The Maax Na Archaeology Project: Documentation of Stelae, Altars, and Cave Entrances in the West Ceremonial Group

Introduction to the Maya Site of Maax Na

The Maya site of Maax Na ¹   is located in northwestern Belize in the Río Bravo Conservation Area (Figure 1.). The site was first documented by archaeologists in 1995 when a reconnaissance team for the Programme for Belize Archaeology Project (PfBAP), directed by Dr. Fred Valdez of the University of Texas at Austin (Valdez 1997), identified the monumental center. The Maax Na Archaeology Project, co-directed by Leslie Shaw (Bowdoin College) and Eleanor King (Howard University), began in 1996 with a season of site mapping and exploration. Our efforts to date have continued to concentrate on site mapping and only limited excavations have been conducted. From this initial work, we have evidence of site occupation from at least the Late Preclassic Period (250 B.C.–A.D. 250), with major construction efforts taking place in the Early Classic. Maax Na is one of five major sites within the boundaries of the conservation area, and with this high site density, each site must have had to balance its economy in reference to the volatile political world that surrounded it.

The monumental center at Maax Na is located on a hilltop at 180 m above sea level and is within the Río Azul/Río Hondo drainage basin. The site center is distinctive in that it was designed on a large scale, particularly in the wide spread between buildings surrounding Plaza A (Figure 2.). The monumental center includes a north plaza (Plaza A) which is connected to a western plaza (Plaza C) by a wide causeway. A standing stela (Figure 3.) was discovered at the southern end of the causeway, and although no evidence of carving remains, its position is similar to one found at Copán which demarcated the juncture of sacred and secular spaces (Schele and Mathews 1998:136). To the southeast of this causeway is a third plaza (Plaza B), which is dominated by a single large pyramid. The pyramid structure is 17 meters high but was positioned on a natural hill so that its summit stands 24.6 meters above Plaza B. The limestone hill was cut and filled to create a two-tiered rise to the base of the pyramid structure. A large reservoir filled the area to the west of the causeway, and the reservoir would have contributed both aesthetically and functionally to the community.

A large area of upland bajo is located northwest of the site center; this area is drained by Thompson’s Creek, which flows north into the Río Azul/Río Hondo River drainage. The residential zones relating to Maax Na concentrate to the west of the site center and cluster around these wetlands, suggesting an economic focus on agricultural products. Survey to the east of the site center has identified only sparse settlement.

One distinctive aspect of Maax Na is the large number of cave entrances that surround the monumental center (Figure 4, shown above). There are indications at some of these cave entrances of human modifications and in several instances ceramic fragments have been observed inside the cave. We plan to have expert cavers explore these in the future, but simply on the basis of their frequency and prominent locations in relation to key buildings within the site center, we have proposed that Maax Na may have played a specialized role in ritual activities in the region (King and Shaw ms.) James Brady et al. (1997) have recently added to our understanding of Maya site organization by suggesting that caves were used in positioning surface structures within a cosmological model, such as that proposed by Ashmore (1992; see also Houk 1996). Brady and his team, working within the Petexbatún region of Guatemala, have found strong evidence that above-ground structures were placed in reference to caves and springs below. The linkage of caves with the underworld is key in this association, as is the connection of caves and freshwater, which certainly would have been of relevance to a hilltop community.

Endnote:

¹The site name, which means ’spider monkey house’, was given by the PfBAP survey team in 1995. The apostrophe in the spelling was dropped in 2001 to follow regional convention (Coe and Van Stone 2001).

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