Current ritual materiality at Tak’alik Ab’aj

Summary

Tak’alik Ab’aj since its heyday in Preclassic and during its long history until Late Classic, was an important trade and cultural center of the southwestern Maya Periphery. After abandonment of 1700 years of long-lived and uninterrupted history in 900 AD, this ancient city apparently maintained its significance as ancestral sacred place and rituals were performed as inconspicuous as possible, in view that the site has passed into private properties. Since de beginnings of the creation of the Archaeological National Park Tak’alik Ab’aj in 1987, the indigenous people were invited to perform and unfold their ritual traditions in an ambience of respect and consideration of the conservation of the site. This has propitiated a crescent affluence of ritual activities, according the sacred calendar days, which has been carefully documented, producing a wealth of details and information about character, patterns, protocol and diversity in materials employed in current rituality, signaling a powerful process of re-invention.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The dimensions of Rituality 2000 years ago and today   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage