Triadic shrine paper (On E-Groups)

2019

The Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project: A Report of the 2018 Field Season , 2019

2015 field season at Xunantunich with BVAR excavating the central pyramid of the Eastern Triadic Shrine

Across the Maya Lowlands, dedication ritual served a vital role in endowing public and private structures with meaning and function. Through ritual, structures acquired the soul-force, or k'ulel, necessary to sustain activity within their walls. However, we suggest that ritual could also actively reinvent places within the cultural landscape. In fact, many structures live several ritual lives: the first associated with their original intended function, and subsequent ones associated with changes in their occupational history, particularly after they are abandoned. As such, the cultural landscape of a Maya city is constantly cast and recast as the cultural associations of its constituent parts are actively modified through ritual. The resignification of past cultural landscapes may be seen archaeologically in the adoption of new ritual patterns within old structures, aimed at challenging or extending meanings of durable structures within a shared language of ritual. Analyses of structure histories and veneration practices from three areas of the site of Actuncan, including an elite residential structure, a palace compound, and the plaza of the triadic temple group, elucidate how changing veneration practices modify Actuncan's cultural landscape from Classic period rule of divine kings to the post-royal occupation of the Terminal Classic period.

2015

Across the Maya Lowlands, dedication ritual served a vital role in endowing public and private structures with meaning and function. Through ritual, structures acquired the soul-force, or k’ulel, necessary to sustain activity within their walls. However, we suggest that ritual could also actively reinvent places within the cultural landscape. In fact, many structures live several ritual lives: the first associated with their original intended function, and subsequent ones associated with changes in their occupational history, particularly after they are abandoned. As such, the cultural landscape of a Maya city is constantly cast and recast as the cultural associations of its constituent parts are actively modified through ritual. The resignification of past cultural landscapes may be seen archaeologically in the adoption of new ritual patterns within old structures, aimed at challenging or extending meanings of durable structures within a shared language of ritual. Analyses of structure histories and veneration practices from three areas of the site of Actuncan, including an elite residential structure, a palace compound, and the plaza of the triadic temple group, elucidate how changing veneration practices modify Actuncan’s cultural landscape from Classic period rule of divine kings to the post-royal occupation of the Terminal Classic period.

Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2017

Recent investigations at the Maya centre of Nakum (in Guatemala) enabled the study of the evolution of an interesting complex of buildings that started as the so-called E-Group, built during the Preclassic period (c. 600–300 BC). It was used for solar observations and rituals commemorating agricultural and calendrical cycles. During the Classic period (AD 250– 800), the major building of the complex (Structure X) was converted into a large pyramidal temple where several burials, including at least one royal tomb, were placed. We were also able to document evidence of mortuary cults conducted by the Maya in the temple building situated above the burials. The architectural conversion documented in Structure X may reflect important religious and social changes: a transformation from the place where the Sun was observed and worshipped to the place where deceased and deified kings were apotheo-sized as the Sun Deity during the Classic. Thus the Maya transformed Structure X into one of the most sacred loci at Nakum by imbuing it with a complex solar and underworld symbolism and associating it with the cult of deified ancestors.

Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2012

A monolithic view of Classic Maya society as dominated by divine rulers who inexplicably ceased to erect monuments with long-count dates during the ninth century is examined by reference to new information from Terminal Classic sites in the Sibun Valley of Belize. In this locale and elsewhere, the construction of circular one-room buildings — with striking associated artefacts — may be interpreted as signalling social tensions between the orthodoxy of Classic Maya divine rulers and the more heterodoxic beliefs and practices associated with circular structures built at the end of the Classic period. The round buildings are contextualized within the diversity of architectural expressions of the Sibun Valley and also within a peninsula-wide network of shrines. The chronological placement and character of the Sibun shrines is discussed by way of radiocarbon assays, obsidian sourced by INAA, and raw materials used for groundstone at sites throughout the valley. The presence of marine she...

Ancient Mesoamerica, 2013

Terminal Classic circular architecture has been characterized as a “non-Classic” trait stemming from Chontal-Itza groups from the Gulf lowlands who developed a long-distance, circum-peninsular trade route and established their capital city at Chichen Itza in northern Yucatan. Recent investigations of a series of circular shrines proximate to the Caribbean coast in Belize have yielded ceramics and radiocarbon dates that link these buildings to the ninth century, coeval with the early Sotuta phase at Chichen Itza (a.d. 830–900). We present an architectural comparison of circular shrines and map out a network of sites that cluster along the rivers and coast of Belize. We consider two possibilities that may not be mutually exclusive: (1) local elite emulation of northern styles following pilgrimage to Chichen Itza for political accession ceremonies, and, (2) trading diasporas involving small-scale migration of Chontal-Itza merchants along the eastern Caribbean coast.