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From ancient Maya cities in Mexico and Central America to the Taj Mahal in India, cultural heritage sites around the world are being drawn into the wave of privatization that has already swept through such economic sectors as telecommunications, transportation, and utilities. As nation-states decide they can no longer afford to maintain cultural properties—or find it economically advantageous not to do so in the globalizing economy—private actors are stepping in to excavate, conserve, interpret, and represent archaeological and historical sites. But what are the ramifications when a multinational corporation, or even an indigenous village, owns a piece of national patrimony which holds cultural and perhaps sacred meaning for all the country’s people, as well as for visitors from the rest of the world? In this ambitious book, Lisa Breglia investigates “heritage” as an arena in which a variety of private and public actors compete for the right to benefit, economically and otherwise, from controlling cultural patrimony. She presents ethnographic case studies of two archaeological sites in the Yucatán Peninsula—Chichén Itzá and Chunchucmil and their surrounding modern communities—to demonstrate how indigenous landholders, foreign archaeologists, and the Mexican state use heritage properties to position themselves as legitimate “heirs” and beneficiaries of Mexican national patrimony. Breglia’s research masterfully describes the “monumental ambivalence” that results when local residents, excavation laborers, site managers, and state agencies all enact their claims to cultural patrimony. Her findings make it clear that informal and partial privatizations—which go on quietly and continually—are as real a threat to a nation’s heritage as the prospect of fast-food restaurants and shopping centers in the ruins of a sacred site.

The Mexican Revolution was a tumultuous struggle for social and political reform that ousted an autocrat and paved the way for a new national constitution. The conflict, however, came late to Yucatán, where a network of elite families with largely European roots held the reins of government. This privileged group reaped spectacular wealth from haciendas, cash-crop plantations tended by debt-ridden servants of Maya descent. When a revolutionary army from central Mexico finally gained a foothold in Yucatán in 1915, the local custom of agrarian servitude met its demise.Drawing on a dozen years of archaeological and historical investigation, Allan Meyers breaks new ground in the study of Yucatán haciendas. He explores a plantation village called San Juan Bautista Tabi, which once stood at the heart of a vast sugar estate. Occupied for only a few generations, the village was abandoned during the revolutionary upheaval. Its ruins now lie within a state-owned ecological reserve.Through oral histories, archival records, and physical remains, Meyers examines various facets of the plantation landscape. He presents original data and fresh interpretations on settlement organization, social stratification, and spatial relationships. His systematic approach to \"things underfoot,\" small everyday objects that are now buried in the tropical forest, offers views of the hacienda experience that are often missing in official written sources. In this way, he raises the voices of rural, mostly illiterate Maya speakers who toiled as laborers. What emerges is a portrait of hacienda social life that transcends depictions gleaned from historical methods alone.Students, researchers, and travelers to Mexico will all find something of interest in Meyers's lively presentation. Readers will see the old haciendas--once forsaken but now experiencing a rebirth as tourist destinations--in a new light. These heritage sites not only testify to social conditions that prevailed before the Mexican Revolution, but also remind us that the human geography of modern Yucatán is as much a product of plantation times as it is of more ancient periods.

The archaeological sites of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula are among the most visited ancient cities of the Americas. Archaeologists have recently made great advances in our understanding of the social and political milieu of the northern Maya lowlands. However, such advances have been under-represented in both scholarly and popular literature until now. 'The Ancient Maya of Mexico' presents the results of new and important archaeological, epigraphic, and art historical research in the Mexican states of Yucatan, Campeche, and Quintana Roo. Ranging across the Middle Preclassic to the Modern periods, the volume explores how new archaeological data has transformed our understanding of Maya history. 'The Ancient Maya of Mexico' will be invaluable to students and scholars of archaeology and anthropology, and all those interested in the society, rituals and economic organisation of the Maya region. Chapter 1. Reinterpreting the Past of the Northern Maya Lowlands Geoffrey E. Braswell Chapter 2. The Middle Preclassic Ballgame: Yucatan and Beyond David Anderson (Tulane University) Chapter 3. The Architecture of Power and Sociopolitical Complexity in Northwestern Yucatan during the Preclassic Period Nancy Peniche May (University of California, San Diego) Chapter 4. Maya Political Cycling and the Story of the Kaan Polity Joyce Marcus (University of Michigan) Chapter 5. Early Classic Integrations in the Northern Lowlands Scott R. Hutson (University of Kentucky) Chapter 6. The Political and Economic Organization of Late Classic States in the Penninsular Gulf Coast: the View from Champoton, Campeche Jerald Ek (State University of New York at Albany) Chapter 7. 5,000 Sites and Counting: The Inspiration of Maya Settlement Studies in 2010 Walter R. T. Witschey (Longwood University) and Clifford T. Brown (Florida Atlantic University) Chapter 8. The Reality and Role of Popol Nas in Northern Maya Archaeology George Bey (Millsaps College) and Rossana May Ciau (INAH Yucatan, Merida) Chapter 9. The Nunnery Quadrangle of Uxmal. William M. Ringle (Davidson College) Chapter 10. In the Shadow of the Pyramid: Excavations of the Great Platform of Chichen Itza Geoffrey E. Braswell Chapter 11. Divide and Rule: Interpreting Site Perimeter Walls in the Northern Maya Lowlands and Beyond Lauren D. Hahn (University of California, San Diego) Chapter 12. Rain and Fertility Rituals in Postclassic Yucatan Featuring Chaak and Chak Chel Gabrielle Vail (New College of Florida) and Christine Hernandez (Tulane University) Chapter 13. Poor Mayapan Clifford Brown, April Watson (Florida Atlantic University), Ashley Gravlin-Bernan (Florida Atlantic University), and Larry Liebovitch (Queens College) Chapter 14. Maya Collapse or Resilience? Lessons from the Spanish Conquest and the Caste War of Yucatan Rani T. Alexander (New Mexico State University) Chapter 15. Yucatan at the Crossroads Joyce Marcus

