The Weight of Water: A New Look at Pre-Hispanic Puuc Maya Water Reservoirs

Abstract

In the Maya lowlands ancient water management was multi-componential, diverse across space, and shifted over time. In the seasonally dry Puuc region of the northwestern Yucatan Peninsula, large reservoirs dominated water management during the Late Classic to Early Postclassic periods (a.d. 600–1250). Research reported here suggests that reservoirs were central components of Puuc urban settlements and that natural depressions—from which water reservoirs could be made in the Puuc terrain—were key settlement attractors in the region. In particular, new evidence of the pre-Hispanic construction of a berm of monumental proportions along the perimeter of a water reservoir at Xuch—a Late Classic to Early Postclassic Puuc Maya agro-urban settlement in Campeche, Mexico—stresses the political, economic, and symbolic importance of water and water reservoirs in pre-Hispanic Maya communities, previously demonstrated by colleagues working elsewhere in the Maya lowlands. This article discusses the “weight” of water reservoirs in Classic period Puuc Maya landscapes, adds to the literature on water management in other regions of the Maya lowlands, and explores aspects of economy, power, environment, and cosmology in water management systems of the dry regions of the northern Yucatan Peninsula.

Full text

THE WEIGHT OF WATER: A NEW LOOK AT
PRE-HISPANIC PUUC MAYA WATER RESERVOIRS
Christian Isendahl
African and Comparative Archaeology, Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University, Box 626, SE-751 26
Uppsala, Sweden
Abstract
In the Maya lowlands ancient water management was multi-componential, diverse across space, and shifted over time. In the seasonally
dry Puuc region of the northwestern Yucatan Peninsula, large reservoirs dominated water management during the Late Classic to
Early Postclassic periods (a.d. 600–1250). Research reported here suggests that reservoirs were central components of Puuc urban
settlements and that natural depressions—from which water reservoirs could be made in the Puuc terrain—were key settlement attractors in
the region. In particular, new evidence of the pre-Hispanic construction of a berm of monumental proportions along the perimeter of a
water reservoir at Xuch—a Late Classic to Early Postclassic Puuc Maya agro-urban settlement in Campeche, Mexico—stresses the
political, economic, and symbolic importance of water and water reservoirs in pre-Hispanic Maya communities, previously demonstrated
by colleagues working elsewhere in the Maya lowlands. This article discusses the “weight”of water reservoirs in Classic period Puuc
Maya landscapes, adds to the literature on water management in other regions of the Maya lowlands, and explores aspects of economy,
power, environment, and cosmology in water management systems of the dry regions of the northern Yucatan Peninsula.
Freshwater procurement is a constant of social life: success or failure
is a matter of concern for every community and individual. Since
restricted access to water inflicts hardship on individuals and com-
munities, water management has triggered inventive technologies
and been an important catalyst for social cooperation, competition,
and conflict throughout the human past. Supplying clean freshwater
justly remains a central issue in current global development dis-
course (United Nations Development Programme 2006).
In the pre-Hispanic Maya lowlands (Figure 1), archaeological
research demonstrates that water management—involving a
number of different aspects (technical, economic, political, sym-
bolic, etc.)—was multi-componential, diverse across space, and
shifted over time (Adams 1980; Ashmore 1984; Brown 2006;
Davis-Salazar 2001, 2003, 2006; Dunning 1995, 2003; Dunning
et al. 2006; Fash 2005; Fash and Davis-Salazar 2006; Fedick
et al. 2000; French et al. 2006; Johnston 2004; Kunen 2006;
Lucero 2002, 2006a, 2006b; Lucero and Fash 2006; Matheny
1976, 1978; McAnany 1990; Pope and Dahlin 1989; Puleston
1977; Pyburn 2003; Scarborough 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2003,
2006; Scarborough and Isaac 1993; Siemens 1978). In the Puuc
region of the northwestern Yucatan Peninsula (Figure 2)—a season-
ally dry region with no permanent natural water sources—two
hydro-technological inventions designed to capture and store rain-
water dominated water management during the Late Classic to
Early Postclassic periods (a.d. 600–1250): large, open still-water
reservoirs (aguadas) and small underground water cisterns (chultu-
nob). Water cisterns were typically constructed in the center of each
residential architectural group and seem to have formed the main
source of freshwater for domestic use in each household
(McAnany 1990; Zapata Peraza 1989). Water reservoirs with the
potential to store greater volumes are quite widespread in the
Puuc region. Dunning (2008) records 38 such aguadas of shifting
sizes in the Puuc region, but the real number of pre-Hispanic
Puuc water reservoirs is probably higher. The role of open-water
reservoirs in Puuc water management practices has not been
addressed in previous research, but in analogy with the place of
water reservoirs in the political economy of Classic period Maya
centers further south, for instance at Tikal (Scarborough 1998),
they seem to have been managed at a higher level of social organ-
ization. This contribution discusses some of the economic, political,
and symbolic significance of large rainwater reservoirs in the phys-
ical transformation and social construction of the Puuc, particularly
drawing on recent archaeological investigations at Xuch, a Late
Classic to Early Postclassic mid-tier settlement in Campeche,
Mexico (Isendahl 2002, 2006a). The evidence at Xuch suggests
that the roles of Puuc reservoirs were similar to large open-water
reservoirs elsewhere in the Maya lowlands, as recently discussed
by Scarborough (1998), among others.
A seasonally dry climate, a lack of permanent streams and water
bodies, and ground water levels that were too deep to access using
pre-Hispanic technology contributed to make the capture and
storage of rainwater a central sustenance issue in the Puuc region.
Large open still-water reservoirs were fashioned from relatively
shallow depressions that occur naturally in flatland areas in the
region’s mosaic topography. The Classic period Maya modified
these natural depressions to increase rainwater capture, volumetric
storage capacity, and to control seepage. Depressions can only
develop where there are relatively deep deposits of Quaternary
soils overlying fractured sections of the Cretaceous and Tertiary
limestone bedrock structure, and their distribution in the region is
both restricted and irregular (Dunning 1992, 2008). Depressions
185
E-mail correspondence to: christian.isendahl@arkeologi.uu.se
Ancient Mesoamerica,22 (2011), 185–197
Copyright © Cambridge University Press, 2011
doi:10.1017/S0956536111000149

that could be converted into large water reservoirs were resources of
potentially great economic value and key attractors of settlement in
the landscape. Water reservoirs seem to have been important com-
ponents of Classic period Puuc Maya agro-urban settlement models.
As elsewhere in the Maya lowlands (Scarborough 1998), Puuc
water reservoirs were not only a matter of economy and sustenance.
