Maya E Groups (eBook)

Calendars, Astronomy, and Urbanism in the Early Lowlands

David A. Freidel, Arlen F. Chase, Anne S. Dowd, Jerry Murdock (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: PDF

2017
544 Seiten
University Press of Florida (Verlag)
978-0-8130-5281-6 (ISBN)

Infos

As complex societies emerged in the Maya lowlands during the first millennium BCE, so did stable communities focused around public squares and the worship of a divine ruler tied to a Maize God cult. “E Groups,” central to many of these settlements, are architectural complexes: typically, a long platform supporting three struc¬tures and facing a western pyramid across a formal plaza. Aligned with the movements of the sun, E Groups have long been interpreted as giant calendrical devices crucial to the rise of Maya civilization. This volume presents new archaeological data to reveal that E Groups were constructed earlier than previously thought. In fact, they are the earliest identifiable architectural plan at many Maya settlements.



More than just astronomical observatories or calendars, E Groups were a key element of community organization, urbanism, and identity in the heart of the Maya lowlands. They served as gathering places for emerging communities and centers of ritual; they were the very first civic-religious public architecture in the Maya lowlands. Investigating a wide variety of E Group sites—including some of the most famous like the Mundo Perdido in Tikal and the hitherto little known complex at Chan, as well as others in Ceibal, El Palmar, Cival, Calakmul, Caracol, Xunantunich, Yaxnohcah, Yaxuná, and San Bartolo—this volume pieces together the development of social and political complexity in ancient Maya civilization.



James Aimers | Anthony F. Aveni | Jamie J. Awe | Boris Beltran | M. Kathryn Brown | Arlen F. Chase | Diane Z. Chase | Anne S. Dowd | James Doyle | Francisco Estrada-Belli | David A. Freidel | Julie A. Hoggarth | Takeshi Inomata | Patricia A. Mcanany | Susan Milbrath | Jerry Murdock | Kathryn Reese-Taylor | Prudence M. Rice | Cynthia Robin | Franco D. Rossi | Jeremy A. Sabloff | William A. Saturno | Travis W. Stanton





A volume in the series Maya Studies, edited by Diane Z. Chase and Arlen F. Chase

Autor

David A. Freidel is professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. Arlen F. Chase is professor of anthropology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Anne S. Dowd, an archaeologist with a federal agency, is coeditor of Cosmology, Calendars, and Horizon-Based Astronomy in Ancient Mesoamerica. Jerry Murdock is a member of the Board of Trustees for the Santa Fe Institute and the Aspen Institute.

Inhalt

List of Figures ix

List of Tables xv

Preface: On the Path of the Sun xvii

Acknowledgments xxiii

Abbreviations xxv

Part I. E Groups: Historical Perspectives

1. The Distribution and Significance of E Groups: A Historical Background and Introduction 3

Arlen F. Chase, Anne S. Dowd, and David A. Freidel

2. E Groups and the Rise of Complexity in the Southeastern Maya Lowlands 31

Arlen F. Chase and Diane Z. Chase

Part II. The Astronomy and Cosmology of E Groups

3. E Groups: Astronomy, Alignments, and Maya Cosmology 75

Anthony F. Aveni and Anne S. Dowd

4. The Legacy of Preclassic Calendars and Solar Observation in Mesoamerica’s Magic Latitude 95

Susan Milbrath

5. The E Group as Timescape: Early E Groups, Figurines, and the Sacred Almanac 135

Prudence M. Rice

6. E Groups, Cosmology, and the Origins of Maya Rulership 177

David A. Freidel

Part III. The Archaeology of E Groups

7. The Isthmian Origins of the E Group and Its Adoption in the Maya Lowlands 215

Takeshi Inomata

8. A Tale of Two E Groups: El Palmar and Tikal, Peten, Guatemala 253

James A. Doyle

9. The History, Function, and Meaning of Preclassic E Groups in the Cival Region 293

Francisco Estrada-Belli

10. Time to Rule: Celestial Observation and Appropriation among the Early Maya 328

William A. Saturno, Boris Beltr.n, and Franco D. Rossi

11. Ordinary People and East–West Symbolism 361

Cynthia Robin

12. E Groups and Ancestors: The Sunrise of Complexity at Xunantunich, Belize 386

M. Kathryn Brown

13. Of Apples and Oranges: The Case of E Groups and Eastern Triadic Architectural Assemblages in the Belize River Valley 412

Jaime J. Awe, Julie A. Hoggarth, and James J. Aimers

14. The Founding of Yaxuna: Place and Trade in Preclassic Yucatan 450

Travis W. Stanton

15. Founding Landscapes in the Central Karstic Uplands 480

Kathryn Reese-Taylor

Part IV. Conclusion

16. More Than Smoke and Mirrors: Maya Temple Precincts and the

Emergence of Religious Institutions in Mesoamerica 517

Anne S. Dowd

17. Epilogue: E Groups and Their Significance to the Ancient Maya 578

Diane Z. Chase, Patricia A. McAnany, and Jeremy A. Sabloff

List of Contributors 583

Freidel

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 8.8.2017
• Reihe/Serie: Maya and Mesoamerican Studies
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Archäologie
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Physik / Astronomie ► Astronomie / Astrophysik
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Pädagogik
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• Themenwelt: Technik ► Architektur
• Schlagworte: architectural complexes Mayan Settlements Mayan Studies Mayan Architecture Mayan Lowlands community archaeology
• ISBN-10: 0-8130-5281-5 / 0813052815
• ISBN-13: 978-0-8130-5281-6 / 9780813052816