The Composite or “Assemble-it-Yourself” Censer: A New Lowland Maya Variety of the Three-Pronged Incense Burner

1959 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan F. Borhegyi
Keyword(s):  
Classic Period ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
San Jose ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
British Honduras ◽  
Lowland Area ◽  
Highland Maya ◽  
Incense Burner ◽  
Lowland Maya

AbstractA slit-sided, tubular “incense burner” with three holes in the top, three solid, curved and tapering cylinders called “chili-mashers,” and a flat, striated dish called a “griddle” or “comal” from sealed Cache B3 at San Jose, British Honduras are presented as separate units of a composite Lowland Maya variety of the three-pronged incense burner known from Highland Maya sites. Only the “comal” shows signs of burning. The cylinders are removable prongs which fit the holes in the top of the tubular “censer,” and the “comal” rests on the prongs as the cover on which the incense was burned. Thus, many so-called censers are probably stands or supports rather than receptacles for burning incense. A classification is offered for the several forms of the composite three-pronged censer which is distributed throughout the Maya Lowlands primarily during the Classic period. Since the San Jose “griddles” shown here to be censer covers are the only “comales” claimed for the Maya Lowlands, this identification establishes the pre-16th century absence of the comal and the tortilla in the lowland area. Doubt is also expressed that the comal forms of Highland Guatemala were used for making tortillas.

Evidence of Early Teotihucan-Lowland Maya Contact at Altun Ha

1971 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 455-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Pendergast
Keyword(s):  
Second Century ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
British Honduras ◽  
Lowland Maya

AbstractDiscovery of a typical Miccaotli phase offering at Altun Ha, British Honduras (Belize) indicates contact between Teotihuacan and the central Maya lowlands in the second century A.D., 2.5 to 3 centuries earlier than previously recognized.

Obsidian Procurement and Distribution in the Tikal-Yaxha Intersite Area of the Central Maya Lowlands

1997 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anabel Ford ◽  
Fred Stross ◽  
Frank Asaro ◽  
Helen V. Michel
Keyword(s):  
Chemical Characterization ◽  
Source Area ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
Residential Units ◽  
Preclassic Period ◽  
Characterization Studies ◽  
Lowland Maya

AbstractObsidian from known outcrops in the Mesoamerican highlands has been recovered from lowland Maya sites, providing significant evidence for long-distance procurement and local redistribution of obsidian by the ancient Maya. Prior chemical-characterization studies of obsidian from the lowland Maya area provide a foundation for the study of Tikal-Yaxha obsidian presented here. The samples used in this analysis came from middens associated with 12 residential units located between Tikal and Yaxha and dating from the Preclassic through Terminal Classic periods. The results of chemical sourcing of the Tikal-Yaxha samples generally lend support to current interpretations of changes in obsidian distribution and procurement in the central Maya lowlands. During the Preclassic period, most obsidian was imported from the San Martín Jilotepeque-Río Pixcaya source area. Obsidian from the El Chayal source predominated throughout the Classic period, although some Mexican Pachuca obsidian appeared in Early Classic contexts, and Ixtepepque obsidian was apparently restricted to the Terminal Classic period.

SET IN STONE: HIATUSES AND DYNASTIC POLITICS AT TIKAL, GUATEMALA

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hattula Moholy-Nagy
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Historical Explanation ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Stone Monuments ◽  
General Decline ◽  
Dynastic Politics ◽  
Lowland Maya

AbstractStone stelae and altars inscribed with dates and bearing a portrait of the ruler they commemorate define the Classic period in the Maya lowlands. They attest to the ruling elite's awareness of history and its uses to assert their authority and legitimacy. The power of Maya history remains evident when text decipherments override archaeological evidence. Privileging of texts is especially problematic in interpretations of gaps or hiatuses in the sequence of dates on carved monuments as indicators of site-wide decline. Archaeological evidence from the Lowland Maya city of Tikal contradicts the assumption of general decline during its longest hiatus, as well as a widely accepted historical explanation of its cause. Placing stone monuments and their texts in past cultural context indicates gaps were more likely due to a venerable Mesoamerican tradition of monument desecration carried out by rival elite factions than to specific historical events.

Sealing with Stone: Assessing an Assemblage of Lithic Debitage from a Funerary Context at the Lowland Maya City of Caracol, Belize

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Lisa M. Johnson ◽  
Lucas R. Martindale Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Protective Layer ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Recent Analysis ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
High Ranking ◽  
Stone Material ◽  
The City ◽  
Technological Analysis ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Lowland Maya

Excavators working in a ceremonial plaza group in the Classic period Lowland Maya city of Caracol, Belize, encountered thousands of pieces of chert and obsidian scattered above a royal tomb. A recent analysis of the chert from this context confirms that the assemblage included pieces from each stage of reduction in the production of blades. Taken together, the quantity of both chert and obsidian makes it the largest reported collection of lithic debitage found at the site and provides insight into the techniques of lithic crafters at Caracol. In this article, we consider the sequence of actions involved in the burial of a high-ranking individual and suggest that the layering of flaked stone above the tomb is reminiscent of other reported above-tomb contexts in the Maya Lowlands. Further, a technological analysis of this collection produced results similar to analyses of assemblages typically found in crafting-intensive residential groups. This finding suggests that lithic crafters throughout the city of Caracol donated flaked stone material for funerary events, providing a protective layer and sealing the grave below.

scholarly journals Drought, agricultural adaptation, and sociopolitical collapse in the Maya Lowlands

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (18) ◽  
pp. 5607-5612 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter M. J. Douglas ◽  
Mark Pagani ◽  
Marcello A. Canuto ◽  
Mark Brenner ◽  
David A. Hodell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Isotope ◽  
Sediment Cores ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
Agricultural Adaptation ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
Paleoclimate Records ◽  
Early Classic Period ◽  
Plant Wax ◽  
Terminal Classic Period