Phillip Hofstetter first visited Yucatán in 1987 and was entranced, as much by the sheer physical beauty of the region as by the enduring character of the Maya people still inhabiting the region. For more than twenty years he has been documenting his travels in Yucatán and his professional collaboration with archaeological excavation projects there. His reflections on the Maya culture emphasize survival and adaptation, while images of ancient sites, the churches of the Franciscan mission period, and the ruined haciendas of the henequen period serve as physical reminders of the enduring ways in which the Maya have shaped the landscape of Yucatán over millennia.

The Carnegie Maya IVis the fourth in a series of volumes that make available the primary data and interpretive studies originally produced by archaeologists and anthropologists in the Maya region under the umbrella of the Carnegie Institute of Washington's Division of Historical Research. Collected together here are theTheoretical Approaches to Problemspapers, a series that published preliminary conclusions to advance thought processes and stimulate debate. Although two of the three theories published in these reports have since been proven wrong, the theories themselves remain significant because of their impact on the direction of archaeology. Only a few sets of these three contributions to theTheoretical Approaches to Problemsseries are known to have survived, makingThe Carnegie Maya IVan essential reference and research resource. The corresponding ebook, for individual download, contains the complete set ofThe Carnegie Maya,The Carnegie Maya II,The Carnegie Maya IIIandThe Carnegie Maya IV, thus making hundreds of documents from the Carnegie Institution's Maya program available in one source.

Thanks to Weeks, Masson, and the University Press of Colorado, Maya scholars now have an invaluable integrated resource. A vital resource for Maya specialists and Mesoamerican reserach libraries.—.C. Kolb, CHOICE 2006, the University Press of Colorado published The Carnegie Maya: The Carnegie Institution of Washington Maya Research Program, 1913-1957. This volume made available once again to scholars the extensive data published in the CIW Year Book series. The Carnegie Maya II: Carnegie Institution of Washington Current Reports, 1952-1957 continues this project by republishing the CIW Current Reports series. The final CIW field project took place in July of 1950, in the Maya region of Mayapán, where extensive and detailed investigations were conducted for five years. To ensure the rapid dissemination of the results of the Mayapán Project, two series of papers described the work being undertaken and reported the preliminary findings. These were volumes 50 through 57 of the Year Books and numbers 1 through 41 of the Current Reports. A total of forty one Current Reports were published by the Carnegie Institution of Washington from 1952 to 1957. All of these are reproduced in The Carnegie Maya II, accompanied by an introduction by John Weeks, a forward by Marilyn Masson, and a summary table of data compiled by Marilyn Masson regarding artifacts unearthed at Mayapán.

Construction of Maya Spaces sheds new light on how Maya society may have shaped-and been shaped by-the constructed environment. Moving beyond the towering pyramids and temples often associated with Maya spaces, this volume focuses on how those in power used features such as walls, roads, rails, and symbolic boundaries to control those without power, and how the powerless pushed back. Through fifteen engaging chapters, contributors examine the construction of spatial features by ancient, historic, and contemporary Maya elite and nonelite peoples to understand how they used spaces differently. Through cutting-edge methodologies and case studies, chapters consider how and why Maya people connected and divided the spaces they used daily in their homes, in their public centers, in their sacred places such as caves, and across their regions to inform us about the mental constructs they used to create their lives and cultures of the past. Contributors Elias Alcocer Puerto Alejandra Alonso Olvera Traci Ardren Jaime J. Awe Alejandra Badillo Sánchez Nicolas C. Barth Grace Lloyd Bascopé Adolpho Iván Batún-Alpuche Elizabeth Beckner M. Kathryn Brown Bernadette Cap Miguel Covarrubias Reyna Juan Fernandez Diaz Alberto G. Flores Colin Thomas H. Guderjan C. Colleen Hanratty Héctor Hernández Álvarez Scott R. Hutson Joshua J. Kwoka Whitney Lytle Aline Magnoni Jennifer P. Mathews Stephanie J. Miller Shawn G. Morton Holley Moyes Shannon Plank Dominique Rissolo Patrick Rohrer Carmen Rojas Sandoval Justine M. Shaw J. Gregory Smith Travis W. Stanton Karl A. Taube Daniel Vallejo-Cáliz

Rani Alexander's study of the Caste War of Yucatan (1847-1901) uses archaeological evidence, ethnography, and history to explore the region's processes of resistance.

The Carnegie Maya IV is the fourth in a series of volumes that make available the primary data and interpretive studies originally produced by archaeologists and anthropologists in the Maya region under the umbrella of the Carnegie Institute of Washington’s Division of Historical Research. Collected together here are the Theoretical Approaches to Problems papers, a series that published preliminary conclusions to advance thought processes and stimulate debate. Although two of the three theories published in these reports have since been proven wrong, the theories themselves remain significant because of their impact on the direction of archaeology. Only a few sets of these three contributions to the Theoretical Approaches to Problems series are known to have survived, making The Carnegie Maya IV an essential reference and research resource. The corresponding ebook contains the complete set of The Carnegie Maya, The Carnegie Maya II, The Carnegie Maya III, and The Carnegie Maya IV, thus making hundreds of documents from the Carnegie Institution’s Maya program available in one source.