In Maya world-view, water and Earth-penetrating cavities had strong
symbolic significance. Puuc reservoirs seem to have related to cos-
mological symbolism in very many different ways. For instance,
depression formation is associated with hydrological swallow-holes
in the bedrock, cavities in the geological structure through which
water and soil drained during the rainy season. Archaeological, ico-
nographic, epigraphic, and ethnohistoric evidence indicate that such
geomorphological features were perceived as symbolic represen-
tations of axis mundi, horizontal centers of creation and conduits
connecting the different vertical levels of the cosmos
(Bassie-Sweet 1996; Brady 1997; Brady and Prufer 2005; Eliade
1959a, 1959b; French et al. 2006; Prufer and Brady 2005).
Combined, the powerful symbolism of bodies of water and of
cavities in the earth made water reservoirs some of the most impor-
tant places in Classic period Puuc sacred landscapes.
Another aspect of cosmological conceptualization of environ-
ment discussed briefly in this paper is the idea of an animate
Earth that seems to have been alive in Maya cosmology (e.g.,
Brown and Walker 2008). In the karst limestone landscape of the
Puuc region, the long-term natural and anthropogenic formation
processes of reservoirs periodically involved spectacular workings
of the elements. Pulses of earth, wind, and water in motion acting
to shape and reshape the karst landscape seem to have contributed
to a conceptualization of Earth as animate, a living organism.
Furthermore, perceptions of fluids flowing, entering cavities,
and—after a long and complex gestation period—giving birth to
an essential resource might have linked metaphors of sexuality
closely with agricultural fertility of the landscape and political
prowess of the governing elite. Although water reservoirs were
probably utilized in a number of different functional ways—for
instance in pot irrigation of infields and in domestic consumption
by privileged households—their significance might also have
rested in their capacity as symbols of political potency.
Large-scale public events were key political tools in the inte-
gration and identity formation of Maya communities and in legiti-
mizing elite authority, and ensuring ceremonial spaces for such
ceremonies was therefore of major concern in Maya agro-urban
settlement planning. In addition to clearly planned and built cere-
monial spaces, such as plazas (Inomata 2006) and ballcourts (Fox
1996), located within the central civic-ceremonial core complexes
of many Maya agro-urban landscapes, large water reservoirs—in
some cases—seem to have been some of the most important
places for integrating political ritual (Lucero 2006a; Scarborough
1998).
For half a century archaeologists have addressed the idea that
water management played a crucial role in the development of
complex societies (Wittfogel 1957; see also Scarborough 2003 for
a comprehensive updated overview of the development and main
issues in this field of research). Over the last few years a handful
of scholars have covered several different critical aspects of
Classic period water management in the Maya lowlands, including
water symbolism in ideology and cosmology, political and religious
ritual associated with water sources, and the political control of a
key economic resource (Davis-Salazar 2001, 2003, 2006; Lucero
2002, 2006a, 2006b; Lucero and Fash 2006; Scarborough 1993,
1994, 1996, 1998, 2003, 2006; Scarborough and Isaac 1993).
Their groundbreaking work has opened up the field of water
management in the Maya lowlands, addressing patterns of
Figure 1. The main Maya regions of southern Mesoamerica. The box indi-
cates the more detailed map of the Puuc region seen in Figure 2. Map by
the author.
Figure 2. The Puuc sub-region. The physiographic districts of the north-
west Yucatan Peninsula described by Dunning (1992:21–22) are shown in
italics. The Nohkakab Valley (also known as the Santa Elena District) is
the core zone of the Puuc, which also extends southwards into the
Bolonchen Hill District and northwards to the slopes of Sierrita de Ticul
at the boundary to the Northern Karst Plain. Points mark the locations
of the central civic-ceremonial complexes of pre-Hispanic Puuc settlements
mentioned in the text. Contemporary towns are indicated by squares. Map
by the author.
Isendahl186

similarity and variation in management histories. This work—and
Scarborough’s (1998) seminal paper can be singled out here—
demonstrates a very strong link between water symbolism in
Maya cosmology, water as an economic resource, the control of
water as a basis for political power, and water sources as the loci
for political ritual.
Most current research on Maya water management draws on
field data from the central and southern lowlands of today’s
Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras. The environment and culture
history of the Maya lowlands however is diverse and little recent
work has focused on water management in the northern peninsula,
which—owing to lower annual precipitation levels than further
south—is even more prone to water shortages and crises. The evi-
dence now surfacing from the Puuc region offers some clues on
the economic, political, and symbolic importance of still-water
reservoirs in this region. The evidence reported here (in particular
the central location of the reservoir in the agro-urban landscape,
its association with the civic-ceremonial core complex, the high
amount of energy invested in reservoir construction and mainten-
ance, and the volumetric storage capacity of the reservoir) supports
the interpretations of water reservoirs as key economic, political,
and symbolic features in Classic period Maya landscapes.
INVESTIGATING THE XUCH LANDSCAPE
Xuch is a complex cultural landscape with large expanses of archae-
ological remains. It is located in the heartland of the Puuc region in
northern Campeche, Mexico, around central settlement precincts
located roughly at 20
o
19’10’’ northern latitude and 89
o
56’20’’
western longitude. In Yucatec Maya, xuch has a number of connota-
tions related to water and to the flow of substances (Barrera Vásquez
1995:953–954). Xuch can signify containers or bodies of water—
for instance cisterns or reservoirs—but may also specifically refer
to the drains of such features. It sometimes refers to a mouthful of
water and as a verb it means to engulf, devour, or inhale liquids
and substances through the mouth or nose. As a toponym of the
research area, Xuch specifically refers to a hydrological phenom-
enon known as a swallow-hole: a vertical channel in the geological
structure that has formed through limestone solution and which con-
nects the surface with the aquifer. At Xuch, the swallow-hole is
found in the bottom of a dry aguada, the remains of a large
pre-Hispanic water reservoir in the midst of the archaeological
landscape.
Reported almost 30 years ago (Garza Tarazona de Gonzalez and
Kurjack Basco 1980:103), more recent investigations—including
architectural, ceramic, geochemical, environmental, and ethnoeco-
logical inquiry (Isendahl 2002, 2006a; Williams-Beck and Okoshi
Harada 1998)—demonstrate that Xuch is largely similar to other
better known Puuc settlements, for instance Sayil (Sabloff and
Tourtellot 1991) and Xkipche (Prem 2003), and follows an
agro-urban landscape model of Late Classic to Early Postclassic
period Puuc Maya low-density settlement systems that interdigitates
urban with rural land uses (Isendahl 2002; see also Fletcher 2009;
Stark and Ossa 2007). A civic-ceremonial nodal core complex
partly linked together by an east-west trending system of causeways,
large sectors of dispersed residential settlement remains, open
spaces interpreted as pre-Hispanic cultivated fields, and the
central water reservoir are key elements of the archaeological land-
scape at Xuch, which covers at least 20 km
2
(Figure 3).
