Symbolism and Ritual Associated to Ancient Maya Water Management

Summary

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

Effective water management was key to settle in the Maya Lowlands, where scarce surface water is found. While numerous investigations have showed how complex systems had been organized in Maya sites, implying a great deal of attraction to them, new data, available through LidAR for example, indicates a much more decentralized reality, where household-scale features are not uncommon. This study aims to go deeper into understanding this topic by looking at the ritual and symbolism associated to water and its management. In an animistic society, the possibility of water, or its containers, being perceived as conceptually different, and requiring negotiations in the form of ritual, is an element of the discussion that has been overlooked. While our understanding of the material and functional aspects of ancient Maya water management gets better, it is important to keep asking questions about the symbolism that underlies it, and the rituals that organized it.

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): 24649