Preliminary Observations on the Nature of the Balamkú Ceramic Assemblage

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in Mesoamerican Cultural Landscapes" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Gran Acuífero Maya conducted preliminary excavations in the entrance chamber of Balamkú yielding a small but interesting ceramic assemblage containing sherds of large incensarios and large numbers of miniature vessels that generally parallel the material documented at Balankanche cave. The high incidence of both incensarios and miniatures marks the function of the assemblage as being ritual in nature, a fact not seriously questioned. The Balamkú assemblage also consists of substantial amounts of unslipped and unslipped striated material of the poorest quality. Because of the poor quality, the ceramic is underreported in our collection as many sherds had separated longitudinally so we encountered only the exterior or interior surface attached to a portion of the paste. This material was not collected because of its very fragile condition. We suspect that the quality may be the result of low firing. The assemblage is of interest because it has led us to question assumptions made by the field about the nature of ceramic used in Maya ritual.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Subterranean in Mesoamerican Cultural Landscapes   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35663.0