Lord of the Ring Structures: Burnt Lime Production and the Ancient Puuc Economy

Summary

Burnt lime was one of the most significant and ubiquitous materials utilized in the daily lives of the ancient Maya. Lime was a key ingredient in the mortar that they used to construct monumental edifices and residential structures, as well as the lime plaster that they used to coat the facades, floors and interior walls of these structures. Lime was also crucial for maintaining a viable maize-based diet through the nixtamalization process. The recent identification of a series of ring structures hypothesized to be pit-kilns for producing burnt lime in and around the ancient Puuc site of Kiuic in the north-central Yucatán Peninsula provides a great opportunity to investigate the organization of the ancient lime production industry. Spatial analyses of the locations of the ring kilns in relation to other archaeological features such as residential and public architectural compounds, as well as other limestone industry features and topographical variables provide information regarding the important role that burnt lime production played in the ancient economy of the region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• The Bolonchén Regional Archaeological Project: Sixteen Years of Investigating Maya Society in the Eastern Puuc Region from the Preclassic through the Historical Period

Keywords

Spatial Coverage