Processional Architecture at Chan Chich, Belize

Summary

Chan Chich is one of the dozen largest Maya ruins in Belize, reaching its apogee during the Late Classic period, ca. A.D. 750. The site has a number of notable site planning characteristics, including a massive public plaza, and two wide, radial causeways, that show connections to neighboring sites and suggest common ideas about city building. Some of these shared planning ideas reflect top-down design concepts related to specialized political and ritual functions for various buildings and features. Although plazas, buildings, and causeways may have had multiple functions, we use excavation data, comparisons to other sites, and depictions in Maya art to argue that the Late Classic rulers of Chan Chich designed some of their monumental architecture to function in part as the theater for public rituals and spectacles, including processions. The processional architecture at Chan Chich included the radial causeways, two possible terminus shrines, a massive range building, the ball court, and the main plaza. We suggest that the political need to host public spectacles as a way to create social connections between the non-elite and the ruling family drove many site planning decisions at Chan Chich and other sites in the region during the Late Classic period.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 19897