El Perú-Waka': New Archaeological Perspectives on the Kingdom of the Centipede (Maya Studies) - Hardcover

Keith Eppich (editor); Damien B. Marken (editor) & David Freidel (editor)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0813069939 ISBN 13: 9780813069937

Publisher: University Press of Florida, 2024

Synopsis

Recent research and discoveries at a prominent Maya rainforest city

This volume presents the most current research on the ancient Maya city El Perú-Waka’, or “Kingdom of the Centipede.” Located in the Laguna del Tigre National Park of Guatemala, this city has been a major focus of recent archaeological inquiry, which has uncovered a long occupation at the site spanning from 300 BC to 1000 CE. The chapters in El Perú-Waka’ examine the Maya who lived here and the rainforest city they built, complete with its pyramids, palaces, temples, roads, reservoirs, and residences.

Contributors reconstruct urban settlement patterns, look at health and dietary differences between elites and commoners, and analyze epigraphs and art, among other topics. The book includes a detailed discussion of the tomb of the city’s famous queen, Lady K’abel, showing that the queen’s choice to be interred within Waka’s most prominent dynastic monument demonstrates the power of Maya royal women to not only direct political discourse during their lives but also impact the reigns of their successors.

The evidence in this volume indicates the city’s importance in the political and ritual landscape of the Maya Lowlands, and with the site’s long record of habitation and dense population, this book offers researchers an unmatched view of ancient life in a tropical urban environment.

A volume in the series Maya Studies, edited by Diane Z. Chase and Arlen F. Chase

About this title

About the Author

Keith Eppich, professor of history and archaeology at Tyler Junior College, is coeditor of Breath and Smoke: Tobacco Use among the Maya.

Damien B. Marken, assistant professor of anthropology at Bloomsburg University, is coeditor of Classic Maya Polities of the Southern Lowlands: Integration, Interaction, Dissolution.

David A. Freidel, professor of anthropology emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis, is coeditor of The Materialization of Time in the Ancient Maya World: Mythic History and Ritual Order.

Edition details

• Publisher: University Press of Florida
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0813069939
• ISBN 13: 9780813069937
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 422