Living with the Dead

Mortuary Ritual in Mesoamerica

James L. Fitzsimmons, Izumi Shimada

• Publisher: University of Arizona Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780816541508, 9780816529766
• eBook ISBN: 9780816541522
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

Scholars have recently achieved new insights into the many ways in which the dead and the living interacted from the Late Preclassic to the Conquest in Mesoamerica. The eight essays in this useful volume were written by well-known scholars who offer cross-disciplinary and synergistic insights into the varied articulations between the dead and those who survived them. From physically opening the tomb of their ancestors and carrying out ancestral heirlooms to periodic feasts, sacrifices, and other lavish ceremonies, heirs revisited death on a regular basis. The activities attributable to the dead, moreover, range from passively defining territorial boundaries to more active exploits, such as "dancing" at weddings and "witnessing" royal accessions. The dead were—and continued to be—a vital part of everyday life in Mesoamerican cultures.

This book results from a symposium organized by the editors for an annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The contributors employ historical sources, comparative art history, anthropology, and sociology, as well as archaeology and anthropology, to uncover surprising commonalities across cultures, including the manner in which the dead were politicized, the perceptions of reciprocity between the dead and the living, and the ways that the dead were used by the living to create, define, and renew social as well as family ties. In exploring larger issues of a "good death" and the transition from death to ancestry, the contributors demonstrate that across Mesoamerica death was almost never accompanied by the extinction of a persona; it was more often the beginning of a social process than a conclusion.

Table of contents

• Contents
• 1. Introduction (James L. Fitzsimmons and Izumi Shimada)
• 2. The Role of Dead Bodies in Late Classic Maya Politics: Cross-Cultural Reflections on the Meaning of Tikal Altar 5 (Estella Weiss-Krejci)
• 3. Perspectives on Death and Transformation in Ancient Maya Society: Human Remains as a Means to an End (James L. Fitzsimmons)
• 4. Ghosts Amid the Ruins: Analyzing Relationships between the Living and the Dead among the Ancient Maya at Caracol, Belize (Diane Z. Chase and Arlen F. Chase)
• 5. Bodies, Bones, and Burials: Corporeal Constructs and Enduring Relationships in Oaxaca, Mexico (Jeffrey P. Blomster)
• 6. Interactions between the Living and the Dead at Major Monuments in Teotihuacan (Saburo Sugiyama)
• 7. Concepts of Death and the Afterlife in Central Mexico (Elizabeth Baquedano)
• 8. Toward a Hermeneutics of Death: Commentary on Seven Essays Written for Living with the Dead (Patricia A. McAnany)
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Index