Investigating the Religious Landscape of Epicenters in Pre-Industrial Tropical States

Summary

The landscape of an epicenter has been built and modified to suit the needs of the people, both non-elite and elite. Epicenters consist of administrative, ceremonial, and residential features within a central precinct, often encircled by a moat or wall. Rulers of early tropical states would use religious propaganda to promote their power and legitimacy, which in turn created the purposeful and sacred design of the epicenter. By using the comparative method, this paper will examine the geographical relationship of the epicenter and the religious background of pre-industrial state formations in South and Southeast Asia (800 – 1400 CE) and Mesoamerica (250 – 900 CE). This method will allow for a greater consideration of the similar characteristics exhibited by tropical states across different historical contexts. On-site visitations and an extensive literature review of the data sets place an emphasis on architectural features and the monumentality of the epicenter.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• An Introduction to the Socio-ecological Entanglement in Tropical Societies (SETS) Project

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14610