THE MIDDLE PRECLASSIC FIGURINES FROM CAHAL PECH, BELIZE VALLEY

Ancient Mesoamerica, 2019

Ceramic figurines are ubiquitous throughout the archaeological record of Mesoamerica. These small, handheld objects continue to fascinate archaeologists, and their role in the daily lives of the people who created and used them remains a point of debate in some academic circles. The figurines have been interpreted variously as children's toys, fertility fetish tools, and ritual objects. At the site of Cahal Pech, located in the Belize Valley of west-central Belize, a large assemblage of figurines has been recovered from construction fill dating to the Cunil (1200–900 b.c.) and Kanluk ceramic phases (900–350 b.c.) of the Preclassic period. In this article, we analyzed the temporal and spatial distribution of these objects in the settlement and conclude that these objects were used in a variety of ritual events. Although they mainly served as venues for invoking ancestors in domestic rituals, their discovery in public spaces suggests diverse social uses. Most importantly, their limited presence in residential and public spaces outside the Plaza B section of the site core during the late facet of the Kanluk phase may indicate that certain rituals were not performed by the entire community.

El Conejo, 2020

This paper examines 187 distinctive ceramic artifacts excavated from peri-abandonment deposits at the site of Baking Pot, Cayo, Belize between 2013 and 2017. These ceramic figurines and morphologic instruments were analyzed in an effort to better understand ritual acts in different spaces in Group B of the site core at Baking Pot. These artifacts were placed in deposits at the time that Baking Pot was being abandoned in the eight to ninth century CE. Our spatial analyses of the collection noted that over half of these artifacts were recovered in the corners of smaller, more secluded plazas, with fewer figurines recovered from the larger, more accessible public plazas. Chi-square tests were employed to determine if there is an association between different types of artifacts and public vs. private space in Group B, possibly signaling different types of rituals were conducted in different spaces during site abandonment. A brief discussion of ritual and the role it plays during these times of political and social change closes this paper. These studies help us to better understand one aspect of the Classic Maya of the Belize Valley during the pivotal period associated with the Classic Maya collapse.

Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology , 2023

Figurines are small, portable pieces of art that were popular in the ancient Maya world. Typically made of fired clay, they portray individual humans, animals, and mythic beings in an assortment of poses and scenes. We report the results of an iconographic analysis of 215 whole and fragmentary figurines excavated in the last 20 years at three Late Classic period sites in the southern Belize region: Nim li Punit, Pusilha, and Lubaantun. Although Early Classic figurines were often modeled, the Late Classic saw a shift to mold-made figurines. This allowed higher levels of production and the repetition of certain motifs. The study of this dataset contributes to our understanding of household activities, gender, and social roles. Together, these collections reveal strong interest in everyday women's work, warfare, and, especially, athletic ritual. The widespread distribution of figurines and the range of subjects they display provide an opportunity to view Maya life from the perspectives of commoners and elites, and from the mundane to the supernatural. We argue that figurines in the Southern Belize Region were more heavily focused on public spectacles of ritual as opposed to private domestic rituals.

2020

This thesis considers ritual as it was used by the Classic Maya at Baking Pot, Belize, during the site’s abandonment circa 800-900 CE. Ritual was deeply woven into the daily life of the Classic Maya. This study reviews Classic Maya rituals and problematic deposits in order to address peri-abandonment deposits made by the community of Baking Pot during its abandonment. To understand aspects of the role ritual took at the time of site abandonment at Baking Pot, 207 ceramic “special finds” artifacts were analyzed, all having been excavated and recovered by the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project. A vast majority of the ceramic artifacts were recovered from peri-abandonment deposit excavations located primarily in the ceremonial architecture of Group B, with a smaller sample recovered from nearby domestic housemounds. The peri-abandonment deposits at Baking Pot and at sites in the greater Belize River Valley are complex and include a variety of material remains, but this thesis considers the special finds artifacts that compose the Baking Pot figurine collection in order to address rituals involved during site abandonment, their similarity to known Maya rituals, and their variability across contexts including ritual expression in different spaces of the site. This research finds evidence for activities related to termination rituals that lead to the buildup of peri-abandonment deposits during site abandonment. The figurines and other ceramic special finds artifacts analyzed here were consistently included in both terminal and peri-abandonment deposits. The artifacts that make up the Baking Pot figurine collection were deposited by the Ancient Maya in different locations throughout the site. By depositing items used in termination rituals, the Classic Maya were calling upon rituals they had enacted for centuries prior to abandonment, indicating that ritual held important roles for the residents of Baking Pot during a time of stress and uncertainty.

