Teagan Rose Knutson | 2025 I.S. Symposium

Name: Teagan Rose Knutson
Title: Traversing the Realms: Using Maya Indigenous Ontology to Read the Iconography on Lady K’abel’s Polychrome Circular Plate from Waka’s Burial 61
Majors: Archaeology; Religious Studies
Advisors: Olivia Navarro-Farr; Sarah Mirza

In this I.S., I consider Indigenous ontology as a serious theoretical model. I am interested in what happens when artifacts are situated in the Indigenous worldviews they were created and used in and what interpretations can be proposed when Western worldviews are decentered. In this study, I examine the iconography of a decorated vessel found in the royal tomb of a 7th-century Maya ruler. I suggest that when situated in Indigenous Maya worldviews, the iconographic motifs on the vessel gain a deeper meaning than purely aesthetic, displaying complex layers of metaphors and meaning. I propose the identification and metaphoric reading of cormorants, tokens, and Datura flowers on this vessel.

Posted in Symposium 2025 on May 1, 2025.