Big, Bigger, Biggest: Investigating Aguadas 1–3 at Calakmul, Campeche, Mexico

Summary

This is an abstract from the "New and Emerging Perspectives on the Bajo el Laberinto Region of the Maya Lowlands, Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Calakmul is known to be one of the largest ancient Maya urban centers in the Elevated Interior Region of the Maya Lowlands. Thus, it is not surprising that in this water-challenged environment, the population of Calakmul invested in some of the region’s grandest reservoirs. While limited excavations were carried out in several of the site’s reservoirs some three decades ago, the true scale and chronology of these features remained relatively hazy. Lidar imagery of Calakmul and excavations conducted in 2022 and 2023 have clarified knowledge of the city’s water management system. We report here on excavations in three of the largest urban reservoirs known simply as Aguadas 1, 2, and 3. These massive tanks all had their origins in Preclassic times but were apparently modified in the Classic and continued to be used in the Postclassic.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• New and Emerging Perspectives on the Bajo el Laberinto Region of the Maya Lowlands, Part 1   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39781.0