Abstract
We explore the inhumation (and occasional exhumation) of the dead within the framework of ritual practice at El Kinel, Guatemala. Over the course of this chapter, we argue that mortuary rites served to both (re)constitute society at El Kinel and reified that community’s participation within the greater Yaxchilan polity of the eighth century AD. To make our case, we reconstruct the ideology of these mortuary practices through the study of 12 burials from El Kinel. In our analysis, we draw on data from archaeology, osteology, taphonomy, iconography, ethnohistory, and ethnography. Although the veneration of ancestors and perhaps the validation of lineage are evident in our analysis, more salient in our results is a ritual tradition that reflected localized (at the level of kingdom) interpretations of pan-Maya beliefs regarding the treatment of the dead. We conclude that in the eighth century AD, funerary rites served as an integrative mechanism within the Yaxchilan kingdom, uniting king and commoner through shared ritual practice.