructure and tiled roof. This elongated building was located approximately 5–8 m to the southwest of the dedicatory chapels, and the excavations of Prasat Komnap South, Prei Prasat, and Ong Mong revealed that a formal and expansive pavement of laterite slabs surrounded these central edifices (Figure 8.9). The aedicule housing the stela formed the centrepiece of the sacred eastern zone as it was placed directly on the eastwest axis of the enclosure framed on all four sides by the surrounding annex or gallery buildings (see below). At Prasat Komnap South, the stela pavilion was also perfectly aligned with the entrance of the eastern gate of the perimeter of the monastery. The gridding of the ceremonial nucleus of the āśrama focused directly on the inscription clearly intended to celebrate the generosity of Yaśovarman and

266  The Āśrama and Hospital Foundations of Ancient Angkor

FIGURE 8.8  Map

of the Eastern ceremonial sector of Prasat Komnap South (upper r­ egister). Typical Long Building and stela pavilion of Angkor’s āśrama based on an overlay of the excavation plans of Prasat Komnap South and Prasat Ong Mong with Georges Trouvé’s plan of Prei Prasat (lower register) (Image courtesy of Yaśodharāśrama Research Program; CAD rendering by Socheat Chea).

highlight the king’s agency in the establishment of the monasteries and the great karmic fruit they bestowed on the monarch and his people (Chea 2018: 314). The laterite aedicule was open on all four sides, respecting the cardinal directions, and its corner walls were built of three vertical columns of stone that supported the vault (Figure 8.5). Thus, the massive prismatic stela sheltered within would have been visible from all directions of approach. A deep pit was found in the interior

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FIGURE 8.9 Long Buildings and pavement excavated at Prei Prasat and Prasat Komnap

South. Sculpted pediment of the collapsed stela pavilion, Prasat Komnap South. (Photos courtesy of the Yaśodharāśrama Research Program).

of the aedicule of Ong Mong, where an offering was undoubtedly placed under the consecrated stela. The Long Building, a signature of Yaśovarman’s āśrama in both the capital and provincial temples, consisted of a central shrine bookended on each side by a vestibule and porch (Figure 8.8). This main cult structure was identical in layout and orientation, but differed in size, with the largest documented at the Buddhist āśrama of Ong Mong. Brick or laterite stairs permitted entrance to the porches, which provided access to the vestibules that adjoined the central, rectangular ­chamber. Large, square postholes supported laterite pillars of the long building at Prei Prasat, the best preserved of these constructions, while wooden posts likely supported the roofs at the three other monasteries.18 In fact, the staggered configuration of postholes in the laterite patio indicates that the first Long Buildings consisted of provisional wooden structures that were soon replaced by the laterite shrines (Chea 2018). The statue of the presiding deity of the āśrama was housed in the main cell of these sanctuaries as evinced by the discovery of two sandstone pedestals in the vicinity of the Long Building of Prei Prasat (Trouvé 1932) and the feet of a statue and a guardian lion in the aedicule of Ong Mong (Chea 2018: 117). The lion must have guarded the nearby eastern entrance of the long building at the latter hermitage. We also recovered abundant statue fragments adjacent to the characteristic long building in our excavations of the provincial hermitage of Prasat Khna (Swenson et al. 2020) (Figure 8.10). In addition, excavations yielded fine kulen cups and lids, likely used in the preparation of ritual offerings such as perfumes or unguents, in an excavation trench just to the south of the Long Building at Prei Prasat (Figure 8.11). We have identified the Long Building of the urban āśrama with the rājakuṭi (“king’s cell”) mentioned in the inscriptions (Chea et al. 2023). Barth (ISCC: 375, n. 2), and Coedès argued that the rājakuṭi served quite literally as the private abode for the king during his visits to the monastery, perhaps to inspect the orders or benefit from periodic spiritual retreats. However, the term more likely signified a shrine or a house for a god. In fact, a later inscription of Sūryavarman I at Sivapada

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FIGURE 8.10  Statuary

recovered from the area of the Long Building in excavations ­conducted at the provincial āśrama of Prasat Khna, Preah Vihear Province.

(Prasat Neak Buos), in Preah Vihear province, a sanctuary where Yaśovarman dedicated an āśrama, sheds light on the function of the rājakuṭi. The inscription declares that he commissioned one of his officials to donate brick foundations to the vraḥ kuṭi of Śri Yaśodharāśrama (Chea 2018: 143–144). Vraḥ refers to a sacred entity of any kind, whether god, king, or statue and often substitutes for rāja. In light of these etymological parallels and the archaeological findings, the rājakuṭi most likely designates the main sanctuary, i.e. the Long Building, founded by the king in all his āśrama across the realm, as opposed to his actual residence within the hermitages (Chea 2018: 143–144; Chea et al. 2023). Excavations at Ong Mong, Prasat Komnap South, and Prei Prasat further confirmed that long gallery buildings surrounded the aedicule and the rājakuṭi on all four sides (Figure 8.8). They were constructed of laterite foundation walls, often just one to three courses high that supported wooden superstructures. The laterite alignments delimiting the elongated rectangular enclosures measure 20–25 m long and 4 to 5 m wide, with the most sizeable structures excavated at Prei Prasat (Figure 8.12). In our excavations, we discovered the laterite wall foundations 60 cm to 1.5 m below the surface, and they were usually laid on a layer of laterite gravel. This deposit of laterite fragments may also have also derived from the c­ arving of

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FIGURE 8.11  Kulen-style

vessels and lids recovered in situ, just south of the Long Building, Prei Prasat.

the blocks in situ. The wall foundations, often cut with circular postholes, supported an elevated wooden floor and the deposit of dense sand separating the wall alignments from the long-gone higher floor (often visible in the stratigraphy as a linear and compacted zone of circulation) commonly consisted of a deposit of ceramics, loose bricks, charcoal, and other materials. This likely constituted the “drop zone” between the covered laterite footer and the elevated wooden floor. The floor was likely supported by stilts along the centre line of the long galleries and around its peripheries. Posts also extended upward to anchor the roof, and postholes were either cut deep into the foundation stone or were placed directly on slightly reshaped laterite blocks. It seems these long and narrow structures lacked walls and functioned as open halls or pavilions, and their arrangement around the aedicule and long building resemble the continuous galleries that would later surround Angkorian temples by the end of the 10th century (Chea 2018: 304–305). In fact, the four separate buildings fixed at the cardinal directions may have cited the Mount Meru configuration of Yaśovarman’s innovative state temple of the Bakheng. It deserves mention that stratigraphic and radiometric analyses confirm the contemporaneity of the gallery rooms with the two central cult buildings and the

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FIGURE 8.12 Drone

photograph of excavated annex buildings at Prei Prasat, surrounding the Long Building, and the excavation of one such structure at Prasat Komnap South. (Drone photograph courtesy of Nicolas Josso.)

surrounding gallery enclosures, and this consistent assemblage of buildings was initially constructed at the end of the 9th century (Chea 2018; Hara 2017: 129). Remarkably, this core group of religious architecture was maintained throughout the long use-history of the monasteries (over 300 years). The conservation of the remarkably standardized layout of the religious sector of the four āśrama, from the time of their founding to centuries after the death of Yaśovarman, reveals an “institutionalized architectonic schema” and one that did not develop in an “organic, ad hoc” fashion (Hara 2017: 130). The high quantity of tile in the excavations of the eastern zone reveals in turn the ceremonial importance of this zone, as Angkorian sumptuary regulations limited the use of tiles to the houses of gods, monasteries, and palaces (and commoners could only build roofs with thatch) (Zhou 2007: 49–50). Tiles of all kinds were much more abundant in the east quadrant than in the central domestic area and the hypothesized western garden sector of the āśrama (Figure 8.13) (Choi 2019). Clearly, the central structures and surrounding galleries were all roofed with elaborate tiles. Hara’s analysis of charcoal samples from Prasat Komnap South and Ong Mong also suggests that the eastern ceremonial zone was kept cleaner than the domestic areas of the hermitages (2017: 171). In other words, evidence of wood burnt as fuel for production and cooking activities was not as common in the eastern religious sector as in the zones to the west. In terms of their function, the long gallery buildings may have housed religious icons and provided dedicated spaces for prayer and ritual performances. In fact, a characteristic “fire spoon” in bronze was discovered in the southern gallery hall at Prasat Komnap South, a utensil (with equivalents in India) employed in the important Fire Ceremony in Angkor (Soutif 2017) (Figure 8.14). Even if this rite did not occur in the hall, it would seem important ritual implements may

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FIGURE 8.13 

Excavation of fallen tiles in the eastern sector of Prasat Komnap South.

FIGURE 8.14 Spoon

employed in fire rituals, recovered from excavations of the south hall of Prasat Komnap South (photograph courtesy of Dominique Soutif).

have been stored in the surrounding annex building (Chea 2018: 316). Given their precise configuration, the gallery rooms may also have guided pilgrims in their ritual ­circumambulation of the main cult area. They must have also fulfilled the ­educational and religious mandate of the monasteries as halls of instruction, study, manuscript copying, and library curation. The long halls could have housed a

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number of c­ ongregants, gurus, monastics, and students, and individuals may have been seated on either side of the interior of the structures, with the teacher or master providing lessons from the centre or possibly one of the ends of the elongated buildings. The domestic zone of the central portion of the urban āśrama (or the western half of Ong Mong) consisted of four or more mounds surrounded by circular basins and possibly small agricultural plots (Chea 2018: 271–275) (Figure 8.4). These mounds once supported wooden houses and verandas on stilts, and excavations of this sector, mainly at Ong Mong and Prasat Komnap South (and to a lesser extent Prei Prasat), exposed small garbage pits containing animal bone and scattered refuse as well as high concentrations of utilitarian ware and burnt debris (Chea 2018; Hara 2017). Tiles were also notably fewer in the living area than the eastern ceremonial precinct. Similar to the attached residential encampments of Sectors A and C at the Moche temple of Huaca Colorada discussed in Chapter 6, the central precincts of the monasteries must have housed diverse communities invoked in the inscriptions, including pilgrims, artisans, servants, cooks, students, and religious specialists. However, the poor preservation of perishable architecture in Angkor makes it difficult to reconstruct the configuration of individual domiciles beyond the clear association of one or two mounds with a basin. Nevertheless, the ceramic repertoire of the residential areas of the āśrama exhibits a notable diversity, and wares originated from different production sites of the Angkorian kingdom. They include: Kulen glazed and unglazed stone wares (9th to 11th centuries) originating from a number of kilns in the Angkorian and Kulen regions; Choeung Ek (11th to 14th centuries) pottery that derives from kilns south of present day Phnom Penh; later imported Buriam ceramics (12th century and beyond) manufactured in what is today Buriram Province, Thailand; and a few specimens of Torp Chey stonewares (13th–14th centuries) produced at a kiln site near Beng Mealea, roughly 40 kilometers east of Angkor (Desbat 2023). We also recovered fine and glazed pottery in the central domestic zone in significantly higher numbers than the more informal residences surrounding the monastic enclosure at Ong Mong and Prasat Komnap South (Chea 2018: 279). In addition, small numbers of Chinese porcelains were noted, and clearly some of the occupants of the central domestic area enjoyed high status. Excavation further uncovered burnt wood charcoal derived from highland tree species that grew over 100 kilometres to the north (Dangrek Mountains). In fact, Hara’s anthracological analysis reveals that Yaśovarman’s monasteries formed part of long-distance exchange networks and could readily access prized resources (Hara 2017: 190). Furthermore, excavations yielded the manufacturing items of weavers, carpenters, blacksmiths (iron slag) and goldsmiths in small quantities suggesting that some of the residents of Prasat Komnap South and Ong Mong engaged in production activities (Chea 2018: 264; 279–280). Excavation trenches opened in the western quadrangle at Prasat Komnap South uncovered the remnants of a canal but little else, with ceramics present but in considerably fewer numbers than the two zones to the East. Although future work is

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required, the canal might point to the establishment of gardens, pastures, or fruit tree stands in this area. Perhaps the western enclosure intended to recreate a contained forest environment for spiritual retreat as well as a source of food for the monasteries. The fact that this space is clearly delineated and enclosed within the quadrangle of the larger monastery suggests that it most likely fulfilled specific symbolic and economic functions. As mentioned, the Buddhist āśrama of Ong Mong lacked this partition and the broader western zone appears to represent an extension of the domestic area. Finally, and worth repeating, excavations prove that the āśrama of the city of Angkor were occupied for over 300 years, spanning the end of the 9th to the beginning of the 13th century. Throughout this long period, stratigraphic and ceramic analyses indicate that the monastics maintained the central Long Building and aedicule as well as the surrounding annex buildings. At the saugatāśrama of Ong Mong, two short texts in Khmer were added to the commemorative stela (K. 290) in the early 11th century at the base of the monolith following the rules and regulations in Sanskrit first inscribed in the late 9th century (Chea 2018: 160; IC III: 231). The addendum recounts the donations of furniture and rice fields as well as an attached monastery (vīrāśrama—the āśrama of the heroes) to the Buddhist hermitage by the later and powerful king Sūryavarman I. Following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Yaśovarman, Sūryavarman founded vīrāśrama throughout the realm, often in the same venerable sanctuaries, and he thus embraced a similar political strategy of place-making as the early king and even established his monasteries within the earlier king’s repetitive foundations, as indicated by the inscription of K. 290 (Chea et al. 2023). This latter addendum to the inscription reveals the continued prestige and prosperity of Ong Mong more than 100 years after the founding of the Buddhist hermitage by Yaśovarman (Chea 2018: 162). 8.1.4 Preliminary Archaeological Investigations of the Provincial Yaśodharāśrama

Reconnaissance of known provincial āśrama founded by Yaśovarman, and three years of excavation at the site of Prasat Khna in Preah Vihear Province, Cambodia, have also revealed important patterns that inform my interpretations in the following sections. As discussed, the many āśrama founded beyond the city of Angkor housed standardized inscriptions placed in aedicule shelters characteristic of Yaśovarman’s reign. Significantly, they were also associated with the typical Long Buildings, the surviving examples of which tended to be more elaborate than their counterparts in the independent monasteries of the capital. At sites, such as Neak Buos, Preah Vihear, and Wat Phu, they were constructed not simply of wood and laterite, but also sandstone carved with elaborate geometric and floral decorations (Figure 8.15). Interestingly, these main cult buildings were consistently situated just beyond the main enceinte of the prestigious temple to which they were attached, but never directly within the immediate sanctuary grounds. At sites such

274  The Āśrama and Hospital Foundations of Ancient Angkor

FIGURE 8.15 Long

Buildings of Prasat Khna (upper register) and Prasat Neak Buos (lower register).

as Huei Thamo and Wat Phu in present-day Laos as well as Prasat Khna, Prasat Neak Buos, and Prasat Trâpeang Thnâl Svay in Preah Vihear province, Cambodia, the location of the Long Buildings straddled the axis of the principal entrance into the temples (Figures 8.16 and 8.17). Therefore, Yaśovarman’s iconic cult buildings and stela pavilions constituted the first construction visitors encountered on their approach to the most venerable sanctuaries of the realm, a powerful testament, at least in theory, of the King’s supreme authority in the hinterland. We initiated excavations in February 2020 at Prasat Khna in Preah Vihear province, for we suspected the king most likely founded a monastery here given the venerable status of the temple and the presence of a later vīrāśrama and hospital established by Sūryavarman I and Jayavarman VII respectively. Prasat Khna, located approximately 140 km northeast of Angkor, constituted one of the most sacred sanctuaries in all of Cambodia. Its ancient name was Janapada, and the temple complex was dedicated to Viṣṇu and was likely established as early as the pre-Angkorian Period, a central hypothesis confirmed by our excavations in 2022 (Parmentier 1939). The temple consists of 13 extant sanctuaries built mainly between the 10th and 12th centuries. Seven published inscriptions from the site provide valuable information, and they reveal the importance of this sanctuary.

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FIGURE 8.16 Plan

of the temple of Prasat Khna, illustrating the location of the āśrama and the vīrāśrama. (Courtesy of the Yaśodharāśrama Research Program).

FIGURE 8.17 Plan

of the temple of Prasat Neak Buos, illustrating the location of the āśrama, the vīrāśrama, and the hospital. (Courtesy of the Yaśodharāśrama Research Program).

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Inscription K. 355, along with the recently discovered K. 1312, indicate that the priest named Hiranyadama was based at Janapada (Bourdonneau 2016: 128–129; Bruguier and Lacroix 2013: 139; Soutif and Estève 2021). This influential official (purohita) authored the ritual of the devarāja for the royal consecration of the first Angkorian king, Jayavarman II and his successors (see Chapter 7). As indicated by the inscriptions, Prasat Khna was renowned for having housed a triad (trimūrti) of powerful deities, including the kamrateṅ ‘añ ta ‘cas (the old Brahmā) and a manifestation of Viṣṇu, variably named sakabrāhmaṇa, sak brahma, or brāhmane śaka in the texts and all translating to “Scythian Brahman.” (Soutif and Estève 2021). This is clearly a reference to Hiranyadama and his purported Indian origins, the great priest who anointed Jayavarman II on Mahendraparavata (Phnom Kulen) in 802 CE (Bourdonneau 2016: 123–127; Coedès 1943). In fact, the third deity of the trimūrti, the kamrateṅ ‘añ ta rājya (Śiva Protector of the Kingdom), was likely a manifestation of the great palladium of the realm, the devarāja. This supreme divinity was closely associated with the magical powers of Hiranyadama who appears to have founded Prasat Khna as his home temple. It is certainly significant that among the seven known inscriptions that mention the śakabrāhmaṇa identified in different regions of the Angkorian realm, three derive from Prasat Khna (Soutif and Estève 2021). The great prestige of this t­emple associated with Hiranyadama is evident in the lavish donations of rice and precious metals offered to the trimūrti as documented in the inscriptions of the site, including the recently discovered text from Building E dating to the 10th century (K. 1312—see Soutif and Estève 2021). In light of this illustrious history, great kings patronized the temple and endowed monasteries in later periods, including the 12th-century hospital of Jayavarman VII at the neighbouring sanctuary of Prasat Chaeng Meng (see below). Our investigations revealed that Prasat Khna consisted of massive complex with a triple enceinte, a moat, and a series of basins and reservoirs. The complex covered an area of more than 400 × 300 m and housed a sizeable population within its walls (Figure 8.18). In addition, our investigations brought to light a massive baray, parts of which still contained water. The rectangular reservoir is located 640 m to the northeast of the main temple complex—comparable to the placement of Yaśovarman’s East Baray vis-à-vis his state temple of the Bakheng at Angkor. It measures nearly 1 km long and 240 m wide and was constructed of retaining walls forming raised ridges built of tamped earth. The characteristic Long Building of Prasat Khna (Building N) is situated 33 m to the east and just to the south of the main entrance of the temple’s second enceinte wall (Figure 8.15). It lies on the south edge of a broad causeway that provides access to the main gopura (Building M) of the sanctuary. Measuring approximately 20 m long, the layout matches the Long Buildings of the capital with a central shrine framed on its two sides by a vestibule and porch. A large basin was constructed immediately east of the building, perhaps a citation of the trapeang built to the east of the āśrama in Angkor. Stratigraphic analysis demonstrates that the

The Āśrama and Hospital Foundations of Ancient Angkor  277

FIGURE 8.18 

Topographic map of Prasat Khna.

Long Building predates the second enceinte wall, confirming a late 9th-century construction date and the conservation and continued use of this building in later periods when the temple witnessed a thorough renovation and the erection of the prasats extant today (Swenson et al. 2022: 50). Excavations further revealed the base of a stela shrine (which we designated Building P) located a few meters to the northwest of the north end of the Long Building, roughly aligned with one of the entrance porches of the gopura of Building M to the west (Figure 8.19). The placement of the base of the stela pavilion at Prasat Khna mirrors the location of the aedicule of the capital monasteries, just to the front and beyond the entrance porch of the main edifice. Remarkably, we discovered a fallen stela in the base of this aedicule that assumed the accolade form of Yaśovarman’s āśrama inscriptions (Figure 8.19). The surviving and unpublished text inscribed on the stela was added later and superimposed on what seems to have been an earlier and erased inscription, likely the rules and regulations of the original āśrama of Yaśovarman (Soutif, personal communications). We discovered an ascetic’s or mendicant’s razor made of iron between the base of the fallen stele and the broken mortise of the monolith. The implement may have been deliberately placed within the socket of the original stele as a possible offering (Figure 8.19). Interestingly, Bruguier and Lacroix identified a laterite stela pavilion with a “bonnet de prêtre” (“priest’s cap”) supported on four pillars at Prasat Khna that matched the distinctive stela shelters of the urban āśrama of Yaśovarman. The aedicule was erected in the centre of the H-shaped entrance pavilion (Building M),

278  The Āśrama and Hospital Foundations of Ancient Angkor

FIGURE 8.19  Inscription

stela and surviving base of the aedicule associated with a metal razor excavated at the āśrama of Prasat Khna.

35 m to the west of the discovered stela and Long Building (Bruguier and Lacroix 2013: 135) (Figure 8.16). Now collapsed, we hypothesize that this shelter likely once stood over the brick floor of the original aedicule of the long building. It was subsequently dismantled and rebuilt in the central part of the entrance pavilion, thus securing a prominent place in the temple grounds. The movement of the shelter, perhaps to commemorate the construction of the second enceinte, left the brick portion of the older aedicule in place and open to the elements. However, the original inscription by the long building was likely honoured as an important memorial, and the movement of the shelter to the entrance of the temple signalled its continued venerable status. The newly rebuilt aedicule of Building M housed inscription K. 661. The text was published early in the 20th century, but was then subsequently lost. However, we discovered fragments of the inscription in our 2019 survey. The Sanskrit text eulogizes Śiva and King Sūryavarman I and commemorates the donation by King Udayâdityavarman of a golden Lakshmi statue (consort of Viṣṇu) to Prasat Khna in 1060 (Bruguier and Lacroix 2013: 150–151). Excavations within and around the long building exposed fine statuary likely housed in the central chamber of the structure or framing the entrance porches. They included the arm, torso, and feet of a deity as well as the feet of guardian

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lions (Figure 8.10). Our excavation trenches failed to identify a concentric cline of elongated laterite foundations arrayed around the Long Buildings, as characterized the āśrama of the city of Angkor. This evidence points to possibly significant differences in the social organization of the provincial monasteries. However, we recovered a high quantity of tiles and brick remains in the space between the second enceinte wall and the Long Building, and the latter may have anchored attached supporting structures. Nevertheless, it seems likely that the āśrama established on the pre-existing temple made use of pre-existing facilities within and around the main sanctuary of Prasat Khna, and thus differed notably from the four principal hermitages in the capital. In any event, our study strongly suggests that the long buildings and neighbouring stele shrine served as the foremost symbols of Yaśovarman’s network of āśrama across his kingdom, whether in the capital or hinterland. The consecration of this emblematic building as the cultic focus of the monastery also signalled the king’s patronage of the larger temple establishments. The carved sandstone superstructure and fine statuary associated with the Long Building at Prasat Khna contrast with the more humble laterite Long Buildings of the capital. This discrepancy indicates a considerable investment of resources and might also reflect the greater necessity in the provinces to project the authority and prestige of the royal establishment. This ensemble of buildings provides another example of material overcoding discussed earlier that characterized the political strategies of territorialization defining Yaśovarman’s reign. 8.1.5

The Semiotic Machinery of the Yaśodharāśrama

A recognition that the Long Building and stela aedicule played a central role in the codification of Yaśovarman’s building campaigns invites a more probing analysis of how the āśrama effectively territorialized and signified the Angkorian Empire. The following interpretations apply similar theoretical frameworks as those employed in Chapter 6 that examined the Jequetepeque religious landscape, an exercise that intends to highlight the meaningful differences between the traditions, while acknowledging some of the commonalities in the spatial affordances and semiotic effects of ritual experience more generally. If we begin with Lefebvre’s register of conceived space, the standardized rectangular compounds of the capital monasteries clearly followed a specific architectural template, and as I alluded to above, they mimic the general shape and orientation of the East Baray, which they surround. Once again, the benediction and protection of Yaśovarman’s great infrastructural project constituted a core mandate of the four monasteries. Therefore, in line with the temple mountain of the Bakheng and the king’s other architectural projects, the hermitages arrayed around the baray formed part of a rich and highly codified semiosphere. For instance, the number four secured a prominent place in the design and conceptualization of the network of urban āśrama. As discussed above, the term āśrama referred to both a monastic retreat as well as the four stages of life of the respectable Brahmin.

