Maya Palaces and Elite Residences: An Interdisciplinary Approach

Fuelled by romantic notions, 19th-century Europeans visited and discovered Mayan ruins and drew similarities with European Renaissance and Baroque palaces. This collection of eleven essays, plus an introduction and conclusion, takes an archaeological and art-historical approach to Maya palaces and elite residences in places such as Belize and Guatemala and large centres like Copan and Tokal. In assessing evidence for the form, layout and function of sites and individual buildings, the contributors look at issues such as ceremonial and residential activities, social organisation and cosmology. In her conclusion, Jessica Joyce Christie examines similarities in form and function between the examples cited and discusses what this reveals about questions of political power, social hierarchies and possible hierarchies of sites.