Water Mountain, Ritual, and Maya Community Cohesion at Mensabak, Chiapas, Mexico

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Recent Archaeological Investigations in Chiapas, Mexico" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Maya established communities at Mensabak, Chiapas, instead of other adjacent lakes because of its impressive water mountain on an island where a major river is born. People traveled and pilgrimaged up the Tulijá River to live near Mirador Mountain (Chakaktun “red-hollow stone / cave-of water” in Lacandon Mayan) where they constructed multiple shrines and terraces to communicate with powerful spiritual forces residing there. Mirador is a high mountain that contains several caves and cenotes, in addition to a red-stained limestone cliff on its east side. Preclassic (ca. 200 BCE–200 CE) and Late Postclassic (ca. 1300–1600 CE) Maya aligned their buildings with this impressive landscape feature. Mirador Mountain became an important symbol of community over time and has been the location of collective rituals that united people in the region. Today, the Lacandon Maya state that Mirador is the center of the world and home to important local gods, who are consulted for community health, subsistence, and transition to the realm of the dead of its members. The archaeological and cultural information indicates that Mirador Mountain has been an archetypical Maya version of Nahua altépetl: a water mountain that represents a people, polity, and ritual landscape.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Recent Archaeological Investigations in Chiapas, Mexico   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39827.0