Spatial Orders in Maya Civic Plans

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 195.34.79.79 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 17:44:14 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsAncient civic centers materialize ideas of proper spatial organization, among the Maya as in other societies. We argue that the position and arrangement of ancient Maya buildings and arenas emphatically express statements about cosmology and political order. At the same time, the clarity of original spatial expression is often blurred in the sites we observe archaeologically.Factors responsible for such blurring include multiple other influences on planning and spatial order, prominently the political life history of a civic center. Specifically, we argue here that centers with relatively short and simple political histories are relatively easy to interpret spatially. Those with longer development, but relatively little upheaval, manifest more elaborate but relatively robust and internally consistent plans. Sites with longer and more turbulent political histories, however, materialize a more complex cumulative mix of strategies and plausibly, therefore, of varying planning principles invoked by sequent ancient builders. We examine evidence for these assertions by reference to civic layouts at Copa'n, Xunantunich, Sayil, Seibal, and Tikal.En los antiguos centros cfvicos se materializan ideas acerca de la organizacion espacial adecuada, tanto entre los mayas como entre otras sociedades. En este estudio se propone que la ubicacion y la disposicion de antiguos edificios y espacios abiertos mayas expresan enfaticamente ideas respecto a la cosmologfa y el orden polftico. Al mismo tiempo, la claridad de la expresion espacial original a menudo es difusa en los sitios arqueologicos, debido a muchas otras in;Quencias en la planeacion y el orden espaciales, sobre todo la historia de la vida polftica de cada centro cfvico. Espeefficamente proponemos que los centros que tienen historias polfticas cortas y simples son relativamente faciles de interpretar espacialmente, mientras que aquellos con desarrollos mas prolongados, aunque con agitacion polftica limitada, presentan una planeacion interna mas elaborada y relativamente fuerte. Sin embargo, en los asentamientos con historias polfticas largas y mas turbulentas, se materializa una mezela ma's compleja de estrategias y, presumiblemente, en consecuencia quienes los construyeron se basaron en una amplia variedad de principios de planeacion. En este estudio exploramos las evidencias para fundamentar estas propuestas refiriendo a la disposicion cfvica de Copan, Xunantunich, Sayil, Seibal y Tikal.Recognizing and interpreting spatial order has a long and rich history, with inquiries from varied perspectives and many disciplines (e.g...

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