Talk:Maya society

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[edit] Editing

so... much... POV... phrases like "fantastic pyramids," "most beatiful art in the Americas".. working on taking it out -

Also, there is a lot of redundency between this article and Maya civilization - It obviously is expected, but there's a lot of work needed to make the two articles more distinct. Should this one be more explicitly focused on social structure? If so, then the politcal structure section needs a ton of editing - the "royal court" is not the only way to look at Maya political structure - I forgot who orginally called the system that, but its generally analogous to Sanders and Webster's (1988) use of Fox's (1977) "regal-ritual" model in contrast to "admistrative centers" (they didn't think that the Maya had the latter). Unfotuntely, not all Maya centers were stages for the rulers, consumption loci, and lacking any urban characteristics.

So, if we decide to remove/curtail some of the redundency and focus this more on Maya social structure, we'll have to include all of that - S&W urbanization arguement, Chase and Chase's rebuttal and arguement for adminstrative center status (not surpisingly, using Caracol, but also Tikal as the example), Demarest's Galactic polity model and theator state should be included - other stuff, can't remember now... oh yeah, and Marcus (1983) as well...

Peace -- Oaxaca dan 17:52, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I just noticed that the "Political structures" section here is identical to the "Political structure" section over at Maya civilization (at least before i changed this one around).... Did a side-by-side comparison of the two articles - I'd say that once you get past the "History" section of Maya civ, nearly 70-80% of the two articles are identical - verbatim. -- Oaxaca dan 17:59, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for those needed amendments, dan. Yup, I recall that this one was originally hived off from the Maya civilization article, and at, I think, my urging the text was also put back into the main Maya civ. article until such time as it could be rewritten as a summary of the to-be-expanded-in-more-detail Maya soc. one. Unhelpfully it hasn't been much changed since then, partially owing to indecisiveness over the subtopical breakdown.

While the scope of this article should probably include discussion on (theories of) Maya political structures alongside 'daily life' and social structure, etc, given the various models and actual regional and time differences it is probably deserving of an article in itself - say Maya polities or Maya political structures, or some such. --cjllw | TALK 03:40, 4 April 2007 (UTC)