The Materialization of Time in the Ancient Maya World: Mythic History and Ritual Order (Maya Studies)

New understandings of how Maya people expressed timekeeping in daily life  This book discusses the range of ways the ancient Maya people made time tangible through their architecture, arts, writing, beliefs, and practices. These chapters show how the Maya incorporated cyclicality and expanded dimensionality into the built environment, embedding notions of time in shared political and economic institutions, religious and philosophical traditions, and mythology.  Beginning several millennia ago, the Maya observed and calculated the solar year cycle and scheduled collective activities that integrated cities, towns, and villages over great distances. Their timekeeping approaches evolved from commemorative ceremonial architectural complexes starting around 1000 BCE to the formal public inscription of calendar jubilees on stone monuments, the use of calendar almanacs, written prophetic and historical accounts, and the customs of modern priest shamans. Contributors to this volume discuss everyday examples of how the Maya kept time through these practices, including divining with snail shells, laying out center designs with creation stories and star patterns, singing those stories while drinking from vases depicting mythic history, and embedding symbolic temporal deposits within their buildings and living areas.  This comprehensive volume includes analyses of groundbreaking recent discoveries, such as the early center of Aguada Fénix and the connections it shows between Maya and Olmec timekeeping. By sharing how the Maya crafted a cosmological sense of time into their daily lives, The Materialization of Time in the Ancient Maya World addresses and rethinks the most famous intellectual feature of this civilization.  A volume in the series Maya Studies, edited by Diane Z. Chase and Arlen F. Chase MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 List of Figures 10 List of Tables 16 Foreword 18 Part I. Landesque Cosmography 20 1. The Maya Materialization of Time: An Introduction 22 2. Landesque Cosmography: Crafting Creation-Era Time on the Maya Lowland Landscape 44 Part II. Building Time into Place 72 3. Spatial and Temporal Standardization in Southern Mesoamerica during the Preclassic Period: New Insights from the Middle Usumacinta Region, Mexico 74 4. Ordering Time and Space at Yaxnohcah: Creation and Renewal in a Preclassic Landscape 99 5. Domesticating Time: Quadripartite Symbolism and Founding Rituals at Yaxuná 126 6. In the Shadow of Descending Gods: Monumental Posts and Solar Cycles in the Preclassic Maya Lowlands 150 7. Stelae, Spirits, Desecration, and Devotion: The Fate of Some Time Lords in the Classic Maya World 168 Part III. Chambers of Time 204 8. Balamkú’s History House: Harkening to Primordial Rhythms of Mythic Time 206 9. Scorpion Star: Constellations, Seasons, and Convergences of Meaning in a Classic Maya Entity 242 10. Time as Ordinary Practice: A Divination Building at Chan 273 11. The Chamber of Secrets at Xunantunich 292 Part IV. Bridging Time 316 12. Imagery of the Yearbearers in Maya Culture and Beyond 318 13. Lived Experience and Monumental Time in the Classic Maya Lowlands 366 14. The Materialization of Time in the Maya Archaeological Record: Examples from Caracol and Santa Rita Corozal, Belize 382 15. Materializing Time on Wax: The Cozumel Maya Bee Gardens 406 16. Temporal Fusion: Mythical and Mortal Time in Maya Art 419 17. “How Much May They Not Have Written?”: K’atuns 11 Ajaw and the Itzá 435 Part V. Materializing Mesoamerican Chronoscapes 450 18. The Ideas and Images of Cities and Centers: Teotihuacan and the Lowland Maya 452 19. Epilogue: Architects of Time 479 References 504 List of Contributors 586 Index 590 A 590 B 590 C 591 D 593 E 593 F 594 G 594 H 595 I 595 J 595 K 595 L 596 M 597 N 598 O 598 P 598 Q 599 R 599 S 599 T 601 U 602 V 602 W 602 X 602 Y 602 Z 603 About the Authors 604