Stuart, David, 1965-2016-08-022018-01-222016-08-022018-01-222007-05http://hdl.handle.net/2152/39313The ancient Maya site of Rio Azul, located in the tropical lowlands of Guatemala, contains several Early Classic (250 – 550/600 CE) tombs with beautiful mural paintings. Commissioned for the interment of the royal elite, the tomb murals are painted with wonderful examples of Maya calligraphy depicting iconographic scenes of the watery underworld and hieroglyphs naming particular mountains of a cosmological landscape. This study focuses on the analysis and interpretation of the paintings and compares them to other examples in the Maya lowlands to demonstrate the widespread notion of cosmological landmarks associated to death and the rebirth of venerated ancestors.electronicenCopyright © is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the Libraries' web site by University Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works.MayaGuatemalaRio AzulThesisRestricted