Maya Ceramics Analysis

Pottery sherds the most abundant artifacts recovered from sites reveal much about artistic expression religious ritual economic systems cooking traditions and cultural exchange in maya society.

Maya ceramics analysis.

Seven compositional groups were identified from the site s civic ceremonial centre and two peripheral residential groups. This was the tail of the macaw which looked like a torch to the sentries. The result is a book that serves both as a valuable resource for archaeologists involved in pottery classification analysis and interpretation and as an illuminating exploration of ancient maya culture. At its height it was a densely populated culturally dynamic society with cities throughout the region that is now mexico belize guatemala and honduras.

Individual examples include the princeton va. Ancient mayan pottery maya civilization is one of the great ancient civilizations of the world. Ancient maya pottery brings together many of the archaeologists signally involved in the analysis and interpretation of ancient maya ceramics and offers new findings and state of the art thinking. For this research we are interested in reconstructing how ancient maya potters and painters made these vessels.

The maya ceramics project smithsonian center for materials research and education has a growing database of chemical fingerprints of dozens of classic maya ceramic production sites. All maya pottery was built by hand as opposed to on a potter s wheel. The process of creating ceramics involved many steps and different materials both local and imported. The ancient maya produced a broad range of ceramics that has attracted concerted scholarly attention for over a century.

Selecting the clays first usually from local sources potters would then fold in different tempers or additives to achieve a desired consistency or aesthetic quality. Maya ceramics are ceramics produced in the pre columbian maya culture of mesoamerica. Vessels for the elite could be painted with very detailed scenes while utilitarian vessels were undecorated or much simpler. The vessels used different colors sizes and had varied purposes.

But they didnt burn the torch instead something that looked like fire was substituted. This study uses neutron activation analysis of ceramics to examine economic change and increasing social complexity at the preclassic maya site of cahal pech in belize 1200 cal bc cal ad 300.