Maya stelae (singular stela) are monuments that were fashioned by the Maya civilization of ancient Mesoamerica. They consist of tall, sculpted stone shafts and are often associated with low circular stones referred to as altars, although their actual function is uncertain. Many stelae were sculpted in low relief, although plain monuments are found throughout the Maya region. The sculpting of these monuments spread throughout the Maya area during the Classic Period (250–900 AD), and these pairings of sculpted stelae and circular altars are considered a hallmark of Classic Maya civilization. The earliest dated stela to have been found in situ in the Maya lowlands was recovered from the great city of Tikal in Guatemala. During the Classic Period almost every Maya kingdom in the southern lowlands raised stelae in its ceremonial centre.

Stelae became closely associated with the concept of divine kingship and declined at the same time as this institution. The production of stelae by the Maya had its origin around 400 BC and continued through to the end of the Classic Period, around 900, although some monuments were reused in the Postclassic (c. 900–1521). The major city of Calakmul in Mexico raised the greatest number of stelae known from any Maya city, at least 166, although they are very poorly preserved.

Hundreds of stelae have been recorded in the Maya region, displaying a wide stylistic variation. Many are upright slabs of limestone sculpted on one or more faces, with available surfaces sculpted with figures carved in relief and with hieroglyphic text. Stelae in a few sites display a much more three-dimensional appearance where locally available stone permits, such as at Copán and Toniná. Plain stelae do not appear to have been painted nor overlaid with stucco decoration, but most Maya stelae were probably brightly painted in red, yellow, black, blue and other colours.

Stelae were essentially stone banners raised to glorify the king and record his deeds, although the earliest examples depict mythological scenes. Imagery developed throughout the Classic Period, with Early Classic stelae (c. 250–600) displaying non-Maya characteristics from the 4th century onwards, with the introduction of imagery linked to the central Mexican metropolis of Teotihuacan. This influence receded in the 5th century although some minor Teotihuacan references continued to be used. In the late 5th century, Maya kings began to use stelae to mark the end of calendrical cycles. In the Late Classic (c. 600–900), imagery linked to the Mesoamerican ballgame was introduced, once again displaying influence from central Mexico. By the Terminal Classic, the institution of divine kingship declined, and Maya kings began to be depicted with their subordinate lords. As the Classic Period came to an end, stelae ceased to be erected, with the last known examples being raised in 909–910.

The function of the Maya stela was central to the ideology of Maya kingship from the very beginning of the Classic Period through to the very end of the Terminal Classic (800–900). The hieroglyphic inscriptions on the stelae of the Classic period site of Piedras Negras played a key part in the decipherment of the script, with stelae being grouped around seven different structures and each group appearing to chart the life of a particular individual, with key dates being celebrated, such as birth, marriage and military victories. From these stelae, epigrapher Tatiana Proskouriakoff was able to identify that they contained details of royal rulers and their associates, rather than priests and gods as had previously been theorised.

Epigrapher David Stuart first proposed that the Maya regarded their stelae as te tun, "stone trees", although he later revised his reading to lakamtun, meaning "banner stone", from lakam meaning "banner" in several Mayan languages and tun meaning "stone". According to Stuart this may refer to the stelae as stone versions of vertical standards that once stood in prominent places in Maya city centres, as depicted in ancient Maya graffiti. The name of the modern Lacandon Maya is likely to be a Colonial corruption of this word.

Maya stelae were often arranged to impress the viewer, forming lines or other arrangements within the ceremonial centre of the city. Maya cities with a history of stonecarving that extended back into the Early Classic preferred to pair their stelae with a circular altar, which may have represented a cut tree trunk and have been used to perform human sacrifice, given the prevalence of sacrificial imagery on such monuments. An alternative interpretation of these "altars" is that they were in fact thrones that were used by rulers during ceremonial events. Archaeologists believe that they probably also served as ritual pedestals for incense burners, ceremonial fires and other offerings.

The core purpose of a stela was to glorify the king. Many Maya stelae depict only the king of the city, and describe his actions with hieroglyphic script. Even when the individual depicted is not the king himself, the text or scene usually relates the subject to the king. Openly declaring the importance and power of the king to the community, the stela portrayed his wealth, prestige and ancestry, and depicted him wielding the symbols of military and divine power. Stelae were raised to commemorate important events, especially at the end of a kʼatun 20-year cycle of the Maya calendar, or to mark a quarter or a half kʼatun. The stela did not just mark off a period of time; it has been argued that it physically embodied that period of time. The hieroglyphic texts on the stelae describe how some of the calendrical ceremonies required the king to perform ritual dance and bloodletting. At Tikal, the twin pyramid groups were built to celebrate the kʼatun ending and reflected Maya cosmology. These groups possessed pyramids on the east and west sides that represented the birth and death of the sun. On the south side, a nine-doored building was situated in order to represent the underworld. On the north side was a walled enclosure that represented the celestial region; it was left open to the sky. It was in this celestial enclosure that a stela-altar pair was placed, the altar being a fitting throne for the divine king. Calakmul practised a tradition that was unusual in the Maya area, that of raising twin stelae depicting both the king and his wife.

