Wars of the Western Maya Kings: Military Conflicts in Lacandon Selva at the Turn of the Seventh to Eighth Centuries

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The last quarter of the seventh century was marked by the intensification of military and political struggle in the Ususmasinta Basin. Loss of control over the Western Lowlands by Kaanu’l power at this time led to wars between the largest political centers of the region—Piedras Negras, Palenque, Yaxchilan, Tonina, and Saktz’i. The Lacandon Selva (Chiapas Piedmont) area in southwestern part of the Usumasinta Basin became the epicenter of their political interests, since this area opened access to the control of the important Usumasinta communication route. In current presentation, we will try to reconstruct some problematic episodes of these wars base on reviewing of epigraphic sources from Tonina, Piedras Negras, and so-called “Bonampak area”—complex of unprovenanced monuments including inscription of Saktz’i kings, and its correlation with new archaeological data. As the result, we will show a more complete picture of military and political events at this period. Base on GIS methods we want to model main communication routes and approximate political boundaries of Western Maya kingdoms and to describe the logic of the military struggle in the area of Lacandon Selva on the south of Usumasinta Valley in the Late Classic period.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33314