The Application of Fragranced Corpse Ointments and Pigments in Southern Lowland Maya Funerary Traditions during the Classic Period

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The ancient Maya used to prepare the body of their deceased family members for its proper cycling according to long-standing family traditions and more collective ideas, anchored in Indigenous beliefs of the sublime vivifying qualities of colors and fragrant matter in communicating with the anecumene of the divine. Such an entity was the itz sap, a sacred matter with viscous and additive properties, which was deemed the plant equivalent to blood. The incorporation of red pigments in such itz-fragranced ointments was deemed to transcend toward the sacred spheres both by way of visual and olfactory stimulation. To understand more about such potions, this presentation provides novel archaeometric information of the organic compositions of reddish covers that adhered to the skeletal remains of 13 mortuary deposits, previously sampled from sites in Guatemala’s Petén. While XRF, SEM, GCMS, and histomorphology documents the forms of applications of cinnabar and/or hematite, additional organic components, such as terpenes of the abietane type, confirmed their blending with fragranced funeral ointments. We conclude that the combination of inorganic and organic identification with histomorfological scrutiny offers a new, nuanced panorama of one of the most intimate funerary traditions followed among the ancient Maya of the Guatemalan Petén. ***This presentation will include images of human remains.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53918