March 13, 2010 Dr. Wendy Bacon, "Xultun: A Cyclical Pattern of
Stelae Erection
Over 250 Years"
Although
Xultun’s 450 years of elaborately inscribed monuments have been known
since the 1920s, the site remains a mystery, thanks mainly to looting
during the 1970s. Positioned strategically, midway from Calakmul
to its ally Caracol yet close to rival Tikal, Xultun must have been
pulled into the conflict between these lowland superpowers. The effects
on Xultun can be seen in the history of monument erection there.
In one plaza, the kings of ancient Xultun placed 7 stelae in a pattern,
cyclical in both time and in space, over 250 years. Temporally, the
stelae commemorated the endings of time periods one and one-half
k’atuns, or about 30 years apart. Spatially, the stelae were
erected in a counterclockwise circuit around the plaza, causing
confusion in dating them only recently resolved. The temporal and
spatial cyclicity of Xultun’s monuments has implications for how the
ancient Maya conceptualized time itself. New interest in the site
of San Bartolo, only 8 km away, might prompt a more thorough
investigation of Xultun.
Wendy Bacon is a native of New Hope,
Pennsylvania, and has worked in cultural resource management as well as
in various departments of the University Museum: the Archives, the
American Section, Membership, and even the Pyramid Shop. She has
excavated at historic and prehistoric sites in Saint Joseph, Missouri
and Essington, Pennsylvania as well as at Nauvoo, Illinois, where she
had the honor of emptying the privy of Joseph Smith! Dr. Bacon
also excavated at the Maya sites of Nohmul, Pusilha, ChacBen Kax and
Santa Rita Corozal in Belize. She has enjoyed speaking to a
variety of groups such as the Little People of America, the American
Anthropological Society, the Thomas Jefferson Elementary School, and at
Cornell University. Dr. Bacon earned a PhD in Anthropology from
the University of Pennsylvania in 2007, and lives near Ithaca, New
York.
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