The Northern Question: The Kaanu'l Kingdom and its Legacy in Yucatan

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Rise and Apogee of the Classic Maya Kaanu’l Hegemonic State at Dzibanche" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The historical importance of the Kaanu’l (Kanul) dynasty and its political networks is now well established. Dzibanche and Calakmul were its two principal centers over the course of the Late Classic period, and the sources we use for reconstructing its history come from many surrounding sites in the southern lowlands. In this paper, I look northward, into the political landscape of northern Quintana Roo, Yucatan, and Campeche, in order to assess Kaanu’l’s presence and influence in those regions. The sources at sites such as Coba, Okop, and Edzna are scarce by comparison, yet point to a close series of interactions, perhaps different in than what is evident with Kaanu’l’s aggressive alliance-building the Petén and beyond. Looking beyond the Classic inscriptions, I propose a historical connection between the Kaanu'l dynasty of the Classic period and the Canul lineage of Postclassic Yucatán, members of the Mayapan confederacy who later established their own polity in northern Campeche not long before the Spanish invasion. Historical, geographic, and linguistic factors raise the possibility that Kaanu’l (Dzibanche) was a Yukatekan-speaking center, raising important implications for interpreting the broader ethnic and political landscape of the Maya lowlands in the Classic period.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Rise and Apogee of the Classic Maya Kaanu’l Hegemonic State at Dzibanche   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39261.0