Building Identities: Socio-Political Implications of Ancient Maya City Plans

This study examines, through a variety of evidence, Late Classic (c. 250-900 AD) Maya political organization, specifically the existence of large-scale political structures as evidenced through specific patterns of city plans and architectural similarities. This particular exercise draws upon such interconnected aspects of current and past Maya scholarship as epigraphic reconstructions of political history, elite architecture, the nature of the ancient Maya state, and research into the less tangible aspects of the ancient Maya civilization, such as the cosmological and ideological frameworks within which such issues were conceived, negotiated, and imbued with meaning.