Ritual performance (Other Keyword)
1-3 (3 Records)
The site of Early Xunantunich in modern day Belize provides the opportunity for a uniquely detailed case study in Preclassic Maya architecture. Thanks to a lack of Classic Period overburden, the Mopan Valley Preclassic Project has been able to conduct extensive excavations of early architecture at the site, documenting important ritual activities from this early time period which likely played a key role in the development of sociopolitical complexity in the region. This paper focuses on...
On the Persistence of Tradition: Caves, Ritual Performance, and Secrecy among Multi-Ethnic Communities in the U.S. Southwest (2018)
Discussions of ritual performance in the U.S. Southwest are often restricted to the analysis of architecture in residential settings, leaving the potential role of caves largely absent from regional discourse. As settings that are less accessible to the entire community, caves likely represent important venues for ritual performance whose participation is intended only for a select audience. The aims of this paper are twofold. First, through the reevaluation of select wooden ritual assemblages...
The Role of the Sweatbath in Classic Maya Ritual Performance (2015)
This paper reviews the scholarship regarding Mesoamerican sweatbaths and their role in performance, specifically choreographing locations for transformation and sympathetic transition in supernatural space. The recently discovered sweatbath at the site of Xultun in Guatemala, known as Los Sapos, will be inserted into this dialogue in conjunction with that regarding plazas and Maya theatricality more broadly. After both contextualizing Los Sapos and presenting interpretations regarding its...