The Streets of Nixtun-Ch’ich’, Guatemala

Summary

Nixtun-Ch’ich’ in Petén, Guatemala was settled shortly before 1000 BC. Sometime between 800 and 500 BC, the settlement was reconfigured into a city with an urban grid—a form until now unknown in the Maya lowlands. As a geometric form, grids regiment a series of lines into a harmonious rhythm over a larger area. Urban grids are formed not by single-dimension lines, but by streets, which are public spaces containing traffic, communication, exchange, and social interaction. Thus, urban grids are not simply composed of buildings with matching orientations, but also of streets and avenues and the traffic they contain (form and content), which are coordinated and connected through a shared and legible geometric system of order. Thus, once imposed, a grid is no longer an abstraction, but the new landscape. They standardize space and make it easy to understand, organize, and use. In so doing, grids promote the intensification of internal social interaction as well as interactions with outsiders familiar with its uniformity. Yet, the convenience and legibility of urban grids also help rulers to manage and control a populace.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Quintessential Places: Analyzing the Character of Precolumbian Sites   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14586