Appendix 



MISCELLANEOUS MARINE MATERIALS 



Apparently as part of the same ritual context, 

 various nonorganic materials of obvious marine 

 origin were included in the panoply of offerings. 

 Moholy-Nagy's manuscript mentions frequent inclu- 

 sions of coquina (composed largely of shells) and 

 various unidentified "fibrous" materials at Tikal. A 

 chunk of pumice with striations possibly indicating 

 use as a honing instrument was found in Formative 

 debris at Dzibilchaltun. At San Jose, a S.J. II or 

 possibly III cache contained 8 pieces of pumice, 

 mixed with corals or Bryozoa (T, p. i8i). Pumice, 

 normally lighter than water, is formed by the inter- 

 action of water and lava. Although not necessarily 

 of marine origin, the pumice blocks, which are 

 widely used as an abrasive by the present-day Maya, 

 are collected on the sea beaches, where occasionally 

 pumice floats ashore in considerable quantities dur- 

 ing storms and hence its apparent ritual connection 

 with the sea. 



Mention of fish has been purposely avoided in 

 this appendix. Description of vertebrate remains at 

 Dzibilchaltun and the Cancun Midden will be pub- 

 lished separately. In this category, however, two 

 items are closely associated with votive offerings, 

 and should be mentioned. Spines of the stingray and 

 of the spiny boxfish have been found at a number 

 of sites, as well as copies of the former in bone, often 

 elaborately and beautifully engraved. These are 

 clearly related to the penitential bloodletting rites 

 of the ancients, in which they must have played a 

 very significant part. Functionally they could much 

 more simply have been replaced with the great 

 variety of thorns arming so much of the local flora 



against visitors. The fact that they were chosen, 

 despite the difficulty of collection and importation, 

 bespeaks some fundamental identification between 

 the practices and the sea. 



SUMMARY 



The molluscs described in the previous pages are, 

 with a few exceptions, of ambiguous cultural im- 

 port, although certain aspects of usage are clear. 

 But most of the items listed in this appendix lacked 

 any aesthetic or economic value. Many of the mol- 

 luscs were edible or of value as raw material for 

 the manufacture of jewelry and artifacts. But lumps 

 of coral or coquinas, colonies of Bryozoa, or fronds 

 of Gorgonia had no such uses. They reflect a "Cult 

 of the Sea" which must clearly have been of great 

 ceremonial import and which we may never prop- 

 erly understand. From the Formative to the Deca- 

 dent period, the Maya added such objects to their 

 offertory caches and their tombs. Non-moUuscan 

 forms are found in much greater abundance at far 

 inland Tikal than at Dzibilchaltun, which is close 

 to the sea. However, Moholy-Nagy points out that 

 the bulk of such offerings at Tikal date to the Early 

 Classic, and that they became less and less common 

 in the Late Classic. Dzibilchaltun, between its climax 

 phases in the middle Formative and the Late Early 

 period and Pure Florescent, was apparently a site of 

 little importance. We found only one stone-walled 

 (unvaulted) structure datable to the first phase of 

 the Early period, and our stratigraphic sample is 

 correspondingly tiny. So this may well be the reason 

 for the apparent discrepancy. 