Xuch is located in the heartland of the Puuc, a region that until
recently has been known physiographically as the Santa Elena
District, named after a colonial town located in the center of the
region (Dunning 1992:16). Dunning (2008) recently proposed the
alternative term Nohkakab Valley, a name instead based on the
pre-Hispanic Yucatec Maya toponym for Santa Elena. Nohkakab
means “the place of good earth”(Dunning 2008) and is quite an
appropriate denomination for an area with soils considered among
the most fertile on the northern Yucatan Peninsula. In this text I
adopt this new term. The Nohkakab Valley is a wedge-shaped
zone of very gently folded, bedded limestone covering some
1,300 km
2
defined on the north and east by the Sierrita de Ticul,
a northwest-southeast trending ridge system, and to the south by
the northern fault escarpment of the Bolonchen Hills, a zone domi-
nated by cone karst formations (Dunning 1992:16). Xuch is located
in the western section of the Nohkakab Valley where the rolling
topography is interspersed with relatively low-lying areas showing
little difference in micro-relief, producing a local mosaic landscape
at Xuch of low hills, valleys, and flatlands at an altitude between 30
and 50 m (Isendahl 2002:54–55). The local soilscape is diverse and
generally productive and sufficient access to water is the principle
limiting factor for agriculture in the region. In the karst hydro-
system, surface water rapidly penetrates the permeable fractured
limestone, preventing permanent streams from developing
(Dunning 1992; Isendahl 2002; Tamayo and West 1964; Wilson
1980). But karst landforms (sinkholes, wells, and caves) shaped
by limestone solution are important sources of water in many
areas of the Yucatan Peninsula. Round sinkholes (cenotes)are
common in the low-lying coastal karst plains to the north, but are
not to be found in the Puuc. The pre-Hispanic Puuc Maya did not
construct very deep wells and at Xuch—where the aquifer were
located at depths of at least 25 m (data from Comisión Nacional
del Agua [CNA], Campeche)—the water table was not an accessible
resource. There are only three known caves accessing thewater table
in the Puuc, among them the cave system at Xcoch in the eastern
Nohkakab Valley that intersects the aquifer at a depth of 65 m
(Dunning 1992, 2008; Smyth and Ortegón Zapata 2008). Usually
in the Puuc region, however, underground water cisterns were the
most important water storage devices at the level of the household.
These were constructed by puncturing the calcite caprock of the
limestone and excavating an underground chamber in the under-
lying layer of soft dolomite (sascab), typically near the center of
each household group. The area surrounding the cistern orifice
was kept clean to facilitate capture of rainwater and cistern walls
were plastered to prevent seepage in the permeable sascab
(Matheny 1978; Zapata Peraza 1989). At Xuch, 238 cisterns have
been registered (Isendahl 2002), but the available data is insufficient
to calculate volume averages. Estimations elsewhere suggest con-
siderable variation in storage capacity of Puuc water cisterns,
between 7,000 and 95,000 liters (McAnany 1990:268).
The ability to store water was crucial to sustain sedentary Puuc
agro-urban communities. The climate is sub-humid but seasonally
dry: more than 80% of the annual precipitation average of 1,145
mm falls in the six wettest months (data from CNA, Merida).
June to September comprise the summer rainy season, with mean
precipitation levels peaking in September. The annual climatic
pattern is principally controlled by the seasonal movements of the
Azores High subtropical anticyclone (AH) and the intertropical con-
vergence (ITC) (Wendland and Bryson 1981). The wet season is
associated with the interaction of the westward movement of air
masses of the AH and the northward expansion of the ITC, which
starts in late meteorological spring. During the first half of the
rainy season there is often a summer dry spell (the canícula),
A New Look at pre-Hispanic Puuc Maya Water Reservoirs 187

caused by oscillations in the northward extension of the ITC. The
precipitation peak in September is related to the hurricane season.
Although relatively localized and infrequent (one hurricane
crosses the Yucatan Peninsula on average a year [Wilson 1980:
23]), these must have had potentially devastating effects in the
past, as they often do in the present. For instance, bringing 200
mm of rainfall to Calkini on September 14, 1988 (data from
CNA, Campeche), Hurricane Gilbert is estimated to have destroyed
90% of the maize crop across the Yucatan Peninsula (Dunning
1992:25). The dry season begins as the ITC and the subtropical wes-
terly jet stream move south and hurricanes and tropical storms cease
to form over the warm waters of the mid-Atlantic and the Caribbean
(Hastenrath 1966). Dry season rainfall is caused by sporadic south-
ward invasions of polar air (nortes) that pick up moisture from the
Gulf and produces rain when passing over the peninsula (Bryson
and Hare 1974:13; Mosiño Aleman and García 1974:357; Vivó
Escoto 1964:193; Wilson 1980:23).
The annual climatic pattern include several crucial periods
that present potential challenges to living and cultivating in the
Puuc: (1) the timing of the wet season in late spring/early
summer; (2) the length, stability, and net precipitation of the wet
season; (3) the timing and severity of the canícula, the summer
dry spell; (4) the potential damage of hurricanes and tropical
storms in late summer/early autumn; and, (5) the distribution and
volume of dry season rains in the period from late autumn to
early spring. In addition to storage and dry season buffering, an
important aspect of agricultural water management in the Puuc
region involves capturing and storing rainwater for pot irrigation
during the summer dry spell. The start of the planting season is coor-
dinated with the beginning of the wet season in late spring/early
summer. Then, at the heel of the planting season when the tender
plants are the most delicate, the canícula might set in. If the young
plants do not receive sufficient moisture they will perish in the high-
summer heat and the fields will have to be replanted—late in the
Figure 3. Surface architecture documented at Xuch. Five settlement clusters were mapped during the 1998 field season at Xuch: The
Central Complex, Hebech, Xuch II, Xhai-be-Hebech, and the isolated Eastern Group. The points on the map represent surface archi-
tecture located and described during systematic transect survey in the northwestern section (see Isendahl 2002). Note the central
location of the
aguada
in relation to the settlement remains.
Isendahl188

season—with less optimal climatic conditions and a great risk of a
poor or failed harvest. Effectively managing water, crops, and fields
through the canícula was among the most crucial activities of the
Puuc agricultural calendar to sustain a productive agrosystem.