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Unlikely a coincidence, the āśrama of the capital numbered four, and the layout of the hermitages conformed to a quadripartite division. From east to west, the four main components included the sizeable basin, the eastern ceremonial sector, the central residential area, and the western gardens (Figure 8.6). At the same time, four gallery buildings radiated concentrically around the Long Building and the stela pavilion at three of the excavated āśrama. This numerology scales down to even the characteristic aedicule with its four openings aligned to the cardinal directions (Figure 8.5). The inscription pavilion anchored in its centre by the massive, prismatic stela stone and surrounded on all four sides by symmetrical doorways assumes a quincunx form in miniature. The central location of the aedicule within the monasteries further demonstrates that it constituted the most sacred place in the foundations, comparable to the central prasat housing the main deity images in the typical temple-mountains. The general emphasis on cardinality distinguishes Yaśovarman’s Bakheng temple as well (see above). In fact, similar to how the Baray is built to the east of this mountain-temple, the basins of the monasteries occupy a comparable place vis-à-vis the main religious edifices of the hermitages, and a scalar replication of space guided Yaśovarman’s cosmographic urban planning. Perhaps the nested microcosms intended to extend the monasteries’ ­protection of the East Baray to the entire city and empire. The intimate parallelism linking the individual āśrama with the great baray and the larger organization of the city was founded on a semiotic ideology of indexical iconicity that placed special emphasis on physical contiguity and not simply iconic resemblance. As discussed above, the Bakheng was an artificial mountain directly constructed on a mountain, similar to the temples erected on Phnom Bok and Phnom Krom. The linear causeways also physically linked the quadrilateral āśrama with the perimeter of the East Baray. In fact, they merge imperceptibly and become one with the high dike surrounding the reservoir (Figure 8.4). Quite remarkably, the perimeters of the urban āśrama were not built of stone, like most temples, but were built as mounded ridges, identical to the high earthen walls surrounding the East Baray. This shared materiality highlights the monasteries’ symbolism as “barays in miniature.” The canals surrounding the monastery dikes and the basins within and to the east of the foundations also reinforce their strong association with water, thus strengthening the close rapport between the great baray and the āśrama. Similar to Moche pyramids, Yaśovarman’s monasteries also indexed the sacred mountains from whence the rivers flowed onto the Angkorian plain. For instance, rhyolite cobbles mined from the few hills of the region were seeded directly into the deepest fill layers deposited during the construction of the platform that supported the architecture of the eastern ceremonial quadrant of the monasteries. Builders similarly layered rhyolite cobbles into the lowest fill of the Long Building and aedicule of the provincial monastery excavated at Prasat Khna (Figure 8.20). Although not built on mountains, the mountain was literally incorporated into the ceremonial architecture of the Yaśodharāśrama, exemplifying the particular

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FIGURE 8.20 Rhyolite stones embedded in the foundation of the east ceremonial sector

of Prei Prasat (upper register) and the interior of the Long Building of Prasat Khna (lower register).

semiotic ideology of indexicality that operated through principles of contiguity, adjacency, and physical conjoining. Chea (2018: 297) comments on the importance of the ritual deposition of these pebbles, called “mountain stone” (thmo phnom) in Khmer, and extracted especially from the sacred mountains of Phnom Bok and Phnom Krom. He argues that the addition of such sacred rocks auspiciously protected and blessed the religious foundations (see also Dumarçay and Royère 2001: 34–36). The integration of the mountain into the āśrama may even have intended to ensure the proper functioning of the hydraulic network centred on the East Baray that fell under the spiritual jurisdiction of the monasteries. As mentioned, the offering of funeral cakes by members of the four orders on the embankment of the baray constituted an important fertility ritual and a core responsibility of the chiefs of the hermitages. The above discussion raises the question of why “contiguous indexicality” played such a prominent role in the specific semiosphere of Yaśovarman’s reign. Perhaps in founding his new capital, the king strove to demonstrate the ­unmediated basis of his power to tap and channel the forces of nature. Yaśovarman thus sought to replicate the great feats of cosmic place-making performed by Śiva or

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Viṣṇu—who dug canals and readied the earth for agriculture by literally moving mountains (Lavy 2003; see above). Unlike Huaca Colorada discussed in Chapter 6 or the previous state temple of the Bakong in the Roulos Group, the king did not simply construct a surrogate of a distant mountain in erecting the Bakheng but augmented and tamed the actual hill itself. Yaśovarman may have also adopted this strategy of place-making to emulate Jayavarman II’s foundation of his new capital directly on Mount Kulen (Mahendraparavata). In addition, this practice may also have roots in Khmer leaders identifying directly with native, Telluric gods (Mus 1975). In any event, this strategy clearly informed the radical and unprecedented building campaign of the king to create a cosmically perfected new capital that strove to harmonize (and literally fuse) the natural and social worlds. In sum, Yaśovarman’s regime promoted a tradition of place-making that relied in part on activating intimate parallelisms, as reflected in designing the monasteries in the shape of the baray or in the incorporation of the sacred stone of mountains into the construction of the ceremonial edifices of the hermitages. At the same time, the ritualized sign processes of repetition, substitution, and symbolic accumulation also characterized the religious and political operation of the Yaśodharāśrama ­network (see Chapter 4; Yelle 2013). The numerous monasteries founded by the king and dedicated to different gods provide a striking example of repetition working in tandem with substitution (since the individual sects were dedicated to different, local deities). The repetitive construction of the rectilinear monastic compounds in the capital and the dissemination of the prototypical Long Buildings and stela pavilions throughout the realm saturated the kingdom with Yaśovarman’s pious imprimatur. If the incessant recitation of mantras intended to secure their ritual efficacy, perhaps we can understand the repetitive and identical inscriptions endowed in the āśrama throughout the Angkorian Empire as functioning in a similar capacity—to prove beyond doubt the king’s uncontested spiritual and political sovereignty. The bundling of the main deities of the realm (Śiva, Viṣṇu, Brahma, the Buddha) and their respective orders around the East Baray further exemplifies the process of symbolic accumulation (exhaustion) examined in Chapter 4. Yaśovarman’s ecumenism served at once as an insurance policy and as a means to condense the power of the god’s (and thus the cosmos) around his major infrastructural endeavour. The assembling of the representatives of different religious denominations, including followers of the doctrine of the Pāśupata, Pañcarātra, and the Buddha, further concentrated Angkor’s religious diversity onto the great reservoir, comparable to how pre-Islamic Mecca drew together all the pagan deities of Arabia (see Chapter 4). The dissemination of the āśrama throughout the realm, with their characteristic buildings indexing the principal cult structures of the urban monasteries, further bound and territorialized the kingdom; the East Baray in tandem with the Bakheng formed the nerve centre of this centripetal/centrifugal assemblage. In fact, the replication of the aedicule and Long Building in the provincial āśrama exemplify the sign process of converting Peircean legisigns, ideal

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archetypes of space, into sinsigns, concrete tokens and replicas of such exemplary places (Christie 2012). Legisigns designate a symbol or general type (a codified idea), while sinsigns refer to their singular instantiations in different contexts. As physical manifestation of abstracted legisigns, sinsigns essentially operate as icons of the latter (CP: 2.225). Otherwise stated, and thinking in terms of Lefebvrian theories of space, sinsigns render conceived space perceptible and experiential. In the more common understanding of the concept of iconicity, the Long Building and aedicule literally became “iconic,” of Yaśovarman’s religious and civilizing mission. This architectural ensemble stood out as a “visual image” and served as a “representative symbol” of a specific “person” and “institution… considered worthy of admiration or respect” (Coyne 2019: 24). By extension, the iterative production of spatial sinsigns aligns with the efficacious sign mode of repetition common in ritual performance, and the repetitive replication of iconic architecture was commonly deployed to communicate authoritative ideologies in state and imperial systems (Coben 2006). Indeed, the replication and copying of features of the political landscape, whether the construction of sun temples and provincial Cuscos in the Inca realm or the founding of temples of Augustus in ancient Rome, constituted a ­common strategy of ancient empires (Christie 2012: 618). 8.1.6 Perceived Space, Aesthetics, and the Phenomenology of Ritual of the Yaśodharāśrama

The above discussion reveals that the āśrama and their replicated, iconic buildings must have powerfully distributed the sensible and shaped specific perceptions of space (Rancière 2013). The remarkable architectural standardization of the urban monasteries demonstrates that Yaśovarman’s regime sought to regulate the aesthetic and ritual experience of monastics, pilgrims, and servants alike, and such attempts at control are confirmed by the strict social and ritual prescriptions recorded in the near-identical inscriptions. Indeed, Deleuze and Guattari would have referred to the āśrama as “collective assemblages of enunciation,” where commands and tight rules prescribe behaviour and create homogenized material-social collectives (DeLanda 2016: 4; Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 88). For the philosophers, a military squadron exemplifies such an assemblage given the intense aesthetic and social coding that tightly territorializes people, barracks, arms, governmentissued uniforms, insignia, and so forth. We can immediately see parallels with the Yaśodharāśrama: the bounded, often exclusive monasteries; the shared layout of key buildings and sectors; the uniform white clothing; similar requisition of rations and offerings; and the synchronization of ritual and educational practices between the different monasteries as ordered in the inscriptions. In fact, Deleuze and Guattari’s categories of spatial segmentarity (binary, linear, concentric) discussed in previous chapters shed further light on the peculiar assemblage of the individual āśrama and their simultaneous territorialization into the larger political landscape of Angkor. The configuration of the individual

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monastery compounds in the capital materialized a binary divide between the ­resident ­anchorites and the rest of the world. Excavations at Prasat Komnap South confirm that a formal entranceway provided access between the monastery and the outside world along the central length of the eastern dike. This entrance was directly aligned with the centrally-placed stela pavilion (Figure 8.8). As the inscriptions indicate, elites approaching the boundary of the hermitages had to dismount from their litters, close their parasols, and adopt a deferential attitude. Certain categories of people, including prostitutes and non-ordained persons, were denied entrance to the hermitages. Thus, the sole entrance recalls the singular and narrow ingress into Jatanca’s compounds in the Jequetepeque region analyzed in Chapter 6. At the same time, a linear segmentarity defined the urban āśrama as a whole. Upon entrance, a visitor or pilgrims would first encounter the cult buildings and more elaborate educational pavilions of the foundations. The actual domestic areas and gardens of the western sector may have been off-limits to the short-term visitor, while residents of the monasteries clearly moved on a linear axis between all three of the principal bounded zones of the complexes. Similar to the centre of Jatanca discussed in Chapter 6, the compounds striated and hierarchized space by ­compartmentalizing place-specific activities and the people who would have engaged in such practices (Deleuze and Guattari 1987). At the same time, concentric (circular) segmentarity, as the higher order of spatiality, worked in tandem with the binary and linear modes (as a city incorporates neighbourhoods and the latter individual houses—see Chapter 2). Collectively, the Yaśodharāśrama formed a singular assemblage, with the provincial monasteries effectively functioning as branch institutions of the king’s religious and civilizing order. In a sense, they projected the karmic fruits of the massive baray into the hinterland with which the urban āśrama were so intimately bound. This concentric nesting is further apparent if we recall how the king’s new “open” city was centred on the Bakheng mountaintemple that was surrounded by the cline of religious, residential, and, agricultural infrastructures of which the āśrama formed an integral part. In further probing how the monastic complexes distributed the sensible, their material and spatial properties differed strikingly from the typical Angkorian ­temple. Along with brick, sandstone increasingly constituted the common medium of major temple buildings in the late 9th and 10th centuries. However, sandstone is lacking in the urban āśrama, and the main cult buildings were constructed with coarser laterite blocks and wood. Interestingly, the durable medium of laterite was reserved for the main religious edifices (the Long Building and the aedicule), while the surrounding gallery structures were built predominately of wood footed on hidden laterite foundations. In contrast to his multiple monasteries, Yaśovarman’s templemountain of the Bakheng was the first constructed entirely of sandstone (with brick lacking) (Jacques 1999: 59). This contrast is not entirely surprising, since at Angkor, stone was reserved exclusively for the adobe of gods, and a crowded monastery buzzing with study, instruction, and diverse devotional practices (and not simply offerings and veneration of deity images) was more appropriately built

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of wood. Certainly, the architecture of the latter must have been finely crafted and aesthetically pleasing as indicated by the high quantity of tiles recovered from the eastern ceremonial districts of the hermitages. Nonetheless, and in light of the above discussion of the Long Building serving as the rājakuṭi housing the presiding deity of the āśrama, the choice of laterite seems significant and presents a compromise of sorts well suited for monasteries housing ascetics and monks. Laterite blocks were fabricated by cutting soft, moist soil rich in iron oxides that would harden into rock when dried in the air (etymologically, it literally means “brick tile”) (Jacques 1999: 188). The Long Building and aedicule were rightly built of stone given the divine statues and kingly edicts they housed, and the construction medium issued literally from the humid earth—an appropriate mixture given the close association of the āśrama with the East Baray and high hills (as exemplified by the incorporation of the rhyolite cobble fill discussed above). The preference for laterite thus seems to have fallen in line with the peculiar semiotic ideology of contiguous indexicality characterizing Yaśovarman’s building projects, and their construction parallels how the boundaries of the actual monasteries assume the form of dikes comparable to the perimeters of the great reservoir. At the same time, the prohibition of sandstone and the restricted use of laterite for the main religious edifices must have resonated with the ideals of modesty and asceticism underwriting the traditional value system of a world-renouncing āśrama. In the end, the ensemble of distinctive buildings distributed the sensible in such a way as to shape subjects in line with the religious aspirations of the monasteries and the merit-making mission of the king’s regime. The individual monasteries with their strict regulations and spatial boundedness tightly territorialized their respective religious communities. In light of the above interpretations, however, a deliberate spatial ambivalence seems to have informed the overall design of the urban complexes. Unlike the high laterite walls encircling the typical temple (or the soaring perimeters of Jatanca discussed in Chapter 6), the dike enclosure of the āśrama never reaches more than 2 m high (Chea 2018: 267). As such, the boundary materialized a tension of sorts between inclusion and exclusion, a tension also reflected in the inscriptions that declare the hermitages as ­refuges for the persecuted while simultaneously barring entrance to other categories of people (prostitutes, the non-ordained, etc.). The semi-openness of the āśrama and their fluid integration with the baray points to the “smooth space” potentialities of the monasteries within an otherwise markedly striated space. The periodic visitations of pilgrims, students, and anchorites likely contributed to a sense of movement and effervescence occurring within a framework of institutional decorum and stability, perhaps similar to the seasonal occupation of the domestic areas by celebrants who participated in the feasts and sacrifices of Huaca Colorada (see Chapter 6). Nevertheless, the extraordinary curation and maintenance of the aedicule, Long Building and surrounding gallery structures over a 300-year period contrast notably with the unstable and ever-morphing architecture of Huaca Colorada, which I interpreted as a distinctly Moche kind of smooth space in Chapter 6. The

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close proximity of the monasteries to the largest and perhaps most fertile system of ­gridded agricultural fields in Angkor (striated space par excellence) may also point to a certain tension between the striated and smooth. Interestingly, the urban āśrama occupy the intermediary space separating the extensive plots from the baray which irrigated them. This mediation may have further paralleled the incorporation of the gardens—a possibly “mini-wilderness”—in the westernmost sector of the enclosed monasteries. In any event, the hermitages distinctive semiotic, material, and spatial affordances likely forged strong attachments to place that shaped the political and religious history of Yaśovarman’s regime and beyond. 8.1.7 Lived Space and the Power of Ritual in Yaśovarman’s Monasteries

An intense regime of study characterized the day-to-day routines of young monastics (brahmacārin) who made up the majority of the occupants of the āśrama (Chea 2018: 137). In line with the more austere materiality of the ceremonial architecture discussed above, the ritual program of the foundations that accompanied this life of learning also differed in significant ways from the typical Angkorian temple. In contrast to the ceremonies performed at Yaśovarman’s temple of Lolei, described in the sanctuary’s inscription (K. 323), the rituals orchestrated at the āśrama were notably more modest. The latter lacked the elaborate dances staged at the former, and the inscriptions largely forbade the usual equipment of parasols, radiant apparel, and jewellery (Chea 2018: 160). At the same time, even if more restrained, a comparable suite of rituals must have characterized both institutions, such as the devotion and offerings (puja) directed to the deity statues housed in the rājakuṭi (the Long Building). The discovery of the spoon utilized in Hindu fire rituals in the ceremonial sector of Prasat Komnap South affirms such common denominators of religious practice in both temples and the āśrama. In a similar manner, the offering pit in the aedicule below where the inscription stela once stood at Ong Mong parallels comparable shafts located under the principal cult statues of Angkorian temples (see Chapter 4). Excavations of this Buddhist monastery also yielded a table to grind unguents and a small, rectangular sandstone slab recovered near the aedicule (Chea 2018: 184–185). The latter was inscribed with two Sanskrit syllables or letters (akṣara) as well as with the nasal consonants (anunāsika) of ṝṁ and aṁ, all of which were etched in a stylized lotus leaf. The broken slab (K. 1285) was once assembled with 49 other mini-inscriptions to form part of a lotus flower diagram called a yantra, an encrypted magical formula that encapsulated profound mystical and astrological powers. In their proper configuration, the yantra materialized and facilitated the recitation of mantras, and they were especially popular in 10th-century Cambodia (Chea 2018). In fact, Chea argues that the yantra fragment discovered in 2017 at Ong Mong may have formed part of a larger diagram with inscribed sandstone slabs recovered from the nearby and later Buddhist sanctuaries of Bat Chum (K. 948) and Srah Srang (K. 1232) (Coedès 1952b; Woodward

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2015: 232–233). He even contends that the dispersal of slabs from the same yantra in three different sanctuaries may have served to unite and confer equal blessings on the Buddhist foundations. As such, the deterritorialization of the yantra acted to bind together (reterritorialize) a larger Buddhist religious landscape within the greater Brahmanical urban tableau of Angkor. In fact, the word yantra derives from the Sanskrit root to bind (yantr) (Kramrisch 1976: 11). Therefore, even if highly routinized, some of the rituals performed within the holy spaces of the hermitages engendered critical apprehension of place and identity (“lived space”) for students, workers, and visitors alike. For instance, the pāśupata rites of bathing in caustic ash as a means to attain a state of ecstatic communion with Śiva must have left a strong impression on participants and spectators alike. As mentioned, the inscriptions report that this sect was active in the two Śaiva monasteries of the capital. In revisiting Table 3.1 that outlines the various ways power intersects with ritual practice, such experiences as chanting during the assembly of a yantra or immersing oneself in ash resonates with point 5, the emotional and dramaturgical nexus of ceremony. The discipline required to memorize and interpret liturgies along with instruction in other subjects also shaped acolytes in body and mind (a process that variably brings together points 2 through 5 listed in Table 3.1). Unlike the typical temple, then, the monasteries provided a setting for congregant ritual, and they served as powerful vehicles of socialization that directly implicated the patronage of the king.19 In fact, the Yaśodharāśrama likely attracted many pilgrims, as did the East Baray, which they surrounded (Coedès 1932). The inscriptions refer to the great reservoir, the Yaśodharataṭāka as a tīrtha where devotees and pilgrims sought ablutions and ritually bathed (Coedès 1932: 100). A tīrtha literally refers to a sacred crossing, ford or passage, a potent place of pilgrimage situated by a body of water, and a conduit to divinity; all temples and places of pilgrimage were established in places of tīrtha (Kramrisch 1976: 3–6). The presence of water also defines such charged locales, and traditional religious compendia in India declared that without the presence of water tanks, the gods are absent (Kramrisch 1976: 5). As the official gatekeepers to the baray, the numerous basins of the four monasteries also suggest that bathing constituted an important ritual within the hermitages, and the Vedas indicate that anchorites were expected to bathe three times a day in the typical āśrama (Vyas: 269–270). Indeed, it seems clear that peregrination to the great infrastructural marvel of the baray coincided with a visit to one or more of the urban āśrama, and the inscriptions make clear that short-term visitors formed a significant portion of the monasteries’ population. Pou (2002: 329) lists the numerous reasons that motivated guests (atithi, abhyāgata in Sanskrit, vñau in Khmer) to visit Angkorian āśrama; they included the desire to seek audience with a renowned master, complete a pilgrimage for spiritual rewards, participate in group worship, rest and meditation, and the search for remedies to cure illness. In terms of Yaśovarman’s four urban monasteries, we can also add to this list the aspiration to encounter the baray in all its magnificence and partake of its blessed and restorative waters.

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Intersection 2 of Table 3.1 can account in part for the distinctive political context of the āśrama, and some visitors sought enlightenment and knowledge, and they may even have wished to experience novel revelations and the rituals of different sects. However, such experiences occurred in the shadow of Yaśovarman’s patronage, and his foundation of monasteries in the pre-existing venerable sanctuaries of the regime not only assured his omnipresence in the larger religious landscape but also co-opted the pilgrimage circuit of the realm. In fact, as places of lodging and rest, the āśrama clearly promoted pilgrimage and made esteemed and legendary temple estates more accessible to larger segments of the population, even if they consisted mostly of upper-class pilgrims and devotees (Chea 2018: 130–134). In line with the spatial ambiguity of the urban hermitages discussed earlier, the Yaśodharāśrama thus struck a rather effective balance between social inclusivity and exclusivity. Although the monasteries may have levelled social differences at set times (e.g., the white clothing worn by the hermits), they also reinforced and legitimized established inequalities. Indeed, the placement of the aedicule in the centre of the ceremonial districts of the hermitages placed the monarch in proximity to the deity commemorated by the monastery—the “ultimate source of power and metaphor of difference” (intersection 1 of Table 3.1). Of course, the stela pavilion, positioned next to the main cult structure of the Long Building, housed the inscription eulogizing the king’s godly feats and the great merits of his foundations. The inscriptions of the provincial āśrama actually specify that only kings, the sons of monarchs, and esteemed Brahmans could enter or access the rājakuṭi (Long Building), and they alone could continue wearing fine ornaments indexing high status within the sanctuary (Chea 2018: 130–131; ISCC: 374, 39–40). The same inscriptions clearly specify that the welcoming and feeding of guests followed a clear hierarchical order, which was as follows: “Brahmans, sons of kings, advisers, army chiefs, ascetics devoted to worship of Śiva or Viṣṇu, and finally the best among the common men” (ISCC: 375, 46–47). As such, the monasteries may have fomented a liminal spirit of communitas in certain instances, while still mapping in place class privileges underwriting Angkorian social distinctions. The ecumenical ethos of the Yaśodharāśrama also coexisted with an apparent religious hierarchy, as alluded to in the inscriptions and strongly suggested by the archaeological evidence. Yaśovarman patronized all the major religious sects, but his allegiance to Śaivism becomes apparent not only in the greater number of Śaiva monasteries in the provinces and capital, but also by the location of the hermitages in the latter. The brāhmaṇāśrama (Prei Prasat) and the māheśvarāśrama (Prasat Komnap North), both operated by Śaiva sectarians, occupy the most auspicious, easternmost location of the four monasteries, with the former situated along the southeast corner of the baray and the latter along the northeast corner (Figure 8.4). In fact, if the brāhmaṇāśrama was in name dedicated to Brahma (but run by Śaivites), the māheśvarāśrama (unambiguously commemorating the “great” Śiva) stands apart to the north and not in line with the three other hermitages dedicated to other divinities to the south. Prasat Komnap North is also the largest of the

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monasteries, measuring 410 m long by 220 m wide, and it occupies the area near where the waters would have filled the East Baray (Chea 2018: 115–116). In other words, it seems to have served as the principal gateway of the massive reservoir, and, consequentially, it may have constituted the most esteemed hermitage of the four. Interestingly, among the three southern āśrama, the westernmost, Ong Mong (saugatāśrama), was dedicated to the Buddha. This location may signal the slightly lower status of Buddhism in Yaśovarman’s Angkor, as suggested by the monastery inscriptions that invoke the higher prestige of Brahmans vis-à-vis monks. They also singled out Buddhists by barring certain monks accused of immorality from the monasteries (Coedès 1932). The unique configuration of Ong Mong, divided into two main sectors as opposed to three, further points to the special status and unique monastic practices of the Buddhist order. For instance, the western end of the saugatāśrama lacked the gardens and canals of Prasat Komnap South. Instead, it seems to comprise a continuation of the domestic area that was mainly confined to the central zones of the other monasteries (characterized by refuse, pits, and residential debris) (Chea 2018). Expectedly, then, the āśrama provided key arenas for ideological production and identity politics (points 3 and 4 of Table 3.1). Although vanguards of Yaśovarman’s centralizing state apparatus, Ong Mong’s variable layout strongly points to the partial independence of the monasteries and the obvious limits of the king’s absolute authority. The longevity and hence success of the monasteries are especially remarkable, and if not a heterotopia in the manner of Huaca Colorada (see Chapter 6), the āśrama must have induced thirdspace experiences that heighten consciousness and competing understandings of self, society, and cosmos (Point 6 of Table 3.1). Even if the prestige of the saugatāśrama did not quite match that of the Brahmanical monasteries, it nonetheless secured a profound place in the social memory of latter monarchs and Buddhists. Indeed the construction of a number of Buddhist temples around Ong Mong in later periods reveals that it served as one of the most revered Buddhist sanctuaries in the history of Angkor. For instance, Bat Chum, a prominent Buddhist temple, was built just 1 km to the south of Ong Mong in 953 CE by Kavindrarimathana, the respected architect of King Rājendravarman. It consists of three imposing towers aligned on a shared platform and dedicated to a Buddhist triad (Pottier 2003: 200–201). The inscription of the temple mentions a residence for monks on the premises of the temple erected under the shade of a tree. The same architect and a professed Buddhist built the first version of the platform and reservoir of Srah Srang just 400 m to the north of Bat Chum and only 200 m to the south of Ong Mong. As discussed earlier, King Sūryavarman (1001–1050 CE) donated goods to the saugatāśrama in the early 11th century, and King Jayavarman VII (1188–1211) later commissioned the massive Buddhist monasteries of Banteay Kdei and Ta Prohm within a 1–2 km radius to the south and east of Ong Mong. In other words, an entire Buddhist monumental landscape radiated around the continually maintained saugatāśrama, attesting to the exceptional prestige and continuing influence of Yaśovarman’s original monastery. As

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discussed above, the distribution of inscribed slabs from possibly the same Yantra diagram at three of these monuments, including Ong Mong, further attests to the enduring influence of the saugatāśrama. Finally, after the eventual abandonment of Ong Mong in the 13th or 14th century, the great prismatic stela proclaiming the rules and regulations of the order was moved to the Buddhist temple of Tep Pranam in Angkor Thom. Here it must have held a special place of honour, where it was discovered by Henri Marchal in 1920. The fact that only the Buddhist stela was conferred such honours in the post-Angkorian period, when Theravada Buddhism eclipsed Brahmanism, seems highly significant and points once again to the profound legacy of the Yaśodharāśrama centuries after their founding. The aforementioned repetitive foundations of the vīrāśrama, sponsored by the powerful king Sūryavarman I (10001–10050 CE), further attests to the great impact of Yaśovarman’s meritorious program of place-making that left an indelible and enduring mark on the political landscape. As mentioned, the vīrāśrama, named most likely to honour the king’s wife, were founded in the same venerable sanctuaries where Yaśovarman established his hermitages. The main cult buildings consist of a characteristic Long Building surrounded by a contiguous

FIGURE 8.21 Orthophoto

of U-shaped vīrāśrama with hypothesized earlier version of a long building excavated immediately to the north (photo courtesy of Nicolas Josso).

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U-shaped complex comprising three elongated halls that appear to cite in a more abbreviated and compacted manner the gallery rooms surrounding the rājakuṭi of the earlier urban āśrama of Yaśovarman (see Figures 8.16 and 8.17). This very distinctive U-shaped edifice—representing a new code that built on the overcoding semiotics of Yaśovarman—was erected in sanctuaries where Yaśodharāśrama were still operating, including Preah Vihear, Prasat Neak Buos, Prasat Khna, Phnom Sanduk, and Trâpeang Thnâl Svay (Chea et al. 2023) (Figure 8.3). They are similarly constructed of an unusual combination of laterite walls embellished with decorated sandstone lintels, foundations, and cornices. Excavations at Prasat Khna in 2023 recently exposed a massive Long Building, just behind the characteristic U-shaped structure. This earlier version of the vīrāśrama assumes the same form as Yaśovarman’s iconic rājakuṭi, as it consists of a principal shrine framed on each end by vestibules and porches (Figure 8.21). In commissioning this impressive edifice, Sūryavarman I appears to have directly commemorated the earlier king’s building program prior to the adoption of the standardized U-shaped complex of the vīrāśrama. In emulation of the founder of the city of Angkor, Sūryavarman I thus clearly extended his authority throughout the realm by supporting a system of interconnected monasteries. Jayavarman VII’s hospital network continued this tradition in dramatic if revolutionary fashion. 8.2

Landscapes of Compassion: The Hospitals of Jayavarman VII

In the late 12th century CE, the famed ruler, Jayavarman VII (reign 1181–1218), embarked on one of the most ambitious building programs in history that clearly drew inspiration from Yaśovarman’s earlier remaking of the landscape (Jacques 2007: 40). However, Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism inspired Jayavarman’s construction campaign, and it departed significantly from the architectural ­projects of early Khmer kings (Forest 2012: 82; Maxwell 2007; Sharrock 2009). To provide a sense of the magnitude of Jayavarman’s investments in the built environment, Sharrock remarks that he “erected more sandstone than all his predecessors combined and turned the royal sculpting workshops into a strategic asset of the realm,” doubling “the city’s temple population within a generation” (2009: 113). The intense and hurried pace of construction on such a vast scale resulted in the cutting of corners in laying the foundations for his many edifices, and the rushed timelines can explain in part why Jayavarman’s temples were so prone to collapse (which has added to the romanticized and mystical allure of his stunning buildings) (Burgess 2010: 29; Hall 2011: 197). Jayavarman’s regime also commissioned the construction of an extensive network of roads to facilitate the movement of armies and pilgrims. Rest or fire houses (dharmaśālā) were regularly placed along the highways, approximately every 15 to 20 kilometres, to provide accommodation for travellers, pilgrims, and state officials. (Hendrickson 2008; 2010). In addition, Jayavarman VII founded vast monastic and religious complexes, including the legendary Preah Khan, Ta Prohm, and

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Banteay Kdei. These orders each housed roughly 12,000 to 15,000 monks, servants, and attendants and formed small cities in and of themselves, provisioned by hundreds of thousands of villagers (Mabbett and Chandler 1995: 209–210). The inscriptions reveal that Ta Prohm formed the command centre of the 102 statefunded hospitals (ārogyaśāla) established throughout the realm, the main focus of this final case study. Jayavarman’s city of Angkor Thom was also revolutionary in conception and design. The cosmic city, surrounded by high laterite walls and deep double moats, 3 kilometres long, was anchored in its centrer by the Bayon, the king’s magnificent Mahayana Buddhist temple (Gaucher 2004). This shrine is renowned for its multiple gopura towers sculpted with the serene gaze of possibly Jayavarman himself as the incarnation of Lokeśvara, the Bodhisattva of compassion. Indeed, the radiant Buddha-faced towers–“an expression of royal-divine power streaming out to connect with a network of local territorial deities”–represent the most famous iconographic innovation of his reign (Figure 8.22) (Sharrock 2007: 232). Recent investigations have revealed that Angkor Thom was orthogonally gridded by an extensive network of symmetrically aligned dykes, roads, and canals, prompting Gaucher (2004) to conclude that it represents the most authentic realization of a utopian Indic city.

