Baking Pot

Baking Pot is a Maya archaeological site located in the Belize River Valley on the
Baking Pot
southern bank of the river, northeast of modern-day town of San Ignacio in the Cayo
District of Belize; it is 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) downstream from the Barton Ramie and Location San Ignacio,
Lower Dover archaeological sites. Baking Pot is associated with an extensive Belize, Cayo
amount of research into Maya settlements, community-based archaeology, and of District,
agricultural production; the site possesses lithic workshops, and possible evidence of Belize
cash-cropping cacao[1][2] as well as a long occupation from the Preclassic through to Region Cayo District
the Postclassic period. Coordinates 17°12′11″N
The site at Baking Pot is unique in that it had a large population during the Terminal
89°1′10″W
Classic while other sites in the Belize River Valley were declining, and occupation History
continued into the Postclassic whereas major Classic Period sites in the southern Periods Preclassic to
lowlands were by then abandoned.[3] After the Classic period site cores in much of Postclassic
the Belize Valley were abandoned, but at Baking Pot “survey and excavation of occupation
house mounds and plazuela groups immediately outside the site core suggested that
Cultures Maya
Postclassic occupation there is more substantial and prolonged than in the site
Site notes
core”.[3] The abundance of Tayasal-associated Augustine Red ceramics at Baking
Pot, along with the association of these ceramics with a different organizational and Archaeologists Oliver Ricketson,
settlement pattern suggest that there was an intrusion of people from central Petén Bullard and
during this time.[3][4] Researchers like Aimers favor a gradual abandonment of the Bullard, Belize
site at a much later time period than other sites in the region. Valley
Archaeological
Reconnaissance
Project (current)
Contents
History
Excavations
References
Further reading
External links

History
In the late Preclassic, Baking Pot had a small population with little public architecture. In the Early Classic, the site experienced a
construction boom. Two architectural groups were built, with Group A to the north and Group B (containing the largest structure at
Baking Pot) to the south. This north-south orientation is similar to nearby Xunantunich.[5] Earlier excavators like Ricketson, Gordon
Willey, and Bullard and Bullard describe these groups as Group 1 and Group 2. These major complexes make up the center of Baking
Pot and are connected by a causeway (or sacbe). In the Late Classic, the population increased to approximately 3000 people. Toward
the end of the Classic period the local elite left and the palace complexes in the city center were abandoned. In the early Postclassic,
people were still living on a portion of the site but rarely used the ceremonial center and there was very little new construction. Much
of the people living at Baking Pot were farmers; being close to the Belize River the site has fertile soil in an alluvial valley and is
primarily associated with agricultural production.

Excavations
In the 1920s, A.H. Anderson first conducted archaeological research at Baking Pot after some materials from the site were used in the
construction of the western highway. Later excavations by Oliver Ricketson,[6] Gordon Willey in the 1950s and William Bullard and
Mary Bullard completed major excavations in the 1960s,.[7] Wiley is best known for his excavations and settlement research at
Barton Ramie and for his focus on Maya households during a time when most people were only focused on elite.[1] Limited work
was done at the site during the 1920s, 1950s, and 1960s until theBelize Valley Archeological Reconnaissance Project started working
there in the 1990s, with its work continuing into the 21st century[8] with BVAR researchers working under the direction of Dr. Jaime
Awe, including Jim Conlon, Jim Aimers, JosalynFerguson, Jennifer Piehl, Carolyn Audet, Christophe Helmke, and Julie Hoggarth.

A complex water management system exists at the site, including a series of aguadas and seasonal streams, along with the presence
of drains in the palace complex, work to feed water from the foothills to the south down through the site and into the aduadas before
dumping into the Belize River. Baking Pot is named after large pots were found by archaeologists that were once used to boil chicle.
At the Bedran group nearby, a house group that was excavated, burial grave goods were found including painted ceramic vessels with
a primary standard sequencearound the top dated to the Early Classic.[9] These vessels were cacao drinking vessels and were thought
to contain a placename: Four Water Place, although this is now reinterpreted as a royal title. There are no carved monuments at
Baking Pot, although several uncarvedstelae and uncarved altars have been found.

A causeway extends south and to the west of Group B and ends at a causeway terminus structure (Mound 190). Here hundreds of
broken vessels were found in front of the stairway, possibly from a termination ritual. Mound 190 had deposits with finger bones, an
altar, and intact mini ceramic vessels below it with tiny specks of jade. This mound also contains evidence of ritual activity and is
believed to be used for ritual/ceremonial purposes. The discovery of finger bones is similar to the finger bowl caches associated with
Caracol (and also found at Cahal Pech) and may provide evidence of Caracol control or influence at Baking Pot at the time.[10]
Vessel 2 at Baking Pot describes its owner in a similar structure that is found at Caracol as well.[10] Naranjo pottery has also been
found here at Baking Pot, and evidence for a push to control the Belize River Valley after the fall of Tikal was described on a
monument at Xunantunich.

References
1. Willey, G. R., Bullard, W. R., Glass, J. B., Gifford, J. C., & Elliot, O. (1965). Prehistoric Maya settlements in the Belize
Valley. Cambridge, Mass: Peabody Museum.
2. Audet, Carolyn, and Jaime J. Awe. (2004)What's Cooking at Baking Pot: A Report of the 2001-2003 Field Seasons.
In Jaime Awe, John Morris and Sherilyne Jones, Eds., Research Reports in Belezian Archaeology
, Vol 1, pp. 49-60.
3. Aimers, James J. (2003). Abandonment and Nonabandonment at Baking Pot, Belize. Inakeshi
T Inomata and Ronald
W. Wedd, Eds., The Archaeology of Settlement Abandonment in Middle America. Salt Lake City: University of Utah
Press.
4. Chase, Arlen F. (1986). Time Depth or Vacuum: The 11.3.0.0.0 Correlation and the Lowland Maya Postclassic, in
J.A. Sabloff and E.W. Andrews V, Eds., Late Lowland Maya Civilization: Classic to Postclassic, pp. 99-140,
University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
5. Awe, Jaime J. (2008) Architectural Manifestations of Power and Prestige: Examples from Classic Period
Monumental Architecture at Cahal Pech, Xunantunich and Caracol, Belize. In John Morris, Sherilyne Jones, Jaime
Awe, and Christophe Helmke, Eds., Research Reports in Belizean ArchaeologyVolume 5, pp. 159-174. Institute of
Archaeology, National Institute of Culture andHistory, Belmopan, Belize.
6. Ricketson, O. G. (1931). Excavations at Baking Pot, British Honduras. In Contributions to American Archaeology
, Vol
1, No. 1, pp. 1-28. Washington, D.C: Carnegie Institute of Washington
7. Bullard, W. R., & Bullard, M. R. (1965). Late classic finds at Baking Pot, British Honduras. Art and Archaeology
Occasional Papers, No. 8. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
8. Awe, Jaime J., Julie Hoggarth, and Christophe Helmke. Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the Upper Belize River
Valley and Their Implications for Models of Low-Density Urbanism.
9. Awe, Jaime J. and Christophe G.B. Helmke.(2005). Alive and Kicking in the 3rd to 6th Centuries A.D.: Defining the
Early Classic in the Belize River Valley. In Jaime Awe, John Morris, Sherilyne Jones, and Christophe Helmke, Eds.,
Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology , Vol 2:39-52. Institute of Archaeology, National Institute of Culture and
History, Belmopan, Belize.