In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

xiii Mayapán was the largest, most significant political capital of the Maya world of its time. Its stature as one of the great cities of the ancient world and as a historical landmark site within Mesoamerica is gaining more recognition, particularly with renewed archaeological research at this center over the past two decades. Once characterized as a civilization in ruins that was devoid of great art, Postclassic period Mayapán was naively referred to as “decadent.” Professionals now acknowledge that the significance, success, and regional impact of this (or any other) major city cannot be judged by the types of ruins its builders created, a point made by Malcolm Webb many years ago in his 1964 doctoral dissertation, “The Peten Maya Decline Viewed in the Perspective of State Formation.” The efficient builders at Mayapán and its contemporary centers constructed narrower walls and decorated them with resplendent plaster sculptures and murals that were not necessarily designed to last for five centuries and future appreciation. Fortunately, some of these works have been partly preserved and hint at what has been lost to the erosional forces of sun and moisture on the hot plains of the northern Yucatán peninsula. Mexico’s In­sti­tuto Nacional deAntropología e Historia (INAH) has discovered many of these masterpieces in the site center and has restored that locality for tourism under the direction of archaeologist Carlos Alberto Peraza Lope and his team, led by Pedro Delgado Ku and Barbara Escamilla Ojeda. This work began in 1996 and continues each year. Renewed interest in Mayapán is largely due to these restoration efforts; by receiving an architectural facelift, the site center now reflects more of its former significance and glory. Among the highlights of new discoveries made by Carlos Peraza Lope’s project include the Hall of Kings, which had life-size anthropomorphic stucco column sculptures of important humans and gods in Mayapán’s history, a stucco facade on the site’s Foreword Marilyn A. Masson Marilyn A. Masson xiv central Temple of Kukulkan that reflects themes of warfare and sacrifice, a mural on the Hall of the Sun Disks that features panels of priests conjuring figures descending from the heavens, and a mural on the Temple of the Fisherman that depicts a deity figure in the watery underworld surrounded by a water serpent as well as a crocodile and fish impaled by spears. Many ceramic sculptures have also been recovered, most famously, the codaical “monkey scribe” effigy found behind the burial shaft temple known as the “Crematory” (Str. Q-58). Carlos Peraza Lope has published many of these findings in collaboration with Alfredo Barrera Rubio (2001) and with art historian Susan Milbrath of the Florida State Museum, who is engaged in ongoing studies of the city’s art (Aveni, Milbrath, and Peraza Lope 2004; Escamilla, Peraza Lope, and Delgado 1994; Milbrath 2005, 2007; Milbrath and Peraza Lope 2003a, 2003b). The history of research at Mayapán is outlined by John M. Weeks in the introduction to this volume; anothergreatsourceisCliffordT.Brown’sTulaneUni­ versity doctoral dissertation, “Mayapán So­ciety and Ancient Maya Social Organization” (1999:86–109). Brown provides an abridged version of this history online at http://wise.fau.edu/~ctbrown/Mayapán. html. The Carnegie Mayapán Project represented an important turning point in Mesoamerican archaeology because of its emphasis on settlement and the study of households in addition to public buildings. The complete map of the city made by Morris Jones (Current Reports no. 1) and his team of surveyors was a major investment, and Mayapán still stands as one of the best-mapped ancient cities of Mesoamerica. In the past eighteen years, research at Mayapán beyond the site center has undergone a resurgence. Clifford Brown’s doctoral studies in the 1990s represented an important return to Mayapán that followed the household-scale investigations there for which A. L. Smith and Karl Ruppert were famous. His work considers the organization of domestic architecture and kin groups as well as the importance of key settlement features, such as cenotes, and he offers innovative statistical studies of artifact types, modes, and distributions (Brown 1991, 1999, 2001, 2005; Brown et al. 2006). These analyses identify key patterns of social and economic organization among clusters of houselots within the city’s neighborhoods. From 2001 to 2004, Carlos Peraza Lope, Timothy Hare (Morehead State University), and I began our collaborative research under the auspices of the NSF-supported (SBR-1018919, 1069128) Economic...

Share