FIGURE 8.22 

The face towers of the Bayon.

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Some scholars have argued that the Jayavarman’s megalomania drove the unprecedented building campaigns (Stern 1951: 182), but most now recognize that the king’s endeavour to convert the Angkorian realm to a Buddhist kingdom, after four centuries of predominantly Śaivite rule, largely inspired the construction  ­program (Coe and Evans 2018; Forest 2012; Sharrock 2009). Sharrock remarks that the prospect of achieving some degree of acceptance among the urban elite of how Buddhist teaching, ritual, liturgy, and mythology could embrace and even surpass the long-established Śaiva rituals of state and the learning of the Brahmins must have seemed daunting. (2009: 115; see also Coe 2003: 122) He further notes that the shift from “state Śaivism to state Buddhism” represented the most significant development in the religious history of Cambodia (2009: 120). In fact, Jayavarman’s political innovations entailed the partial transference of administration and spiritual affairs from Brahmans to monks. The dramatic realignment in community, administration, identity, and even spirituality that he engineered was not simply reflected in his grandiose constructions but was partly enabled by the fundamental reorganization of the religious landscape (Coe and Evans 2018: 151; Swenson 2013). In the end, Jayavarman’s “politics of compassion” resulted in the systematic reordering of the political and religious geography of the realm (Kolata 2005; Swenson 2013). The survey of more than 50 of his hospital complexes in Cambodia and Thailand reveals remarkable standardization in the layout and construction of the temple component of these centres built for the medical and spiritual well-being of subject populations (Dagens 2005; Pottier and Chhem 2010: 171). In Section 8.2.2, I examine the hospital network in direct comparison with the Yaśodharāśrama, and, when relevant, the Jequetepeque database presented in Chapter 6. The comparison will identify both meaningful differences and striking commonalities between the two massive infrastructure campaigns. Ultimately, this final case study once again aims to demonstrate the interpretive power of the theoretical approaches to ritual, semiotics, aesthetics, and materiality informing the conceptual framework of the book. First, in the following section, we will examine the semiotic and aesthetic program of Jayavarman’s capital city and novel religious constructions. 8.2.1 Jayavarman’s Revolutionary Place-Making and the Semiotics of Angkor Thom and the Bayon

As mentioned in Chapter 7, Jayavarman VII followed the ideologically sanctioned sequence of place-making that guided the building campaigns of earlier kings (Hall 2011; Hawixbrock 1998: 71; Stern 1951: 660, 683). At the beginning of his reign, he embarked on founding a new city within Yaśovarman’s Angkor and

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commissioned infrastructures to promote the public good, mainly the hospital and road network along with a new baray, the Jayataṭāka situated to the northwest of the original East Baray. Subsequently, the king built Ta Prohm (1186 CE) and Preah Khan (1191 CE) in honour of his Mother and Father respectively, and these enormous monasteries preceded the building of the famed Bayon, in the centre of his new city of Angkor Thom. The massive enclosed city with its new state temple clearly displaced the Bakheng as the cosmic centre of the urban landscape and larger empire. In fact, the high laterite walls and wide moats (3 km on each side) enclosing the city contrast notably from the open city of Yaśovarman’s Angkor (Pottier 2000). The intensified territorialization of the urban core was partly a response to the Cham invasion and apparent destruction of the city preceding Jayavarman’s reign (ca. 1177 CE). In other words, the walls likely fulfilled a defensive function (Jacques 2008).20 Nevertheless, the enclosed citadel of Angkor Thom with its magnificent face-tower portals also formed an integral part of the distinctive semiosphere of Jayavarman’s radically new Buddhist city. Indeed, Angkor Thom exemplifies a totalizing microcosm, and the whole city was conceived as an enclosed temple. The centrally located Bayon is unique in lacking a delimiting enceinte wall; instead, the high perimeters demarcating the cardinally aligned and perfectly square city served as the temple’s sacred enclosure (Hawixbrock 1998: 69). As such, Jayavarman VII went to extraordinary lengths to mould perceptions of space to a grand cosmic design, the built environment as “conceived” to employ once again the terminology of Lefebvre. As Thompson notes (2016: 61): In a gesture of evermore hyperbolic spatial realization of abstract concepts underlying the organization of sovereign power at Angkor characteristic of his reign, the last great monarch to rule the empire, Jayavarman VII, literally circumscribed the capital city with a massive wall, turning it effectively into a giant temple. Angkor Thom did more than simply symbolize the cosmos, as its design channelled its generative and ordering powers.21 In fact, the entire urban tableau materialized the cosmogony of the Churning of the Ocean of Milk narrated in the Mahabharata. Life-sized sculptures of devas (gods) and asuras (demons) stand guard on the causeways spanning the moat in front of all of the principal gates of the cities. These towering gopuras are sculpted with four serene faces that gaze towards the cardinal directions, and the roads which lead under them meet at the centrally placed state temple of the Bayon. The 54 aligned devas occupy one side of the causeway before the gates, while the 54 asuras stand in single file along the other side. Both balustrades of statues hold a giant snake in their arms (Figure 8.23). Thus, the sacred number 108 underwrote the symbolism of both Yaśovarman and Jayavarman’s cosmic building projects. The Bayon in the centre of the city

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FIGURE 8.23  The

East Gate of Angkor Thom (upper register) and the South Gate (lower register) guarded by the statues of devas and asuras holding a giant snake.

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instantiated Mount Mandara, the great pivot upon which the gods and demons, positioned on all its four sides, engaged in a tug of rope (the giant snake Vasuki) that churned the ocean to create the apsaras, Sri (the goddess of beauty), and the elixir of immortality (amrita), among other marvels (Zéphir 1995). At the same time, this remarkable series of statues likely conveyed other meanings. Jean Boisselier (1993, 1997) interprets the colossal figures as referencing not the churning of the ocean but a Buddhist myth featuring Indra, king of the gods. In this myth, Indra summons the aid of a great serpent (naga) and fearsome giants, the yaksa, to protect the divine city of Meru and safeguard the dharma and the teachings of the Buddha from an impending attack by demons (asuras). The two lines of statues arrayed along the causeways spanning the moats of Angkor Thom hold the elongated body of the snake with the head facing outward and thus confronting visitors and attacking enemies alike. In contrast, the Mahabharata recounts that the devas took hold of the serpent tail of Vasuki and the asuras its head (as depicted in the extraordinary bas-reliefs of Angkor Wat). In other words, the configuration of the stone statues at Angkor Thom falls more in line with the Buddhist myth, which would accord with Jayavarman’s Buddhist allegiances. Boisselier (1993: 135) interpret the face towers of the gopuras not as representations of Lokeśvara or Brahma, but as the four protector kings of the cardinal points who defended Indra’s ­heavenly city, an argument supported by the three-headed elephants sculpted below the colossal faces and symbolizing Airavata, the avatar (vehicle) of Indra. In fact, the identity of the face towers, so iconic of Jayavarman’s constructions, has been the subject of intense debate in Angkorian studies. The Bayon once consisted of approximately 59 face towers (carved with as many as 256 imposing visages) (Cunin 2008: 20–21), and scholars have variably interpreted the imposing, meditative faces, with their arresting smiles, open eyes, forehead vajra eye, and flat noses as representing Avalokiteśvara (Lokeśvara), Brahma, Indra, Śiva, Vajrasattva, or Khmer territorial gods (see Sharrock 2007). I am not in a position to resolve this issue, and a comprehensive review of the profound religious meaning of the architecture and iconography of Jayavarman’s regime (and how it changed through time) falls beyond the scope of this chapter.22 Instead, I focus more narrowly on the broader semiotic affordances and political ramifications of Jayavarman’s main religious constructions. First, it is worth stressing that the unique plasticity and iconicity of the multiple face towers of the Bayon—also prominent at his other main constructions in Angkor and the provinces—dramatically codified Jayavarman’s reign, even if the face towers never directly intended to portray the visage of the Buddhist monarch. In a hallucinatory fashion, the towers merge the architectural and sculptural, reinforcing the powerful iconicity of the edifices and ontologically conflating sacred buildings with the bodies of gods (Dagens 2003: 43). The radically innovative “buildingstatues” thus overcoded Jayavarman’s new religious program onto the pre-existing Hindu built environment and semiosphere (Deleuze and Guattari 2009) (see above

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and Chapter 2). Along with the faces, the aesthetic code within the temples included thousands of carved dancing apsaras (in decidedly tantric and kinetic poses), massive guardian Garudas, and more open spaces for public gathering in long, horizontally configured complexes (Sharrock 2007, 2009). Of course, the multiple rest houses as well as the hospitals also played a key role in this overcodification of the greater empire (see below). In fact, similar to Yaśovarman, Jayavarman VII introduced a new alphabet with “boxy” letters, evidence that further points to the concerted efforts to recodify the religious and political foundations of Angkor (Chea 2018: 84; Hawixbrock 1998: 65). The king’s main inscriptions were also written in Sanskrit, and the scarce use of Khmer deviated from its increased popularity during the previous 300 years (Nietupski 2019: 38). Despite the unmistakable identification of the giant faces with the king’s regime and Buddhism in general, a deliberate ambiguity was encoded into the religious symbolism of his architecture and iconography. In other words, the faces and other sculptures may have intentionally embodied multiple deities and have conveyed plural religious values. For instance, Boisselier rightly questions why the colossal deva statues fronting the gates of Angkor Thom do not hold the tail of the stone snake. However, they are sculpted as resplendent deities and not terrifying yaksa, and they differ notably from the clearly demonic appearance of the neighbouring balustrade of asuras. Therefore, the stunning array of statues must have cited the Churning of the Ocean of Milk, a popular myth also celebrated in the bas-reliefs of Angkor Wat, and a theme that would have reinforced the cosmogonic and ordering power of the new city of Angkor Thom after a period of Cham conquest and social upheaval. As Zéphir argues (1995: 15): “The churning myth helps us to understand Angkor Thom, the city of Jayavarman VII, as a source of benefits, treasures, or riches, and by extension the source of prosperity of the Khmer Empire itself.” Groslier (1974: 116) remarks that the churning of milk cosmogony assumed much more importance in Khmer than in Indian religion for the myth resonated with the Khmer identification of harmonious order with irrigation. The churning represented the conquest of the earth over the primordial chaos (the muddy oceanic matrix), and its bounty “surged from the irrigated earth” in the form of the elixir of immortality. At the same time, the statues could have simultaneously referenced the Buddhist myth, as indicated by the peculiar way the gods and demons hold the giant serpent (Boisselier 1993). The serpent, the most ancient of Khmer gods, further symbolized the nāga as the rainbow, the celestial bridge “permitting passage from the human world outside of the city to the divine world created at the heart of Angkor Thom by the Bayon itself” (Zéphir 1995: 16). Sharrock (2007: 252–253) proposes another hypothesis that the balustrades of statues commemorated a tantric Buddhist version of the churning myth in which the bodhisattva Vajrapāṇi battles the demon Rāhu over possession of the elixir of immortality. He bases this interpretation on the absence of Śiva and Viṣṇu from the statuary ensemble and the stone snakes’ nine heads (in the tantric myth, Vajrapāṇi punishes Rāhu by transforming him into a nine-headed monster).

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Similar to the gateway statues, a comparable “symbolic multiplicity” applied to face towers in general, and Thompson argues that the towers encoded a deliberate interpretive ambiguity. She writes (2004a: 29): Scholars and Khmer people alike have long speculated about the origins and meanings of the four-faced tower. Of course it is entirely appropriate that the four faces should have inspired such a multiplicity of interpretations. Replicated in space, the tower with four identical faces shows the repetition of the unique to be a defining characteristic of divinity. The Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-sūtra, a Mahayana text evoked as a possible source for the complex iconography of the Bayon, incessantly repeats that the Buddha appears differently to different people, always choosing to appear in a form the beholder can perceive…. In this sense, the multiplicity of interpretations of the Bayon is a reflection of the temple’s innate monumental and iconographic power. In light of the sheer semiotic density of Jayavarman’s religious landscapes, Angkor Thom and the Bayon provide another striking example of how symbolic accumulation (involving processes of repetition and substitution) underwrote the design and intended efficacy of microcosmic built environments (see Chapter 4, Yelle 2013). It should thus come as no surprise that the Bayon served as a pantheon of Angkorian deities and assembled the consecrated image of all the gods of the realm in its hundreds of cells (Jacques 1999: 149). This multiplicity of sacred images paralleled the extraordinary forest of face-towers looming above the multiple shrines housing the diverse divinities of the empire (Figure 8.22). Therefore, the semiotic strategies of symbolic exhaustion and intimate parallelism, so apparent in the Bayon, can actually accommodate the proliferation of competing theories on the meaning of the face towers. The great temple constituted the final Angkorian state temple that simulated Mount Meru with the five uppermost shrines (quincunx) symbolizing the peaks of the divine mountain, and the more than 50 smaller shrines representing the provinces of the empire (Cunin 2007; Mabbett 1983b; Mus 1936). Therefore, each tower acted in tandem with the shrine they enclosed to bundle together the administrative regions of the empire into the microcosmic fabric of the mountain temple (Mus 1936). As Mabbett (1983b: 82) observes: the statues of the deities of all the districts and provinces were assembled in the Bayon’s galleries, representing the absorption of the sacred energies of the imperial territory into the majesty of Jayavarman’s patron bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, ubiquitously sculpted on the tower tops, his four faces symbolizing infinity. Indeed, the inscription stelae at the four corners of the walled city of Angkor Thom explicitly refer to the Bayon as the Sudharma, the assembly hall of the gods (Boisselier 1993: 135). The decidedly mandala or yantra-like configuration of the

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Bayon further reveals that it served as a combined sociogram and cosmogram—a great semiotic machine comparable to the Bakheng described earlier in the chapter (Wheatley 1971: 259). The circular, central shrine of the highest elevation of the temple housed the main Buddha image, and it was encompassed by an outer ring of radiating chapels constructed within a cruciform gallery. A quadrilateral precinct enclosed these core shrines, and the whole ensemble mapped out the traditional layout of giant mandala (Boisselier 1993: 136; Sharrock 2007: 280). The central circular shrine forming the heart of the mandala, and perhaps citing a Buddhist stupa, constituted a unique innovation in Khmer architecture (Hawixbrock 1998: 73; Higham 2001). Maxwell (2007: 105) further proposes the three main levels of the Bayon corresponded with the three principal classes of priests at Angkor as well as the three Buddhist manifestations of embodiment and personality. As a mesocosmic mandala, the face towers perhaps intended to materialize visions of hundreds of Buddhas conjured in meditative trances—with the gods of the towers representing higher transcendent beings in relationship to the lower tier of deity images housed within the interior cells of the temple (Maxwell 2007; Sharrock 2007: 280) To consider some other possible meanings of the towers, Wheatley (1971: 277, 437) argued that the multiplication of Buddha heads intended to confuse adversaries and threats to the dharma, as recounted in the narrative of the miracle of Sravasti. As intimated, the plurality of faces also clearly celebrated the “Mahayanist view of a living universe permeated and ruled by innumerable Buddhas” (Maxwell 2007: 110). Boisselier proposed in turn that unlike the gateways of Angkor Thom, the Bayon faces represented the four Buddhist Brahmana vihāras (the abodes of Brahma) of loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. In his interpretation, then, the faces embodied the god Brahma as personifying idealized Buddhist virtues and meditative states essential for pursuing the bodhisattva path to aid suffering beings (Harvey, Peter 2012: 153). Sharrock (2007: 280) interprets the towers as microcosms in and of themselves with the sculptured portion of the tower representing the heavens of rūpaloka (realms of form), while the unadorned uppermost levels symbolize the higher celestial planes of the formless realms (arūpaloka). Indeed, Sharrock (2007) identifies tantric, Vajrayana Buddhist symbols in much of Jayavarman’s later iconography, and he equates the face towers with the omniscient tantric god Vajrasattva, who could emanate multiple deities simultaneously. In the end, Sharrock (2009: 234) refers to the remarkable visaged constructions as “recalcitrant, nondeictic iconography set in a culture loaded with readable signs.” In other words, the towers were iconic to the point that they indexed no singular deity or condition in particular. Instead, they appear to have induced a state of profound mystery that challenged normative representational associations. The aesthetic program and semiotic ideology encapsulated by the face towers distributed the sensible in a way that evoked awe and wonder, something the edifices continue to induce to this day. Sharrock implies that only the enlightened few may

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have perceived the towers as providing a glimmer of the true nature of the universe as unconditioned and transcendent. He writes (2009: 234): Thus, while the conventional ‘presiding deity’ and the focus of ritual activity remains the traditional Khmer Buddha protected by a Nāga erected in the central sanctuary, I suggest that the architectural superstructure above this image [the face towers] represents a higher vision of ultimate reality, a reality beyond human conception and known only by supreme Buddhas. The towers invite comparison with the Moche King of Assyria vessels also characterized by serene smiles and generic countenances. However they expressed generosity and festive bounty, not compassion and infinite wisdom (see Chapter 6). Although the meanings and effects differed between the miniature faces of the Moche jars and the massive heads of the Bayon, a kind of “Rhematization,” entailing the conversion of indexical and conventional signs into iconic ones seems to have underwritten the aesthetic force of both traditions of iconography (Ball 2014: 154; Gal 2013). In other words, the iconized faces powerfully affected the naturalization of core values. However, in the case of Jayavarman’s face towers, such values were left strategically open to interpretation. The potentially diverse interpretants the faces evoked perhaps facilitated Jayavarman’s at once bold but ecumenical “Buddhafication” of ancient Angkor. In his efforts to convert the empire, Jayavarman VII’s propagation of a revolutionary aesthetic and architectural program extended beyond the Bayon and Angkor Thom to include his massive building projects in the greater Angkorian region and in refurbished temples in the provinces. This overcoding of the religious landscape similarly relied on a ritualized semiotics of repetition, substitution, intimate parallelism and symbolic exhaustion. For instance, the repetition of iconography characterizes the gallery walls of the great temple-monastic complexes of Ta Prohm, Preah Khan, and Banteay Kdei in Angkor. Along with the thousands of apsaras, innumerable, repeated Buddha reliefs were carved on the walls of the enclosures, and the many divinities enshrined within the perimeters were thus clothed in a mantle of Buddhist sanctity (Figure 8.24). In the provincial centre of Banteay Chhmar in northwest Cambodia, the shrines to Śiva and Viṣṇu incorporated in the larger temple were effectively sublimated to Buddhist doctrine given the adornment of the outer enceinte walls by repeated iterations of carvings of the Buddha (Bruguier et al. 2015: 261; Hawixbrock 1998: 68). This scheme inverted the earlier tradition of decorating exterior murals with Brahmanic iconography, including Buddhist temples prior to Jayavarman VII’s reign (Hawixbrock 1998: 65). In Angkor, these enveloping, seated Buddhas were desecrated in iconoclastic outbursts during the Śaivite revival of King Jayavarman VIII, perhaps as means to deactivate their reterritorializing potency (Figure 8.24). The saturation of space with repetitive icons to overcode a Mahayana Buddhist cosmology onto the built world parallels the multiplicity of face towers rising

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FIGURE 8.24 The repetition of Buddha carvings on an enceinte wall at Banteay Chhmar,

and chiselled-out Buddha reliefs at Preah Khan in Angkor.

above the Bayon and other edifices (that also sheltered Hindu statuary). In fact, up to 50 towers once surmounted the temple of Banteay Chhmar, built in honour of Jayavarman’s fallen generals (Cunin 2008). Balustrades of devas and asuras holding snakes also guarded the four entrances of the latter temple as well as at the monastic complex of Preah Khan in Angkor (Bruguier et al. 258–260). Banteay Chhmar was actually modelled on the latter, and the inscriptions indicate that deity images were placed in comparable locations within the two complexes (Cunin 2008; Hawixbrock 1998). Thus, intimate parallelism along with repetition was coded in temple complexes as a whole, with the seeming intention to channel the cosmographic power of the Bayon to locales beyond the walls of Angkor Thom. In addition, the semiotics of symbolic accumulation and repetition evident in the corralling of all the deities of the empire at the Bayon finds a counterpart in the prolific manufacture of statuary and bronze votives of Buddhist divinities that the king’s workshops distributed throughout the empire. Jayavarman’s templemonasteries served as repositories of an unprecedented accumulation of deity images, and as pantheons in their own right, they replicated the great deity assembly hall of the Bayon, with its many cells and 439 niches (Jacques 1999: 138).

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For instance, Ta Prohm housed approximately 400 statues and Preah Khan 500, and this number includes only the main sculpted cult objects, and not the proliferation of smaller votive dedications (Hawixbrock 1998: 65). Among the statues, the inscription of Preah Khan (K. 980) declares that the king commissioned 23 “Jayabuddhamahānāthas,” meaning Jayabuddha the great savior or “BuddhaGreat-Lord of-Victory” (Woodward and Douglas 1994: 108). They were sent to important shrines across the empire. These statues appear to depict Jayavarman as a salvific Buddha, or given the modest attire of the monarch wearing a loincloth, perhaps the effigies portrayed the king in meditative prayer. Woodward and Douglas (1994) argue instead that they pertain not to the few extant portrait statues of the kings, but to “radiating Avalokiteśvara,” an eight-armed statue exuding numerous Avalokiteśvara from its pores and sporting on its chest images of the female Bodhisattva of wisdom. Over a dozen of these statues have been recovered in sites in Thailand and Cambodia. Regardless of the precise identity, the Jayabuddhamahānāthas, along with the great ranks of other statuary, created a divine web of sacra that connected the larger domain to the regional gods warehoused in the Bayon (Dagens 2003: 208; Mus 1936; Sharrock 2007: 246). The multiple face towers, representing the provinces and gazing in all directions, worked in tandem with this assembly of autochthonous gods to magically bind the statue ambassadors stationed in the hinterland with the cosmic centre. Otherwise stated, the inward flow of local gods into the Bayon, the heart of the Empire, and the outward procession of an army of Jayavarman’s deified icons to the provinces aimed to reterritorialize Angkor as a Buddhist polity. Indeed, a particular manifestation of sympathetic indexicality, so typical of efficacious ritual, seems to have underwritten Jayavarman’s unique semiosphere. The intimate parallelism bundling the religious landscape together also extended to the relationship of architectural complexes with popular statuary styles. For instance, one of the most common depictions of Buddhist divinities during the reign of Jayavarman consisted of the Buddha sharing the same pedestal with the Bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteśvara, and the female personification of the perfection of wisdom, Prajñāpāramitā (Hawixbrock 198: 66). In Jayavarman’s art, the latter divinities assumed the role of the father and mother of the Buddha (Woodward and Douglas 1994: 106). Quite remarkably, this same triad was scaled up to Jayavarman’s three major religious constructions in Angkor. Ta Prohm was founded in honour of the king’s mother as an embodiment of Prajñāpāramitā, while Jayavarman VII dedicated Preah Khan to his father in the form of the Bodhisattva of compassion (Harris, I 2005). Finally, the Bayon incarnated the Buddha and the king himself. The temple of Banteay Chhmar was similarly dedicated to the triad of Buddha-Lokeśvara-Prajñāpāramitā, as reflected by the three separate shrines forming the nucleus of the temple (Bruguier et al. 2015: 280). The symbolism affirmed the deep convictions among Mahayana Buddhists that wisdom married with compassion births the Buddha and enlightenment (Hall 2011: 198). The temporal rhythm of construction also reinforced this schema: Ta Prohm was built first followed by Preah Khan and then the Bayon. Such allegorical meanings inscribed

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across the urban landscape at nested scales of perception served as a powerful ­testament of the king’s supreme and benevolent authority. Even the iconographic and architectural innovations that demonstrate clear continuities with earlier traditions often acted to convert the urban landscape to Mahayana Buddhism. For instance, the north baray of the Jayataṭāka with its elegant central mebon shrine of Neak Pean, in the shape of a lotus, did not simulate the cosmic oceans surrounding Meru but symbolized Lake Anvatapta, a Himalayan lake sacred to Buddhists (Hall 2011: 198; Meister 2000: 264). A lake important to Buddhist kings, its waters were celebrated for its curing and purifying powers, thus aligning with Jayavarman VII’s obsession with the physical and spiritual well-being of his subjects (Thompson 2004b). Traditional Brahmanical iconography was also repurposed to promote Buddhist values. For instance, in the Hindu tradition, Garuda, an anthropomorphic bird deity, served as the mount of Viṣṇu and sworn enemy of the nāgas, an intelligent race of snakes. However, in Jayavarman’s sculptural iconography, “all associations with Viṣṇu were dropped and the magical Eagle grows into a towering, barrel-chested defender of Buddhism and the new temple enclosures built by the King” (Sharrock 2009: 124). The new depictions of Garuda as protector of Buddhism complement “gentle” depictions of these figures, who as good Buddhists, no longer hunt the nāgas but convert and care for them. Scholars have recognized that an innovative humanism, reflecting a decidedly Buddhist ethos, also characterized Jayavarman’s aesthetic revolution (Hawixbrock 1998: 74; Thompson 2004a). For instance, the sculpted portraits of the king portray his humility and humanity. The monarch has shed his crown and jewels and is dressed in a common mendicant’s loincloth. Jayavarman’s somewhat plump constitution also expresses a modesty and realism that departs from the ideal depictions of the model, warrior king depicted at Angkor Wat (Hawixbrock 1998). The famed bas-reliefs of the Bayon and Banteay Chhmar also contrast notably with earlier traditions. They do not simply commemorate mythological events, godly exploits, and royal processions but portray the everyday life of the people, ranging from chess-playing and market transactions to cock fights and childbirth (Figure 8.25). Scenes of temple construction, including the cutting and hoisting of blocks, provide a rare glimpse of building in action, a telling representation given the magnitude of Jayavarman’s place-making that must have transformed the empire into a great construction site (Roveda 2007: 316) (Figure 8.25). The sculpture of quotidian routines expressed the king’s Mahayana preoccupation with the suffering and deliverance of the common people, just as his meritorious building campaigns intended to increase the karmic fruitfulness of all his subjects (Forest 2012: 83). Indeed, the many inscriptions of Jayavarman’s reign proclaim his deep ­compassion for the suffering of his people, which he associated closely with spiritual and physical illness. For instance, the hospital stelae proclaim that “People’s sickness of body became for [Jayavarman] a sickness of the soul, so much more afflicting; for it is the suffering of their subjects that makes kings suffer, and not their own suffering.” (Finot 1903: 30; Jacques 1999: 157) The 102 hospitals he

