Tan Tun: The Enduring Role of Cozumel in the Maya World

Summary

The island of Cozumel has long been known to have been a quintessential place in Late Postclassic Maya culture as the home to the shrine of Ix Chel, the lunar goddess of childbirth and fertility. Maya women of this period were expected to make the pilgrimage to the shrine at least once in their lives, which would have transformed the island into one of the most dynamic and multicultural social contexts throughout the late Maya world. Added to the fact that the island is the easternmost part of the Maya area and was known to have one of the most important marketplaces in the Maya region during the Late Postclassic, Cozumel was beyond doubt a unique place that greatly factored in to the geopolitics of the time. Occupation on the island, however, dates back at least until the Terminal Preclassic period, suggesting that the importance of the island stretches back into a more distant past. In this paper we discuss our current research at El Ramonal and San Gervasio with the idea of understanding the Preclassic and Classic origins of Cozumel as the unique multicultural place it was during the Late Postclassic.

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)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14329