The Dynamics of an Ancient Hegemony: How the Classic Snake Kingdom Rewrites the Story of lowland Maya Political Organization

Summary

The political organization of the Classic Maya has been a hotly contested topic for many years. Since the 1930s, interpretations have fluctuated between visions of large-scale centralized states and small-scale decentralized polities. However, the recognition of a particular body of data in the inscriptions - statements of royal subordination and allegiance - is giving rise to a new consensus that obviates this this well-worn dichotomy.

This introductory paper will set the scene for this session ahead without establishing a programmatic bias. It describes the history of changing models for lowland Maya political organization and how scholars have reconciled previously opposed sets of archaeological evidence. Further it will acknowledge the growing importance to this subject matter of increasingly better understood epigraphic data. We suggest that the next challenge is the proper conjunction of these data sets in order to develop a more nuanced model for lowland Maya political organization.

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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