Paul Gendrop’s Río Bec, Chenes, and Puuc Architecture: New Insights after 40 Years

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

While certain Northern Maya Lowland architectural characteristics remain constant for these three peninsular stylistic “entities” defined by Paul Gendrop, such as few dynastic hieroglyphic monuments, ballcourts or E-Group complexes, the past forty years have revealed many new, insular features: zoomorphic mask elements adorning massive monumental stairways, myriad deity characters other than “Chahk” enshrined in zoomorphic portals, and pan-regional construction elements that define massive temples and palace structures. This talk will highlight monumental temple and palace features in Río Bec’s Chicanná, Chenes urban centers Hochob and Santa Rosa Xtampak, and Puuc’s splendid Adivino and the Nunnery Quadrangle in Uxmal. While hieroglyphic programs give way to socio religious or ideological rather than individual dynastic display, each zoomorphic portal variant portrays distinct deity personalities from site to site and from region to region. Few ballcourt elements throughout the former Central Yucatan regional variants play a novel functional paradigm for this architectural assemblage. And finally, we will discuss whether those elements present distinct yet temporal and progressively complex “evolutionary” transitional Classic Period manifestations from region to region, or if they are local variations of other key architectural social indicators that persist throughout time in the entire Maya Lowlands.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39862.0