Maya Funerary Practices and Their Significance in Reproducing and Maintaining Social Status and Identity: Evidence from Copan, Honduras, and Palenque, Mexico

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Susan Gillespie remarked the importance of human body and funerary ritual in the process of transmission of memory and legitimation of social status among Maya royalty. Would this process be visible in domestic contexts, too? To answer this question, I chose to study domestic funerary record, context where an archaeologist can find the reflection of collective ideas and individual attributes of deceased. Thorough the analysis of several pre-Hispanic Maya burials I will try to demonstrate that funerary activities were, in part, a means to mark or re-define social status; this was possible by merging collective ideas and individual characteristics of deceased considered important to living people. Evidence from Copan Valley shows Late Classic period Maya seem to have been mainly concerned with question of family membership and age, related to social status. Therefore, the Maya used bodies of specified individuals as a means to convey messages. Kings or members of royal families were persons whose bodies were charged with symbols representing dynasty properties and memories. In domestic burials, individuals holding social positions or presenting peculiar biological characteristics were treated in specific ways. Ostentation of such attributes allowed members of their social groups to legitimate their position in the social continuum.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24537