Although modern irrigation minimizes some of the vulnerability
to climate anomalies of rain-fed agriculture in the Puuc environ-
ment, sufficient moisture availability for plant growth is still cause
for concern among farming households practicing low-
technological forms of swidden agriculture (milpa farming) and
climatic and hydrological characteristics forestall permanent settle-
ment. “It is a place for work, not to live,”say the elderly farmers
now cultivating the soils at Xuch. Commuting 15 km from
Calkini, they bring in plastic containers of drinking water by
truck for work-intensive periods of clearing at the end of the dry
season. This picture of farming must be contrasted with that of
the Late Classic to the Early Postclassic periods when the Puuc
formed a complex, intensely cultivated cultural landscape with
numerous large sedentary settlements. A handful of paleoclimatic
proxy sources from throughout the northern Yucatan Peninsula
(e.g., Brenner et al. 2002) suggest generally drier conditions than
today and indicate several drought episodes during the later
period of Puuc agro-urban settlement. Indeed, Dunning (2008)
argues that the investment in reservoir construction in the Puuc
region may possibly have been in response to increasingly arid con-
ditions in the Terminal Preclassic and again in the Terminal Classic
period. Either way, managing a crucial resource that was period-
ically in short and erratic supply was a key to household and com-
munity survival in the Puuc region.
FORMATION PROCESSES OF THE XUCH WATER
RESERVOIR
Although aguadas are quite widespread in the Nohkakab Valley
their total number and distribution in the Puuc is still inadequately
known. Dunning (2008) lists 38 known aguadas, but the inventory
is likely to expand—perhaps significantly so—with further field
surveys. Thirteen of those known from the Puuc are found at
Uxmal, five at Tzemez Akal, four at Xcoch, two at Nohpat, and
there are 14 pre-Hispanic settlements with a single water reservoir,
Xuch among them. As Nicholas Dunning (personal communication
2009) points out, Puuc aguadas come in many sizes and shapes, but
there is no direct correlation between settlement size and reservoir
size.
The formation of Puuc water reservoirs is a complex long-term
process that has involved both natural forces and human engineering
(Dunning 2008). Reservoirs were fashioned from topographic
depressions located in the flatlands of the Puuc landscape mosaic.
These flatlands are composed of Quaternary soil deposits that are
known as Kancab in the local folk soil taxonomy, a dominating
feature of the Nohkakab soilscape (Dunning 1992). Kancab soils
are equivalent to Nitisols in the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO) soil taxonomy and to
Alfisols in the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
system of classification. These are deep, well-drained, and per-
meable red to reddish brown clayey soils that are generally regarded
among the most productive in the tropics (Driessen et al. 2001). In
the western part of the Nohkakab zone they are found in pockets of
variable acreages, from a few hectares to several square kilometers.
Depressions—or shallow hollows in the terrain—may form naturally
in these flatlands when structural fracturing is occurring in the lime-
stone bedrock underlying the soil cover (Dunning 1992:22). In the
karst geomorphology of the Puuc region, large structural fractures
facilitate further solution of the bedrock and produces vertical chan-
nels in the limestone that connect the surface with the water table.
Depending on topographic location, among other factors, such a
channel may function as a swallow-hole—the geological feature
that is known as a xuch to Puuc farmers. During the wet season,
when the hydrological system of the peninsula is in dramatic
motion, hydrostatic pressure powers a draw in the vertical swallow-
holes that rapidly drains rainwater from the surface to the aquifer.
The draw is sometimes so strong that not only water is emptied:
surface runoff and throughflow carries dirt and organic materials
through the xuch (Siemens 1978:136–137). Repeated over longer
periods of time, the subsurface transport of matter excavates the flat-
lands and produces depressions in the landscape. If the xuch even-
tually plugs, thus preventing water and other materials from
rapidly washing out, the depression will fill during the rainy
season to form intermittent bodies of water. Hence, the geophysical
requirements for the formation processes of depressions—chiefly
fracturing in the karst bedrock and relatively deep deposits of
Quaternary soils—control the potential distribution of still-water
reservoirs. This is mirrored in a greater concentration of water reser-
voirs in the Nohkakab Valley compared with the Bolonchen Hills,
where these deep soil deposits are more infrequent and less predomi-
nant in the landscape (Nicholas Dunning, personal communication
2009).
For a seasonal still-water body to form, the swallow-hole needs
to be plugged, and the origin of the sealing—by human design or by
stochastic natural process—is a potential variable to distinguish a
constructed reservoir from a natural pond. If soil and organic
materials get caught in the channel and simply clog up the xuch,
a wet season natural pond will form. A pond may certainly be
used as an important water source, but it needs to be physically
modified to retain water, to increase storage capacity, or to any
other economic, political, or symbolic end—in order to qualify as
a reservoir. To be able to make this distinction with absolute cer-
tainty requires rather specific data that is usually not available,
and we will often have to rely on circumstantial and comparative
evidence.
We have not much data on this, but swallow-holes may often
have been sealed intentionally to control drainage and retain water
in a reservoir. A sustained plugging of the swallow-hole must
have been a fundamental objective of Puuc water reservoir engineer-
ing; the first in a series of potential modifications in order to increase
water capture, retention, and storage capacity of a depression.
Owing to the relatively unstable character of karst geomorphology,
water bodies are vulnerable to sudden substructure collapse and
drain. Such events may have had fundamental effects on a Puuc
Maya agro-urban community. If the seal breaks during the wet
season—if the plugging of the xuch is ruptured while holding sub-
stantial water volumes—the effect can be dramatic: emptying
rapidly through the vertical channel to the water table, the body of
water might disappear in an instant. In karst landscapes, percolating
water labors endlessly to wear down the geological structure, creating
cavities in the soluble limestone and spectacular incidents of entire
lakes vanishing are historically known from karst landscapes else-
where. In karst geomorphology limestone solution never sleeps and
it might very well be that a series of swallow-holes opened in the geo-
logical structure below the depression floor before, during, and after
400 years or so of pre-Hispanic agro-urban settlement at Xuch.
Indeed, there has been no sealing in place to block rainwater
from draining the aguada over the last 50 years, an elderly farmer
A New Look at pre-Hispanic Puuc Maya Water Reservoirs 189

cultivating the soils in the Xuch landscape informs us. Over this
period of time the aguada has never been filled with water. But
then he corrects himself, reminiscing September 1988. When
Hurricane Gilbert passed over the area, water flooded at Xuch as
it never has done either before or since. But the flooding incident
was brief and three days later the water was all gone. Powerfully
draining large volumes of water into the underground karst hydrolo-
gical system, even trees uprooted by storm winds were drawn into
the xuch in the aftermath of the hurricane. Such flooding is rare,
however. Although a hurricane hits the peninsula every year on
average, storm-tracks are localized and strong winds and downpour
does not directly affect the entire region. But also with more mod-
erate rainfall levels in the wet season the powerful hydrological
draw produces flushing and hissing sounds at the mouth of the
swallow-hole so strong it can be heard from a considerable distance.