304  The Āśrama and Hospital Foundations of Ancient Angkor

FIGURE 8.25   Bayon

bas-reliefs depicting everyday life, including temple construction, a cock fight, the possible mixing of medicinal herbs, and childbirth.

constructed across his realm dramatically materialized the politics of compassion defining Jayavarman’s reign, a remarkable healthcare network that was fully integrated into the semiosphere and reterritorializing program underwriting the king’s larger remaking of the political landscape. 8.2.2

The Hospitals of Jayavarman VII: Epigraphic Evidence

The inscription of the great monastic complex of Preah Khan (K. 908) reports the establishment of 121 fire shrines (rest stops) throughout the empire, while its counterpart (K. 273) at Ta Prohm celebrates the foundation of 102 hospitals across Jayavarman’s kingdom (Coedès 1906: 48; 1941: 266; Hendrickson 2008). The two enormous temples served as the respective command centres of the two systems of infrastructures, and as the head of the hospital network, Ta Prohm became the largest complex devoted to health and spiritual care in the ancient world. Remarkably, the inscription indicates that this temple-monastery was staffed by 12,640 workers and provisioned by 79,365 people living in hundreds of villages attached to its support (Higham 2001: 126–127; Jacques 1999: 133). Both the hospitals and rest stops follow a consistent architectural template that has facilitated their discovery by archaeologists (Dagens 2005; Hendrickson 2008; Pottier and Chhem

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2010; Swenson 2013). Given the highly codified and unvarying configuration of the complexes, archaeologists have identified approximately 61 hospital chapels across Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand (Dagens 2005; Sutthitham 2004). Also recovered from throughout Southeast Asia, we know of 25 stelae that charter the foundation of hospitals built under the direct patronage of Jayavarman. Similar to the foundation inscriptions of Yaśovarman’s āśrama, the royal edicts emplaced at all the hospitals were nearly identical and based on the same poem written in Sanskrit; most often when they differed, it was in terms of staff and resource allotments (Finot 1915; Thompson 2004b: 94). The prismatic stone stelae also exhibited standardization in shape and size and were inscribed on all four sides. As mentioned, the edicts explicitly link the king’s compassion for the affliction of his people with his own legitimacy as universal ruler (cakravartin). As Thompson explains (2004b: 93–94): During Jayavarman VII’s reign, a certain conjunction of the physical health of the people and social health of the kingdom through the figure of the king was formulated in an unprecedented manner. This first Cambodian public health policy, though not perhaps a full-coverage social security system, included the foundation of 102 hospitals (ārogyaśāla). Literally translated to “centres of diseaselessness,” these ārogyaśāla served as places of healing and worship, and as in many cultures, the body and soul were inseparable and required equal care. Indian texts on medicine, hygiene, and the establishment of hospitals as meritorious acts clearly inspired Jayavarman’s investments in healthcare, and Yaśovarman’s earlier āśrama also served as places of medical treatment. The public works of King Asoka (304–232 BCE), the archetypical Buddhist King, provided a clear precedence for Jayavarman’s hospital foundations, but the scale of the latter’s campaign is without parallel (Dagens 2005: 251–252; de Casparis and Mabbett 1992: 296) The four most important of these temple-medical facilities were located around Jayavarman’s royal capital, one on each side of this immense walled city of Angkor Thom situated near the principal entrances of the great cosmographic city (Figure 8.26). Perhaps inspired directly by Yaśovarman’s building of the four principal āśrama around the East Baray, the main hospitals of the capital numbered four and surrounded Jayavarman’s largest and most impressive constructions (Angkor Thom and the Bayon). Both in the capital and in the provinces, a central chapel dedicated to Buddha the healer (Bhaiṣajyaguru), a “library,” entrance gopura, and an adjacent water basin formed the ceremonial core of the individual hospital complexes (Figure 8.27). The inscriptions provide a window onto the cult practices, workforce, operation, and the resources of the ārogyaśāla. (Coedès 1940; Finot 1903; Jacques 1968; Pottier and Chhem 2010: 171) They begin with an invocation to the Buddha that praises his transcendence of the duality of being and non-being. In conformance

306  The Āśrama and Hospital Foundations of Ancient Angkor

FIGURE 8.26 Map of Angkor Thom, illustrating the location of the four urban hospitals

of Jayavarman VII (LIDAR map and plan courtesy of Dr. Sarah Klassen).

with Mahayana philosophy, the three forms (mūrtis) and bodies (trikāya) of the Buddha are mentioned in turn. The text then pays homage to Bhaiṣajyaguru and states that simply hearing the utterance of his name would ensure the listener peace and good health (Finot 1903: 29). Subsequently prayers are offered to his companion bodhisattvas, Sūryavairocana and Candravairocana, who “dispel the darkness of diseases from beings” (Finot 1903: 29). Similar to the tributes paid king Yaśovarman in the digraphic inscriptions of the āśrama (see above), a eulogy glorifying the king follows the invocation, and Jayavarman is praised for his genealogy, strength, divine qualities, military victories, compassion, and his success renewing kingdom and cosmos. Towards the end of the panegyric, the inscriptions proclaim the king’s suffering for his people, and his aim to defeat illness as he has conquered enemy armies (and doctors are equated directly with warriors in their battles against disease) (Thompson 2004b: 97). Jayavarman then receives commendation for dedicating the healing Buddhas and his two companion Bodhisattvas and establishing the hospital around the main sanctuary. The edicts explicitly indicate that the hospitals are open to “the four castes,” thus making them accessible to all social classes (Bhattacharya 1997: 49; Finot 1903: 31).

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FIGURE 8.27 

Plan of a typical hospital chapel of Jayavarman VII.

The middle portion of the inscriptions specify the medical personnel and ­ orkers of the hospitals along with a long list of tribute owed the facilities, includw ing food, provisions, and medicinal herbs. The staff of larger and best-provisioned ­institutions included 2 doctors, 28 pharmacists (16 men and 12 women), 14 guards, 2 dispensary workers, 2 cooks, numerous nurses, cleaners, water heaters, an astrologer, and ritual specialists (“sacrificers”) to prepare the offerings to the healing Buddhas (Higham 2001: 127; Pottier and Chhem 2010: 171). Based on a comparison of the edicts, the four main hospitals in the capital each accommodated about 200 staff, while the medical specialists and workers numbered between 50 and 100 in each of the provincial ārogyaśāla (Hawixbrock 1998: 72; Jacques 1968: 133). The donations varied according to the size and prestige of the hospital, and the Ta Prohm stela indicates that in total 81,640 men and women from 838 villages provisioned the 102 hospitals with 2,124 kilograms of rice, as well as large quantities of sesame, clothing, wax, honey, and fruit (Higham 2001: 127; Wheatley 1971: 265). The edicts also list an impressive Angkorian pharmacopoeia. For instance, doctors received “two varieties of camphor, coriander, pepper, mustard, cardamoms, molasses, cumin, pine resin, ginger, onions and ointment made from

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ten plants for the treatment of fevers” (Higham 2001: 127). The foundation stela of Ta Prohm even documents that the hospitals were stocked with 48,000 febrifuges, while 1,960 boxes of ointment were provided annually to treat haemorrhoids (Wheatley 1971: 265). Three times a year, the king personally donated 36 kinds of medicines to the halls of diseaselessness (Jacques 1999: 157). The final stanzas of the edicts invoke once again the infinite compassion of the king and his love for all beings (Finot 1903: 33). Great merit is promised those who protect the foundation, and the edicts proclaim that wards of the hospitals were free of local and state taxes. Wrongdoers who committed crimes but did not harm the living were also guaranteed protection and care in the sanctuaries. 8.2.3

The Hospitals of Jayavarman VII: Archaeological Evidence

The remarkable standardization of the inscription stelae finds equivalence in the rigid regularity of the ceremonial precinct of the over 60 hospitals recorded in archaeological surveys in Thailand and Cambodia (Bruguier and Lacroix 2013; Dagens 2005; Sutthitham 2004). I participated in the excavations of the West Hospital of Angkor Thom (Prasat Tromoung / Prasat Tamoung) in 2006 under the direction of Christophe Pottier and Rethy Chhem (2010), and it is the only hospital excavated to date in Cambodia. In contrast to the distinct layout of Yaśovarman’s urban āśrama, the analysis revealed that the hospitals of Angkor Thom assumed the same configuration as the many ārogyaśāla distributed throughout the empire. Unsurprisingly, the chapels exhibited finer sculpture in the capital and the four hospital complexes were likely larger. However, the global similarities in this classic repetitive foundation permit a generalized description of the hospitals, detailed below. I will then conclude this section with a brief discussion of the insights yielded by the excavations of Prasat Tromoung. However, unlike the multi-year investigations of the Yaśodharāśrama, the single season of research offers some significant but very preliminary results. The chapel portion of the typical hospital is delimited by a rectangular laterite enceinte that measures on average 31 × 21 m, with its long axis oriented eastwest (Dagens 2005: 257) (Figure 8.27). Grooves along the surviving top course of the enclosure likely socketed arcaded niches that held repetitive images, possibly Buddha statues. A centrally placed shrine with an entrance vestibule facing east occupies the approximate centre of the enceinte (Figure 8.28). Built on a raised platform, a prasat tower crowns the interior cell that measures 2 m square (Coedès 1940: 345; Dagens 2005: 253–254; Sutthitham 2004: 72–73). In the hinterland, the main sanctuary and the other ceremonial buildings were constructed predominantly of laterite, but sandstone was commonly used for lintels, doorjambs, ­cornices, and window frames (Bruguier and Lacroix 2013: 524). In contrast, at Angkor Thom, sandstone constituted the predominant construction medium of the principal shrines. However, in both Angkor and the provinces, the sandstone elements were often recycled and reworked, a practice I revisit in my interpretations below. Interestingly, the evidence indicates that the construction of the temple

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FIGURE 8.28  Main

shrine of the hospital chapels: (a) east hospital, Angkor Thom; (b) south hospital (Ta Prohm Kel), Angkor Thom; (c) Chaeng Meng, Preah Vihear Province; (d) Prasat Neak Buos, Preah Vihear Province.

component of the hospital was shoddy and considerably rushed (Dagens 2005). The interior of some of the more intact chapels contain remnants of a sandstone pedestal with three mortises that once supported the statues of the healing Buddha and his two bodhisattva companions, Sūryavairocana and Candravairocana (Dagens 2005: 255). Figure 8.28 presents photographs of the main hospital chapels at the South (Ta Prohm Kel) and East Hospitals of Angkor as well as the provincial ārogyaśāla of Chaeng Meng and Prasat Neak Buos, both in Preah Vihear province (Bruguier and Lacroix 2013: 152–154). A laterite pavement fronted a few of the sanctuaries to the east, and the presence of postholes indicates that a wooden pavilion likely occupied the space between the entrance gate and the main shrine (Dagens 2005). A library building, with its entrance facing west, occupies the southeast corner of the enceinte, while a cruciform gopura (entrance gate), aligned with the chapel, provided access to the shrine along the central portion of the east wall (Figure 8.27). False doors and windows characterize both building types, especially the sides of the edifices that fall beyond direct routes of access. Dagens (2005: 257) proposes that the library and entrance pavilion also served as shrines for sanctified images as suggested by the discovery of statue fragments of Vajrapāṇi and Vajradhara in the

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courtyard near a few of these buildings in his surveys of Jayavarman’s hospitals in Thailand. A sizeable rectangular basin, on average 20 m on a side, is consistently situated to the northeast of the chapel prasat just beyond the enceinte wall (Dagens 2005: 258–259); Pottier and Chhem 2010: 171) (Figure 8.27). A series of laterite steps frame the basin that once provided direct access to the water pooled within these deep reservoirs. Dagens (2005: 259) notes that the basins’ shape, numerous fine steps, and unusual northeast location (uncharacteristically off-axis with the main shrine) depart from the typical Angkorian trapeang. The hospitals’ mission to purify, cleanse, and heal might account for the special elaboration of these basins. In the end, the materiality and quality of construction differed between the individual hospitals, but the overall design and configuration of the buildings were remarkably standardized. As mentioned, laterite predominated in the provinces, apart from door or window fixtures, while the ceremonial constructions of the four urban ārogyaśāla were built of sandstone and exhibited more fine carvings and sculpture, including Buddhas, apsaras, and Brahmanical deities, among other ­figures (Figure 8.29).

FIGURE 8.29  Sculpted

architectural elements and fragments of statuary, South (Ta Prohm Kel) and West Hospital (Prasat Tromoung), Angkor Thom.

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Archaeologists have recovered the edicts of all four hospitals surrounding Angkor Thom: Prasat Sngout (K. 955) in the north, Ta Prohm Kel (K. 614) to the south, Prasat Tromoung (K. 602) to the west, and an anonymous building near Ta Keo to the East (K. 537), commonly referred to in the literature as the “Temple of the Hospital” (Coedès 1940: 344; Pottier and Chhem 2017: 172). The edicts and characteristic sandstone chapels prove that these sites once served as the main hospitals of the capital city. However, their ruination and the dense forest cover made it difficult to ascertain whether they differed in significant ways from the numerous provincial foundations or whether they were characterized by the other key components of the standard package, such as the basin, library, and enceinte. The excavations of 2006 directed by Pottier and Chhem at Prasat Tromoung intended to shed light on the spatial layout of an urban hospital. At the same time, the excavators designed the research to ascertain the presence of perishable wooden buildings that must have covered the largest portion of the hospital grounds. In other words, an important objective of the project was to identify the actual facilities for medical treatment, drug preparation, food production, and residences for doctors, workers, priests, and patients. Ideally, excavations aimed to shed original light on Angkorian medicine and health care in the context of Jayavarman VI’s revolutionary remaking of the landscape. Prasat Tromoung is located just to the southwest of Angkor Thom’s west gate, and the hospital stela recovered from this site in the early 20th century indicates that it was founded in 1181, the year of Jayavarman’s coronation (Coedès 1940: 344; Pottier and Chhem 2010: 174). It was ideally suited for excavation as it is the most ruined of the four hospitals, and analysis posed little threat to standing architecture. At the start of excavations, the site appeared to lack the characteristic enceinte, library, and dressed, stepped basin (Pottier and Chhem 2010: 177). The sanctuary was cleared of brush and topsoil, exposing the characteristic buildings and a laterite patio (Figure 8.30). We then opened 19 units of approximately 20,000 m square in total, including seven cuts along an abandoned 20th-century canal that runs along the south side of the site (Pottier and Chhem 2010: 174). These small test units, 2 m square, provided excellent stratigraphic profiles, and the ceramics and tiles recovered from these probes confirmed that the main occupation of the site occurred between the end of the 12th and early 13th centuries. The 12 block excavations were placed between 10 to 70 m beyond and around the ceremonial enceinte wall (for the exact placement of the units see Pottier and Chhem 2010: 175, Figure 3). One unit included a 43 × 2 m trench that bisected the basin, exposing fine laterite steps (Pottier and Chhem 2010: 175). The clearance of the sanctuary exposed the central shrine as well as portions of the enceinte, the collapsed library, and more of the ruined entrance pavilion. The excavation team uncovered a number of statuary fragments and sculpted architectural elements within the enceinte, including statue feet, pedestals, deities, mythical figures, apsaras, rosettes, and floral motifs in the Bayon style (Figure 8.29). Clearance also exposed four blocks inscribed with inscriptions dating to the 10th

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FIGURE 8.30 

Chapel of West Hospital (Prasat Tromoung), after clearance.

century that once formed part of walls of the ceremonial structures within the enceinte. They indicate that stonework was recycled from earlier buildings to construct the main edifices of the chapel (Pottier and Chhem 2010: 174). The prasat of the latter completely collapsed but the doorframe remains intact (Figure 8.30). The central shrine’s sandstone pedestal is elegantly tiered and decorated with repetitive floral and geometric motifs. The long trench that subsumed three excavation units and cut across the basin revealed that its edges were faced with steps of finally worked blocks of laterite, comparable to the hospital trapeang excavated in the provinces (Figure 8.31). On the north edge of the basin, around eight broad steps were exposed in the excavation descending at an angle of approximately 15 degrees. The number of steps and manageable gradient indicate that people could have easily accessed the water via the stairs even when levels were low (Dagens 2005: 259). In addition, the trench revealed that the rectangular basin reached a considerable depth, likely more than 1.5 m deep. In some of the most recent anthropogenic deposits in the basin, the excavation team exposed a concentration of elephant teeth (Pottier and Chhem 2010: 178). The excavations beyond the enceinte exposed the anticipated traces of perishable wooden structures, including a long building constructed to the north of the shrine and another such building on an earthwork to the east of the entrance gopura. The edifices were built on a low platform with tiled roofs (Pottier and Chhem 2010: 177), pointing to their likely prestigious functions within the hospital. The identification of sections of other structures, as evinced by the stratigraphy

The Āśrama and Hospital Foundations of Ancient Angkor  313

FIGURE 8.31 

Excavated basin of Prasat Tromoung, and detail of its laterite steps.

and the presence of tiles, also demonstrates that buildings were arrayed around the north and east of the enclosed chapel. In addition, excavations exposed hearths, pits, and faunal remains to the north of the basin, pointing to a significant domestic occupation. The discovery of three tombs, mainly to the west of the chapel enceinte, constitutes one of the most important findings of the excavations at Prasat Tromoung (Pottier and Chhem 2010: 177). Indeed, the tombs, likely formed part of a cemetery and are among the very few ever identified in the great urban expanse of Angkor. The cremated human remains consisted of calcined bone fragments interred in large, irregular pits, larger than was necessary to contain the surviving secondary interments. The burials were associated with intact ceramic vessels and other items including lead ingots, a bronze vessel, cutting blade, chisel, and an iron razor (and the latter possibly belonged to a monk) (Pottier and Chhem 2010: 179) (Figure 8.32). Although preliminary, the excavations suggest a hierarchical compartmentalization of activities within Jayavarman’s hospitals (Pottier and Chhem 2010: 177). The enclosed sanctuary and its three buildings were situated to the centre-east, while lodgings and medical facilities for doctors, hospital

314  The Āśrama and Hospital Foundations of Ancient Angkor

FIGURE 8.32 Jean-Baptiste

Chevance excavating a burial context at Prasat Tromoung, and a metal tool discovered in the same cemetery to the west of the hospital chapel.

personnel, and patients were concentrated to the north, east and possibly south. The main cemetery of the hospital, perhaps intended for those who succumbed to their ailments, occupied the western sector of the complex, a direction commonly associated with death. Two of the three carbon samples analyzed by Beta Analytic produced dates corresponding to the founding and use of site in the late 12th and early 13th centuries (Pottier and Chhem 2010: 178). The third date (calibrated, 1260–1450) along with the ceramic analysis also points to a latter occupation, but the hospital may not have been in operation at this time. Indeed, most of the collected ceramics (numbering nearly 15,000) date to the reign of Jayavarman VII (Pottier and Chhem 2010: 176, 178). In fact, future research is required to ascertain whether the hospital (and perhaps the entire network) shut down soon after the king’s death. 8.2.4

The Semiotic Machinery of Jayavarman’s Hospital Sanctuaries

A closer examination of the hospital network, in direct comparison with the Yaśodharāśrama, sheds additional light on the semiotic ideologies underwriting

The Āśrama and Hospital Foundations of Ancient Angkor  315

Jayavarman’s religious landscape explored in my above interpretations of Angkor Thom and the Bayon. The rigid standardization of the hospitals parallels the iconic regularity of the earlier āśrama, and these meritorious constructions combined the kings’ sovereignty with his subjects’ welfare. The dissemination of the hospitals across the realm in the general vicinity of the most venerable sanctuaries of the kingdom further exemplifies the imposition of a deliberated, conceived, and immediately recognizable space (sensu Lefebvre) that overcoded Jayavarman’s new Mahayana worldview onto the Angkorian Empire. Similar to the long building and aedicule of the āśrama, we can fruitfully interpret the chapel sector of the ārogyaśāla as sinsigns of an archetypical building type (legisigns) (CP: 2.225). The established code of the hospital also relied on a polysemic symbolism and sacred numerology as characterized the Bayon, Angkor Thom, and the earlier Yaśodharāśrama. As mentioned, just as the urban āśrama surrounded and protected the East Baray, the four principal hospitals of the capital city surrounded Jayavarman’s new city of Angkor Thom, guarding the four principal gateways (Figure 8.26). Working in tandem with the asuras and devas holding the great stone snakes, the hospitals offered a double screen of protection against illness, invasion, evil, and pollution. After the disorder of the Cham occupation prior to Jayavarman’s ascension, the hospitals, the cosmogonic balustrades, and the massive wall of Angkor Thom fulfilled a joint defensive and symbolic function. In this light, the construction of the ārogyaśāla adjacent to the four main ingresses into the city complements the king’s inscriptions, which directly equate the well-being of society with the security and spiritual health of the people as brokered by the compassionate piety of the king (Thompson 2004b: 95–96). Angkor Thom shares other features with Yaśovarman’s major infrastructural project of the East Baray. For instance, stelae aedicule with lengthy inscriptions anchor all four corners of both the cardinally aligned Yaśodharataṭāka and Angkor Thom (near the Prasat Chrung, or “corner temples”). In fact, the two kings in question are among the few Angkorian monarchs to enshrine their inscriptions in pavilions—intensifying the sacredness of the written word (Jacques 1999: 148). As discussed, both Yaśovarman and Jayavarman promoted a new script, suggesting that revolutionary urban renewal (the founding of Yaśodharapura and Angkor Thom respectively) often relies on multiple streams of overcoding in the domains of architecture, aesthetics, writing, cosmic symbolism, and iterations of charged, authoritative places. As noted above, the sacred number 108 informed the building and iconography of the two kings. Chhem (2005: 12) even contends that the number of hospitals (102) established throughout the empire conveyed deep symbolic meanings. The mandala of Bhaiṣajyaguru consisted of 51 Bodhisattvas, and since the inscriptions suggest that “Jayavarman VII ‘doubles’ all his foundations in order to worship his parents” (Chhem 2005: 12; Stern 1965: 175), the 102 hospitals may have mapped out the cosmology of the great healing Buddha. In other words, the health care facilities, in territorializing the realm, converted the kingdom into a macrocosmic mandala under the protection and sovereignty of Bhaiṣajyaguru

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and, by extension, his champion, Jayavarman VII. Remarkably, then, the numerous hospitals scaled up the unique mandala configuration of the Bayon to include the entire empire. In this light, it is worth noting that the most common deity image enshrined in the Bayon was no other than Bhaiṣajyaguru. As Sharrock explains (2007: 270): Bhaiṣajyaguru appears no less than 10 times – more than any other, and sometimes with the name of his city of residence – in the small inscriptions identifying icons in the vra kuti and small sanctuaries of the Bayon. The familiarity of the Khmer gurus with the Bhaiṣajyaguru sūtra is attested in inscription K.293-24A in face tower 21, near the central tower of the Bayon, which uses the full formal name of the master of healing and the names of the sun and moon Bodhisattvas who lead the assembly in Bhaiṣajyaguru’s eastern paradise. These icons, or their stations for replicas in the Bayon, evidently anchored the royal network of hospitals, which had already grown to number 102 by the time the Ta Prohm stela was erected in 1186. The centrifugal movement of statuary and icons to the provinces in tandem with the centripetal, reverse flow of regional gods to Angkor (principally to the Bayon but also Preah Khan and Ta Prohm) clearly served to bound the empire, and this territorialization was intensified by the multiplication of hospitals and associated healing Buddhas. Thus, Jayavarman’s health care system exemplifies how the aestheticpolitical effects of religious infrastructures relied on the semiotics of repetition, substitution, intimate parallelism and symbolic accumulation—a recurring theme of this book. Given the unprecedented scale of Jayavarman’s place-making, “symbolic exhaustion” (Yelle 2013) becomes an especially apt heuristic. The replication and nesting of microcosms and the sheer multiplicity of hospitals, monasteries, rest stations, statues, huge monasteries, and so forth is suggestive of a semiotic overcompensation to effect a dramatic change in the world related to Jayavarman VII’s endeavour to impose Buddhism as the state religion. In this regard, how ritually charged features of the landscape may have converted sign relations of likeness into sign relations of creative connectivity (“dicentization,” Ball 2014—see Chapter 4) becomes especially ramified and entangled in Jayavarman’s landscape. The intimate parallelism becomes so abundant that the many icons point everywhere and to everything all at once. Once again, we are confronted with an overwhelming iconicity that recalls Sharrock’s appraisal of the face towers as “recalcitrant, nondeictic iconography” (2009: 234). Perhaps in line with Buddhist metaphysics, the educated few perceived the peculiar semiotic density of Jayavarman’s landscape as expressing the non-duality of existence attained in enlightenment, in which distinctions between subject and object and between sign and referent collapse (or become indistinguishable), resulting in the signless, pure condition of ānimitta (Harvey, Peter 2012: 81). Indeed, the hospital edicts praise the Buddha for transcending dualisms.

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Of course, the prevalent iconicity of Jayavarman’s semiosphere was rarely if ever understood in such terms by the majority of his subjects. Instead, the dominant iconic mode intended to convey certain values and elicit expected interpretations. The humanist dimension in the art of the period—in which, for the first time, iconography depicts common people and practices—also distinguishes a few surviving sculptures of the urban hospitals. For instance, Chhem (2005: 13–14) interprets a bas-relief on a fallen pediment from the chapel of the eastern hospital at Angkor as depicting a doctor undertaking pulse diagnosis, a common practice in traditional Buddhist medicine. In this scene, a person is gently grasping the wrist of another, whose arm is resting on a pillow (Figure 8.33). Thus, the bas-relief appears to portray a medical procedure that represents the principal mission of the institution. In a similar manner, our clearance of the enceinte at Prasat Tromoung (the west hospital) identified a pedestal carved with a woman carrying a yoke supporting two water jugs, a quotidian activity indispensable for the operation of the facility (Figure 8.33). Bas-reliefs at the state temple of the Bayon depicting parturition, delousing, and the mixing of herbal medicines may also have directly indexed the routines of Jayavarman’s hospitals (Figure 8.25) (Roveda 2007: 322). If we reconsider the alternate meaning of iconic as an archetypical “visual image” or master symbol of a specific “person” and “institution… considered

FIGURE 8.33 Depiction of a sculpture of a pulse diagnosis (Chapel of the East Hospital)

and a person carrying a water yoke, Prasat Tromoung.

