Life, Death, and Renewal: Examining the Significance of Lowland Maya Sweat Baths in the Belize River Valley

Summary

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

Life, Death, and Renewal: Examining the Significance of Lowland Maya Sweat Baths in the Belize River Valley.

Lilian Tejeda Barillas and Jaime J. Awe

Although sweat baths were an integral form of architecture in ancient Maya communities, these special architectural features have received limited attention from Maya scholars. In this poster, we address this omission through the examination of four recently discovered sweat baths from the sites of Baking Pot, Cahal Pech, Pooks Hill, and Xunantunich in the upper Belize River Valley. To understand the significance of sweat baths in this lowland Maya subregion, we address the following questions: What is the spatial context of sweat baths in western Belize? What were the socio-cultural and ideological significances of sweat bath use in ancient Maya society? How do the uses of sweat baths in the Belize Valley compare to those in other regions of the Maya area? The value of this regional approach, as well as the sample size (four sweat baths), provides a more informed understanding of the significance and use of sweat baths in the upper Belize Valley specifically, as well as in the lowland Maya area in general.

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): 41706.0