The Absence of the Profane

The Absence of the Profane:
The Ancient Maya Sacred Landscape of Cara Blanca, Belize

Lisa J. Lucero
Department of Anthropology
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Andrew Kinkella
Doctoral Student in Anthropology
University of California Riverside

The prehistoric landscape is imbued with sacred qualities, undoubtedly more so than we realize. Ethnographic and historic cases leave little doubt of this fact. This was also the case for the ancient Maya in the Cara Blanca area, central Belize. It has 22 freshwater pools and lakes, hills, and caves. In certain settings, people emulate or build near sacred features. For example, the Mayan word for mountain (in this sense, a lineage mountain where ancestors originated and resided) and temple is the same—witz. Their entrances are portals to the Underworld or Xibalba; for mountains, portals consist of caves and standing bodies of water; for temples, they consist of doorways often decorated with cave imagery. In other instances, as I discuss in this presentation, people did not build settlement at sacred places, but instead revered them as is. To address this in the archaeological record, it is necessary, ironically to some in view of the topic of this workshop, to begin with a materialist approach. The Cara Blanca area has it all—good agricultural land and water year-round. The water availability was particularly crucial in a rainfall-dependent society given that the annual six-month dry season includes a four-month period when it does not rain at all. At well-known Classic period (c. A.D. 250-950) centers such as Tikal, Calakmul, Caracol and others, the Maya relied on massive artificial reservoirs to see them through the annual drought. While Cara Blanca has it all materially, it also has it all ideologically (or spiritually)—mountains and portals. Unlike at centers, the Maya at Cara Blanca did not have to build artificial mountains (temples), caves (temple entrances), or pools (reservoirs). The few structures and features found at the pools indicate a sacred role for this area—perhaps as a pilgrimage center. I present results of several seasons of survey and test excavations to demonstrate how the lack of settlement in an area with prime resources can be explained through a sacred lens.