The backward reclining figure of the chacmool presents a defenceless, passive appearance and has been likened by Miller to the positioning of captives in Classic period Maya sculpture and painting. Bent elbows and knees are common in depictions of Maya captives; the full-frontal view of the face is rare in Maya art except among representations of captives. The form of the Chichen Itza chacmools lacks the typical traits of Maya deities and most scholars have assumed that the iconography of Maya chacmools is equivalent to that of the central Mexican examples. Eduard Seler commented in the early 1960s that chacmools in Chichen Itza tended to be located in temple antechambers, where the bowl or disc gripped by the figure served to receive pulque as an offering.