REHABILITATING BECÁN

David Webster,Joseph W Ball

doi:10.1017/s0956536121000262

David Webster, Joseph W Ball

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1017/s0956536121000262

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Abstract

AbstractResearch in 1970 vaulted Becán to prominence on the landscape of great Maya centers. Mapping, excavation, and ceramic stratigraphy revealed that its enigmatic earthwork, first recorded archaeologically in 1934, was a fortification built at the end of the Preclassic period. Large-scale warfare thus unexpectedly turned out to have very deep roots in the Maya lowlands. The site's wider implications remained obscure, however, in the absence of dates and other inscriptions. The ever-increasing dependence on historical and iconographic information in our narratives, along with the invisibility of its Preclassic buildings and plazas, unfortunately marginalized Becán. Some colleagues even claimed that we have misinterpreted both the nature of the earthworks (not fortifications) and their dating (not Preclassic). We rehabilitate Becán by dispelling these claims and by showing that standard archaeological evidence, contextualized in what we know today, has much to say about Becán's role in lowland culture history. We identify intervals of crisis when the earthwork remained useful long after it was originally built, especially during the great hegemonic struggles of the Snake and Tikal dynasties, and introduce new ceramic and lithic data about Becán's settlement history and political entanglements. Our most important message is that inscriptions and iconography, for all their dramatic chronological detail and historical agency, must always be complemented by standard fieldwork.

Highlights

Becán is one of those big Maya centers that lacks inscriptions, dates, and elaborate iconography
We identify intervals of crisis when the earthwork remained useful long after it was originally built, especially during the great hegemonic struggles of the Snake and Tikal dynasties, and introduce new ceramic and lithic data about Becán’s settlement history and political entanglements
Our most important message is that inscriptions and iconography, for all their dramatic chronological detail and historical agency, must always be complemented by standard fieldwork

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Becán is one of those big Maya centers that lacks inscriptions, dates, and elaborate iconography. Ball (Ball and Andrews 1978:14), later noted that several Chacsik types emerged during Pakluum times, and so this sherd could well be contemporary with the others.15 In her general survey of Maya fortifications, Cortes (2007:140) claims that the Becán earthwork must be Early Classic, primarily because she misreads the stratigraphy of Webster’s embankment Trench 21 (Webster 1976:36–37). She says that because the 19 sherds “from the retaining wall” he exposed along the inner side of the embankment were entirely Chacsik, the embankment must be of similar date.. 18 Some other early defenses do combine earthworks with water barriers, as at Tintal, Edzna, Cerros, and possibly Punta de Chimino and Nixtun-Ch’ich’

19 They also unilaterally titled the article “Una ciudad maya fortificada

A Testable Conjecture

Findings

SUMMARY