Abstract
We take a materialist view of power and authority in this chapter, recognizing, as Sarah Kurnick (this volume:3) insightfully states in her opening chapter, that “the exercise of power is an intensely physical process that operates through the built environment.” Our discussion focuses on the construction, experience, and ontology of landscapes as a component of rulership in Mesoamerica that emerges from daily experience. In particular, we are interested in the perimetric bounding of landscapes and the role of boundary creation and maintenance in the substantiation of rulership and the constitution of political communities in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. Mesoamerican sovereigns enacted their