This sound-making in the landscape is a notable characteristic of the
Yucatec karst xuch.
Dunning (1992:22) notes that clays accumulating on reservoir
floors increases retention capacity. Investigating soil profiles of
the banks of two water reservoirs at Uxmal and Muluch Tzekel,
Dunning (1992:22–23) also found that soil had been deposited on
the rims and that some of these deposits consisted of floor muck,
presumably excavated to increase water-holding capacity.
Securing the water reservoir from seepage might have been an
arduous task over the long-term. Surface data from Xuch adds to
this observation and provides a new clue to the long-term formation
processes of reservoir berms and their functions in the pre-Hispanic
agro-urban Puuc landscape. Field reconnaissance at the aguada in
2007 revealed that dense thicket and tree growth present during pre-
vious surveys had concealed from view fragments of a berm, an
inclination in relief from the surrounding flatlands (Figure 4), that
runs along sections of the ca. 900 m long perimeter of the irregularly
shaped landform (Figure 5). At its largest, the berm is about 10 m
wide and rises to a height of about 2–3 m above the current exterior
ground surface (Figure 6). The shapes of both the exterior and
interior berm slopes are roughly linear. The maximum estimated
depth of the depression is currently 4 m, but it is difficult to estimate
the depth of the reservoir in pre-Hispanic times. The exterior slope
of the aguada is moderately steep, while the interior slope of the
berm—which merges with the margin of the depression—is very
steep. A rough estimate indicates that the reservoir once had a poten-
tial water holding capacity of between 50,000 to 100,000 m
3
and
that at least 5,000 to 10,000 m
3
of soil had been used in the construc-
tion of the berm. Centuries of continuous silting may have made the
depression shallower. The floor of the aguada is distinctly level
which does indeed indicate significant silting. On the other hand,
since the reservoir has been left unmanaged after the agro-urban
landscape was abandoned in pre-Hispanic times, continuous drain-
ing may have further excavated the depression. Until a detailed
record of sedimentation stratigraphy and history is made available
from excavation, a reasonable working hypothesis is that periods
of net silting have alternated with periods of net excavation over
close to a millennium of managerial neglect. When brought together
the evidence from Uxmal and Muluch Tzekel—which demonstrate
that aguada berms are anthropogenic and partly constructed from
muck excavated from the reservoir floor—and the Xuch data—
which indicate that such berms might have formed very large fea-
tures—is important for understanding the importance of water reser-
voirs in the pre-Hispanic Puuc Maya landscape.
With the evidence available at the moment we cannot say how or
when the swallow-hole in the aguada at Xuch was sealed, but a
reasonable working hypothesis is that the depression was a function-
ing reservoir when the agro-urban settlement began to evolve during
the Late Classic period (a.d. 600–800). Similarly, exactly when the
seal ruptured we do not yet know, but it must have been earlier than
half a century ago. Perhaps it broke towards the end of the last phase
of agro-urban settlement and should be associated with the
Figure 4. Interior of the southeastern leg of the water reservoir, looking southeast. The earthen wall is on the left; note Milo Aké May
in the far background indicating the size of features. The approximate external ground surface level is shown by a dashed line. The
aguada
floor is currently markedly level, indicating significant silting. Photo by the author.
Figure 5. Modified detail from Google Earth image of the Xuch
aguada
(original image accessed May 10, 2008). The diagonal scale indicates the
location of the profile drawing seen in Figure 6.
Isendahl190

processes that led to the abandonment of the area during the early
phase of the Early Postclassic period (a.d. 1000–1250)?
Nicholas Dunning ( personal communication 2009) notes that
water reservoirs with open swallow-holes are rare, citing only two
other known cases—one at Uxmal, another at the appropriately
named Xuchah in the Bolonchen Hills south of the Nohkakab
Valley. He also suggests that true open swallow-holes may never
have existed at some depressions that formed from initial subsurface
collapse followed by subsidence of overlying material. It is clear
that we need detailed excavation data from a series of Puuc
aguadas in order to understand patterns of similarity and variation
in their formation processes and management histories.
Nevertheless, reservoir construction and maintenance must often
have involved considerable labor investment to increase storage
capacity and control seepage. The permeable qualities of the karst
geological structure encouraged treatment of depression walls and
floors to increase retention capacity, but very little substantial evi-
dence exists. Already John Lloyd Stephens (1843) reported on the
discovery of wells, platforms, and stone linings buried under
several feet of mud in the floor of a dried-up Puuc water reservoir.
More recent excavations in an aguada floor at Uxmal, ca. 15 km to
the east of Xuch, produced evidence of a stone-lined well (Huchim
Herrera 1991). Extracting water from surrounding saturated strata, a
well in the floor extended the water holding season of the reservoir.
Wells might also have been constructed in depressions that did not
hold any substantial amounts of water but at least were associated
with saturated substrata. Although Dunning (1992:22–23) reports
the inclusion of muck in the construction of berms, most of the
strata show no evidence of origin in excavated floor sediments.
The limited evidence so far available indicates that there are
several causative factors to the formation of Puuc water reservoir
berms. One contributing factor to the deposition of muck on the
depression rim is reservoir maintenance. A berm or earthen wall
on the edge of the depression may also have functioned as a protec-
tive barrier reducing the catchment area and counteracting excessive
silting from surface runoff. But these functional factors are probably
relatively minor. The natural formation processes of depressions and
the subsequent anthropogenic modification of these landforms into
water reservoirs formed part of a wide-ranging and long-term trans-
formation of the Puuc environment into a multi-dimensional
agro-urban landscape that involved a number of different biogeo-
physical, economic, socio-political, and religious aspects.
WATER RESERVOIRS IN PUUC MAYA POLITICAL
ECONOMY
Dunning (1992) suggests—principally on the basis of the greater
productivity of the Nohkakab Puuc soils—that this region func-
tioned as a breadbasket for other areas in the northern Yucatan
Peninsula where local soilscape was poorer (but where farming
was more resilient to climatic anomalies owing to an accessible
aquifer). From a World Systems perspective (for recent updates of
this broad field of investigation see Hornborg and Crumley
[2007] and Hornborg et al. [2007]), the export of bulk foodstuffs
from the Puuc to neighboring regions and beyond is likely to have
strengthened local elite political and economical control of
farming populations, cultivable land, and produce. Producing for
export seems often to accelerate short-term maximization of pro-
duction at the expense of maintaining long-term resilient agrosys-
tems (for a couple of archaeological applications of these
concepts see Adams [1978] and Alexander [2005]) and puts more
pressure on local agro-ecosystems. We are only beginning to under-
stand the detailed relationship between household-based subsistence
economies and controlling political economies in the Puuc region
(Demarest 1996; Masson and Freidel 2002), but the scale and distri-
bution of monumental civic-ceremonial building complexes in
Maya landscapes suggests that asymmetrical power relations—the
basis of economic control and inequality—was a strongly percepti-
ble notion in the day-to-day life of most people (Smith 2003). To
varying degrees social inequity was present in the perceptions of
landscape, in cosmology, in the calendar, in the built environment,
in land-use rights, in identity, history, and social memory (Isendahl
2006b).
But political coercion and economic control was ultimately a
matter of social negotiation. In this social process, public large-scale
politico-religious ceremony was an important tool for political inte-
gration (Inomata 2006). The ceremonial landscape of the
pre-Hispanic Puuc Maya seems to have organized a number of
different structured locations for integrative political ceremony
(generally the same as elsewhere in the Maya lowlands), such as
plazas (Inomata 2006), ballcourts (Fox 1996), and water reservoirs
(Lucero 2006a; Scarborough 1998). Central locations with high
visibility and the capacity to accommodate a large audience are a
couple of general characteristics that seem to offer conditions
ideal for large-scale public performances serving community-
integrating political purposes. The central location of the water
reservoir in the agro-urban landscape at Xuch (where there are
several plazas, but no ballcourt) is ideal in this regard.
Furthermore, located less than 400 m to the north of the central
civic-ceremonial core complex, the reservoir is spatially associated
with elite sectors of the landscape, similar to the spatial context of
water reservoirs at Tikal and thus suggesting a parallel to the
rather tightly-knit central political control of water reservoirs there
(Scarborough 1998).
The evidence for a water reservoir berm at Xuch is the most sub-
stantial evidence for large-scale water reservoir landform modifi-
cation so far accounted for in the Puuc region. Evidence of major
labor investments in reservoir berms is currently available only
from a handful of other pre-Hispanic Puuc settlements, including
Muluch Tzekel, Uxmal, and Yaxhom (Nicholas Dunning, personal
communication 2009). Whether this reflects differences in social
investment, a lack of research, or both still remains to be determined,
Figure 6. Profile drawing of the water reservoir indicating shapes and dimensions of earthen walls and reservoir floor. Drawing by the
author.
A New Look at pre-Hispanic Puuc Maya Water Reservoirs 191

but I suspect further field research will be rewarding in this regard.
The interpretation that the Xuch reservoir formed a key place in the
ceremonial landscape of the agro-urban community supplements a
strictly functionalistic interpretation of freshwater procurement in
a seasonally dry area with permeable geological structure and an
inaccessible aquifer. This suggests that the creation of the berm
formed part of a long-term construction program that transformed
a natural depression to an engineered monumental complex for
politico-religious ceremony. Indeed, following Scarborough’s
(1993, 2003) accretive model, the social and economic cost of
investing in the transformation of landscape adds to the symbolic
and energetic binding to the place.
The central location of the water reservoir in the settlement at
Xuch is, however, somewhat unusual. Although there are other
examples of centrally located Puuc water reservoirs—cases
include Nakaskat and Yaxhom—aguadas are also found at more
peripheral locations in Puuc landscapes (Dunning, personal com-
munication 2009). There is also considerable variation in the size
and number of water reservoirs at pre-Hispanic Puuc settlements
(Dunning 2008). For instance, Nicholas Dunning (personal com-
munication 2009) notes that the water reservoir at Xkipche is
much smaller in comparison to the Xuch aguada—despite the
two settlements being of comparable size (see Prem 2003)—and
suggests that the Xkipche reservoir might have had a much
greater symbolic than practical value. Such differences were
undoubtedly a function of several factors, not least the distribution
of fractured bedrock underlying deep deposits of Quaternary soils
and a preference for placing civic-ceremonial and residential build-
ings on well-drained upland soils, but much more detailed compara-
tive regional research is needed to detail and understand
morphological, chronological, and contextual variation in the
Puuc region and elsewhere. An important conclusion that can be
drawn from Karla Davis-Salazar’s (2001, 2003, 2006; Fash and
Davis-Salazar 2006) and Julie Kunen’s (2006) research is that the
political framing of pre-Hispanic Maya water management is poten-
tially heterarchical—that is, it is neither static nor homogenous and
it has the capacity to be organized in many different ways (Crumley
1995; Scarborough 2003). The point is that the local evidence from
Xuch—chiefly the location and size of the reservoir and the monu-
mentality and labor investment associated with the construction of
the berm—suggest central political control of the water reservoir.
But this is not the only form of regional water management possible.
It might have involved a number of different strategies, including
both “bottom-up”and “top-down”systems. In a sense, the tension
between these two extremes sets the scene for social negotiation
in pre-Hispanic Puuc Maya water politics.
WATER RESERVOIRS IN PUUC MAYA RELIGIOUS
SYMBOLISM
Water is central to the human mind, to how we perceive the world, to
how we understand our being-in-the-world. The necessity of water
for any form of life, the fundamental physical qualities and attri-
butes of water (precipitating, settling, percolating, flowing, evapor-
ating, and so on), and the many daily uses of water (drinking,
cooking, sanitation, agricultural, in production, etc.) provide for a
rich water symbolism in pre-Hispanic Maya and Mesoamerican cos-
mology that is well attested from iconographic, epigraphic, ethno-
historic, palaeoethnobotanic, and archaeological research
(Bassie-Sweet 1996; Baudez 2003; Brady and Ashmore 1999;
Bonnafoux 2006; Cyphers et al. 2006; Dunning 2003; Dunning
et al. 2006; Dunning and Houston 2006; Fash 2005; Fash and
Davis-Salazar 2006; Freidel et al. 1993; French et al. 2006;
Hellmuth 1987; Houston and Taube 2006; Lucero 2006a; Lucero
and Fash 2006; Puleston 1977; Rands 1953, 1955; Scarborough
1998; Schele and Miller 1986). This body of research offers some
important clues on how the water reservoir at Xuch might have
been understood in pre-Hispanic cosmology and perceptions of
landscape: as a link to and representation of the Underworld; as
an axis mundi, a central point in the universe; in the context of an
ontology that found the Earth animate; as a symbol of the fertility
of the land; and as a sexual metaphor. Some of these aspects have
been very well demonstrated in previous scholarship, others need
further testing for definitive verification, but they all elucidate
how complex and diversified the pre-Hispanic understanding of
water reservoirs may have been.
One central theme in Maya cosmology of fundamental bearing
here is the strong association between water and the
Underworld—Xibalba, “The Place of Fear,”in the Popul Vuh
(Tedlock 1996)—of which there seems to be several expressions
in Maya iconography, epigraphy, and ethnohistory (e.g.,
Bassie-Sweet 1996). Hellmuth (1987), among others, suggests
that pools of water were associated with the surface of the
Underworld in Maya cosmology. Schele and colleagues (Schele
and Miller 1986; Friedel et al. 1993) argue that the deceased were
taken to the Underworld over waterways by canoe, and then broke
the water surface to enter Xibalba. This idea of a “watery
Underworld”in Mesoamerican cosmology (Cyphers et al. 2006)
is likely to reverberate with the nature of the karst environment on
the Yucatan Peninsula, where subterranean water-filled hollows,
caves, and reservoirs are regionally common. The Xuch water reser-
voir might symbolically have alluded to the Underworld as a pool of
water, but also as a conduit—through the swallow-hole, the xuch—
to the Underworld. The latter point is supported by a large volume
of analogous archaeological, iconographic, epigraphic, linguistic,
and ethnographic evidence that demonstrate that caves and
cenotes in particular—but also other cavities in the Earth’s
surface—were thought of as links between the physical world of
the living, and the Underworld (Bassie-Sweet 1996; Brady 1997;
Brady and Ashmore 1999; Brady and Prufer 2005; Brady and
Veni 1992; Brown 2006; Brown and Emery 2008; Coggins and
Shane 1984; Earle 2008; Fash and Davis-Salazar 2006; French
et al. 2006; Houston et al. 2006; Lucero 2006a; Prufer and Brady
2005; Scarborough 1998; Schele and Freidel 1990; Sievert 1992;
Stone 1995; Thompson 1959). In the Puuc region—where there
are no cenotes and almost no caves—water reservoirs probably
played the same symbolic role of a link between the different dimen-
sions of existence (Dunning 2008). The unusually clear physical
link at Xuch between a water reservoir and a hydrological swallow-
hole—the conduit in the karst bedrock literally linking the surface
with the underground water system—is particularly important in
that it substantiates the interpretation of Puuc water reservoirs as
being associated with the same kind of symbolism as are caves
and cenotes elsewhere in the Maya lowlands.
A related theme in Maya cosmology is the ordering of space
according to a quadripartite model with four directions and a
central point (Ashmore 1991; Freidel et al. 1993; Hanks 1990;
Redfield and Villa Rojas 1934; Schele and Freidel 1990; Taube
2003). This basic model of ordering space appears to have been
an essential component of southern Mesoamerican cosmology
since at least the early first millennium b.c. (Taube 2003:461).
Among the Maya, it seems to have influenced the organization of
Isendahl192

social space and guided planning and ordering of the built environ-
ment at several levels. Fields, houses, household groups, neighbor-
hoods, ceremonial buildings and plazas, and entire urban landscapes
have convincingly been interpreted using this model (Ashmore
1991, 1992; Hanks 1990; Taube 2003). Furthermore, the horizontal
quadripartite model was linked to a vertical conception of cosmos
consisting of three layers; the Celestial world, the human world,
and the Underworld. The different horizontal levels were vertically
joined together through the central point (Schele and Freidel 1990:
66–72). In this way of ordering and understanding the world, the
central point matches Eliade’s (1959a, 1959b) concept of axis
mundi, the world axis that is the center of creation and connects
the levels of cosmos (Brady 1997; Brady and Ashmore 1999;
Redfield and Villa Rojas 1934).
If the reservoir, as argued above, was conceptually associated
with a vertical conduit in the minds of the pre-Hispanic Xuch
inhabitants, then its location at the horizontal center of the commu-
nity suggests that it was also thought of something along the lines of
an axis mundi, even though the actual axis—the xuch—had been
plugged and lay beneath several meters of water under extended
periods of the year. This is an interpretation that parallels Brady’s
(2004) convincing argument that household underground water cis-
terns (in addition to their practical importance) were symbolic caves
and center points. As discussed above, these cisterns (chultunob)are
compulsory components of most residential groups at Xuch and in
the Puuc in general. These interpretations suggest that the associ-
ation of water sources with the center might have permeated
pre-Hispanic Puuc Maya thought and was reproduced in the order-
ing of space at different scales, from the landscape level to that of
the household compound.
Iconographic, epigraphic, and ethnohistoric evidence also
suggest that the pre-Hispanic Maya in some sense conceptualized
the universe as animate (e.g., Brown 2004). Yucatec Maya is rich
in metaphors and symbolism that suggests an animate conceptualiz-
ation of the Earth. For instance, the different senses of the Xuch
toponym can be interpreted to indicate a place where the Earth
gulps water through its mouth, the swallow-hole (Barrera Vásquez
1995:953–954). The idea and character of an animate Earth
among the pre-Hispanic Puuc Maya might have reverberated with
the geophysical behavior of the karst landscape: solution of lime-
stone creating remarkable landforms, water rapidly and forcefully
disappearing into the underground, and currents of air entering
and leaving structural cavities, flowing through underground net-
works of vertical and horizontal channels. Powered by hydrostatic
pressure and temperature differences, the latter phenomenon
might have supported an image of a breathing Earth, of inhalations
and exhalations. In the Puuc karst environment, wind and water in
motion acted to shape the face of the landscape and give breath to
the Earth (Bruchez 2007). Linguistic, epigraphic, and iconographic
evidence suggests that the pre-Hispanic Maya made a semiotic con-
nection between wind, breath, spirit, and soul and that they may
have believed that the wind originated from underground (Barrera
Vásquez 1995:266, 365, 530; Bassie-Sweet 1996:10; Houston
et al. 2006:143, 149). Houston and colleagues (2006:149) link the
Wind God, the different meanings of ik’(a term with multiple
senses, including wind, breath, spirit, and soul [Barrera Vásquez
1995:266; Houston et al. 2006:143]), and the notion of caves as
breathing. Draughts, winds, and currents of air flowing underground
through karst structural channels and in and out of surface cavities
probably substantiated perceptions of the Earth as animate. It also
seems to relate to the idea of spirits wandering between the
Celestial world, the human world, and the Underworld, feeding a
perception of vertical karst cavities as conduits.
Parallel to the idea of karst wind, water, and soil dynamics sub-
stantiating perceptions of a breathing, animate Earth and of wander-
ing spirits, the exchange and flow of fluids—of substances entering
and leaving Earth-penetrating cavities—bring to mind sexual meta-
phors. Even though the symbolic links between landforms, sexual
metaphors, political power, and fertility among the pre-Hispanic
Maya is less than lucid, there is evidence to suggest certain associ-
ations. For instance, Brady (1988; see also Heyden 1981 for a
Mesoamerican perspective) argues that the pre-Hispanic Maya sym-
bolically understood caves as wombs and Amrhein (2001) has
shown that the Puuc region abounds with monumental stone
phalli, demonstrating that pre-Hispanic Maya semiotics used
several different metaphors with sexual references. Amrhein
(2006) discusses how certain sexual symbols were associated with
rulership and political prowess and were important paraphernalia
in political ceremonies. A well-known example is the bloodletting
of royal genitals in Classic period political ceremony (Schele and
Miller 1986). Amrhein (2006) also argues that Puuc phallic sculp-
tures were associated with the Maya World Tree, another represen-
tation of the axis mundi. There seems also to have been a symbolic
bond between sexual reproduction and agricultural fertility in
pre-Hispanic Maya symbolism (admittedly not an entirely unique
idea), and maize, the principal crop in the Puuc region as elsewhere
in the Maya lowlands, occupies a key role in pre-Hispanic Maya
cosmogony (Freidel et al. 1993; Saturno 2006; Taube 2006). In
this context, the position of the water reservoir in the extensive
zone of deep and fertile soils might have amplified a symbolic
union of soil and water as the basis of maize production and ulti-
mately as life-giver of pre-Hispanic Puuc Maya agro-urban
economies.
In short, the symbolism associated with water reservoirs in the
Puuc appears to have been powerful, multifaceted, and complex,
suggesting that these locations were among the most important
places in the local perception of landscape. But the symbolic impor-
tance of water must not be assumed to have been a static constant.
Several scholars argue that the urgency and character of water sym-
bolism in pre-Hispanic Maya cosmology and ritual change over
time, at least to some extent in response to climatic anomalies and
events. Bonnafoux (2006) finds a link between Terminal
Preclassic period drought events and a shift in iconography
towards a stronger focus on aquatic motifs, and Normark (2006)
correlates increased aridity with intensified ritual activity at caves
to the east of the Puuc region. Dunning (2008) suggests that reser-
voir construction at Uxmal, Tzemez Akal, and Xcoch might have
been in response to increasingly arid conditions in the Terminal
Preclassic and the Terminal Classic periods. The role of climatic
anomalies, shifts, and drought events in the history of the Xuch
water reservoir is clearly an area for future study.
CONCLUSION
The central placement of the reservoir in the Xuch agro-urban land-
scape suggests it functioned as a settlement hub; being a member of
a Classic period community revolved, in many different ways,
around the water reservoir. Indeed, the data suggest that the impor-
tance, or “weight,”of water in Puuc Maya economics, politics, cos-
mology, and ritual can hardly be overestimated.
The evidence from Xuch demonstrates that water management
played an integral part in the long-term cultural transformation of
A New Look at pre-Hispanic Puuc Maya Water Reservoirs 193

environment that is still visible in the Puuc landscape, almost a mil-
lennium after major abandonment of the region in the Early
Postclassic. Owing to a combination of different interacting biogeo-
physical (climate, topography, and geomorphology) and sociocul-
tural (e.g., politics and economics) factors, the Classic period
Puuc Maya were particularly dependent on the successful manage-
ment of a water resource that was in great demand from large
sub-regional populations, an extractive political economy, and agro-
production for export, but in very short supply. Puuc Maya water
management was conspicuous in that it focused on the construction,
maintenance, and control of open still-water reservoirs. Reservoirs
in the Puuc region were elaborated from topographic depressions
that form naturally in the landscape only where pockets of relatively
deep Quaternary soils coincide with fractures in the underlying
limestone bedrock. Taking control of such resources was a central
elite strategy to dominate the political landscape.
At Xuch, evidence for the pre-Hispanic conversion of a natural
depression in the terrain into a managed water reservoir with con-
siderable volumetric storage capacity, its central location on the
landscape and proximity to the civic-ceremonial core complex,
and the labor investment needed for constructing the berm
running the perimeter demonstrates that the water reservoir was a
key component in the local agro-urban landscape. The water reser-
voir at Xuch served as a place for large-scale public political ritual—
a mechanism for identity formation, community integration, and
political legitimization—alongside other ceremonial spaces in
Maya landscapes, such as ballcourts and plazas. Local and compara-
tive evidence on the sacred symbolism of water, of
Earth-penetrating cavities, and concepts of the center in
pre-Hispanic Maya cosmology distill at the Xuch reservoir and
accentuate its significance and centrality in the sacred perception
of landscape and place.
RESUMEN
En las tierras bajas mayas, el manejo prehispánicodel agua era una actividad de
componentes múltiples, de diversidad a través del espacio y que cambiaba a
través del tiempo. En la región Puuc del área noroeste de la Península de
Yucatán, que se caracteriza por mostrar temporadas de sequía, las aguadas
grandes y “lagunas”dominaban la estrategia de manejo del agua desde el
período clásico tardío hasta el posclásico temprano (600–1250 d.C.). Las
aguadas se construían en depresiones naturales y se modificaban para incre-
mentar la capacidad de almacenamiento del agua pluvial y para controlar la
filtración. Las aguadas fungían como elementos de orientación y elementos
centrales en el urbanismo prehispánico del área Puuc y las depresiones
fueron asimismo objetos claves para atraer a la población a que se asentara.
La formación de depresión se asocia con los huecos geo-hidraulógicos como
sumideros, o “xuch”en maya yucateco, ubicados en la roca madre y a través
de los cuales se drenaba el agua pluvial durante la temporadade lluvias. El sim-
bolismo poderoso de cuerpos de agua y de las oquedades en la cosmología
maya hicieron que los lugares en donde se encontrasen aguadas fuesen sitios
importantes en el paisaje sagrado del área Puuc. Además, los elementos que
se movían y actuaban para moldear el paisaje kársticoalimentaban un concepto
de la Tierra como algo animado. Si bien las aguadas fueron utilizadas en estra-
tegias de riego por ollas en los solares de cultivo cercanos y en las unidades
domésticas de la gente acomodada para el consumo, su significado principal
descansaba en su capacidad como símbolos de potencia política. Al vincular
las metáforas de sexualidad con la fertilidad agrícola y de proceso político de
la élite gobernante, las aguadas fueron lugares clave en los ritos ceremoniales
de los paisajes agrícolas urbanos y formaban una parte esencial de la identidad
y auto imagen de los mayas del área Puuc.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I thank Emigdio Aké May for assistance during field reconnaissance at Xuch
and Lorraine Williams-Beck of the Universidad Autónoma de Campeche for
invaluable logistical support and for translating the abstract into Spanish. I
am very grateful indeed for the expert comments, suggestions, new infor-
mation, and critique offered by Karla Davis-Salazar, Nicholas Dunning,
and Vernon Scarborough. Their advice has been very helpful to improve
the ideas in this paper. Needless to say, all remaining shortcomings in
this work are entirely of my own making. Field reconnaissance reported
here was supported by the Krapperup Foundation and the manuscript
was prepared as part of the research project “Ecology, Power, and Religion
in Maya Landscapes”funded by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary
Foundation.
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