The iconography of stelae remained reasonably stable during the Classic Period, since the effectiveness of the propaganda message of the monument relied upon its symbolism being clearly recognisable to the viewer. However, at times a shift in the sociopolitical climate induced a change in iconography. Stelae were an ideal format for public propaganda since, unlike earlier architectural sculpture, they were personalised to a specific king, could be arranged in public spaces and were portable, allowing them to be moved and reset in a new location. An important feature of stelae was that they were able to survive different phases of architectural construction, unlike architectural sculpture itself. With the ability to portray an identifiable ruler bearing elite goods, accompanied by hieroglyphic text and carrying out actions in service of the kingdom, stelae became one of the most effective ways of delivering public propaganda in the Maya lowlands. In 7th-century Copán, king Chan Imix Kʼawiil raised a series of seven stelae that marked the boundary of the most fertile land in the Copán valley, an area of approximately 25 to 30 square kilometres (9.7 to 11.6 sq mi). As well as marking the boundary, they defined the sacred geometry of the city and referred to important seats of deities in the ceremonial centre of the Copán.

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Stelae were considered to be invested with holiness and, perhaps, even to contain a divine soul-like essence that almost made them living beings. Some were apparently given individual names in hieroglyphic texts and were considered to be participants in rituals conducted at their location. Such rituals in the Classic Period appear to have included a kʼaltun binding ritual, in which the stela was wrapped in bands of tied cloth. This ritual was closely tied to the kʼatun-ending calendrical ceremony. A kʼaltun ritual is depicted carved onto a peccary skull deposited as a funerary offering at Copán, the scene shows two nobles flanking a stela-altar pair where the stela seems to have been bound with cloth. The act of wrapping or binding a sacred object was of considerable religious importance across Mesoamerica, and is well attested among the Maya right up to the present day. The precise meaning of the act is not clear, but may be to protect the bound object or to contain its sacred essence. The binding of stelae may be linked to the modern Kʼicheʼ Maya practice of wrapping small divinatory stones in a bundle.

A stela was not just considered a neutral portrait, it was considered to be 'owned' by the subject, whether that subject was a person or a god. Stela 3 from El Zapote in Guatemala is a small monument dating from the Early Classic period, the front of the stela bears a portrait of the rain god Yaxhal Chaak, "Clear Water Chaak". The accompanying text describes how the deity Yaxhal Chaak himself was dedicated, not just his image on the stela. This could be taken to imply that the stela was seen as the embodiment of the deity and is also true of those stelae bearing royal portraits, which were seen to be the supernatural embodiment of the ruler they represented. The stela, combined with any accompanying altar, was a perpetual enactment of royal ceremony in stone. David Stuart has stated that stelae "do not simply commemorate past events and royal ceremonies but serve to perpetuate the ritual act into eternity", thus ascribing a magical effectiveness to stela depictions. In the same vein, stelae bearing royal portraits may have been magically loaded extensions of the royal person (uba 'his self'), extremely powerful confirmations of political and religious authority. Stelae bearing images of multiple people, for instance of several nobles performing a ritual or of a king with his war captives, were likely to be exceptions to this idea of the stela as sacred embodiment of the subject.

At times, when a new king came to power, old stelae would be respectfully buried and replaced with new ones, or they might be broken. When a Maya city was invaded by a rival, it was pillaged by the victors. One of the most striking archaeological markers of such an invasion is the destruction of the defeated city's stelae, which were broken and cast down. At the end of the Preclassic, around 150 AD, this fate appears to have befallen the important city of El Mirador, where most of the stelae were found smashed.

Royal artisans were sometimes responsible for sculpting stelae; in some cases these sculptors were actually the sons of kings. In other cases it is likely that captive artisans from defeated cities were put to work raising stelae for the victors, as evidenced by the sculptural style of one city appearing upon monuments of its conqueror soon after its defeat. This appears to have been the case in Piedras Negras where Stela 12 depicting war captives submitting to the victorious king is carved in the style of Pomoná, the defeated city. Archaeologists believe that this may also have been the case with Quiriguá after its surprise defeat of its overlord Copán.

