Willfully Obscured: Figurines and Caves in the Maya Late Classic Period

Summary

As both space and material are used to create interpretations or infer ancient ritual meanings concerning the Late Classic Maya, the consideration of caves and ceramic figurines provide interesting comparators as they evoke restrictions of intent and imagery within a regional setting. Opportunistic sampling of figurines from cave contexts for compositional analysis has resulted in chemically-based patterns from which one can glimpse directional patterns of movement from resource area to recovery context. The compositional data for the figurines obtained through neutron activation is interpreted with a perspective obtained through decades of similar analyses of ceramics from both lowland and highland Maya sites. This presentation provides variably robust vignettes involving figurines in caves, with specific reference along the Pasión river system, that contain aspects of both local performance and assumed trade.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Interpreting Changes in Ancient Maya Society: From Landscape and Architecture to Everything in Between

Keywords

Spatial Coverage