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Baking Pot
	Shown within Belize
Location	San Ignacio, Belize, Cayo District, Belize
Region	Cayo District
Coordinates	17°12′05″N 89°0′36″W / 17.20139°N 89.01000°W
History
Periods	Preclassic to Postclassic occupation
Cultures	Maya
Site notes
Archaeologists	Oliver Ricketson, Bullard and Bullard, Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project (current)

Baking Pot is a Maya archaeological site located in the Belize River Valley on the 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 Lower Dover archaeological sites. Baking Pot is associated with an extensive amount of research into Maya settlements, community-based archaeology, and of agricultural production; the site possesses lithic workshops, and possible evidence of cash-cropping cacao^[1]^[2] as well as a long occupation from the Preclassic through to the Postclassic period.

The site at Baking Pot is unique in that it had a large population during the Terminal Classic while other sites in the Belize River Valley were declining, and occupation continued into the Postclassic whereas major Classic Period sites in the southern lowlands were by then abandoned.^[3] After the Classic period site cores in much of the Belize Valley were abandoned, but at Baking Pot “survey and excavation of house mounds and plazuela groups immediately outside the site core suggested that Postclassic occupation there is more substantial and prolonged than in the site 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 settlement pattern suggest that there was an intrusion of people from central Petén during this time.^[3]^[4] Researchers like Aimers favor a gradual abandonment of the site at a much later time period than other sites in the region.

History

AMS radiocarbon results on burials and a cache show the site was first occupied around 700 - 400 BC. 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 roughly 250 meter long causeway (or sacbe). In the Late Classic, the population increased to approximately 2,500 people. Toward the end of the Terminal 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 Group A 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

The site has an area of about nine square kilometers. 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 (a single season in 1924 on behalf of the Carnegie Institution),^[6] Gordon Willey in the 1950s and William Bullard and Mary Bullard (a single season in 1962) 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] Beginning in 1992 the Belize Valley Archeological Reconnaissance Project started working at Baking Pot, 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, Josalyn Ferguson, Jennifer Piehl, Carolyn Audet, Christophe Helmke, and Julie Hoggarth.^[9] Among the finds were 110 grooved stones of which half were intact enough to examine. Their function is unknown.^[10]

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 sequence around the top dated to the Early Classic.^[11] 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 uncarved stelae 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.^[12] Vessel 2 at Baking Pot describes its owner in a similar structure that is found at Caracol as well.^[12] 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.

In 2016 a 9 inch high ceremonial drinking vessel, the Komkom Vase, was discovered. It contains a long Mayan hieroglyphic inscription with a 9th century long count and describes a war between the King of Komkon, allied with the city of Naranjo, and the nearby city of Yaxha^[13]^[14] The vase was found in 82 fragments, now assembled, which made up about 60% of the original. The entire vase would have had about 202 hieroglyphic blocks.^[15]^[16]

References

^ ^a ^b 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.
^ 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.
^ ^a ^b ^c Aimers, James J. (2003). Abandonment and Nonabandonment at Baking Pot, Belize. In Takeshi Inomata and Ronald W. Wedd, Eds., The Archaeology of Settlement Abandonment in Middle America, pp. 149-162, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
^ 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.
^ 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 Archaeology Volume 5, pp. 159-174. Institute of Archaeology, National Institute of Culture and History, Belmopan, Belize.
^ 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
^ 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.
^ Awe, JJ, Hoggarth, JA & Helmke, C, "Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the Upper Belize River Valley and their Implications for Models of Low-Density Urbanism", in C Helmke & F Sachse (eds), A Celebration of the Life and Work of Pierre Robert Colas. Verlag Anton Saurwein, Munich, Acta Mesoamericana, vol. 27, pp. 263-285, 2014
^ Awe, J. J. (ed.), "Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project: Progress Report of the 1992 Field Season", Department of Anthropology, Trent University, Peterborough, ON, 1993
^ Aimers, James J., et al., "POSSIBLE FUNCTIONS OF GROOVED GROUND STONES FROM BAKING POT, BELIZE", Lithic Technology, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 5–26, 2011
^ 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.
^ ^a ^b Helmke, Christophe and Jaime J. Awe. (2008). Organización Territorial de los Antiguos Mayas de Belice Central: Confluencia de Datos Arqueológicos y Epigráficos. Mayeb 20:65-91. In press Ancient Maya Territorial Organization of Central Belize: Confluence of Archaeological and Epigraphic Data. Acta Mesoamericana.
^ Helmke C, Hoggarth JA, Awe JJ, Bednar SE, Johnson AL., "Some initial comments on the Komkom Vase discovered at Baking Pot, Belize", Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology, pp. 227–240, 2017
^ Helmke C, Hoggarth JA, Awe JJ., "A reading of the Komkom Vase discovered at Baking Pot, Belize", Monograph 3. San Francisco: Precolumbia Mesoweb Press, 2018 ISBN 978-0985931773
^ Hieroglyphic Text on Royal Vase Reveals Clues About Mystery Collapse of Ancient Maya Civilization - Newsweek - 4/23/19
^ Discovery of Painted Hieroglyphic Vase Gives Clues about Breakdown of Ancient Maya Civilization - Baylor University - April 15, 2019