THE LAGUNA YAXUN

After a brief introduction by the editors, the first section of the book examines the material culture of prehistoric and early historic Mesoamerica and the evidence for warfare. While one might expect the three chapters in this section to look at fortifications or weapons, the main focus of two of the chapters is an artifact much more mundane and not usually associated with warfare�pottery. George Bey III�s article (�The Role of Ceramics in the Study of Conflict�) illustrates two ways in which warfare can affect ceramic production. For the Late Classic site of Yaxun� in the Yucat�n, after its conquest by Cob�, chemical and petrographic analyses indicate that the locally made domestic and burial pottery was quickly replaced by pottery made in Cob�. This indicates that the political elites did have an interest in domestic pottery production, and suggests that the elites at Cob� saw conquest and identity being linked to domestic ceramics. In his second case study, the chemical analyses indicated that endemic, internal warfare in the Petexbatun region of Guatemala during the Late Classic period destroyed trade networks and caused domestic pottery production to become more localized.

The second section of the book looks at the relationship between warfare and ritual. Pagliaro et al. look at reverential and desecratory termination rituals in Mayan contexts. With their stress on the context of the finds, their chapter is good for both archaeologists and historians attempting to recognize the type of destruction levels found at Mayan sites. A case study exemplifying many of their points is Brown and Garber�s �Evidence of Conflict during the Middle Formative in the Maya Lowlands.� Another examination of desecretory termination rituals is the article on warfare at Yaxun� by Ambrosino et al.

Laguna Yaxun

Alternative Name: Laguna Yaxun
Name Type: Native
Area / State: Chiapas

Coordinates & Location type:

Area Type: Hydrographic
Location Type: Lake

Latitude: 16.45
Longitude: -90.66667
(Decimal degrees)

Latitude (DMS): 16° 26' 60 N
Longitude (DMS): 90° 40' 0 W
(Degrees, minutes and seconds)


ocupó una superficie de 70 kilómetros cuadrados. En este amplísimo territorio se construyeron numerosos edificios monumentales, edificaciones menores y una extensa red de 45 caminos, sacbeob, que comunicaba los diferentes grupos de estructuras, sitios cercanos y otras antiguas ciudades más lejanas, como es el caso de Yaxun (100 kilómetros) e Ixil (19 kilómetros), ubicadas en los actuales estados de Yucatán y Quintana Roo, respectivamente.

“ ‘Chak Kimi’ (Red Death) who danced the dance of the war-flags with ‘Yaxun Balaam’ in 768 A.D. calls himself an ‘Ah Kalahun Bak’, which means that he had twelve captives to his credit. Yaxun Balam IV’s prisoner count of twenty is the highest found so far in the corpus of Maya inscriptions. Only one other Maya king bears this epithet. The Maya rulers’ count of captives is slightly reminiscent of the custom of allied fighter pilots during WWII who kept a record of the number of enemy aircraft they had shot down by having the respective number of swastikas or rising suns painted on their planes.”

CLOSEST AIRPORT: Mérida, 80 miles west
GETTING THERE: The only regular bus service to Yaxuná runs from Mérida on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday afternoons, returning Saturday, Sunday, and Monday mornings. Those looking for a more flexible schedule can rent a car in Mérida (Alamo, Avis, and Hertz have branches at the airport).
WHERE TO STAY: Yaxuná Campamento (doubles, $35 per person per night, including three meals and a guided tour of the town and ruins; 011-52-985-858-1482, manray.csu-hayward.edu/campamento).
WHERE TO EAT: The cooks at Yaxuná Campamento provide traditional Yucatecan meals like pit-barbecued turkey with habanero sauce.

A chorus of barking dogs, touched off by a lone howl, greets us as we pull into Yaxun‡'s central plaza. A pleasant aroma of warm tortillas and smoke lingers in the night air. We see families sitting around cooking fires in pole-walled huts, while silhouettes of pigs and chickens poke their way around the dirt courtyards, fringed by avocado and banana trees. Up the street, past the 19th-century limestone church, we check into Yaxuná Campamento, a field camp that Freidel's team of archaeologists turned over to the locals in 1996. The enterprising villagers renovated it into an eight-room inn, blending ancient Maya construction with hot showers and comfortable beds. This night, however, we choose to sleep strung up in hammocks like netted groupers.

Fuer evtl. Fragen steht Ihnen Rechtsanwalt Stephan Boris Erbe zur Verfgung, seine Kontaktdaten finden Sie auf seiner Homepage.

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