In this article we analyze the content and form of 58 stone monuments at the archaeological site of Lacanjá Tzeltal, Chiapas, Mexico, which recent research confirms was a capital of the Classic Maya polity Sak Tz'i' (“White Dog”). Sak Tz'i' kings carried the title ajaw (“lord”) rather than the epithet k'uhul ajaw (“holy lord”) claimed by regional powers, implying that Sak Tz'i' was a lesser kingdom in terms of political authority. Lacanjá Tzeltal's corpus of sculptured stone, however, is explicitly divergent and indicates the community's marked cultural autonomy from other western Maya kingdoms. The sculptures demonstrate similarities with their neighbors in terms of form and iconographic and hieroglyphic content, underscoring Lacanjá Tzeltal artisans’ participation in the region's broader culture of monumental production. Nevertheless, sculptural experimentations demonstrate not only that lesser courts like Lacanjá Tzeltal were centers of innovation, but that the lords of Sak Tz'i' may have fostered such cultural distinction to underscore their independent political character. This study has broader implications for understanding interactions between major and secondary polities, artistic innovation, and the development of community identity in the Classic Maya world.

在本文中，我们分析了墨西哥恰帕斯州 Lacanjá Tzeltal 考古遗址的 58 座石碑的内容和形式，最近的研究证实该遗址是古典玛雅政体 Sak Tz'i'（“白狗”）的首都。Sak Tz'i' 国王的头衔是ajaw（“领主”），而不是绰号k'uhul ajaw（“圣主”）被地方列强所宣称，暗示萨济'在政治权威方面是一个较小的王国。然而，Lacanjá Tzeltal 的石雕语料库明显不同，表明该社区与其他西方玛雅王国有着明显的文化自主权。这些雕塑在形式、图像和象形文字内容方面展示了与其邻居的相似之处，强调了 Lacanjá Tzeltal 工匠参与该地区更广泛的纪念性生产文化。尽管如此，雕塑实验表明，不仅像 Lacanjá Tzeltal 这样的小法院是创新中心，而且 Sak Tz'i' 的领主可能培育了这种文化差异以强调他们独立的政治特征。