Closing the Portal at Itzmal Ch’en: Termination Rituals at Mayapan

Summary

The ceremonious destruction and abandonment of the Itzmal Ch’en group at Mayapán is symptomatic of ritual violence that marked this city’s near collapse at least 50 years before its final abandonment around 1448 A.D. This new evidence revises Contact Period accounts about the demise of this city, the last regional capital of the Maya realm prior to European arrival, and it also reveals the city’s resilient (if brief) recovery. In the tradition of the interdisciplinary approach of the Forest of Kings to Maya political dynamics, we review the termination rites at Itzmal Ch’en in their larger cultural context. This group has represented sacred ground from pre-Mayapan periods until modern times, housing the second largest temple of the Postclassic Maya era, a major cenote, halls, shrines, and an oratory. It is located two kilometers distant from the site’s epicenter and marks an eastern gate of Mayapan’s city wall. Termination rites involved careful destruction and mixture of unique effigy censers and sculptures, now restored. These materials reflect pluralistic and idiosyncratic aspects of ritual and symbolism at an outlying political and religious facility.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Contextualizing Maya History and Archaeology Part II: Reflections on the 25th Anniversary of Forest of Kings   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage