Monkey Business: Examining the Significance of Monkey Imagery in Maya Caves & Ideology

Summary

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

Monkeys are prominently featured in Maya creation narratives, in Maya art, and more rarely in burial contexts. Despite their apparent importance in Maya ideology, however, previous research on monkeys in the Maya world has primarily focused on their primatological, and linguistic significance. In contrast to those studies, this research investigates the archaeological significance of monkey imagery in Maya caves and ideology by examining monkey representations in cave art, on cultural remains in caves, in Maya hieroglyphs, and their depictions in Maya iconography in general. By conducting qualitative ethnographic research with participants at revitalized traditional deer and monkey dances, this research also explores data on the physical representation of monkeys as characters and figures in a postcolonial context. With reference to creation narratives and collected archaeological data associated with the depositional, chronological, and iconographical evidence of monkeys in art and burial contexts, this study also bridges the gap between archaeological and modern interpretations of the significance of monkeys in Maya cosmology and religion.

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): 39574.0