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worthy of admiration or respect” (Coyne 2019: 24), the hospital chapel and basin fulfilled this role in the same manner as the long building and aedicule of the Yaśodharāśrama (see above). Dagens (2005: 259) decries the sheer “banality” of the chapels’ rigid homogeneity in layout, size, and dimensions (but not necessarily construction medium). Nevertheless, its immediate recognisability as the imprimatur of Jayavarman and his Buddhist mission to alleviate the suffering of his people best explains the rigid standardization of the facilities. In the provinces (and in stark contrast to the Bayon), the sanctuary architecture did not inundate the worshipper with iconography, as most of the religious buildings were constructed of laterite and left unfinished when it came to decorating doors, pedestals, pediments, and windows. Structurally and functionally, the shrine was usually complete, ­however, as the extant crowning lotus motif on the prasat signalled the sanctuary’s full consecration and that the icons’ eyes were ritually opened and receptive to worship (Dagens 2005: 255, footnote 8). Interestingly, the interior cells are almost always finished, in contrast to the exteriors. Once commissioned and accepting patients, Dagens (2005: 259–260) notes that finishing touches to the exterior of the sanctuaries slowed or ceased. In his survey of hospital complexes in Thailand, he even identified sculpture on lintels that were just traced out, but never carved, or doorways with one jamb partly sculpted but the other left untouched. Perhaps the frenzied scale of construction led to a shortage of skilled sculptors, but it was most likely the rapid pace to consecrate the hospitals that resulted both in unfinished chapels, and the shoddy construction of the ceremonial edifices. In the end, the form of the ceremonial nucleus of the hospital—as a marker of Jayavarman’s compassion and meritorious accomplishments—seems to have secured a more prominent place than iconographic embellishments. Despite the iconic status of both Yaśovarman and Jayavarman’s religious infrastructures, the differences between the kings’ repetitive foundations also prove revealing. Jayavarman’s semiotic ideology relied little if at all on iconic indexicality that privileged “contiguity” (see above), perhaps unsurprising given the nondeictic possibilities of the king’s icon-saturated semiosphere. Unlike the Bakheng built directly on the mountain or the urban āśrama that physically latched onto the dike of the baray they simulated in form (see above), the four hospitals of Angkor do not lie adjacent to the city’s moat, defensive wall, or gateways but are positioned some distance from the entries (Cunin 2007: 147). In stark contrast to the Yaśodharāśrama, this aloofness also characterizes the provincial hospitals. The latter are never built on the immediate grounds of venerable temples but were established some distance away (Bruguier and Lacroix 2013: 524–525). For instance, the hospital of Prasat Toch, associated with the great temple of Preah Vihear perched high on the Dangrek massif, was located several kilometres from the main complex at the foot of the mountain along the road that led to the sanctuary (Bruguier and Lacroix 2013: 524). The same distribution also characterizes the hospitals linked to Prasat Neak Buos, Koh Ker, Phnom Sandak, and Prasat Khna, sanctuaries where Yaśovarman and Sūryavarman I established their āśrama in much closer proximity

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to the pre-existing temple enceintes (Bruguier and Lacroix 2013: 152–153; 424, 457) (and see Figure 8.17). In other words, Jayavarman’s regime clearly followed precedent and emulated earlier kings by staking claim to the legacy of the most sacred places of the empire. However, the clear separation of the hospitals from pre-existing temples points to distinct strategies of reterritorialization. Certainly, practical considerations could explain in part the standalone distance of the health facilities, such as separating the ill from the healthy or the difficulties of provisioning hospitals perched on high mountains. However, earlier āśrama also provided health services, and they were most often incorporated on the grounds of prestigious temples. Instead, the Mahayana affiliation of the hospitals can likely account for the peculiar ­location of these facilities. Bruguier and Lacroix (2013: 525) propose that the palpable division of pre-existing sanctuary and hospital served as a form of “propaganda” to make manifest the difference between the extravagant land-holding estates of the Śaiva temples and the more modest hospitals established to promote the welfare and health of the people. This disconnection might have also represented the regime’s attempts to minimize friction with powerful Brahmanical foundations, while still embedding the institutions within a reterritorialized Buddhist landscape. The temples to Viṣṇu and Śiva within Jayavarman’s great monastery of Preah Khan housed the many avatars of these deities (Jacques 1999: 138–139), but they were enveloped by enceintes decorated with innumerable, repeated Buddhas, thus effectively subordinating these divinities to Buddhism. The temple of Lokeśvara also occupied the centre of this monastery, thus placing the great Hindu gods in a subordinate position. Sharrock (2009) similarly interprets the iconographic evidence (especially the prevalence of images of Garuda taming nagas, and Vajrapani/ Vajradhara–the great Bodhisattva of conversion) as suggesting that the shrines to Śiva, Viṣṇu and other Khmer-Hindu deities in Jayavarman’s many temples were subverted to the Buddhist mandala of the larger edifices in which they were emplaced. In other words, Hindu deities were literally converted to Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. Sharrock analyzes the iconography as further demonstrating Jayavarman’s attempts to reform his subjects, convert state officials, and justify his extensive imperial conquests. In a similar manner, the hospitals might also have intended to subtly “Buddhify” and even purify the venerable Hindu-oriented temples of the empire, and pilgrims on their way to prestigious sanctuaries would have first encountered the ārogyaśāla and the distinct messages they encoded. This point raises the question of how these complexes were actually experienced. 8.2.5 Perceived and Lived Space and the Power of the Religious Landscape in Jayavarman VII’s Hospital Network

The ubiquity of the hospitals and their rigidly standardized design, a quintessential striated space Dagens called “banal,” distributed the sensible (Rancière 2009, 2013) in ways that differed notably from the face towers that on first sighting must

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have instilled awe and wonder (see above). Indeed, the complex numerology and symbolism of Jayavarman’s architecture likely held little importance to the average Khmer rice farmer. The prominent prasats of the hospital chapels differ from the horizontally configured ceremonial buildings of the earlier āśrama, and they likely served as visible beacons of the king’s Buddhist mission and even his suffering for his people. Open to all classes, the standard design seemed to advertise the practical services of the health care facilities, explaining in part why structurally the chapel was finished to house the consecrated healing Buddha, while the exterior decorative features could often remain unfinished. In contradistinction to the predominance of laterite in the construction of Jayavarman’s hospital chapels outside of Angkor, sandstone often embellished Yaśovarman’s long buildings within his provincial āśrama (but unlike the four hermitages in Angkor—see above). Once again, mass and visibility—as an immediately recognizable emblem of the king’s benevolence—were privileged over style and decoration, at least in the provinces. Thus, the semiotics encoded in Jayavarman’s political landscape, from face towers to hospital chapels, exhibited significant variation that elicited diverse experiences and reactions. Apart from the preliminary excavations at Prasat Tromoung, Jayavarman’s hospitals remain unstudied beyond the architectural analysis of the chapel buildings. Thus, interpreting the larger facilities in terms of Deleuze and Guattari’s categories of spatial segmentarity proves limiting. Nevertheless, in light of the above analysis, novel spatial relations of both the concentric and linear types territorialized and reordered the landscape during Jayavarman’s reign. The former is apparent in the explicit hierarchization of space mentioned in the inscriptions, and as effective branches of Ta Prohm, the hospitals fell under the jurisdiction of this 60 ha mammoth temple-monastery. The latter coordinated and administered the distribution of supplies to all of the hospitals in Angkor and the hinterland. As already discussed, the distributed network of Bhaiṣajyaguru icons, as well other statues explicitly mentioned in the texts as donations to the hospitals (Higham 2001: 124), further bounded the ārogyaśāla into the new Buddhist ecology of late 12th century Angkor that ultimately pivoted on the centrally placed Bayon. An inscription within the shrine to Śiva in the monastery of Preah Khan lists guardian divinities consecrated within the temple tasked with protecting Jayavarman’s infrastructures, including one who safeguarded the hospitals (Jacques 1999: 142). Once again, the city and provinces were assembled into an integrated landscape through the agency of stone icons and buildings (including, especially the hospitals), that through a kind of sympathetic magic bound the territory together in essentially both directions (from the centre to periphery and vice versa). At the same time, a binary configuration of space appears to have defined the relationship between the provincial hospitals built as independent facilities and nearby venerable temples. The spatial disjunction of the two complexes may have conveyed a series of oppositions, including Buddhist and non-Buddhist, sick and healthy, and even commoner and elite. Foucault cited the modern hospital as

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representing an exemplary heterotopia, and in the Angkorian context, the ­otherness of the ārogyaśāla lay not simply in the presence of the infirm but also in the novelty of the foundation itself. For pilgrims or patients, a visit to a hospital as a standalone facility on the way to Angkor Thom or to a great provincial temple would have evoked Jayavarman’s revolutionary policies in a much more immediate manner than the Yaśodharāśrama attached directly to the temples. We can thus understand the institutions as a kind of thirdspace, a synonym of sorts for heterotopia that heightened critical apprehension of social conditions and alternate political and religious worlds. In this light, the sheer number of hospitals reveals that “sickness” was not so quintessentially “other” as Foucault might argue, and in Buddhist philosophy, all suffering beings suspended in samsara (the endless cycle of rebirth) were essentially ill and deluded. In fact, the rapidity in the construction of the multiple ­hospital chapels strongly suggests that state-issued directives demanded that the facilities come into operation as quickly as possible (Dagens 2005: 260–263). The king’s desire to save his subjects may have underwritten the political expediency ­driving the rapid appearance and functioning of the healthcare system. Stones recycled from older buildings and the unfinished state of the chapel component of the hospitals attest to the remarkably rushed pace of construction. As the inscriptions indicate, the health care centres were open to all classes, and the haste in which they were built speaks to the greater inclusivity of Jayavarman’s building programs (comparable to public housing or the expedited construction of emergency pandemic hospitals today). Similar to Yaśovarman, Jayavarman VII promoted movement and pilgrimage across the empire, as exemplified by the construction of over 120 waystations or rest stops (fire houses). However, the latter king targeted a larger segment of the population, and the occupants of the hospitals must have formed a more diverse cross-section of the society than the āśrama that primarily housed ascetics, monks, and students. In this vein, and despite differing in scale, construction medium, and iconography, the king’s great temples complemented the hospitals in accommodating an amplified public (Sharrock 2009). Jayavarman’s religious constructions, including the Bayon, “suggests participation in rituals on an unprecedented scale” in contrast to the more exclusive and secret rites performed in earlier complexes (Sharrock 2009: 145). The “Dancing Halls” added to his many prominent temples possibly intended to stage tantric Buddhist rites, and these ample precincts could accommodate a much larger number of participants and spectators than earlier Hindu shrines (Chemburkar 2015: 523). Preah Khan and Ta Prohm also served as hospitals, universities, and festival grounds. Jayavarman’s regime thus attempted to expand and reconstitute the collectives taking part in state religious and economic events. In fact, the textual record indicates that female officiants secured a newfound place in the Buddhist rituals of the state (beyond Tantric dancing) (Sharrock 2009: 148). Pronounced shifts in the perception and experience of temple architecture, ­fundamentally altering people’s attachments to and understanding of sacred

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places, played an important role in Jayavarman’s project to remake the Angkorian empire. In light of the above discussion, I have already implicitly touched upon the varied ways ritual performances structured power relations in Jayavarman’s Angkor (Table 3.1 in Chapter 3). Many of the traditional Brahmanical rites of the typical Khmer temple continued with little modification, despite Jayavarman’s reforms (Soutif 2009). However, the architectural and iconographic evidence strongly indicates the promotion of tantric Buddist rites and the sponsorship of festivals and grand ceremonies involved a greater segment of the population. Ritual dancing in Angkor always constituted a vital offering to the gods, promoting fertility and facilitating the propitious rebirth of ancestors (Chemburkar 2015). Dancers and musicians enjoyed high status, owned property, and were exempt from taxation. Nevertheless, and similar to the extraordinary scale of his religious infrastructures, Jayavarman elevated dance to an entirely new level. As mentioned, the hall of dancers built within the enceintes on axis with the main entrance of the temples of Preah Khan, Ta Prohm, Banteay Kdei, and elsewhere could have accommodated a much larger public. As Chemburkar notes (2015: 536): “The sheer size of the king’s temple foundations suggests a strong trend towards urbanization and consolidation of the state by periodically bringing large representations of the provincial population to the centre for festivals.” Such festivals exemplify the fifth intersection of ritual and power discussed in Chapter 3, the emotional nexus of ceremony. Structurally and aesthetically, such celebrations invite comparison with the great feasts and sacrifices staged at Huaca Colorada examined in Chapter 6. The pillars of the hall of the dancers were decorated with over 6,000 dancing apsaras in the ardhaparyaṅka position (one leg lifted to the inner knee of the other), and they dramatically referenced the rites that occurred within the capacious structures. The intoxicating smell of incense, the graceful movements of bejewelled dancers, and the mesmerizing sounds of music immersed participants in an incomparable sensual and aesthetic field, thus powerfully entraining bodies and minds. Indeed, the construction of Jayavarman’s elaborate viewing platform of the elephant terrace in Angkor Thom, fronting the palace at the terminus of the Victory Road, reveals that Jayavarman designed his new city as a great stage for large festivals, parades, and processions (Stark 2015: 90). Pilgrims on their way to participate in such spectacles would have likely come across one of the hospitals, and thus a larger and more diverse laity also seems to have experienced the more intimate rituals staged in these facilities. Apart from the typical offerings orchestrated in the main shrine to Bhaiṣajyaguru and his acolytes, rites such as the recitation of protective mantras (paritta), prayer, and the drawing of magical diagrams likely accompanied treatments and medical procedures. Although not the grand spectacle choreographed in the hall of the dancers, patients would equally have experienced novel rituals, even though of a different genre. Blessings and remedies bestowed by state-accredited doctors, who may have

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adopted different rites and therapies than local village healers, would have made a lasting impression. Perhaps at the psychological level, formal care by a recognized expert may have even hastened healing. Indeed, a hospital chapel epitomizes the second intersection of power, ritual as knowledge and efficacious act, and ideally the ability to heal (make whole, holy) intended to confer legitimacy on the king and his religious program. If the ultimate cure entailed conversion to Buddhism, then, the relevance of the third, fourth, and fifth intersections of ritual and power outlined in Table 3 (identity, ideology, and subjective awareness) to decipher Jayavarman’s revolutionary remaking of place becomes rather self-evident. Indeed, we have ample proof that the Mahayana king’s bold initiatives were highly politicized and contested. The later king Jayavarman VIII (1243–1295) and his court reinstated Śaivism as the official religion of the realm, following the abdication of Jayavarman VII’s son Indravarman II. This reversion resulted in widespread iconoclasm and the defacing of bas-reliefs of the many Buddha figures in Jayavarman’s repurposed temples (Figure 8.24). The central Buddha icon in the Bayon was broken, cast down a shaft, and replaced with a liṅga. In addition, the counter-reformation Śaiva regime smashed the lengthy inscriptions of Phimanakas, Banteay Chhmar, Ta Prohm, Preah Khan, and Prasat Chrung. (Jacques 2007: 40). Recently a Japanese team discovered a graveyard of more than 200 Buddha statues removed from the templemonastery of Banteay Kdei and dumped in deep pits beyond the exterior moat of the complex. This act revealed the scale of iconoclastic destruction wrought on Jayavarman’s Buddhist landscape (Ishizawa and Marui 2002). Unlike the Yaśodharāśrama that thrived for hundreds of years, our preliminary excavation at Prasat Tromoung and the unfinished exteriors of the chapels (Dagens 2005) also suggest that the hospital network soon collapsed after the king’s reign. Whether this was due to the Śaivite reaction or other combined causes requires future investigations. In the end, the rejection of Buddhism was shortlived, ­however, even if Theravada supplanted both Brahmanism and Mahayana Buddhism by the 14th century. Jayavarman VII’s radical reforms made real and ­consequential through the complete remodelling of the physical, perceptible world, forever changed the course of Cambodian history (Forest 2012: 85; Sharrock 2009: 120). 8.3

Concluding Thoughts

Scholars have long debated why Jayavarman VII was the last Angkorian king to build massive infrastructures and enormous stone temples. Some contend that the frenzied and unprecedented scale of building exhausted the resources and workforce of the realm, even leading to widespread environmental degradation. The later spread of Theravada Buddhism, a tradition suspicious of excess, heroic ­rulers, and grandiose ritual displays also might explain the cessation of large-scale

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buildings in Cambodia and the shift from stone temples to wooden vihāras (Briggs 1951; Higham 2001). As De Casparis and Mabbett remark (1992: 299): some have linked the fall of the great Angkorian tradition with Theravada itself, suggesting that the Sinhalese school, with its emphasis on individual salvation rather than public Bodhisattva worship and with its implicit egalitarianism, eroded the ideological foundations of the state. However, they note that economic and social conditions must have also played a critical role. The spacious, wooden vihāras differ from the exclusive prasats housing Hindu gods, and they clearly fulfilled the practical function of providing shelter to sizeable congregants of monks. The Theravada remaking of place also repurposed and converted former Hindu temples during the 16th century, including the complete remodelling of stone architecture into huge sitting or reclining Buddhas at the former state temples of the Bakheng and Baphuon respectively (Coe and Evans 2018: 253). Other scholars, however, accuse colleagues of exaggerating the break between the Angkorian and post-Angkorian Periods (or Brahmanical-Mahayana/Theravada transition). The early Pali inscriptions (replacing Sanskrit) celebrate Theravada beliefs, but the later kings who commissioned the texts adopted the millennia-long tradition of donating lands to monks, building dikes, reservoirs, and vihāras, and consecrating Buddha statues (Forest 2010: 103–105). Tolerance of other religious denominations also continued into the 14th century and beyond. Harris’ (2020) excellent study of the numerous Buddhist terraces built in Angkor Thom, stone platforms that supported wooden ordination and prayer halls, demonstrates important continuities with Jayavarman’s cosmological urban planning. In fact, the proliferation of Buddhist vihāras finds clear precedence with the Yaśodharāśrama, the great monastic network where the preferred building media also consisted of wood (Pou 2002). In caring for all classes, Jayavarman’s hospitals similarly presaged the role of Theravada monks, who intervened much more directly in the lives of the people than did the Brahmanical priests who served the gods exclusively in dark, restricted shrines (Briggs 1951: 260). Dependent on the public for their material survival, monks sought alms, taught the populace, and provided magical and practical assistance. In sum, it is undeniable that the adoption of Theravada Buddhism dramatically remade the religious and political landscape, but we can only understand these historical developments in terms of broader trends and continuities. I reached a similar conclusion in my comparison of the remarkably different built environments of Jatanca, Huaca Colorada, and Tecapa in Chapter 6. Indeed, the theoretical program espoused in this book focuses on semiotics, place-making, the territorialization of assemblages, and the role of ritual in mediating such processes. This focus aimed to provide an archaeological method to analyze change and historical causation more generally, a theme addressed in the concluding chapter.

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Notes 1 The inscriptions go to great lengths to stress Yaśovarman’s legitimate ties with the dynastic founder of Jayavarman II. The former seems to have emulated the latter’s tradition of building temples on mountains, and the convergence of waters in the East Baray may have acted to further connect Kulen, and thus Jayavarman II, with Yaśovarman’s new capital (Chea 2018: 22; Griffiths and Soutif 2009: 44). 2 As Jacques remarks (1999: 62): The construction of the temple mountain of the Bakheng was an undertaking of gigantic proportions. The summit of the hill had to be leveled off, leaving behind only as much as was needed to form the body of the pyramid, which stands directly on the hill’s sandstone. 3 See Filliozat (1954) for a detailed survey of the extraordinarily diverse and complex meanings of the number 108 and cognate integers in Indic calendrics, astronomy, and theology. 4 Deleuze and Guattari (2009) propose a quasi-evolutionary model of social formation based on changing processes of coding, overcoding, decoding, territorialization, and deterritorialization. The three stages they propose include: “primitive territorial machines, barbaric despotic machine, and capitalism.” According to Deleuze and Guattari, overcoding emerged with the origins of the first states (in “despotic machines” centred on the body of the sovereign), which they closely link to Marx’s Asiatic mode of production (Patton 2000: 92). 5 The Lolei (K. 323) inscription eulogizes the king’s literacy and knowledge of different writing systems, a rarity in the inscriptional records (Estève and Soutif 2010–2011: 342; ISCC: 407, n. 3). 6 The stanzas in the Khmer language in Yaśovarman’s inscriptions retained the classic alphabet, and siddhamātṛkā was only employed for Sanskrit verses (Estève and Soutif 2010–2011). 7 Estève and Soutif (2010–2011: 331–333) explicitly refer to the āśrama as “marqueurs d’empire et bornes sacrées” (markers of empire and sacred milestones) and as spatial “seals” of Yaśovarman’s regime. 8 We have identified characteristic buildings of the Yaśodharāśrama at the temples of Preah Vihear, Prasat Khna, Prasat Neak Buos, Prasat Trâpeang Thnâl Svay (all in Preah Vihear Province); Ta Siu Khang Lech, Banteay Meanchey Province; and Wat Phu and Houay Tomo in Laos (Estève and Soutif 2010–2011; Swenson and Wai 2019). 9 Pottier, the first to identify the rectangular compounds of the āśrama (2003: 205), suggests that all four monasteries were once located along the southern embankment of the East Baray. Based on the traces of an earlier rectilinear enclosure just to the east of the temple-mountain of Pre Rup, he contends that the māheśvarāśrama was once located here. In fact, a characteristic stela shrine in the style of Yaśovarman occupies the grounds of the temple of Pre Rup (Trouvé 1932), though Chea argues this dates to a later period (2018: 118). Pottier proposed that when Rājendravarman returned the capital to Angkor from Koh Ker in 944 CE, he moved this monastery to Prasat Komnap North to make way for his new mountain-temple of Pre Rup. However, the enclosure at Pre Rup was misidentified, and Prasat Komnap North likely always served as the seat of the māheśvarāśrama (Pottier, Soutif, personal communications). Indeed, the two Śaivite monasteries secured the most auspicious eastern locations, while the hermitages to Viṣṇu and the Buddha were situated further to the west. 10 In 2010, survey conducted by the Yaśodharāśrama Research team at Prei Prasat identified an additional fragment of the inscription of K. 279 (Chea 2018: 105–106). 11 For the full translations of K. 279, K. 290, and K. 701, see Coedès 1932. The recently discovered K. 1228 was translated by Claude Jacques but remains unpublished. However, Estève (2009: 349–359) provides translations of critical passages in her dissertation.

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12 This distinction is interesting, for unlike the longer inscriptions of the urban āśrama, in the digraphic texts of the provinces, brāhmaṇa, vipra, and dvija all seem to denote “Brahman” (Coedès 1932). 13 Through devotional practices and extreme asceticism (yoga, tapas, meditation, ecstatic dancing, bathing in ashes, etc.), the Pāśupata strove to tap Śiva’s supreme spiritual powers (Shakti) and become one with god’s salvific and infinite grace (de Dreuille 1999: 17; Higham 1989: 260; Wolters 2008: 184). The Pāśupata, are mentioned in the inscriptional record in Cambodia as early as the 7th century during the Pre-Angkorian Period (at Sambor Prei Kuk), and these ascetics appear to have served as important advisors to Khmer kings (Bhattacharya 1955b: 479; but see Vickery 1996: 399). 14 Pou (2002: 319) dismisses that āśrama ever signified the four stages of life in Cambodia. Even if this system, along with caste (varṇa) in general, never took hold in Southeast Asia, Khmer sages were no doubt familiar with this ideal life-trajectory. 15 Olivelle (1993: 216) notes that the number four secured a place of unrivaled symbolic importance in Indian worldviews, ranging from the four Vedas and four varṇa to the four lines (pada) comprising the typical Sanskrit stanza. 16 As Vyas notes (1967: 266): “The culture of hermitages stands only next in importance to urban culture in the Ramayana.” 17 Initiated in 2010, I joined the Mission Yaśodharāśrama in 2014 in collaboration with Julia Estève, Socheat Chea, and Dominque Soutif. 18 The postholes at Prei Prasat are square and designed to hold laterite pillars, some of which remain in situ. In contrast, they are round in the pavement exposed at Ong Mong and Prasat Komnap South (Chea 2018). 19 As Klostermaier (1989: 299) notes, Hindu temples did not serve as places of congregation but incarnated the exclusive domain of the mūrta bhagavān, the embodied lord. 20 The inscriptions in the corner shrine of Angkor Thom, the Prasat Chrung, praise Jayavarman VII for constructing the city walls to ensure the defense of the population. They also admonish earlier and deposed kings for neglecting the defence of the city (Jacques 2008: 6). 21 Meister (2000: 265) refers to the central tower of the Bayon as fixing the “point of cosmic parturition.” 22 Sharrock (2007) provides a through history of the changing theories on the identity and meaning of the face towers.

9 CONCLUSION Landscapes of History

9.1 Introduction

The cosmologies and ideologies governing relations with other-than-human ­powers—what most would call “religion” and “ritual”—have served as powerful structuring mechanisms and engines of historical change. This argument has constituted an overarching theme of this book, and it aligns with the now widely accepted rejection of the traditional materialist premise that the economic infrastructure determines the superstructure of religion and worldview. As mentioned in Chapter 3, Marshall Sahlins’ ethnographic survey revealed a lack of correspondence between social structure and religion in many egalitarian, hunter-gatherer societies. The cosmologies of such cultures of “immanence” were based on unequal, hierarchical relations between ontological others, wherein “the state is prefigured in cosmology before it is known in society” (2022: 127). My analysis of how ritual territorializes and codes behaviour in intensified material frames of practice also revealed that it can powerfully reproduce tradition or promote social experimentation and the imaginings of alternate political worlds. The latter may have no direct bearing on the organization of society but can presage or inspire the changes to come (Graeber and Wengrow 2021). Indeed, power—and thus politics—lies at the heart of the religious and finds material expression in ritual practice and the construction of the landscape. As supported by the case studies presented in this book, we cannot understand the great infrastructures of ancient complex society outside the domain of historically specific cosmopolitics. It is for this reason that temple architecture, or specialized semiotic machines, merits comparison with the building of roads, reservoirs, and irrigation networks. The theories adopted in this book also intended to overcome ethnocentric understandings of ritual and religion as independent domains narrowly concerned with DOI: 10.4324/9780429356063-9

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psychology, belief, and the epiphenomenal legitimization of social organization (Asad 1993). Relations with other, ultimate powers were forged and maintained through material processes and practices and variably shaped many aspects of ­society, from kinship reckoning to farming, government, and commercial exchange. An examination of ritual as a specific mode of practice and embodied experience also effectively collapses the divide between the material and ideational. In this light, I concur with critics of constructivist theory; we must reject traditional definitions of culture as comprising a system of symbolic representations overlaid on a singular if re-signified “natural” world (Ingold 2000). However, I criticized in turn the ironic retention of traditional dichotomies by certain proponents of new materialist theories who cast signs, symbols, and representations as immaterial and inconsequential to the course of human history and indeed ecological change beyond the human (see Chapter 2). The intrinsic semiotic properties of matter create multiple, sensible worlds, just as interpretants produced in sign processes trigger real ­material effects. The amplified semiosphere engendered by ritual renders it an especially potent vehicle in the making of worlds, even if it is fleeting and contextually situational. Ultimately, this book selectively mobilized the theories of Peirce, Lefebvre, Rancière, Deleuze and Guattari, and their many interlocutors, to provide a practical means—a methodology of sorts—for archaeologists to infer political processes and historical change from an analysis of the material record. The comparative approach I adopted also found inspiration in Indigenous philosophies of place and cosmos that proved useful in historicizing the insights of western social theorists. An examination of Angkorian religious infrastructures enriched our understanding of Andean equivalents (as well as vice versa). This holds true in making sense of both intriguing commonalities (semiotics of landscape, ritual’s role in coding and territorialization, and the politics of aesthetics) as well as the important differences within and between the two broadly conceived traditions. In the end, a landscape approach focusing on how places, things, signs, and bodies, were variably ­territorialized (assembled and dis-assembled) in the context of changing semiotic ideologies coded in archaeological remains can permit an approximation of how space was variably conceived, perceived, lived, and contested in past societies (Lefebvre 1991). In fact, a comparison of the concordance and contradictions between the trilectics of space, and how they were structured by processes of machinic reterritorialization, the distribution of the sensible, and shifts of semiotic ideologies offer a firm foundation from which to interpret the meaning and consequences of historical change. As outlined in Chapters 3 and 4 and demonstrated by the case studies, the investigation of the traces produced by ritualized practices in particular can generate special insights on problems of agency, ­causality, and the unforeseen ramifications of past actions. Indeed, I conclude the book with a few thoughts on how the theories developed in this study can improve our ­understanding of historical process, social change, and periodization schemes more generally.

