Building the Environment at Palenque: the Sacred Pools of the Picota Group

Research at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Palenque reveals that the Picota Group, a civic-ceremonial center established during the Early Classic period (a.d. 250–500), was designed to manage and symbolize water resources in a region with restricted availability. The study combines traditional archaeology, labor estimates, and ethnographic comparisons with the Tzotzil community of Chamula to demonstrate how social organizations evolved to cope with water scarcity. Findings suggest that these artificial pools served both practical and ceremonial functions, reflecting sophisticated environmental adaptation by the Classic Maya civilization.

French, K. D., Straight, K. D., & Hermitt, E. J. (2019). BUILDING THE ENVIRONMENT AT PALENQUE: THE SACRED POOLS OF THE PICOTA GROUP. Ancient Mesoamerica, 31(3), 409–430. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0956536119000130