Sweating in the Old Days: An Elite Maya Sweatbath’s Functions and Meanings

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Care and Power" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

During the Terminal Classic, a monumental sweatbath was constructed at the site of Yo’okop directly adjacent to the site’s primary water source, an aguada. Built of cut stones with multiple plaster floors, a stone vaulted ceiling, a U-shaped bench arrangement, a dedicatory cache, and a position in the core of the site, it is reasonable to hypothesize that its use would have been reserved for select individuals. The sweatbath, along with the aguada, would have permitted elites with a means to cleanse and purify themselves, as well as perhaps marking a claim to a critical resource during such a dry period. While commoners were likely barred from its use, they may have replicated this behavior using more ephemeral structures. The functions of the monumental sweatbath likely went beyond mere cleansing, representing concepts as a sacred cave or symbolic womb and the ritual conducted in it arguably aimed at benefitting the wider public. In the end, however, the sweatbath was destroyed, with its vault brought down upon a termination deposit. While it is not known if the culprits were foreign or domestic, its targeting implies that the significance of the sweatbath went well beyond mere bathing.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• The Archaeology of Care and Power

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 50459