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9.2

Archaeologies of Historical Change

9.2.1

A Detour to Akhetaten: Akhenaten’s Amarna Revolution

A comparison of the changing material signatures of ritual frames, aesthetic media, semiotic ideologies, infrastructural investments, and the shifting territorializations of places and things—all encoded in the landscape—can offer insights on significant historical transformations. A major change in one or more of these registers but not in others can prove particularly illuminating. Take for instance, the famed and revolutionary initiatives of Pharaoh Akhenaten (r. 1353– 1336 BCE) during the short Amarna period, in which the imposition of a new theology intended but ultimately failed to change the Egyptian social order and most aspects of everyday reality, from language and administration to ritual and cosmology (Hornung 1999: 49; Reeves 2001: 139). As a result of the pharaoh’s novel policies, many of the above-mentioned registers demonstrate abrupt and coordinated shifts. Indeed, archaeologists have directly read Akhenaten’s radical reforms from his revolutionary aesthetic and building projects, as reflected especially in the construction of his new city of Akhetaten (El Amarna) in central Egypt (Kemp 2013). Certainly, one could write an entire book to apply the theories developed in this study to interpret Akhenaten’s attempted revolution, and I simply examine some key innovations of the Amarna movement to support some of my concluding arguments concerning the interpretation of historical process from the archaeological record.1 The rejection of millennia-old traditions of Egyptian religion and the monotheistic elevation of the Aten (sun disk) led to notable shifts in semiotic ideologies, place-making, strategies of territorialization, and the distribution of the sensible that invites comparison with the reconfiguration of Andean and Angkorian landscapes explored in this book. Akhenaten’s complete remaking of place finds some striking parallels with Jayavarman VII’s policies to convert the Angkorian kingdom to Mahayana Buddhism. For instance, both monarchs conceived of their cities as enormous temples and innovative themes (including veristic depictions of private life and kingly bodies) characterized their highly original artistic traditions (Kemp 2013: 30; Mallinson 1999; Reeves 2001: 117). Akhenaten’s roofless and open-air temples, which allowed the sun to shine down for unmediated worship, was as dramatically novel in the Egyptian context as the Bayon was in the Angkorian world. As Reeves observes (2001: 95): The open nature of the Aten temples [indicate] that there was no need of a cult image, since the god was visible constantly throughout the hours of daylight. As a result, much of the daily routine of the old religion could be dispensed with, and the Aten’s priesthood was correspondingly small. In addition, both monarchs promoted new scripts (in the case of Amarna, Late Egyptian, which was attuned to spoken Egyptian at the time), while Akhenaten

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adopted novel standards of measurements and even construction media (Hornung 1999: 35). The latter included the smaller talatat stone that revived a building block type first associated with the Old Kingdom, a time when pharaohs were also directly associated with the power of the sun (Hoffmeier 2015; Kemp 2013: 60; Reeves 2001: 93). This multi-pronged and innovative aesthetic program provides a clear example of overcoding, which tends to intensify in times of imperial expansion or to promulgate new ideologies, ritual practices, and value systems (Deleuze and Guattari 2009: 194–199) (see Chapters 2 and 8). In other words, the Amarna state attempted to administer a near-totalizing redistribution of the sensible to remake subjects, targeting especially the elite classes in Akhetaten. In official art, the pharaoh and his family were carved with strikingly androgynous, sensuous, and kinetic bodies in sunken relief (unlike the once prevalent high relief sculptures), and the unique style remains visually arresting to this day (Hornung 1999: 44). Akhenaten even established the royal tombs on the eastern bank of the Nile, to emphasize the dead kings’ union with the rising sun disk, thus breaking from millennia traditions of interring the deceased in the west, where the sun sets (Hornung 1999: 61; Reeves 2001: 118, 140). A form of iconoclasm further distinguished the Amarna era, and the once ubiquitous images of the gods, including their theriomorphic manifestations, were largely prohibited in Akhetaten (Assmann 2006; David 2020: 235; Hornung 1999: 88). Statues of Amun and his consort Mut in particular were smashed and their names cut out from hieroglyphic inscriptions (Foster 1999: 107; Freed 1999: 25; Reeves 2001: 154). Akhenaten and his family (especially his consort, Nefertiti) were the only divine representations permitted in anthropomorphic form, and the great Aten was rendered as a disc with beaming rays ending in caressing hands that touched the pharaoh and his consort, infusing them with divinity (Freed 1999: 22; Hornung 1999: 54). Most scholars agree that the common people were now expected to worship the king and his family exclusively, who intervened on the populace’s behalf with the one, supreme Aten (Reeves 2001: 146). The art suggests that a semiotics of contiguous indexicality mediated communication with the royal family and high priests of the Aten cult (expressing their oneness). This semiotic mode is expressed by the touching beams of the sun terminating in hands, and the open-air temples in which worship involved direct immersion in the light and heat of the sun (David 2020; Foster 1999: 102; Freed 1999: 26; Kemp 2013: 26).2 Reeves notes (2001: 49): “Aten was not originally a god in its own right, but Re’s [Ra’s] most sentient aspect, the sun god’s visible body or light-energy.” However, a streamlined iconicity (images of Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and their children), symbolizing new conventions of ritual and social decorum, governed communication between the divine Pharaoh and the people. In terms of the spatial layout of the Akhetaten, it also differed significantly from the typical Egyptian settlement. The segregation of workshops and lowerclass housing from elite villas was not as pronounced as in earlier cities such as Thebes, and the urban landscape sprawled along the east side of the Nile, covering

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an area of 200 sq. km. (Kemp 2013: 161–163, 268). The names of owners were also ­chiselled on the front of houses, as opposed to tombs as characterized previous periods, placing a new-found emphasis on the world of the living (Hornung 1999: 96). Most strikingly, Akhenaten territorialized his new city by erecting a series of boundary stelae around its perimeter, 16 of which are known, carved in two sets during the pharaoh’s fifth and sixth regnal years (Kemp 2013: 32–35). They explicitly commemorate the founding of Akhetaten (meaning the Horizon of Aten) in the honour of the sun disk. The stelae explain that with the establishment of the new settlement the pharaoh fulfilled the wish of the Aten to consecrate a new city dedicated exclusively to the sun and free of other false deities. In addition, the boundary stelae precisely record the boundaries of the larger realm and fixed the absolute limits of Akhetaten, which could not be extended or reduced (Reeves 2001: 109–110). Thus similar to the multiple and often identical inscriptions of the Yaśodharāśrama and Jayavarman VII’s hospitals, the boundary stones of Akhetaten at once overcoded and reterritorialized the larger political landscape. The stelae indicate that the founding of the city constituted an act of cosmogonic creation, comparable to Jayavarman’s Angkor Thom (Zinn 2020: 304). Kemp (2013: 33) notes that these dazzling white monoliths were visible from afar, and broad paths leading to the stelae indicate that they constituted points of processional visitation. Their prominence thus parallels Yaśovarman’s inscribed monoliths sheltered under pavilions and occupying pride of place in the ceremonial sector of the urban āśrama (see Chapter 8). A remarkable materialization of conceived space, the boundary stelae at Akhetaten at once defined the extent of the city while providing a blueprint of the urban layout. The texts mention the Island of the Aten with main temples and palaces, the tombs of the eastern mountain, and surrounding fields and towns (Kemp 2013: 40). Although systematic urban planning and an enclosure rampart were lacking at Akhetaten, the stelae precisely marked the sacred domain of the Aten—converting the chosen expanse of dry desert into a massive open temple. Akhetaten was founded in the approximate centre of the traditional Egyptian realm and cosmological considerations also influenced its location, similar to the siting of Huaca Colorada or the Bakheng discussed in earlier chapters. For instance, a notched cliff overlooks the site on its east side and the distinctive shape resembles the hieroglyph akhet meaning “horizon.” The unusual topography of the site thus marked the place where the sun was reborn at dawn (Reeves 2001: 113; Stevens 2018: 106). Indeed, cosmology trumped practicality, for the dry desert of Amarna lay above the height of the Nile’s annual inundation, and the city’s vital water source—and the many gardens it supported—derived from hundreds of deep wells (Kemp 2013: 50–53). The digging of the latter and the subsequent procurement of water were extraordinarily labour-intensive, and the frenzied pace of constructing the new city in a short period exemplifies the cosmopolitical motivation behind great infrastructural projects in antiquity. The larger limestone quarries and hundreds of small-scale extraction sites surrounding Amarna attest to the voracious demand for stone to rapidly build the city’s temples, and Kemp argues that

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the inhabitants of Akhetaten were expected to pay a levy in construction material (2013: 63). The innovative if archaistic talatat blocks also likely intended to hasten the speed of building (Kemp 2013: 64). The palace and main temples in the centre of Akhetaten were cosmically gridded to the tombs hewn in the eastern cliff, which when bathed with dawn’s light fused the sun as the “the source of life” with the royal ancestors before it illuminated and blessed the rest of the city (Mallinson 1999). The main, roofless temple to the Aten (the “Great Temple” or “House of the Aten”) measured 750 × 230 m and consisted of a vast enclosure that circumvallated open spaces, a back sanctuary, and a huge, elongated building. The latter was comprised of six nested courtyards containing hundreds of offering tables. Within the enclosure, an ample empty space separated this “Long Temple” from the smaller “Sanctuary of the Aten,” also characterized by Pylon gateways, a colonnaded porch, and a main shrine with numerous offering tables. Kemp (2013: 94) suggests that as a whole the principal temple simulated in microcosm the entire city of Akhetaten, with the smaller Sanctuary of the Great Aten Temple symbolizing the Eastern mountains. The sanctuary appears to rise from a white hill (a gypsum foundation) and curious L-shaped wings that project off the Pylons iconically index the eastern, notched cliff. The open space in front may have represented the Amarna plain, while the long temple symbolized the city and its inhabitants (Kemp 2013: 94). Reeves also argues that two sets of 365 mud brick altars in the Long Temple indexed Upper and Lower Egypt respectively. They thus commemorated the solar year while microcosmically territorializing the kingdom and its regions within the confines of the great sanctuary (Hornung 1999: Reeves 2001: 124). As we have seen in many examples explored in this book (Chapters 4–8), the materialization of intimate parallelisms also effectively united micro-meso-and macrocsm within the main temple of Akhenaten’s new city. The approximately 1,700 mud brick altars piled high with comestibles, flowers, incense, and other valued goods further reveal that the Akhenaten would offer the entire wealth of the cult to the sun prior to distribution, an innovation that breaks with previous practices where simply tokens of consecrated goods were offered to the gods (Kemp 2013: 92–93, 96). Once the Aten was sated, the blessed food was likely redistributed to the priests and larger populace. The size of the main Aten temple, the sheer number of offering tables, and the great bounty of food they displayed may suggest that much of the population of Akhetaten partook in great banquets in honour of the Aten and the royal couple (Kemp 2013: 117, 235). Although difficult to prove, feasts on such a vast scale would have deviated from the much more exclusive ceremonies conducted in traditional Egyptian temples. In any event, the innumerable altars and the remarkable quantity of offerings exemplify the ritual semiotics of repetition and symbolic accumulation (exhaustion) discussed at length in previous chapters. Unsurprisingly, the Amarna state fundamentally sought to alter ritual practices in line with the new religion. As evidenced by the Royal Road of Akhetaten’s central core that connected the major monuments, jubilees and processions remained

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important, an innovation of the New Kingdom (Freed 1999: 28; Kemp 1989). However, gods no longer processed on barques between sanctuaries. Instead, as the new focus of worship and as depicted in the iconography, Akhenaten and Nefertiti paraded through the city on horse-drawn chariots, simulating the movement of the sun through the sky, and they held public audiences from the Window of Appearances (likely a fixture of the palace). Some have argued that the visibility of the pharaoh and his equally divine wife, who replaced the traditional gods, translated to a more inclusive cult, as also possibly reflected in the great public feasts staged in the main temple (Stevens 2004: 121). Certainly, the depiction of the royal couple in intimate scenes of eating, relaxing, and showing affection to their children finds no precedent in earlier periods. The new iconoclasm also led to an abrupt cessation of the millennial-long tradition of purifying, anointing, dressing, and opening the eyes of divine images—at least at Akhetaten (Hornung 1999: 72). The whole world upon which the Aten shined formed his sanctuary, and he had no need for the traditional, cramped holy of holies, the terrestrial abode of gods. These salient and synchronized shifts in architecture, ritual media, and ceremonialism must have dramatically reconfigured the distribution of the sensible in the new capital. The rejection of the traditional Osirian cult of the dead, so central to Egyptian ritualism, constitutes one of the most dramatic reforms of the Amarna revolution. Akhenaten thus deemphasized the obsession with the afterlife, and though time and resources were still expended on preparing the dead for burial, they no longer seem to have travelled to the netherworld for judgement before Osiris. Instead their spirits (ba) may have found refuge and succour in the sun-drenched Aten temple and neighbouring palace of the king (Hornung 1999; Kemp 2013: 251). Indeed, the wall murals of the eastern tombs depict this architecture as the prime space for the Amarna ancestors (including the numerous and bountiful offering tables), and they provide a fascinating example of how novel representations (conceptions) of space, sensu Lefebvre, promoted the new theology (Kemp 2013: 81–88). Overall, the regime elevated the world of the living, the sun as the righteous source of all life, and the here-and-now. As such, the exquisite poetry of the period (the few extant examples painted in the east tombs) makes no direct mention of the fate of the dead (or the traditional cosmology of the struggle and regeneration of the sun during the night as it passes through the netherworld). Of course, scholars have debated the reach of the Amarna religion both within Akhetaten and in greater Egypt. Kemp (2013: 234) notes that the lower classes had little interest in Aten worship and that depictions of the sun disk are rare in commoner funerary and domestic contexts. However, the standard domestic shrine to Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and the Aten characterized the typical mudbrick house at El Amarna. These shrines were situated at the end of the entrance path of these homes, revealing that at the level of the public transcript, the gods were supplanted by images of the new solar triumvirate. Reeves (2001: 139) also argues that the cessation of festivals in honour of former divinities must have thoroughly disrupted

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schedules, expectations, and identities. The discovery of chiselled out c­ artouches bearing Amun’s name on portable commemorative scarabs and eye makeup receptacles suggests that different segments of society were expected to participate in the iconoclastic reaction (what Reeves calls “frightened self-censorship”) (2001: 154). The commoners’ cemeteries excavated at the site are also placed in the east and grave markers with triangular peaks likely referenced mountains that “in the ­context of Amarna” denoted the “place of the sunrise” (Kemp 2013: 256). In ­addition, Osiris is conspicuously absent in the iconography recovered from the graves. Nonetheless, archaeologists have recovered sacra of the traditional gods in domestic contexts at Akhetaten including Thoth, Ptah, Bes and Taweret, and older cults continued, especially those dealing with practical issues, including household protection, medicinal cures, and childbirth. Images of Bes, protector of hearth and home, and Taweret (Thoeris), goddess of childbirth and fertility, were especially common (Kemp 2013: 236–237; Reeves 2001). The degree to which these rites were clandestine or forced underground is even open to question; they were likely tolerated or simply ignored (Kemp 2013: 30; 242). Indeed, many of the over 20 private chapels in the Workmen’s Village were dedicated to traditional gods and some of the surviving murals do not adhere to the Amarna style (Kemp 2013: 236–237). In the end, the evidence points to tensions in how space was variably conceived by the regime and perceived by much of the populace at Akhenaten, and the great reforms did not long survive the king’s reign. Similar to the iconoclastic backlash following Jayavarman VII’s reign at Angkor, the images and aesthetic program of the Amarna period were defaced, and later pharaohs strove to erase all mention of Akhenaten, now the heretical king. All of his stone buildings were systematically dismantled at Karnak (Thebes) and Akhetaten, leaving just the gypsum concrete foundation layers. 9.2.2

Variations in the Cosmopolitical Production of Worlds/History

A comparison of the fate of the Amarna revolution with the case studies presented in this book offers some lessons for the archaeological analysis of historical process. Of course, we will never fully understand what motivated the imposition of the Aten cult, and hypotheses have ranged from the king’s zealous conviction in the righteous truth (maat) of the new theology to his regime’s cynical efforts to subvert the entrenched power of the Amun priesthood in Thebes (Reeves 2001). Regardless, what is abundantly clear is that instituted ideological and cultural transformations are inconceivable without the remaking of the environment and supporting infrastructures, and in antiquity, this was inevitably a cosmopolitical (religious) landscape (Kemp 2013: 32, 79). As Kemp notes (2013: 263): We cannot doubt the overwhelming impact that Akhetaten had upon his society. At the heart of Akhetaten lay a huge establishment—a mixture of architecture

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and movement of commodities—dedicated to honoring the Aten and the unique role that Akhetaten played in creating the true form that piety should take. The pious ideology of the Aten reassembled places and things and took material form in innovative semiotic ideologies, novel built environments, a redistributed aesthetic field and the reterritorialization and over-coding of the landscape that fundamentally altered experiences of space. However, this ideology never became hegemonic in the Gramscian sense (see Chapter 3), and the profound remaking of place was largely confined to Akhetaten and to a lesser extent, the earlier capital of Thebes (Hoffmeier 2015: 98). Certainly, Aten temples were built in other centres of Egypt, and representations of Amun were attacked in iconoclastic ­violence outside of Akhetaten (Reeves 2001: 96). However, most pre-existing temples appear to have continued to operate, and the impact of the new religion was not as great in the provinces (Kemp 2013). As indicated by the continuation of older ritual practices, especially among the commoner classes at Akhetaten, the new religion did not successfully supplant earlier beliefs and orientations. This is far from surprising, since the new capital was likely only inhabited for 16–17 years (Kemp 2013: 301). Despite new mortuary observances and novel layouts of residential shrines, everyday taskscapes (sensu Ingold 2000) were not fully altered at Akhetaten. The archaeological evidence indicates that urban residents expediently and independently built village-like clusters of dwellings around the villas of their local patrons, and the state did not impose an overarching urban plan (Kemp 2013: 161–163). Akhetaten thus contrasts with cities such as Indus Mohenjo-Daro where sewers where regulated, houses zoned, and brick size standardized to the point that the state ideology seems to have reached deep into the intimate routines of everyday life (hygiene, waste management, food preparation, etc.) (Rizvi 2012). If Akhenaten’s reforms lasted beyond the short occupation of his city, the internalization and hegemonic reach of his religious reforms would probably have been significantly greater. However, even if quotidian rhythms and the act of building private dwellings escaped state oversight, the inhospitable desert setting, the novel and shimmering temples, and the striking new aesthetic of Amarna must have constantly reminded residents that they were living in an altered world. The state also conscripted much of the populace to construct the many temples and palaces from scratch, which ­indirectly implicated thousands in the propagation and experience of the new cult. An immersion in a novel world also characterized the experience of the hundreds of pilgrims who peregrinated to Huaca Colorada to partake in great feasts, sacrificial ritual, and architectural renovations (see Chapter 6). The expedient but extensive residential zones surrounding the temple varied in important ways from the agricultural hamlets of the larger Jequetepeque Valley. Furthermore, the abundant food and beer, as well as encounters with Moche iconography, created a sensorium and semiosphere that attracted communities and dictated their seasonal

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movements across the landscape for at least a century (see Chapter 6). In this light, an overarching cosmopolitical order and spatiality (dependencies between elites, mountains, wak’as and followers) structured quotidian rhythms and identities within and beyond the Huaca. Despite obvious differences in cosmology and ritualism (but recognizing some core similarities as well—especially ­feasting), Huaca Colorada and Akhetaten were both designed as efficacious arenas to commune with great ontological others, and these very different but architecturally elaborate thirdspaces conditioned many other aspects of social life. Explored in Chapter 6, I interpreted the construction of the radically different citadel of Tecapa adjacent to Huaca Colorada as signalling major political changes in the Jequetepeque Valley at the end of the Moche era. Synchronized shifts in the material and semiotic registers documented for Jayavarman and Akhenaten’s remaking of place similarly characterized the foundation of Tecapa, which coincided with the introduction of highland social values and religious ideologies to the coast. The kancha architecture with surrounding gallery rooms appears to have indexed an institutionalized form of ayllu social organization and ancestor ­worship, and local elites aligned with highland partners may have resided in these novel spaces as part of their immersion in the new value system (Berquist 2021). In fact, archaeologists have long read the spread of this prominent architectural type across the Andes as markers of the Middle Horizon Period (600–1000 CE) and as providing evidence for the expansion of the Wari Empire. The repetitive distribution of such iconic architecture in general, including the āśrama and hospitals of Angkor explored in Chapter 8, constitutes a common mechanism to literally build regimes and impose new ways of thinking and being. It is worth noting that Akhenaten did not place much emphasis on such repetitive foundations as a tool of empire (or the dissemination of sinsigns of idealized legisigns, what anthropologists would call “deictic emblems”; Silverstein 2004: 632; Singer 1984: 105), and the new world he created was largely limited to Akhetaten. His government took much less interest in the affairs of the colonies in Nubia or the Levant than previous kings, and unusual for a new, universal religion, there seems to have been little imperative to spread it beyond Egypt (Reeves 2001: 115). In this sense, Atenism contrasts markedly from the proselytizing religions of Islam or Christianity that originated from the revelations of a merchant and humble carpenter as opposed to that of a king (Kemp 2013: 231). Indeed, the solar theology materialized so abruptly at Akhetaten because it was executed by a pharaoh and was funded by the abundant resources at his disposal. The spread of Christianity and Islam began more gradually, of course, but soon took off, and eventual state patronage in Rome and Arabia, respectively, led to competing codifications of doctrine, aesthetics, identity, and architecture. The repetitive foundations of Church and Mosque continue to leave an indelible mark on landscapes across the world, and despite diversity within and between the Abrahamic religions, they attest to a remarkable longue durée. It would be impossible to deny that in many instances the dominant monotheistic religions fundamentally reconstituted social, economic,

Conclusion: Landscapes of History  337

and ontological orders of diverse cultures.3 Even if Atenism survived Akhenaten’s reign, it likely would not have become a great popular religion, as it was less concerned with imposing a new moral contract and rules of conduct to guide human behaviour. Instead, the pharaoh’s solar theology was more narrowly cosmological and one that gave primacy to ritual as opposed to prophetic revelation (Assmann 2006: 139). In invoking the non-linear historical cycles of the Annales School (see Bintliff 1991; Braudel 1970; Knapp 1992), the short duration of Akhenaten’s experiment barely qualifies as a moyenne durée phenomenon (generational cycles or developments spanning 50–200 years), even though Assmann asserts that his thinking influenced later Egyptian philosophy and devotional liturgies (2006: 59). Despite Jayavarman’s unprecedented building campaign and new aesthetic, including the building of numerous hospitals, Mahayana Buddhism also failed to take root and never became a long-term structuring mechanism. However, Jayavarman’s cosmopolitical tsunami presaged and may even have hastened the great shift in Cambodian history from Brahmanism to Buddhism, and the hospitals, open to all classes of society, most likely affected a broader section of the Khmer populace than did Akhenaten’s short-lived solar religion. To broaden the comparison further, similar to Akhetaten, Tecapa was soon abandoned after its construction, and this event (événement) might suggest that the adoption of highland architecture and values little influenced the middle or longterm history of the valley. However, even if its meanings changed, the kancha-type architectural unit—another quintessential sinsign, rendering an ideal (legisign) space powerfully iconic—also exhibits a long history in the Andes similar to the standardized buildings of the Yaśodharāśrama in Angkor. It seems to have originated in the north-central highlands of Peru as a possible symbol of communal identity and ancestor veneration during the Early Intermediate Period (ca. 400–500 CE) (Berquist 2021; Topic and Topic 2000). By the Middle Horizon, this iconic form was seemingly coopted and partially re-signified to legitimate imperial ambitions and the promotion of a hierarchy of gods rendered as the ultimate ancestors (or wak’as). Changes in iconography in the subsequent Lambayeque (Sicán) era point to continued highland influences on the coast, especially the adoption of a singular male sky deity (Huaco Rey) that may have been inspired by the ubiquitous staff god common in Wari and Tiwanaku sites (Jennings 2008). Other scholars have argued that the architecture of the imperial Chimú drew inspiration from Wari (Czwarno 1989), while the kancha became the principal architectural element of Inca elite dwellings and temple architecture hundreds of years later (Hyslop 1990: 16–18). We can thus recognize a longue durée of the kancha phenomenon as well, despite probable semantic shifts. In fact, archaeologists have argued that key structuring principles of the Andean cultural tradition coalesced in the Middle Horizon, including the institutions of feasting, ayllu sociopolitical organization, wide-scale corn beer consumption, intensive terrace agriculture, imperialism, and orthogonal architecture.

