The Kaanul Dynasty and the Early History of the Northwest Petén

Summary

This is an abstract from the "New Light on Dzibanché and on the Rise of the Snake Kingdom’s Hegemony in the Maya Lowlands" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Over the past two decades it has become increasingly clear that the ancient Maya political landscape was permeated by regional systems of political asymmetry. These hegemonic networks fluctuated through time, but the steady presence of a few especially dominant polities shows that they were a persistent feature with very real sociopolitical effects. Based on research carried out at the sites of Achiotal and La Corona, we offer a general interpretation of the historical and sociopolitical development of one of these regional polities allied with the powerful Kaanul dynasty. We suggest that archaeological and epigraphic data from the northwestern Petén dating to before 600 CE demonstrates this region’s strategic role in Kaanul’s early expansion and influence, when its court was based at Dzibanché. The evidence illuminates how its regional hegemony over much of the southern Maya Lowlands was achieved.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• New Light on Dzibanché and on the Rise of the Snake Kingdom’s Hegemony in the Maya Lowlands   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33495