Games of Chance and Fate: Patolli at the Ancient Maya Site of Gallon Jug, Belize

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In 2019 at the ancient Maya site of Gallon Jug, in northwestern Belize, we documented several patolli boards incised into a plaster floor on a platform in an elite residential group. The patolli from Gallon Jug are in a residential context near the site center and not in monumental religious architecture or a palace, which differs from most known examples of patolli from the Maya lowlands. In 2022, we returned to Gallon Jug to renew our investigations. We uncovered several more patolli and were able to employ new methodologies for documenting those identified in 2019. The eight patolli boards inscribed on the floor vary in design and include styles novel to the Maya lowlands. Recent LiDAR data illuminate the setting of the residential group within Gallon Jug and expands our understanding of the architectural context of the patolli boards. In this paper we address questions about how and why the residents of Gallon Jug may have used the patolli boards, and whether they were part of a singular ritual or a recurring strategy for divination employed by a resident ritual specialist.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36934.0