Women in Maya Society

Your additions to the entry on Women in Maya Society are helpful, but there seem to be few hyperlinks or additional references. Among the most powerful features of Wikipedia is the ability to link to other relevant articles. I can see a number of potential ones that would enhance your additions to this entry. Hoopes (talk) 18:51, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Women's Roles in Ritual

Your essay provides a good general review of this topic. However, it could be much improved with references to specific examples, especially from ancient Maya culture and particularly in ancient Maya art. For example, one of the best-known depictions of a woman engaged in ritual activity is Yaxchilan Lintel 24, which depicts Lady Xoc engaged in a ritual of self-sacrifice through bloodletting. Another significant woman was Sak K'uk' of Palenque, who is depicted on the Oval Tablet in the Palace there as playing a key role in the accession of her son K'inich Janaab' Pakal. There are also signficant depictions of women engaged in rituals in the murals of Bonampak. Others are listed in the entry on Women rulers in Maya society.

Your discussion of the significance of food and its relationship to ritual--and especially women's ritual--would benefit from more specific examples to support your assertions. What, for example, was the significance of women to the production, processing and serving of maize or cacao.

I think this entry would be especially well-served by mention of the sources that are available for understanding womens' roles in ancient Maya rituals. Among these are not only the monuments but also painted Late Classic "vases" or cacao drinking cups such as are illustrated by Justin Kerr in the Maya Vase Database, where there are many depictions of women serving food. (This resource also has a great deal of imagery of women engaged in other rituals. Another essential source for understanding the significance of women in Maya ritual is the Popol Vuh, which has several important female characters. Yet another rich source of iconographic imagery is the corpus of ceramic figurines from Jaina Island, many of which depict either goddesses or women dressed as goddesses.

You cited only two sources for this section. As an encyclopedia entry, this would be far more useful with an expanded bibliography.

Textiles

The section on textiles offers a good specific example in the reference to Caracol, but this would benefit from more specific references, not only to the article by the Chases but to other bibliographic sources. There are many good references on Maya women's roles in ritual textile production, so this section should be far richer in citations.