Nested Hegemonies in the Holmul Region

Summary

The recent finds at Holmul has opened a narrow window on the hitherto largely unknown dynastic history of this medium-sized kingdom in eastern Peten and on the complexities of Late Classic lowland Maya hegemonic relations. We now have a royal tomb, a palace, and a funerary temple with dedicatory texts that can all be attributed with a certain degree of confidence to a single Late Classic ruler with ties to Naranjo and Kaanul (Snake Kingdom). This set of contextual information allows us to reconstruct in some detail the political situation of this kingdom in the decades before and after the all-important capitulation of Tikal at the hand of the Snake Kingdom in the sixth century. The texts also inform us about how familial ties between rulers were integral to the strategies of assimilation, cajoling and/or conquest favored by the Snake kings. The emerging new pattern of regional ties suggests that nested hegemonies may have been a more common phenomenon in Late Classic political organization than previously thought.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Understanding Classic Maya Hegemonic Networks Through Textual-Material Synergies: The Case of the "Snake" Kingdom

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