Stelae were usually crafted from quarried limestone, although in the Southern Maya area other types of stone were preferred. Volcanic tuff was used at Copán to craft their stelae in three dimensions. Both limestone and tuff were easily worked when first quarried and hardened with exposure to the elements. At Quiriguá a hard red sandstone was used that was unable to reproduce the three-dimensionality of Copán but was of sufficient strength that the kings of the city were able to raise the tallest free-standing stone monuments in the Americas. The Maya lacked beasts of burden and did not employ the wheel; therefore the freshly quarried blocks of stone had to be transported on rollers along the Maya causeways. Evidence of this has been found on the causeways themselves, where rollers have been recovered. The blocks were sculpted to their final form while still soft and they then hardened naturally with time. Stone was usually quarried locally but was occasionally transported over great distances. Calakmul in Mexico was one of two powerful cities that shaped the political landscape of the Classic Period, the other being Tikal. It imported black slate for one stela from the Maya Mountains, more than 320 kilometres (200 mi) away. Although Calakmul raised the greatest number of stelae known from any Maya city, they were sculpted from poor quality limestone and have suffered severe erosion, rendering most of them illegible. Stelae could be of substantial size; Quiriguá Stela E measures 10.6 metres (35 ft) from the base to the top, including the 3-metre (9.8 ft) buried portion holding it in place. This particular monument has a claim to being the largest free-standing stone monument in the New World and weighs about 59 tonnes (65 short tons). Stela 1 at Ixkun is one of the tallest monuments in the Petén Basin, measuring 4.13 metres (13.5 ft) high, not including the buried portion, and is roughly 2 metres (6.6 ft) wide and 0.39 metres (1.3 ft) thick.

Maya stelae were worked with stone chisels and probably with wooden mallets. Hammerstones were fashioned from flint and basalt and were used for shaping the softer rocks used to make stelae, while fine detail was completed with smaller chisels. Originally most were probably brightly painted in red, yellow, black, blue and other colours using mineral and organic pigments. At Copán and some other Maya cities, some traces of these pigments were found upon the monuments.

Generally all sides of a stela were sculpted with human figures and hieroglyphic text, with each side forming a part of a single composition. Undecorated stelae in the form of plain slabs or columns of stone are found throughout the Maya region. These appear never to have been painted or to have been decorated with overlaid stucco sculpture.

Dimensions of selected stelae

Site name	Location	Monument	Height	Width	Thickness
Itzimté	Campeche, Mexico	Stela 6	1.32 metres (4.3 ft)	0.82 metres (2.7 ft)	unknown
Ixkun	Petén Department, Guatemala	Stela 1	4.13 metres (13.5 ft)	2 metres (6.6 ft)	0.39 metres (1.3 ft)
Ixkun	Petén Department, Guatemala	Stela 5	2.65 metres (8.7 ft)	1.00 metre (3.28 ft)	0.26 metres (0.85 ft)
Kaminaljuyu	Guatemala Department, Guatemala	Stela 11	1.98 metres (6.5 ft)	0.68 metres (2.2 ft)	0.18 metres (0.59 ft)
Machaquilá	Petén Department, Guatemala	Stela 2	2.1 metres (6.9 ft)	1.2 metres (3.9 ft)	unknown
Nakbé	Petén Department, Guatemala	Stela 1	1.63 metres (5.3 ft)	1.55 metres (5.1 ft)	0.25 metres (0.82 ft)
Piedras Negras	Petén Department, Guatemala	Stela 12	3 metres (9.8 ft)	1 metre (3.3 ft)	0.42 metres (1.4 ft)
Quiriguá	Izabal Department, Guatemala	Stela E	10.6 metres (35 ft)	unknown	unknown
Takalik Abaj	Retalhuleu Department, Guatemala	Stela 2	2.2 metres (7.2 ft)	1.43 metres (4.7 ft)	unknown
Takalik Abaj	Retalhuleu Department, Guatemala	Stela 5	2.11 metres (6.9 ft)	1.22 metres (4.0 ft)	0.6 metres (2.0 ft)
Tikal	Petén Department, Guatemala	Stela 9	2.1 metres (6.9 ft)	unknown	unknown
Tikal	Petén Department, Guatemala	Stela 29	1.33 metres (4.4 ft)	unknown	unknown
Toniná	Chiapas, Mexico	Monument 101	1.04 metres (3.4 ft)	0.31 metres (1.0 ft)	0.2 metres (0.66 ft)