A pivot point in Maya history: fire-burning event at K'anwitznal (Ucanal) and the making of a new era of political rule

Abstract

Key tipping points of history are rarely found directly in the archaeological record, not least because an event's significance often lies in the perception of the participants. This article documents an early-ninth-century ritual fire-burning event at the Maya site of Ucanal in Guatemala and argues that it marked a public dismantling of an old regime. Rather than examine this event as part of a Classic period Maya collapse, the authors propose that it was a revolutionary pivot point around which the K'anwitznal polity reinvented itself, ushering in wider political transitions in the southern Maya Lowlands.