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It is for this very reason that the period is equated with a “horizon.” A legacy of culture-historical archaeology of the early 20th century, archaeologists commonly employ the horizon/intermediate Period schema to explain global historical developments in western South America (Rice 1993: 3; Swenson and Roddick 2018; Willey 1945).4 The Early Horizon (900–300 BCE), for example, is correlated not simply with the widespread distribution of a relatively uniform material culture and architectural tradition, but commonly refers to a fixed block of time associated with the religious and political influence of the Chavín Cult (Sayre 2018; Silverman 2004: 11–14). As mentioned, archaeologists have attributed the general homogeneity of iconography, political landscapes, and material culture defining the Middle Horizon as the product of the imperial conquests of Wari and the religious-­commercial influence of Tiwanaku (McEwan 2012). The horizons are distinguished from the intensified regional styles of the intermediate periods, interpreted as signalling political balkanization and cultural isolation. Beresford-Jones and Heggarty (2012) have even argued that the Wari Horizon corresponds to the rapid spread and imposition of Quechua in the South-Central Andes. Drawing parallels from the Roman Empire, they contend that conquest and political incorporation of subject peoples better account for the adoption of Quechua by non-elite communities than would religious proselytization or long-distance trade. They also suggest that the horizon styles expanded rapidly over a relatively short period, thus validating the “core-periphery” spatial dynamic “implicit in the construction of horizons” (Rice 1993: 2). Koons and Alex’s (2014) radiometric analysis suggests that around 600 to 650 CE much of the North Coast witnessed major transformations in settlement patterns, temple construction, mural art, and the distribution of corporate wares, evidence that points to significant sociopolitical reconstitution at this time (and one that coincides with the founding of Huaca Colorada in Jequetepeque). Despite the need for finer chronological resolution, similar explosive changes also appear to mark the inception of the Middle Horizon in the southcentral Andes, (Isbell and Knobloch 2008; Janusek 2003; Marsh 2012). Evidently, “abrupt” sociopolitical and religious realignments seem to define the first half of the 7th century and the early years of the Middle Horizon. However, Beresford-Jones and Heggarty never adequately explained why political administration may have led to pervasive and long-lasting linguistic replacement and related shifts in ideology and material culture. Hyslop (1993) and Stone-Miller (1993: 34) also caution that the Inca conquest did not lead to “monolithic stylistic takeover.” Archaeologists usually attribute the main stimulus behind the abrupt changes to environmental perturbations at the onset of the Middle Horizon. However, the archaeological evidence reveals that horizon styles were rarely adopted simultaneously, and their duration also varied significantly in distinct regions of the Andes (Cook 2004: 158; Rice 1993: 5; Willey 1945: 55). Therefore, in times of seemingly widespread change, such as the transition between the Angkorian (802–1327 CE) and Post-Angkorian (1327–1863) Periods

Conclusion: Landscapes of History  339

in Cambodia, continuities in certain practices in the context of major sociopolitical or religious reconstitution can be highly meaningful.5 The date of 1327 marks the last inscription written in Sanskrit, and Pali would become the official language of high religion with the institutionalization of Theravada Buddhism in the 14th century. Although it occurred more gradually than Akhetaten’s revolution or the imposition of Tecapa in the southern Jequetepeque Valley, a new material and spatial horizon certainly distinguished the post-Angkorian Period. These changes are reflected in the decline of the city of Angkor, major shifts in materiality and architectural construction (the replacement of exclusive stone temples by public wooden vihāras), increased influence of Thai culture, and the reorganization of administration, commerce, religion, and kingship. However, these transformations should not obscure important continuities. As mentioned at the end of Chapter 8, postAngkorian kings continued to invest in infrastructures and religious foundations, even if on a smaller scale, and Yaśovarman’s numerous āśrama and Jayavarman’s hundreds of hospitals presaged the vast network of Theravada Buddhist monasteries that would dominate the political landscape following the demise of the Brahmanical state religion (Harris 2020; Pou 2002). This brief discussion of the periodization schemes leads to an important conclusion. Research questions seeking to explain the effects of historical change should explore how the spread and adoption of material and spatial assemblages associated with a horizon or cognate category related to possible shifts in the distribution of the sensible, infrastructural investments, semiotic ideologies, overcoding, different strategies of territorialization, and the temporalities of everyday practice. We should thus examine how the introduction of novel aesthetics, ritual architecture, and infrastructures, such as roads or hospitals, may have coincided with changes to household configurations, waste-management practices, irrigation agriculture, and the scheduling of festivals. In other words, the interpretation of horizon-like material culture and architectural traditions will yield insights if compared to ritual and quotidian practices, including continuities or changes in farming, funerary rites, building renovation, and so forth. The case studies explored in this book attempted to implement this theoretical program, even if some conclusions remain preliminary or incomplete and require future research. 9.3

Concluding Thoughts

Ultimately, this book endeavoured to develop a new approach to the analysis of hierarchical, complex societies that foregrounds comparison but one unconstrained by reductive models, including traditional typologies centred on state, chiefdom, or city. It also drew from some of the latest trends in New Materialist theory, while demonstrating that cosmopolitics, ideology, and increasingly disparaged representational practices played a critical role in the construction of infrastructures and political landscapes. Recognizing that representation is constituted by and

340  Conclusion: Landscapes of History

constitutive of material and semiotic assemblages provides a rather simple solution to a perennial problem and rehabilitates the examination of emic value systems as structuring mechanism in past societies. In the introduction of this book, I wrote rather polemically that I would rather study the microcosmic symbolism of a Maya city than understand how the latter instantiates an entangled meshwork, like apparently everything else in reality. I should qualify this statement; the notion of a meshwork based on relational ontologies of incessant change may better capture how the messiness of life processes actually unfold on the ground (Crellin 2020). However, we should account for how cosmic schemes drew from, disrupted, overcoded, or (partly) reterritorialized preexisting assemblages of peoples, places, and lifeforms. The depressed marsh and high water table in Angkor presented an ideal space to build the massive East Baray during the reign of Yaśovarman discussed in Chapter 8 (Acker 2012: 38). However, this classic Gibsonian affordance would obviously fail to explain the economic and religious motives driving the construction of the great reservoir. In other words, cosmopolitics constitutes one of the major machinic forces assembling social ecologies that recursively reassemble collectives and institutions in turn. This argument finds validation in the present as well. Vibrant matter, entangled meshworks, and actor networks certainly can help explain the complex historicity of climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic (Bennett 2010; Crellin 2020; Hodder 2012; Latour 1993). The agency of carbon dioxide, forest fires, floods, and viruses—as actants of sorts in changing relationship with other actants—secure centre stage in these ongoing calamities. However, the cosmopolitical machinery of such processes demands equal attention, and capitalist ideology and a global culture of rampant consumption constitute an overarching cause of the environmental crisis. The political struggles centred on the changing state of the environment also powerfully shape the landscape. The deterritorialization evident in Tar sands pits, the deforestation of the Amazon, and urban sprawl coexists with an increasingly green counter-landscape of solar panels, electric car charging stations, wind turbines, nuclear power plants, and lithium mines, which have intended benefits as well as detrimental climate effects. The free market regulated by state subsidies sets the parameters for both unchecked resource extraction and the promotion of green infrastructures. Fervent ideological commitments, as impassioned as the Amarna revolution and Jayavarman’s Mahayana reengineering of Angkor, are carving up the landscape today in the name of profit, national economic sovereignty, and environmental conservation. Certainly, ritual does not secure the pre-eminence as a maker and signifier of place in the present era it did in the past, even if ceremony, performance, and heightened aesthetics often underwrite contemporary infrastructural projects as discussed in Chapter 3. As the case studies presented in this book confirm, the numerous buildings (semiotic machines) of the past designed to commune with great powers and cosmic forces played as critical a role in mediating political ideologies and conflicts as do urban planning and attempts to green the economy in

Conclusion: Landscapes of History  341

the present.6 It is for this reason that temple architecture of diverse cultures was so seamlessly integrated with larger infrastructural networks, whether barays, irrigation canals, roads, or hospitals. The archaeological research I have conducted over the past 20 years in the very different environments of Peru’s dry desert and the tropical forest of Angkor has made me appreciate both the striking commonalities that bind us as a species as well as the historically distinct ways our ancestors have literally made worlds. Ultimately, an understanding of the remarkable diversity in past infrastructures and religious landscapes can help us to imagine alternate futures. Notes 1 Scholars of ancient Egypt have probably written more on the Amarna Period than on any other (Watterson 1999). 2 David (2020: 30) analyzes the complex semiotics of the Aten, showing how it acted at once as a symbol of abstract concepts, an index of the pharaoh, and an icon (iconic metaphor) given its resemblance to the actual orb of the sun and the rays it admits. 3 The adoption of monotheistic creeds often precipitated shifts from ontologies of immanence to transcendence. In the latter, the here-and-now is devoid of spiritual forces (or metapersons) and remains separate from a creator god, as in the Abrahamic religions. For Sahlins (2022) the great ontological and cosmic divide in history lies between such cultures of immanence (animistic societies) and transcendence. 4 Max Uhle first proposed a Peruvian chronology based on alternating periods of regional and global styles, while the concept of “horizon” derives from a chronological system systematized by John Rowe and based on dividing prehistory into phases of pan-Andean integration or regional diversification and balkanization. Archaeologists have exposed the problems and persistent biases associated with this scheme, but the periodization system continues to guide archaeological research in the Andes. It deserves mention that Rowe was influenced by the chronology of ancient Egypt developed by Flinders Petrie, who delimited chronological periods of transition and disruption between the three major Kingdoms of Egypt’s long history (Sayre 2018). Certainly, the top-down interpretation of history, in which elites and royal dynasties determine chronological successions problematically simplifies historical process. Crellin’s (2020) post-­anthropocentric and new materialist analysis of change offers a compelling critique of “block-time” approaches to history in archaeology. 5 Scholars also refer to the post-Angkorian as the Middle or Post-Classic Period (Coe and Evans 2018: 239). 6 Of course, this is not to claim that the construction of religious buildings in more recent times are free of politics or unrelated to urban and infrastructural planning. Harvey’s (1979) brilliant study of the heated ideological struggles surrounding the expensive and controversial building of the Sacré-Coeur in late 19th century Paris, a time when the French capital was convulsing from social unrest, emergent capitalism, and Haussmann’s rebuilding of the city, provides one fascinating example. The conservative French National Assembly in 1873 passed a motion declaring the construction of the basilica a work of “public utility” to expiate the sins of materialism and the failed revolutionary Commune of 1871. The great marble church was at first loathed by Republicans, and it was almost torn down in mid-construction on more than one occasion.

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INDEX

Note: Bold page numbers refer to tables; Italic page numbers refer to figures and page numbers followed by “n” denote endnotes. Abrahamic religions 40, 59, 73, 336, 341n3 Acropolis 153, 158, 159, 160, 161, 165, 170, 171, 216 actants 27, 28, 30, 340 actor network theory (ANT) 23, 26, 27, 30, 340 aesthetic(s): effects 124; heightened 79, 86, 89, 100, 101; politics of 79; tsunami 80, 196 affect 65, 80 African Americans 53, 117 agencement 55n18, 123n24 agency 25–28, 33, 34, 38, 41–43, 54nn8, 11, 55n18, 62, 87 Akapana of Tiwanaku, Bolivia 89–90, 116, 130, 132, 140 Akhetaten city 91, 331–334; vs. Jequetepeque Valley 334–339 Alberti, Benjamin 28, 29, 32, 117 Alberti, Leon Battista 57; De re aedificatoria 57 Aleksa, Alaica 201 Alex, Bridget A. 338 Alexander, Henn 63 Althusser, Louis 33, 34, 77 Altiplano, Bolivia 140 Amarna religion (Atenism) 333, 336, 337 Amarna revolution 329–334, 340

Amazonia(n) 71; cultures 36; societies 32, 35, 36 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 1 Amerindian medicine bundles, North America 107–108, 123n23 amplification 62, 64 anatropic illusions 139 ancestor worship 126, 131 ancient Andes: built environments 125, 137, 138, 141; conceived space 125–137; concentric dualism 126, 132–135; ideologies of centre 126, 132–135; ideologies of place 125–137; irrigation networks 129–131; ontological indivisibility of monumental, infrastructural, and sacred 126–132; religious practice 128; rituals of place‑making 125, 126, 133, 137, 141; rituals traditions in 126; ritual violence 96n5; sacred/religious infrastructures 124, 125; sacred/ religious landscapes 59, 135–141; semiotic ideologies in 141; sociality in 127, 133; synecdochal geographies 126, 132–135; temple structures in 99, 100, 126 Angkor Borei 237

392 Index

Angkor in Khmer Empire 59, 90, 93, 99, 100, 115; barays and irrigation networks 221–222, 229, 236, 242n1; Brahmanical religions and Buddhism 238–241, 289, 290, 316, 323, 337; cadastral geometries 230, 231; elite‑sponsored religious foundations 226; farming and agriculture 221, 222, 225, 226, 228, 229; Indic belief systems and religious traditions 223–225; individual endowments in ritual practice 240; Indratataka (Lolei Baray) 226–227; king’s coronation ritual 234; liṅga‑yoni in Kbal Spean riverbed 222, 222; mandala 229–236, 241; persecution of Buddhist monks 238; place‑making 226, 227, 231, 235, 241; quincunx (pañcāyatana design) form 232; religious construction of place 124, 225–229; vs. Southeast Asian religious landscapes 237–241; temple‑estates as de facto banks 228–229; temples 104, 221–224, 226–234, 238; see also āśrama of Yaśovarman I Angkor Thom 91, 225, 251, 257, 305, 306, 308, 311, 315, 321, 322, 324, 331; Bayon of 247; East Gate and South Gate 295; semiotics of 293–294, 296–304 Angkor Wat 238, 243n14 animal clothes 36 animality 35 animism 62 anthropocentrism 34 anthropology: ontological 30; symmetrical 26; theory 28 “anti‑cargo” reactions 97n15 anti‑representationalism 19, 24, 26–30, 38, 59 archaeological analysis: semiotics of 19–20 Archaeological Dialogues 94 archaeological meaning‑making 22 archaeological research: “meaningfully constituted worlds” in 20–23, 27 archaeologies of infrastructures 88–93 architectural offering 114 architectural power 57 architecture of circulation 88 Argentinian body‑pots 29 ārogyaśāla 305, 307, 308, 310, 315, 319, 321; see also Jayavarman VII’s hospitals

Asad, Talal 60 Ashurbanipal (king) 114 Aslan, Reza 111 Asoka (king) 4, 305 āśrama of Yaśovarman I 99, 226, 245–291, 255, 256, 306, 315, 318–320; ascetic geographies 245–246; designing 246; establishing Angkor as new capital city 246–254; lived space and ritual power 286–291; Long Building of 258, 264, 265, 266–269, 267, 273, 274, 274, 276, 277, 279, 280, 282, 283, 285, 288, 290, 291; place‑making 246, 252, 273, 281, 282; sectarian practices 259; urban planning 251; Yaśodharāśrama (see Yaśodharāśrama) assemblage theory 3, 9, 11–13, 19, 20, 27, 55n18, 77, 95, 106; place‑making 41–48 assembling power 64, 84 assembling process 14, 42, 58, 59, 64 Assmann, Jan 337 Aten 330, 333; cult 334, 335; temples 329, 332, 335 Athens 37, 38 Au délà de la Nature (Descola) 9 Augé, Marc 88, 91, 98n16 axis mundi 111, 161, 231, 243n11, 249 ayllu 132, 136, 211, 214, 216, 219, 336, 337 Ayutthaya 241 Aztec 74–76 Bagan 16, 239–240 Balinese cock‑fight 78 Ball, Christopher 101, 104, 105, 170 Baltus, Melissa R. 31 Banteay Chhmar 300–303, 301, 323 Banteay Kdei 258, 289, 292, 300, 322, 323 Barad, Karen 44 barays 221, 236, 242n1, 294 Barrett, John C. 93 Barth, Frederik 71, 102 Bat Chum 258, 286, 289 Bauer, Andrew M. 27 Bayon, Angkor 111, 292–294, 296–304, 315, 316, 320 Beard, Mary 75 Bell, Catherine 74 Belt and Road Initiative 2 Ben‑Arie, Ronnen 118, 123n24 Bender, Barbara 87

Index  393

Benjamin, Walter 5, 52, 87; profane illumination 52, 87 Bennett, Jane 11, 27, 41; theory of vibrant matter 27 Beresford‑Jones, David 338 Bergaigne, Abel 254 Berquist, Stephen 211 Bessire, Lucas 30 Bhaiṣajyaguru 305, 306, 315–316, 320, 322 bhakti 225 Bickle, Penny 43 binary spaces 47, 48, 169, 283 Binford, Lewis 21, 23; middle range theory 21, 23 Blas Valera 143 Bloch, Maurice 64, 80, 81 bloodletting ritual 69, 132, 141 Boddhisattva stages 87 bodhisattvas 238, 292, 297–299, 302, 306, 315, 324 Boisselier, Jean 296, 299 Bond, David 30 Bonta, Mark 43, 51 bookkeeping 73 Borobudur Buddhist temple in central Java 87, 121–122n18 Bosque de Cañoncillo 148, 148 Bourdieu, Pierre 77, 81 Bradley, Richard 61 brāhmaṇāśrama 257, 260, 288 Brahmana vihāras 299 Braudel, Fernand 84 Bṛhaspaticakra 249 British colonialism 83 Bruguier, Bruno 277, 319 Buddha 104, 110, 122n18, 224, 234, 238, 239, 282, 289, 296, 298–300, 302, 305–310, 315, 316, 319, 320, 323, 324 Buddhist temple of Borobudur, in central Java 110 built environments 32, 43, 46–48, 50, 58, 68, 79, 87, 92, 124, 125 Buka in Solomon Islands 83 bureaucracy 3, 76 Burger, Richard 135, 139 Burgess, John 230 Butler, Judith 34 caches 65, 105, 106, 112–116, 122n20 cadastral religions 230 Cakravartin 227, 234, 240, 242n6 Callejón de Conchucos 131 camac 128, 130, 197 camasca 128, 197

camay/camaquen 128, 130, 133, 135, 141, 149, 185, 197, 202, 203 Candravairocana 306, 309 capitalism 9–11, 22, 23, 32, 42, 53, 83 carnival celebrations 82 causewayed enclosures 65, 66 ceremonial architecture 59, 86; Jatanca 155 ceremonial architecture as semiotic machines 99–119; materiality of ritual semiotics 103–116; ritual, semiotic mediators, and ontological alterity 100–103; temples as machines 117–119 ceremonial pageantry 86 cerro 144, 146, 150, 152, 161, 176, 199, 219 Cerro Cañoncillo 147, 151, 156, 158, 159, 160–161, 176–177, 177, 178, 214, 216, 217, 219, 220, 249; algarroba forest 148, 148, 149, 174; coastal massif of 143, 146, 150 Cerro Chepén 146, 208 Cerro Santonte 150 Chaac masks 104, 169 Chalk Hill enclosure 65, 66 Chavín de Huántar, Peru: Early Horizon Centre of 138, 139; mortal‑to‑jaguar‑shamanic transformation 138, 139; Old Temple 138; U‑shaped temple of 130–135, 138 chawpin (chawpi) 133, 135, 231 Chea, Socheat 249, 263, 281, 286 Chemburkar, Swati 322 Chevance, Jean‑Baptiste 261 Chhem, Rethy 308, 311, 315, 317 chicha 135, 196 Choeung Ek pottery 272 Christianity 37, 75, 81, 224, 336 Chuqui Suso 129 Cieza de León, Pedro de 144 Cipolla, Craig 19, 27, 29 circular (concentric) spaces 47–48, 169, 283 Clark, Andy 102 coastal polities in Moche era (200–850 CE) 131 Coateocalli of Aztec Tenochtitlan 111 coding 9, 13, 44–47, 51, 64, 120–121n13, 252 Codz Poop structure (Palace of the Masks) at Kabáh, Yucatan 104 Coedès, George 267 cognitive approaches 102 commodity fetishism 22, 23, 32, 33, 77

394 Index

conceived space (second space) 13, 49–53, 57, 59, 87, 92, 95, 209–216, 229, 232, 279 condensation symbolism 121n16 Conrad, Geoffrey W. 76 Constantine 91 Constantinople 91 contiguous indexicality 281, 330 Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, A (Marx & Engels) 75 Cook, Anita 112 Coole, Diana H. 24 Coricancha of Inca Cuzco 111 Cosimo de’ Medici (Cosimo Il Vecchio) 3, 57 cosmic building 294 cosmic dualism 26, 32 cosmic symbolism 118, 237 cosmogony 40 cosmological order 37 cosmology 11, 36, 100, 101; see also individual cosmologies cosmopolitical traditions 33 cosmopolitics 14, 18, 33, 90, 225, 230, 241, 327, 331, 334–340; see also ontological politics Crellin, Rachel J. 42, 54n11 crisis heterotopia 87–88 Crossland, Zoë 13, 26, 27 culture(s) 55n13; constructions 24, 29, 31; landscapes 2, 85; semiotic ideologies of 101; tradition 38 Cupisnique Quebrada 144, 149–150, 158 Cusco/Cuzco 111, 133–135, 136 Dagens, Bruno 309, 310, 318, 319 Dancing Halls, in temples of Jayavarman VII 321 Daoism 32 Das Kapital (Marx & Engels) 33 Dawdy, Shannon L. 87 Day, Matthew 102 de‑animalization 35 de Casparis, Johannes G. 305, 324 de‑centred anti‑sites 88 deictic emblems 336 de la Cadena, Marisol 34 DeLanda, Manuel 5, 9, 11, 41, 42, 44, 45 Deleuze, Gilles 3, 5, 9, 11, 32, 41–48, 51, 55n18, 63, 65, 66, 77, 94, 95, 117, 118, 166, 187, 189, 195, 236, 252, 283, 320, 325n4, 328 Demarest, Arthur A. 76

demon exorcism in Sri Lanka 78, 81 De re aedificatoria (Alberti) 57 Descola, Philippe 9, 29, 34, 35, 36; Au délà de la Nature 9; four‑part typology 35 devarāja 227, 235, 242n6, 276 dharmacakra 239 diagrammatic icon 12, 16, 51, 111, 119 dialectical cosmologies 32 dialectical images 87 diametric dualism 134, 211 dicentization 14, 101–102, 104–105, 198, 237 distribution of the sensible 15, 59, 79–81, 92, 138–139, 152, 168, 186, 196, 206, 209, 224, 237, 283–285, 299, 319, 328–330, 333, 339 double symbolism 249 Douglas, Janet G. 302 Dovey, Kim 47, 48 dual corporate organization 132–133 dualistic ideologies 133, 142n2 Duncan, James 112 Durkheim, Émile 68, 74, 101 Dvaravati settlements 239 dvija 259 Eagleton, Terry 72, 77 East Baray 227, 245–247, 251–254, 256, 257, 263, 264, 279–282, 285, 289, 305, 315, 325n9; see also Yaśodharataṭāka “echo” stones of Machu Picchu 105 ecological processes 25 ecstatic religions 81 Engels, Frederick 9, 22, 33, 75; Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, A 75; German Ideology 75 Enlightenment 53, 71, 73 epistemology 11, 24, 29–31, 33, 37, 38, 61, 66 Estève, Julia 254, 259, 261 Eurocentric dichotomies 60 European colonialism 83 Evans, Damian 229 Falassi, Alessandro 64 Fausto, Carlos 36–37 feasts: as ritual 65, 181, 182, 185–186, 196, 199, 201, 207; diacritical 185, 217; Inca 79, 80, 82, 84 Feldman, Cecelia 84

Index  395

Filliozat, Jean 248, 249 flat ontology 7, 11, 26, 27 Florentine Renaissance 4 folding architecture 187–188 Ford, Rob 91 Forest, Alain 224, 242n3 Foucault, Michel 5, 33, 34, 45, 87, 88, 320, 321 Fowler, Chris 11, 93 Fowles, Severin 24, 60, 61, 107 Frankfurt school 33 Frazer, James G. 102, 108 Frost, Samantha 24 Funan 226, 238 garbhagṛha (garbhagriha) 233, 234, 239, 244n17 Garrow, Duncan 106 Gaucher, Jacques 225 Geertz, Clifford 5, 78 Gell, Alfred 205 gender inequality in ritual regalia 71 generative capacity 4, 15, 100, 102 geoglyphs 129, 130 geophilosophy 46 German Ideology (Marx & Engels) 75 Giddens, Anthony 70 Gillespie, Susan D. 112 Ginzburg, Carlo 23 Glassie, Henry 53 Glencairn Museum, Pennsylvania 115 Gluckman, Max 78 Goffman, Erving 64 Golden Gate Bridge 1, 2 Goloubew, Victor 251 Gordon, Richard 70 Gottdiener, M. 48, 56n22 Graeber, David 31, 54n10, 73, 95, 205 graffiti 13, 51, 52, 171–173, 172 Great Aten Temple 332 green infrastructures 340 Griaule, Marcel 37 Gruzinski, Serge 82 gu 239, 240, 244n17 Guattari, Félix 3, 5, 11, 41, 42, 44, 46–48, 51, 55n18, 63, 65, 77, 94, 95, 117, 118, 123n24, 166, 187, 189, 195, 236, 252, 283, 320, 325n4, 328 Hall, Kenneth R. 228, 229, 243n7 Hamilakis, Yannis 66 Handelman, Don 63 Hanson, Julienne 47

Hara, Kristyn 263, 270 Haraway, Donna 25 Hariharālaya (Roluos Group) 227, 246, 249, 251, 252, 254 Harihara statues 237 Harman, Graham 26, 27 Harris, Andrew 324 Harris, Oliver 43, 65, 66, 87, 118; concept of house 43 Harris, Olivia 96n5 Haussmann, Georges‑Eugène 2, 57 hegemony 79–81 Heggarty, Paul 338 herbal medicine 307, 317 hermeneutics 87 Herod 57–59, 64 heterodoxy 77 heterotopia 87, 88, 321 heterotopic spaces 88 Hillier, Bill 47 Hinduism 262 Hindu tantra 103, 104 Hiranyadama 276 historical materialism 32 Hobsbawn, Eric 82 Hodder, Ian 10, 22, 27, 42, 55n17, 61, 89 Holbraad, Martin 28 Holy of Holies 58–59 Homo ludens 72 horizon styles 208, 338 Houay Tomo 261 Houseman, Michael 107 Houtman, Dick 40 Huaca Colorada 143, 145, 146, 147, 148, 190, 220; adobe brick astronomical apparatus 177, 178, 179; vs. Akhetaten centre 336; artisans and artisanal production 202, 205; Cajamarca ceramics 180, 180–181, 185, 201; ceramic masks 196–198, 197; Cerro Cañoncillo 174, 176–177, 177, 178, 184, 192, 195; child burials 202–203, 204, 205, 206; copper and ceramic industries in 181, 185; East Terrace and West Chamber 189, 191, 191, 193, 194, 194, 196, 199, 201, 203, 205–207, 216; food sharing and act of eating together 196–197; graffiti and murals 202, 206, 207; King of Assyria vessels 196, 197, 197, 199, 220n3, 300; Late Moche site of 174, 175; metallurgy at

396 Index

200; Moche fineline ceramics 179, 179–180, 182, 185, 192; mounding of feasting trash as construction fill 199–201; Pampa de Mojucape 174; perceived space and phenomenology of ritual 189, 191–193; religious/monumental/ ceremonial architecture, ritual practices, and political organization 173–177, 179–186; reterritorialization 209–216; ritual constructions of time, place, and cosmology 186–188; San José de Moro 174, 175, 180; segmentarity and territorialization 189, 191–193; as semiotic machine 193–200; stereotomic architecture of 215; topographic map of 176 Huaca de los Dos Cruces 220 huacas 128, 158, 165, 176, 200 Huacas de Moche 174–175, 202 Huari 129 Huarochiri region 129 Huizinga, Johan 72–73 humanization 35 Humphrey, Caroline 87 hylomorphism 49, 93–95 iconic indexicality 101, 105, 196, 216, 236, 250, 280, 318 iconicity 283, 296, 317 iconic resemblance 20, 280 iconization 198 iconoclasm 40, 323, 330, 333 iconoclastic movements 39, 40 iconography 17, 104, 141, 146, 182, 185, 216, 224, 296–300, 303, 315, 318, 319 icons 25, 46, 99, 130, 170, 196, 198, 283, 300 identity politics 73–75 ideology 19, 23, 24, 27, 30–32; vs. ontology 33–37; ritual as 75–78 idolatry 39 illness and healing 70 immanence 65, 68, 113, 327 Inca 76, 125; architectural traditions 140–141; cosmology 127; dyadic ceremonial plazas 133, 138; feasts 79, 80, 82, 84; fountains 130; highway system 136–137; reclamation projects 79, 125, 129 indexes 12, 20, 46, 99

indexicality 14, 117, 281, 302 indexical signs 20, 21, 25, 170, 300 Indigenous cultures 30–31 Indigenous religion 31 indoctrination 80 Indratataka (Lolei Baray) 226–227, 252, 254, 286 Indravarman I (king) 226, 227, 246, 253, 261 Indreśvara 227 Ingold, Tim 25, 27, 30, 31, 51, 93–95 institutionalized architectonic schema 270 intra‑actions 26, 44 Isbell, William H. 135 Islam 82, 336 Itzamnaaj Balam II 69 Jatanca 143, 145, 149, 152, 154, 163; as abandoned citadel 173, 219, 220; Acropolis 153, 158, 159, 160, 161, 165, 170, 171, 216; built environment 156, 168; Cerro Cañoncillo 143, 160–162, 169, 171, 173; graffiti and intrusive burials 171–173, 172; labyrinthine corridors 158, 160, 165, 166; Late Formative site of 143, 145, 147, 149, 152, 158, 160; lived space and ritual power 171–173; Pampa de Mojucape 146, 148, 149–150, 153, 160, 161; perceived space and phenomenology of ritual 165–168; plazas in 153–154, 156, 157, 163– 165; reconstruction and renovation 167; religious/monumental/ ceremonial architecture, ritual practices, and political organization 152–156, 155, 158–165, 164, 167, 171; ritual constructions of time, place, and cosmology 165–168; San José de Moro and Pacatnamú 145, 167; segmentarity and territorialization 165–168; as semiotic machine 169–170 Jayabuddhamahānāthas 302 Jayataṭāka 294, 303 Jayavarman II 226, 227, 235, 246, 253, 276, 282 Jayavarman IV 227 Jayavarman VI 91 Jayavarman VII (king) 99, 225, 227, 237, 238, 241, 242n6, 253, 256, 274, 276, 289

