At the Intersection of Ideology and Architecture: A Relational Analysis of How the Late Preclassic Maya Used Monumental Architecture to Transform Middle Preclassic Platforms into Places of Meaning

Summary

This is an abstract from the "From Origins to Collapses:  New Insights in the Cultural and Natural Processes of the Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

From a social memory perspective, the act of erecting and constructing symbolic monumental architectural works is an inherently ideological practice. For the ancient Maya, while it is long understood that innovative architectural traditions were used to bind emerging ideological spheres, today much still remains unknown regarding the deeper social and ideological motivations of early Late Preclassic (300 BC-AD 1) Maya peoples building symbolic monumental architectural works over earlier Middle Preclassic platforms and plazas (1000-400 BC). This paper specifically seeks to remedy this shortcoming by attempting to flesh out the social processes of how early Late Preclassic residents used monumental architecture to give ‘new’ meaning(s) to Middle Preclassic platforms. To do this, I especially draw on data from my recent excavations in the Grupo Trogon Plaza of El Mirador, where dual pyramids are situated on the eastern and western sides of the Plaza. Using data primarily obtained from the eastern pyramid (Str. 36), I argue that later inhabitants placed their architectural constructions over the Middle Preclassic plaza as a deliberate strategy to not only establish continuity with the past, but also to likely both subtly and overtly manipulate/subvert established political/ideological orders by reflexively imbuing their antecedents with contemporary reverence and relevance.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• From Origins to Collapses:  New Insights in the Cultural and Natural Processes of the Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53529