Stairways to Heaven: Documentation, Reconstruction, and Decipherment of the Hieroglyphic Stairways of El Resbalón, Quintana Roo, Mexico.

with Alexandre Tokovinine, Department of Anthropology, the University of Alabama

This presentation summarizes recent efforts to investigate more than 200 inscribed blocks from three hieroglyphic stairways at the archaeological site of El Resbalón, the city of Ek’ Witz (“Star Mountain”) according to Classic-period texts. A combination of photography, photogrammetry, and structured-light scanning was used to create digital replicas of every block. Scaled 3D-printed models and historical photographs from the original excavations helped reconstruct the original layout of the monuments and the narratives that they recorded. El Resbalón stairways were dedicated in AD 529-568, the time when the great city of Teotihuacan fell, and when the royal house of Dzibanché-Kaanu’l , just 8 miles south of El Resbalón, rose to become the dominant political power in the entire Maya world. The narratives on the hieroglyphic stairways reflect how local leaders and intellectuals made sense of the transition and sought a place for their own community in a shifting political and cultural landscape.

Alexandre-Tokovinine_crpd
Dr. Alexandre Tokovinine
is an anthropological archaeologist and specializes in Maya archaeology and epigraphy. His doctoral dissertation centered on Ancient Maya landscapes. His other research projects include 3D documentation of Maya monuments and contributions to Ancient Maya Art at Dumbarton Oaks. Dr. Tokovinine is an associate of the Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions. He currently holds an appointment of Associate Professor at the University of Alabama. Dr. Tokovinine’s primary research interest concerns the transformations of the ancient complex societies in the context of the Maya civilization. He has been relying on a combination of archaeological, textual, and visual data to explore the indigenous concepts of place, memory, and identity, as well as specific historical trajectories of individual polities and broader regional networks. The field component of the project has been centered on the regions around Ancient Maya cities of Holmul in Guatemala and Dzibanche in Mexico.

Join this Zoom presentation

May 27, 2026 • 8 pm ET

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86050160743