Index  397

Jayavarman VII’s hospitals 291–323, 307, 331, 337; archaeological evidence 308–314; chapels 309, 309, 312, 318, 320; epigraphic evidence 304–308; perceived and lived space 319–323; power of religious landscape 319–323; revolutionary place‑making and semiotics of Angkor Thom and Bayon 293–294, 296–304, 316; semiotic machinery 314–319 Jervis, Ben 106 Jones, Andrew Meirion 117 Judeao‑Christian cosmology 11, 32 Ka’ba 110–111 kamrateṅ jagat ta raja 227 kamvujākṣara 253 kancha 140, 211, 216, 218, 219, 336, 337 Kandy, in Sri Lanka 111–112 Kant, Immanuel: transcendental idealism 26 Kapferer, Bruce 78, 81 Kaplan, Martha 82, 87 karma 225 karma ecologies 224; see also Angkor in Khmer Empire Kbal Spean of Siem Reap River, Cambodia 90 Keane, Webb 13, 38, 39, 107 Kelly, John 82, 87 Kemp, Barry 3, 331–334 kennings 139 Kertzer, David I. 74, 82 khňum (slave) 224, 242n4 Klassen, Sarah 229 Kockelman, Paul 101 Kohn, Eduardo 26, 27, 54n7; “anthropology beyond the human” 25; definition of semiotics 25 Koller, Alexander 244n17 Koons, Michele L. 338 Korowai Feasting house, of West Papua 109–110, 115, 118, 121n17 Kosiba, Steve 27 Kosok, Paul 144 Kuk Ta Prohm 257 Lacroix, Juliette 277, 319 Lady K’an’al Xook 69 Laidlaw, James 87 Lambayeque/Sicán city of Batán Grande 130

landscape 5, 8, 85–86; see also individual landscapes Lanzón monolith 138 Larkin, Brian 90, 91, 98n18 Latour, Bruno 23, 25, 26, 30, 39, 42; actor network theory (ANT) 23, 26, 27, 30 Lavy, Paul A. 226, 238 Lefebvre, Henri 4, 5, 7, 8, 13, 41, 53, 56n22, 57, 59, 86, 87, 92, 95, 124, 156, 168, 229, 230, 279, 283, 294, 328, 333; social production of space 20; unitary theory of space 7, 41, 48–53, 86, 283 legisigns 51, 282–283, 336 Lenin, Vladimir 77 Leone, Mark P. 53 Leone, Massimo 103 Lévi‑Strauss, Claude 34, 94, 142n2 Lewis, Gilbert 60 Lewis, Ioan M. 81 life‑forms 25 liminality 63, 78, 86, 107, 108, 114, 134, 149, 155, 195, 212, 219, 288 Lincoln, Bruce D. 68–69 Lindstrøm, Torill C. 54n7 linear spaces 48, 169, 283 lines of flight 65 liṅgas 226, 227, 231, 233, 235, 236, 239, 240, 249, 252, 254 linguistic replacement 324, 338, 339 linguistic signs 40 lived space (thirdspace) 13, 50–53, 73, 202, 206, 207, 217–219, 286–291, 319– 323; religious landscapes as 85–88; and ritual power 171–173 llaqta 127 longhouses 109, 110 Luang Phrabang 241 Lucas, Gavin 41, 45–46 Lukács, György 23, 76 Mabbett, Ian W. 230, 232, 298, 305, 324 machine 117, 118; vs. assemblage 118, 123n24 machinic assemblages 59, 118 machinic processes 43, 46 macrocosm 95, 96, 102, 118, 132, 230, 231, 234, 240 Mādhyamika school 39–40 magical signs 39 Mahābhārata 223, 238, 262, 294, 295 Mahayana Buddhism 39, 87, 303, 319, 323, 337

398 Index

māheśvarāśrama 257, 259, 260, 288, 325n9 mandala 87, 110, 229–236, 241, 251, 299, 315, 316, 319 mandapa 239 Mannheim, Bruce 127, 128, 133 Mannheim, Karl 76 maquetas 104 Marchal, Henri 290 mariwin 36 Marshall, Yvonne 29 Marx, Karl 9, 22, 23, 33, 75, 76, 77, 101; Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, A 75; Das Kapital 33; false consciousness thesis 76; German Ideology 75 Marxist theory 8, 38 masintin 133–135 masks 35–37 masquerades 35–37, 65 material assemblages 43, 64 material culture 22–23, 66, 68, 79, 102, 140, 141, 152, 219, 338 material‑discursive practices 44 material frame 38, 60–66, 79, 99–101, 327 materiality 44, 66; concept of 97n13 materiality of ritual semiotics 103–116; dicentization/substitution 104–105, 170, 193, 195, 198, 282, 300, 316; repetition 103–104, 120nn10, 11, 169, 170, 193, 195, 282, 300, 301, 301, 316; symbolic accumulation 105–116, 193, 195, 262, 282, 300, 301, 316 materialization 62, 64, 65; of aesthetics 79–81 material reality 22–24, 26, 31, 33 material scaffolding 102–103 material signs 38, 40 material traces, analysis of 19 Maxwell, T. S. 299 Maya city plazas 112–113 Maya sculptures of Yaxchilan in Chiapas 69 McEwan, Gordon F. 140 meanings 44, 46, 50, 54n5, 59, 61, 62, 64–66, 86 Mecca, pre‑Islamic 110–111 mediation 44 mediatisation 62 medicine bundles 109, 114, 118 megamachines 95 Meister, Michael W. 225

Melanesia(n) 71; cargo cults 83, 84 Merrell, Floyd 28, 56n23 Merrifield, Andy 49 meshworks 7, 23, 24, 27, 28, 30–31, 94, 95, 340 Meskell, Lynn 91 mesocosms 118, 119, 248 Mesopotamia 92; foundation (nails/pegs) deposits 112–115, 122n21, 22, 123n23; ritual inscriptions 123n23 metamorphosis machine 47 metaontology 32 metaphysics 66 metapragmatics 51 metricalization 105 Mexican “Man‑God” 82 Meyer, Brigit 40 microcosmic symbolism 340 microcosms 87, 96, 105, 106, 108, 110, 111, 117, 118, 132, 230, 231, 234, 240, 251, 294, 316 Millenarian movements 82, 83, 97n15 Millennium Park 2 Miller, Daniel 22, 108, 205 Milne Bay Prophet Movement 97n15 mimesis 84 mimetic economies 102 miniatures 104, 112 miniaturized bundlings 109 mirror opposition 153, 156, 161, 163, 168, 169, 211 Mitchell, Timothy 90 Mithraic feasting events 96n7 Moche: adobe mountain pyramids 131– 133, 139, 141; culture 125; material culture 146; religion 200, 202, 206, 207, 216; site of Huaca Colorada 126, 127, 141, 143 (see also Huaca Colorada) monotheism 38, 329, 336, 341n3 Montefiore, Simon Sebag 57, 58 monumental landscapes 93, 289 Morris, Brian 81 Moseley, Michael E. 131 Moser, Claudia 84 mountain stone (thmo phnom) 281 Mount Kulen (Mahendraparvata) 90, 235, 261, 272, 282 Mount Meru 87, 112, 221, 231–234, 237, 246, 248, 249, 252, 269, 298 mratan 226 multinaturalism 35 Mumford, Lewis 95

Index  399

Mus, Paul 230, 235 mythopoetics 78 Nabonidus (king) 122n22 nāgarī 253 Nāgārjuna 40 Nasca lines 130, 136 nativism 97n14 Neak Ta 223 Nebuchadnezzer (king) 114, 115 Neolithic Britain 30, 65, 106, 118, 122n20 Neolithic monuments 65, 66 networked infrastructures 89 New Cuscos the Inca 140 Newell, Sasha 113, 114 new materialism 5, 6, 11, 19, 26, 27, 41, 42, 54n11, 57, 339 new materialist ontologies 24, 27–33 nirvana 40 non‑human beings 26 non‑place (non‑lieu) 88, 91, 98n16 Obama, Barack 1 objectification 205 object‑oriented ontology 22, 25, 27 off‑line cognition 102 Olmec site of La Venta in Veracruz, Mexico 112–116, 118, 193 O’Neill, Bruce 2 ontology(ical) 19, 28, 30–33; alterity 27–33, 100–103, 201; anthropology 30; camouflage 36; hierarchies 30; vs. ideology 33–37; orders 31–33, 35, 38; others 68, 69, 96, 99, 100; politics 33–34, 38; structures 32; turn 11, 27–29, 31, 34, 54n11, 57; typology 34 orthodoxy 74, 77 orthopraxy 74, 75 Osirian cult 333 overcoding 246–254, 279, 291, 296, 315, 325n4, 330, 335 Pacatnamú 145, 167, 206 Pachacamac plazas 48, 139, 166 Paijan desert 150 Pampa de Mojucape 146, 148, 149–150, 153, 160, 174; agricultural landscape of 160, 161 Pampa Grande 174–175, 202 pañcarātra 260, 282 paqarinas 135 Parameśvara 227

Paria Caca 129 Paris 57 Parmentier, Richard J. 103 pāśupata 260, 282, 287, 326n13 Patton, Paul 47 Pauketat, Timothy 107, 108 Pedersen, Morten Axel 91 Peirce, Charles Sanders 5–7, 12, 13, 19–27, 29, 41, 49, 51, 53n2, 101, 119, 328; definition of sign 24–25; doctrine of categories 20–21; non‑linguistic semiotics 49; semeiotics 5, 7, 12, 13, 19–24, 26, 27, 29, 49, 53n2, 101; synechism 43; trinary semiotics 20, 26, 27, 44 perceived space (firstspace) 13, 50–53, 87, 168–169, 189, 191–193, 209–216, 232, 283–286, 319–323 perspectivism 29, 32, 34, 35, 52, 55n12 Peruvian chronology 341n4 Petrie, Flinders 341n4 Pharaoh Akhenaten 91, 329–334; Amarna revolution 329–334 phenomenology 87; of ritual 165–168, 189, 191–193, 283–286 Phnom Bakheng 246–254, 247, 247, 248, 280, 282, 284, 294, 299, 318; semiotics of and overcoding 246–254, 247, 279; triadic shrines 249, 251 Phnom Bok 247, 248, 251, 280, 281 Phnom Da 237 Phnom Krom 247, 248, 251, 280, 281 physical landscapes 85 place‑making 3, 20, 41–48, 57–59, 84–87, 93, 125, 126, 133, 137, 141, 144, 207, 226, 227, 231, 235, 241, 246, 252, 273, 281, 282, 293–294, 296–304, 316 political economy 3, 8, 9, 57, 125, 196, 221, 223, 228, 231, 246 political machines 91 political pluralism 156 Pollock, Donald 36 pon 226 Po’Pay 83 posthumanism 31, 54n11 post‑humanist approach 6, 25, 66 Pottier, Christophe 251, 258, 262, 308, 311 Pou, Saveros 287 power‑knowledge concepts 33 power relations 49, 59, 66, 67, 68 pradaksiṇā 232–233

400 Index

Prajñāpāramitā 302 pramān 253 Prambanan (Loro Janggrang) in Java 115, 116, 118, 193 prasat 280, 312 Prasat Chaeng Meng 276 Prasat Chrung 315, 323 Prasat Khna 267, 268, 273, 274, 274, 275, 277, 276–280, 291 Prasat Komnap North 257, 258, 260, 263, 264, 288–289, 325n9 Prasat Komnap South 256, 257–260, 262– 265, 263, 265–267, 268, 270, 271, 272, 284, 286, 289 Prasat Neak Buos 268, 273, 274, 274, 275 Prasat Ong Mong 257, 257–259, 264, 265, 267, 268, 270, 272, 273, 286, 289, 290 prasats 224, 238, 249, 320 Prasat Sngout 311 Prasat Toch 318 Prasat Tromoung 310, 311, 312–314, 313, 317, 320, 323 Preah Khan 291, 294, 302, 304, 319–323 Preah Vihear (temple) 250, 256, 318, 325n8 Preceramic Period (2800–1500), Peru 137; religious centres 137 Prei Prasat 257–258, 263, 265, 267, 267, 268, 269, 270, 281 Pre Rup 257, 257, 325n9 Preucel, Robert W. 26, 40, 44 Price, Neil S. 66 profane illumination 52, 87 prophetic movements 81 Protestantism 39, 40 Protevi, John 43, 51 provincial Yaśodharāśrama 273–274, 276– 279; see also Yaśodharāśrama psychoactive substances 138 Pueblo revolt (1680) 82, 83, 97n14 Puma Punku 140 puṇya (puñña) 224 purification movement 83 qhariwarmi 142n3, 214 Qorikancha (Temple of the Sun) 135, 136 qualisigns 54n4 quebradas 150 Quechua 128, 134, 338 quincunx (pañcāyatana design) 7, 232, 248, 249, 280, 298 rājakuṭi 267, 268, 282, 286, 288, 291 Rājendravarman II 227, 289

Rāmāyana 223, 224, 238, 262 Rancière, Jacque 5, 79, 80, 168, 328 Ranger, Terrence 82 Rappaport, Roy 66, 74, 87 reality 18, 26, 28–33, 35, 39, 40, 42 rebounding violence 64 redemptive hegemony 78 Reeve, Paul 225, 231 Reeves, Nicholas 329, 330, 333 relationality 21, 25, 26 relational ontology 30, 32, 62 religion/religious 5, 66, 68–69, 74; architecture 59, 90, 100, 126; category of 60; ceremony 79, 80, 81; cosmologies 59; festival 64–65; and identity 73; ideology 57, 59, 76; landscapes 66, 85–89, 99, 100; movements 81 religious landscape of Jequetepeque Valley, Peru 125, 126, 138, 141, 143–220, 145; Dos Cruces 143; Huaca Colorada 143, 145, 146, 147, 149, 150, 152; irrigation, agricultural infrastructures, forest cover and settlement systems of Cañoncillo region 143–146, 148–152; Jatanca 143, 145, 149, 152; Limoncarro 145–146; Tecapa 143, 146, 148, 152 Renaissance Tuscany 52 renovations 4, 57–59, 115, 122n22, 183– 185, 187, 198, 201, 204, 215 repetition 103–104, 120nn10, 11, 169, 170, 193, 195, 282, 300, 301, 301, 316 representation 22, 23, 29, 30, 38, 39, 43, 44, 54n7, 66; rehabilitating 24–27 representationalism 29 representation of space 4, 13, 49–51, 207, 230 reterritorialization 46, 58, 63, 64, 70, 117, 135–137, 209–216, 240, 252, 304, 319, 335 revitalization movements 83, 97n13 revival 84, 97n14 rhematization 14, 198, 300 Ricardo, David 10 Richards, Colin 106 ritual as power medium 66–84; intersections of religion and power 66–67, 67; as knowledge, efficacious act, transformation and experimentation 70–73; metaphor of difference 68–70; Turner’s and Rappaport’s definitions 66–67, 87

Index  401

ritualization 61, 63, 64, 65, 82; of collective action 74 ritualized bundling 108 Ritual Process, Structure and Anti‑Structure, The (Turner) 93 ritual(s) 53, 57, 340; assembling power 84; vs. ceremony 96–97n9; condensation 107, 115, 121n14, 123n23, 195; dramaturgy 79–84; frames 17, 62, 79, 93–95, 107, 329; as heightened consciousness and political resistance 81–84; as ideology 75–78; material re‑framing and placedness 60–66; mediation 99, 100, 117; of place‑making 125, 144, 207; play 73, 94, 205; practices 20, 59, 61, 64, 68, 99, 100, 144; semiotic architecture of 103; Silverstein’s definition of 118; as social identification and medium of identity politics 73–75; as structure, hegemony, and materialization of aesthetics 79–81; symbolism 39; traditions 36; as transformative and embodied experience 85; urban settlement 125; as world‑making material process 101 Rizzuto, Branden 203 Robb, John 62, 107 Rodgers, Dennis 1 Roman religion 75 Rong Chen 235 Roosevelt, Franklin D. 1 Rowe, John 341n4 sacred spaces 99–101 sacrifice(s): animal, at Huaca Colorada 181, 183, 183, 187, 189, 190, 195, 199; animal, in Roman art 69–70; child 181; foundation 62, 123n23, 173, 183, 187, 198, 199; human 76, 105, 141, 175, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 187–189, 193, 195, 198, 199, 203–205, 214, 216 sacrificial rituals 69, 70 sacrificial violence 68 Saddharmapuṇḍarīka‑sūtra 298 Sahlins, Marshall 11, 68, 78, 327 Śaivaism 237, 238, 256, 257, 260, 288, 323 Salas Carreño., Guillermo 127, 128, 133 Salmond, Amiria J. M. 54n9 Salomon, Frank 127 Salomon, Richard 253

salvation 20, 75, 81, 228, 324 Sambor Prei Kuk 237, 326n13 saṃsāra, 223, 238, 321 Sanderson, Alexis 228 sangha 74, 238, 240 San José de Moro 146, 167, 174, 175, 180, 206 saugatāśrama 257, 258, 260, 289, 290 Saussure, Ferdinand de 12, 20, 26 Schama, Simon 92 Schmid, Christian 49, 56n24 Schopenhauer, Arthur 26; World as Will and Representation, The 26 Sdok Kok Thom 227, 230, 242n2, 249 Second Commandment 40, 55n16 Second Temple 57–59 Seligman, Adam B. 67, 104 semeiotics 19–24, 26, 27, 29, 49 semiosis 20, 28, 39, 46, 59, 62, 66, 99 semiospheres 101, 193, 281, 296, 304, 317, 318, 328 semiotic density 99, 109, 122n18, 169, 235, 252, 298, 316 semiotic ideology 14–17, 28, 59, 81, 117, 121n18, 124, 135, 144, 170, 196, 198, 216, 219, 280, 281, 299, 314, 318; Inca 130; in making of worlds 37–41; of synecdoche 168, 169 semiotic machines 46, 53, 59 semiotic mediators 100–103, 108, 114 semiotic processes 43, 46, 100 semiotics: of archaeological analysis 19–20; definition of 25; vs. representational approaches 19; of ritual 101 Semper, Gottfried 215 Severi, Carlo 107 sexual union 129, 134, 139, 185 shamans/shamanism 32, 35, 36, 68, 70, 71, 82, 107, 126, 138, 139, 217 Sharrock, Peter 299–300, 316, 319 Sicán culture 105 siddhamātṛkā 253 significance 22, 26 signification 22, 29, 78 sign‑interpretant relationship 13, 20, 21, 52 sign‑object relationship 12, 20, 21, 39, 40, 51 sign(s) 12, 24–26, 28, 30, 39, 43–44, 46, 52, 113; definition 101; modalities 99; properties 99; relations 12, 14, 38; religious 119n3; vehicle 24, 39, 99 sign‑sign relationship 12, 20, 21, 44

402 Index

śikhara 233 Silverstein, Michael 101, 103, 105, 119, 336 sinsigns 51, 283 Śiva 226, 227, 232, 237–240, 242n6, 248, 249, 256, 278, 281, 287, 319 Sivapada 267–268 Smith, Adam T. 10, 12, 43, 85, 87, 91, 118 Smith, Jonathan Z. 78, 84 Smith, Monica 88, 89 smooth space 47–49, 51, 52, 166, 192, 285, 286 social constructivism 6, 7 social dramas 78 social‑material collectives 40, 53, 59, 64, 73, 100 social reification 72, 74 social space 56n24, 129 Soja, Edward 13, 50, 52, 86 Sørensen, Tim F. 66, 87 Southeast Asia 225–226; government hierarchies 234; Hindu temples of 115–116; Indianized religions of 224, 231; political organization 16, 224, 234, 237; religious landscapes 53, 237–241; urban landscapes 16 Soutif, Dominique 254, 261 spaces 47, 49, 59, 85; see also individual space(s) spaces of representation 50, 219 Sparta 37–38 spatial segmentarity 47, 124, 283 spatial syntax theory 47 Spence Morrow, Giles 220n2 Srah Srang 286, 289 Sri Vikrama (king) 111 Stasch, Rupert 29, 109, 110 stereotomic architecture 215 Stewart, James B. 1 Stone‑Miller, Rebecca 140 streetcar system in Toronto 91–92, 98n21 striated space 47–49, 51–52, 166, 168, 169, 286, 319 structuralism 34 structured depositions 99, 100, 124, 144; as bundled and condensed assemblages 106–117, 170 Stuart‑Fox, Martin 225, 231 subversive ideologies 97n11 subversive politics 82 Sudharma 298 surcos 146 Sūryavairocana 306, 309

Sūryavarman I 227, 228, 256, 267, 273, 274, 278, 289–291, 318 Sūryavarman II 238 symbolic accumulation 105–116, 193, 195, 249, 262, 282, 300, 301, 316 symbolism 37–41, 66 symbols 20, 46, 99, 119n3 symmetrical anthropologies 26 symmetrical archaeologies 7, 11, 22 symmetrical ontologies 12, 28 sympathetic magic 102, 108 synecdochal ontologies 32 Taiping rebellion 82 Taki Onqoy rebellion 82, 83 tantric Buddist rites 230, 238, 297, 299, 321, 322 tapia 153, 158, 162, 166–167, 187 Ta Prohm 294, 302, 304, 307, 308, 316, 320–323 Ta Prohm Kel 310, 311 tawaf 110 taypi 231 Tecapa 143, 146, 148, 152; vs. Akhetaten centre 336, 337, 339; asymmetrical and dualistic spatial plan 210–211, 215; bundled sacra at 217; Cajamarca ceramics 208, 217, 219; central dividing wall 213, 213–214; conceived and perceived space 209–216; decorated ceramics and sling stones as feasting dump 212, 212; graffito at 218, 218; highland style architecture 208–210; irrigation network and agricultural fields 219–220; lived space and ritual power 217–219; Middle Horizon civic‑ceremonial site of 148; niched ceremonial halls and platforms 209–211, 210, 215, 216; quadripartite architecture 219; relationship to Huaca Colorada 207–209, 209; semiotic machine of 216–217; tectonic construction of 215; Transitional Period (Early Lambayeque Period) (800– 1000 CE) transformation 207–209, 220 technologies vs. infrastructures 90 Temple Mount 59 temple(s): architecture 6, 90, 104, 126, 220, 233, 240, 321, 327, 337, 341; as machines 117–119; ritualism 73 Tenskwatawa 83, 97n14

Index  403

Teotihuacan 95, 98n23 territorialization/deterritorialization 9, 13, 43–47, 49, 51, 53, 58, 63, 64, 77, 108, 119, 137, 168–169, 189, 191– 193; in Angkor 229–241, 252, 279, 283; of body 70; of yantra 287 Theravada Buddhism 238–241, 290, 323, 324, 339 Thomas, Julian 106 Thompson, Ashley 225, 230, 235, 236, 294, 298, 305 Thompson, John 76 Three Gorges Dam in China 92 Thucydides 37 tinku/tinkuy 126, 133–135, 141, 155, 169, 189, 191, 195, 210, 214 tīrtha 287 toma system 146, 174 Topic, John R. 134 Topic, Theresa Lange 134 traditionalization 82 trapeang 229, 236, 264, 265, 265, 276, 310, 312 Trever, Lisa 128 trilectics 10–14, 50 trimūrti 276 trompe l’oeil effect 139 Trouvé, George 258 Trump, Donald 1, 2, 7, 12 Tupi‑Guarani: peoples 35, 37; shamans 70–71 Turner, Terry 34, 35, 63, 66, 67, 78, 81 Turner, Victor 61, 93; communitas 78, 93, 181, 288; Ritual Process, Structure and Anti‑Structure, The 93 Ubbelohde‑Doering, Heinrich 196 Udayâdityavarman 278 Uhle, Max 341n4 uniformitarianism 23 unitary theory of space 41, 48–52 urbanism 3, 5 urban landscapes 2, 47, 48, 111 urban renewal of Paris 2–3 urban Yaśodharāśrama 262–273; see also Yaśodharāśrama Urioste, George L. 127 U‑shaped pyramid 130 U‑shaped temples of Initial Period (1800– 1000 CE) 130–131, 138, 139 usnu 135 Vailala Madness 84 Vaiṣṇavaism 260

vaiṣṇavāśrama 257, 260 Vajrapani/Vajradhara 319 Vajrayana Buddhism 238, 291, 299, 319 vibrant matter theory 27 vihāras 238, 239, 261, 324 vipra 259 vīrāśrama 255, 273, 274, 275, 290, 290, 291 Viṣṇu 116, 224, 226, 232, 237, 238, 240, 274, 276, 282, 319 visual semiotics 55n14 Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo 29, 35, 36, 55n12 Vodun of West Africa 114, 116 vraḥ kuṭi 268 wak’as 126–129, 136, 137, 141, 142n5, 151, 151, 152, 155, 161, 162, 167–170, 175–177, 184, 185, 188, 196, 197, 199, 200, 203, 204, 210, 214, 216, 225 Walker, William H. 66 Wanka settlement of Tunanmarca 133 Wari: in Ayacucho region, Peru 140; as city 140; civilizational mission 112; empire 112, 336, in Middle Horizon 112, 140, 216, 336–338; settlement of Pikillacta; 112, 140; settlements 140; state 112 war machines 47 Warner, John 149, 152, 153, 156, 158, 165 Wat Phu 256, 261, 273, 274 Weaver, Brendan J. M. 79 Weber, Max 74, 81 Weismantel, Mary 139 Wengrow, David 73, 95, 205 western philosophy 31 Wheatley, Paul 243n8, 299 Wilkinson, Darryl 89 witchcraft 80 Wolters, O. W. 230 Woodward, Hiram W. 302 “Workers Town” in Heit el‑Ghurab 93 World as Will and Representation, The (Schopenhauer) 26 world‑making effects 29, 30 yanantin (yanatin) 133, 134 yantra 286–287, 290 Yaśodharapura 251–252 Yaśodharāśrama 245, 246, 253–286, 287, 290, 291, 311, 314, 315, 318, 321, 324, 337; archaeological investigations 262–279; ecumenical

404 Index

ethos of 288; epigraphic evidence 254, 256–262; perceived space, aesthetics, and phenomenology of ritual 283–286; semiotic machinery of 279–283; stela shelters and pavilion of 257, 257–258, 264–266, 266, 274, 277, 278, 279, 282, 284, 307, 308 Yaśodharataṭāka 245, 247, 254, 257–259, 264, 287, 315; see also East Baray Yaśodhareśvara 249

Yaśovarman I (king) 99, 227, 232, 237, 241, 245, 246; see also āśrama of Yaśovarman I Yelle, Robert A. 39, 101, 103, 105, 107 yogic meditation 234 yoni 235–236 Zedeño, Maria Nieves 107 z’eke (ceque) system 135–137, 142n5 Zéphir, Thierry 297 Zhenla 237, 238 Zukin, Sharon 2