Maya Christians and Their Churches in Sixteenth-Century Belize

Acknowledgments

xv Acknowledgments I am indebted to the Institute of Archaeology in Belize, formerly the Department of Archaeology, for permission to investigate the sites of Tipu and Lamanai and for allowing me to carry out archaeological investigations in the country. My deepest thanks go to the archaeological commissioners and acting commissioners who supported my work over the years: Joseph Palacio , the late Harriot Topsey, the late Winnel Branche, Allan Moore, George Thompson, John Morris, and Jaime Awe. In recent years, John Morris, as Associate Director of Research, and Jaime Awe, as Director of the Institute, have been especially helpful in encouraging cooperative projects at Lamanai that integrate archaeology, development, and local economic and educational initiatives . Without Brian Woodye and George Thompson the Lamanai Reserve would not be the productive setting it has become, in which park management , planning, archaeological investigation, tourism, and local involvement are so well integrated. Sherilyne Jones, Melissa Badillo, and the Institute staff have contributed in major ways to making all our efforts as productive as possible. The making of this book would not have been possible without the award of a British Academy Readership that permitted me to carry out the research and writing from 2005 to 2007. I am eternally grateful to the academy for providing me with this opportunity. I am also deeply thankful to the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, in Washington, D.C., for awarding me a fellowship in 2007–8, which enabled me to devote attention to analysis and interpretation of recent archaeological data from Lamanai related to the church period, and to a range of data on community architecture and settlement. Some of the results are reported here, and some will be published in a succeeding volume. I benefited not only from the presence of Americanists but also from the work being carried out by Byzantine and landscape scholars. I thank the Director of Pre-Columbian Studies, Joanne Pillsbury, and the entire staff for their support. I wish also to express my appreciation to the staff of the Library of Congress, particularly xvi Acknowledgments Anthony Mullan of the Geography and Map Division, for help in my research on early maps. My excavations at Tipu were funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the National Geographic Society while I held postdoctoral fellowships from the Tinker Foundation and SSHRC. SSHRC also provided funding for the analysis of Tipu and Lamanai faunal remains. York University, in North York, Ontario, Canada, provided an SSHRC grant through the university that enabled Sharon Bennett and me to produce the finished plans of the burials at Tipu. The Royal Ontario Museum kindly helped with field research through a grant from the Committee for Field Archaeology, and fully supported a range of laboratory and database research. I also thank my colleagues in the Department of Anthropology at York for their support and friendship over the years. My excavations at Lamanai, which have focused on periods of transition, have been supported by the British Academy, SSHRC, the National Geographic Society, University College London, the Institute of Archaeology, and the Central Research Fund of the University of London. The discovery of new features of the church zone in 2008 was made possible by a contingency grant from the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. (FAMSI), in addition to major support from the U.S. embassy through the Institute of Archaeology in Belize, and through generous funding by Claude Belanger. There are so many people who contributed to the success of the Tipu and Lamanai investigations that I fear I will be unable to name them all. First and foremost, I am deeply grateful to architect Claude Belanger and artist and illustrator Louise Belanger for being my friends and collaborators in both endeavors . It is no exaggeration to say that, without them, much of the excavation and what I have made of the excavation results would not have been possible . With regard to Tipu, I admit that I would not have excavated the site had I not been persuaded to do so by Grant Jones, who carried out documentary research on both Tipu and Lamanai, and by my husband David Pendergast, who began the excavations at Lamanai. David had originally been attracted to Lamanai owing to the presence of its “Indian church,” and this stimulated Grant to consider trying to find other mission churches in Belize. Without Grant’s findings and assistance, my research would not have proceeded, and I am grateful for his feedback...