Paleoclimate records indicate a series of severe droughts was associated with societal collapse of the Classic Maya during the Terminal Classic period (∼800–950 C.E.). Evidence for drought largely derives from the drier, less populated northern Maya Lowlands but does not explain more pronounced and earlier societal disruption in the relatively humid southern Maya Lowlands. Here we apply hydrogen and carbon isotope compositions of plant wax lipids in two lake sediment cores to assess changes in water availability and land use in both the northern and southern Maya lowlands. We show that relatively more intense drying occurred in the southern lowlands than in the northern lowlands during the Terminal Classic period, consistent with earlier and more persistent societal decline in the south. Our results also indicate a period of substantial drying in the southern Maya Lowlands from ∼200 C.E. to 500 C.E., during the Terminal Preclassic and Early Classic periods. Plant wax carbon isotope records indicate a decline in C4 plants in both lake catchments during the Early Classic period, interpreted to reflect a shift from extensive agriculture to intensive, water-conservative maize cultivation that was motivated by a drying climate. Our results imply that agricultural adaptations developed in response to earlier droughts were initially successful, but failed under the more severe droughts of the Terminal Classic period.

scholarly journals Climate impact on the development of Pre-Classic Maya civilisation

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 1253-1273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kees Nooren ◽  
Wim Z. Hoek ◽  
Brian J. Dermody ◽  
Didier Galop ◽  
Sarah Metcalfe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North Atlantic ◽  
Agricultural Intensification ◽  
Climatic Variability ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Climate Impact ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Beach Ridge ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
The North ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. The impact of climate change on the development and disintegration of Maya civilisation has long been debated. The lack of agreement among existing palaeoclimatic records from the region has prevented a detailed understanding of regional-scale climatic variability, its climatic forcing mechanisms and its impact on the ancient Maya. We present two new palaeo-precipitation records for the central Maya lowlands, spanning the Pre-Classic period (1800 BCE–250 CE), a key epoch in the development of Maya civilisation. A beach ridge elevation record from world's largest late Holocene beach ridge plain provides a regional picture, while Lake Tuspan's diatom record is indicative of precipitation changes at a local scale. We identify centennial-scale variability in palaeo-precipitation that significantly correlates with the North Atlantic δ14C atmospheric record, with a comparable periodicity of approximately 500 years, indicating an important role of North Atlantic atmospheric–oceanic forcing on precipitation in the central Maya lowlands. Our results show that the Early Pre-Classic period was characterised by relatively dry conditions, shifting to wetter conditions during the Middle Pre-Classic period, around the well-known 850 BCE (2.8 ka) event. We propose that this wet period may have been unfavourable for agricultural intensification in the central Maya lowlands, explaining the relatively delayed development of Maya civilisation in this area. A return to relatively drier conditions during the Late Pre-Classic period coincides with rapid agricultural intensification in the region and the establishment of major cities.

Swamps, canals, and the locations of ancient Maya cities

Antiquity ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 54 (212) ◽  
pp. 206-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. E. W. Adams
Keyword(s):  
Radar Data ◽  
Classic Maya ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Intensive Agriculture ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
Rank Ordering ◽  
Topographic Information ◽  
Maya Civilization ◽  
Mapping Discovery

The recent radar mapping discovery of widely distributed patterns of intensive agriculture in the southern Maya lowlands provides new perspectives on classic Maya civilization. Swamps seem to have been drained, modified, and intensively cultivated in a large number of zones. The largest sites of Maya civilization are located on the edges of swamps. By combining radar data with topographic information, it is possible to suggest the reasons for the choice of urban locations. With the addition of patterns elicited from rank-ordering of Maya cities, it is also possible to suggest more accurate means of defining Classic period Maya polities.

MAYA HETERARCHY AS INFERRED FROM CLASSIC-PERIOD PLAZA PLANS

2004 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marshall Joseph Becker
Keyword(s):  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Rural Settlement ◽  
Classic Maya ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
Lowland Maya

Recognition of architectural patterning among groups of structures at lowland Maya sites dating from the Classic period provides insights into the ways that residences and ritual complexes were organized. Each structured group arrangement, or Plaza Plan (PP), reveals an architectural grammar that provides the database enabling us to predict urban as well as rural settlement patterns. Wide variations in sizes among examples of residential PPs suggests that heterarchy was an important aspect of Classic Maya society. Examination of PP2 at Tikal indicates that a heterarchic pattern of organization existed. Heterarchy may relate to the fragility of the structure of lowland Maya kingship, and this may explain the gradual demise of states during the Terminal Classic and Postclassic periods and their replacement by re-emergent Maya chiefdoms.

Classic-to-Contact-Period Continuities in Maya Governance in Central Petén, Guatemala

Ethnohistory ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Prudence M. Rice ◽  
Don S. Rice
Keyword(s):  
Power Sharing ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Contact Period ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
Archaeological Data ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
Governance Strategies ◽  
Per Se

Abstract This article integrates ethnohistorical and archaeological data in examining political continuities or structural equivalencies in the lakes region of central Petén (southern Maya lowlands) between the Late and Terminal Classic periods and the Postclassic and Spanish Contact periods. The equivalencies are of three kinds: “deep structures” (quadripartition), common political expediencies and functions (power-sharing and council houses), and temporal continuities per se (dual rulership). The article concludes that the rupture (“collapse”) between Classic and Postclassic political forms was only partial, and numerous structures and practices of late Petén Itza Maya geopolitical organization can be seen in earlier Classic-period phenomena. These underscore long-term continuities in governance strategies.

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