The Nature of an Ancient Maya City
ISBN: 9780817381929
Platform/Publisher: Project MUSE / The University of Alabama Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Chapters; Download: Chapters
Subjects: Excavations (Archaeology); Maya architecture; Mayas; Mayas;

Reveals what daily Maya life was like

For two millennia, the site now known as Blue Creek in northwestern Belize was a Maya community that became an economic and political center that included some 15,000-20,000 people at its height. Fairly well protected from human destruction, the site offers the full range of city components including monumental ceremonial structures, elite and non-elite residences, ditched agricultural fields, and residential clusters just outside the core. Since 1992, a multi-disciplinary, multi-national research team has intensively investigated Blue Creek in an integrated study of the dynamic structure and functional inter-relationships among the parts of a single Maya city. Documented in coverage by National Geographic , Archaeology magazine, and a documentary film aired on the Discovery Channel, Blue Creek is recognized as a unique site offering the full range of undisturbed architectural construction to reveal the mosaic that was the ancient city. Moving beyond the debate of what constitutes a city, Guderjan's long-term research reveals what daily Maya life was like.

Thomas H. Guderjan is the president of Maya Research Program, a non-profit research organization. He received his Ph.D. from Southern Methodist University and has been a faculty member at St. Mary's University and Texas Christian University.

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