The Role of Ritual in the Emergence of Classic Maya Leaders

仪式在经典玛雅领袖出现中的作用

• 批准号: 0004410
• 负责人: Lisa Lucero
• 金额: $ 4.86万
• 依托单位: New Mexico State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2001
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2001-01-01 至 2001-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0004410&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Role; Ritual; Emergence; Classic; Maya

With National Science Foundation support Dr. Lisa Lucero will conduct one season of archaeological excavation at the site of Saturday Creek, located in the Belize lowlands. Because riverine areas were the loci of earliest Mayan settlement they often contain long occupational records and thus offer excellent venues to examine directional change over time. Based on prior work, Dr. Lucero has uncovered an approximately 1,700 year sequence from ca. 800 BC to 890 AD at Saturday Creek. The goal of her work is to understand how centralized political authority developed, as Mayan culture moved from egalitarian to stratified and increasingly large numbers of individuals were integrated into regional units. It is unclear how ruling elite gained and were able to maintain power. Both archaeological and ethnographic data indicate that ritual and ceremonial activities played an important role in Mayan society and Dr. Lucero will focus on this. Ceremonies serve to unify people, can legitimize political agendas and increase the prestige of sponsors. Based on preliminary data it is hypothesized that rituals involving death, dedication and ancestor veneration originated at a family level and were later appropriated and transformed by emerging elites to serve broader integrative functions. Eventually, she believes they became closely associated with royal families and served, in community eyes, to link them with the divine. The Mayan archaeological record is rich in materials such as ritual caches of ceramics and other objects which served ceremonial functions and these have been discovered in a wide variety of contexts. At the Saturday Creek site Dr. Lucero will excavate a series of structures including solitary structures, an elite compound and a palace which span a range of social statuses and time. She will determine whether the earliest ritual remains occurred in family associations and later expanded beyond this immediate context. Through analysis of cache contents she will also gain insight into how rituals changed over time.This research is important for several reasons. It will provide data of interest to many archaeologists and shed new light on the forces which served to integrate early large scale societies. Approximately 10 -12 students will participate in the field research and thus the project will also serve an important educational function.

在国家科学基金会的支持下，丽莎卢塞罗博士将在位于伯利兹低地的星期六溪遗址进行一个季节的考古挖掘。由于河流地区是最早的玛雅人定居点，它们通常包含长期的职业记录，因此提供了很好的场所来检查随着时间的推移方向的变化。根据先前的工作，卢塞罗博士发现了一个大约1,700年的序列。公元前800年至公元890年在星期六溪。她的工作目标是了解中央集权的政治权威是如何发展的，因为玛雅文化从平等主义转向分层，越来越多的个人被纳入区域单位。目前尚不清楚统治精英是如何获得并能够维持权力的。考古学和人种学数据都表明，仪式和礼仪活动在玛雅社会中发挥了重要作用，卢塞罗博士将重点关注这一点。仪式有助于团结人民，可以使政治议程合法化，并提高赞助商的声望。根据初步数据，假设涉及死亡，奉献和祖先崇拜的仪式起源于家庭层面，后来被新兴精英占用和改造，以服务于更广泛的综合功能。最终，她认为他们与皇家家庭联系紧密，并在社区眼中将他们与神圣联系起来。玛雅考古记录中有丰富的材料，如陶瓷和其他用于仪式功能的物品的仪式缓存，这些都是在各种各样的背景下发现的。在星期六溪遗址，卢塞罗博士将挖掘一系列建筑，包括孤独的结构，一个精英化合物和一个宫殿，跨越了一系列的社会地位和时间。她将确定是否最早的仪式仍然发生在家庭协会，后来扩大到这个直接的背景之外。通过对缓存内容的分析，她还将深入了解仪式是如何随着时间的推移而变化的。它将为许多考古学家提供感兴趣的数据，并为整合早期大规模社会的力量提供新的线索。大约10 - 12名学生将参加实地研究，因此该项目也将发挥重要的教育作用。