We have identified twenty ceramic types characteristic of the Late Classic Ku-phase occupation of Calakmul (Dominguez Carrasco 1994a: 122-181; 1994b: 52). The high percentage of ceramics from this phase (36.4 percent of all analyzed sherds) and the great variability in utilitarian types reflect the maximum economic extension of the kingdom. As in earlier times, the strongest ceramic ties were with sites to the south, particularly those in the El Mirador basin. The Late Classic ceramics of Calakmul and El Mirador share a considerable number of formal attributes that distinguish them from pottery produced in other parts of the central Maya lowlands (Dominguez Carrasco 1994a: 301-315; 1994b: 51).
In our analysis of 22,639 Late Classic sherds from excavations into Structures I, II, III, and VII, only 151 (0.67 percent of the Ku phase total) pertain to types and varieties produced outside the Peten Tepeu II sphere.' Three of these (Traino Brown: Traino variety [Traino Group], Moro Orange Polychrome: Moro variety [Chimbote Group], and Pelota Modeled: Pelota variety [Corona Group]) are known principally from the Ri'o Bee zone, located sixty kilometers northeast of Calakmul (Ball 1977a). An additional twelve sherds, all from Structure VII, are Cui Orange Polychrome: Cui variety, a funerary ware known primarily from the Chenes region and Jaina, but also found at Edzna, Acanceh, and Dzibilchaltun (Ball 1975; Ball and Andrews 1975: 232-233; Forsyth 1983: 90).
9.3 Central Plaza and Great Acropolis of Calakmul. Area shown measures WOO x 1500 meters (after May Hau et al. 1990).
Boucher and Dzul (1998: Cuadro 1), who have analyzed an additional 64,629 Late Classic sherds recovered during recent INAH consolidation excavations at Calakmul, have noted the presence of eight more ceramic groups and thirteen types produced in the Rio Bee and Chenes regions. Two additional ceramic groups, Petkanche and Azeorra, each with two types represented at Calakmul, seem to suggest economic relations with northwest Belize. Since these types also are found in the Rio Bee zone (Ball 1977a), their presence may indicate only indirect contact with that region. Boucher and Dzul (1998) also identified the type Egoista Resist (which has a wide distribution in the northern lowlands, Belize, and Peten [Ball 1977a: 82]), and found one sherd of a type that might come from the Rio Motagua zone or Baja Verapaz, Guatemala. Still, all these types account for only 2.1 percent of the Ku-complex sherds analyzed by Boucher and Dzul (1998). Thus, both of our analyses support only weak ceramic similarities with Late Classic sites outside the Tepeu sphere, with the strongest external ties linking Calakmul with both the Rio Bee and Chenes zones. Late Classic Calakmul participated in an essentially Peten-focused interaction sphere, with only limited quantities of ceramics, obsidian. Jade, basalt, and shell entering the kingdom from other regions.
World History