Wooden figurines, idols, and scepters are commonly depicted as paraphernalia in Classic-period ritual iconography, but few examples of these objects exist. In 1999, a small wooden figurine was recovered from a cave near the Late Classic center of Muklebal Tzul in the Maya Mountains of southern Belize. It probably represents an ancestral deity or historical figure. Its recovery from a cave is appropriate. Caves functioned as arenas for legitimizing ancestral relationships through mediation with earth-focused deities. Combining analysis and interpretation of the archaeological context with a reading of documentary sources, we review the role of ancestor figurines in Maya society and offer interpretations of how this and similar objects functioned in Classic-period Maya religion and ritual.

The Wisconsin Archaeologist, 2019

Fired-clay figurines and whistles are common, yet diverse, components of ceramic assemblages at Classic period sites in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. Drawing on a large assemblage of figurines from four excavated sites in this region, we group these representational ceramic objects into eight broad categories to facilitate the examination of spatial and contextual differences in the distributions and uses of figurines. Most prior interpretations of Mesoamerican fired clay figurines have stressed their roles in household ritual. Indeed, we found that most figurines were produced and utilized in domestic contexts, but other classes of figurines, especially certain whistles, were heavily used in public rituals enacted in association with civic-ceremonial structures.

Ritual Emulation of Ancient Maya Elite Mortuary Traditions during the Classic Period at Cahal Pech, Belize. , 2018

Archaeology of Food and Foodways, 2022

The material plays a fundamental and active role in the social lives of people, from objects like containers or buildings to food and other consumables. In this paper, evidence from absorbed residues are used to explore the contents of an Ulúa-style marble vase found in a royal courtyard at the ancient Maya site of Pacbitun in west-central Belize. Those results indicate that the vase once held concoctions containing cacao, willow and possibly vanilla. Significantly, the results also confirm residues of the important Maya ritual drink balché, in an ancient container. By placing the vase and its contents in the history of Pacbitun, we demonstrate the important role of this object and its contents in dedicatory rituals practiced in this region; we argue that subsequent disturbance of the context and the vase in antiquity points to the fragmentation of kingship.

Ancient Mesoamerica, 2016

In 1947 Philip Drucker excavated an unusually dense concentration of artifacts from the plaza of a small Late Classic site on the inner coastal plain of Chiapas, Mexico that he proposed was a possible end-of-cycle ceremonial dump. Although the deposit contained both utilitarian and ritual items, only some of the latter have survived for present day investigation. Here we describe Drucker's excavations and the surviving ritual items, neither of which had ever been published in detail. We also examine archaeological expectations for end-of-cycle dumps based upon ethnohistoric descriptions of this Mesoamerican ritual practice and we explore the iconography of effigy censers, which constitute an important set of the items that Drucker collected. We conclude that this singular deposit most likely represents the material remains an end-of-cycle ritual as Drucker had originally proposed.

Unpublished Master's Thesis, 2018

Throughout the Maya lowlands, archaeologists have identified deposits associated with the final activities in ceremonial and domestic spaces that date to the Terminal Classic period (AD 700-1000). These features include concentrations of cultural material deposited in the corners of plazas and courtyards. At the site of Baking Pot, Belize, the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance (BVAR) Project has identified several of these peri-abandonment deposits. This thesis will shed light on the types of artifacts that were deposited during these final events to answer questions related to the nature of abandonment activities. I also employ these data to identify the cultural significance of ritual deposition of cultural materials to ascertain how distinct combinations of artifact classes can yield information on human behavior, and to demonstrate how the peri-abandonment deposits at Baking Pot offer additional information about abandonment activity in the Maya lowlands.