Postclassic Chen Mul Fragments from the Cochuah Region, Quintana Roo, Mexico

Summary

Postclassic Chen Muls are known as effigy censers, or incensarios. It is suggested that these effigy censers were placed at the foot of an altar and were used in ceremonial shrines during rituals of renewal (Thompson 1957). The 2014 Cochuah Regional Archaeological Survey recovered a collection of Postclassic Chen Mul fragments from excavations at four sites in the project area: San Felipe, San Francisco, Venadito, and the Fortín de Yo’okop. Excavations at these four sites did not recover whole incensarios. However, visual analysis of the Chen Mul fragments recovered from the Cochuah region suggests that the deities portrayed in this collection are comparable to those of other Postclassic Chen Mul collections from different sites throughout the Yucatan Peninsula, such as the collections from Mayapan (Smith 1971) and Tulum (Sanders 1960). The Postclassic Chen Mul fragments provide insight into the changes in Maya power and ideology in the Cochuah region during the transition from the Terminal Classic period to the Postclassic period, as well as the ritual practices associated with Postclassic incensarios. During this transition, Maya ideology and religion centered on kingly power was replaced by folk religion that glorified deities (Johnstone 2008).

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Terminal Classic to Postclassic in the Northern Lowlands   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage