Archaeology Division

Gallery Session

Ancient Maya Pottery Standardization at the Paynes Creek Salt Works, Belize

Maya, Political Economy, Ceramics

Presenter(s)

• ES

  Elizabeth Sills

  Assistant Professor
  University of Texas at Tyler

Underwater excavations at the ancient Maya Paynes Creek Salt Works in Belize have yielded an abundance of briquetage—pottery used to evaporate salty water by heating over fires to make salt. The briquetage is associated with the remarkable preservation of wooden architecture. The increase in the scale of salt works during the Late and Terminal Classic (A.D. 600-900) coincides with an increase in settlements as well as an increase in population at interior cities in the southern lowlands. In this paper, we discuss the results of measurements of the diameters of salt pots and support vessels recovered from underwater excavations at the Paynes Creek Salt Works. Measurable briquetage includes bowls, jars, and clay vessel supports called cylinders. The results indicate that the salt pots and vessel supports exhibit less variability than utilitarian pottery from the nearby settlement of Wild Cane Cay. However, there is variation between separate salt works in regards to salt pot and vessel support sizes suggesting that the production of the saltmaking equipment was the result of individual potters or small groups of potters from separate households. The standardization of saltmaking pottery at the Paynes Creek Salt Works and an increase in the scale of production suggests that the Paynes Creek Salt Works were specialized workshops.