Ecology and Ritual: Water Management and the Maya

How the ancient Maya of the central Yucatecan Lowlands managed their water and land resources remains poorly knownX
although crucial to an understanding of ancient political economy. Recent archival research and field data suggest the widespread
use of artificially altered, natural depressions for the collection and containment of water, both for potable consumption
and agricultural ends. During the Classic period (A.D. 250-900) several of the principal cities in the Maya area
constructed their largest architecture and monuments at the summit of hills and ridges. Associated with these elevated centers-"
water mountains"-were sizable, life-sustaining reserroirs quarried into their summits. The effect of this town-planning
design was the centralization of a primary and fundamental resource. Although elite managers controlled the water
source, other decentralizing forces prevented anything similar to Wittfogel's "total power. " However, by ritually appropriating
the everyday and mundane activities associated with water by the sustaining population, elites used high-performance
water ritual as manifest in the iconography to further centralize control. The significance of modifying the urban landscape
in the partial image of the ordinary water hole defines the extraordinary in Maya ritual.