Baking Pot
| Location |
San Ignacio, Belize, Cayo District,  Belize
|
|---|---|
| Region | Cayo District |
| Coordinates | 17°12′11″N 89°1′10″W / 17.20306°N 89.01944°W |
| History | |
| Periods | Preclassic to Postclassic occupation |
| Cultures | Maya |
| Site notes | |
| Archaeologists | Oliver Ricketson, Bullard and Bullard, Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project (current) |
Baking Pot is a Maya archaeological site located in the Belize River Valley on the southern bank of the river, northeast of modern day town of San Ignacio in the Cayo District of Belize; it is 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) downstream from the Barton Ramie and Lower Dover archaeological sites. Baking Pot is associated with an extensive amount of research into Maya settlements, community-based archaeology, and of agricultural production; the site possesses lithic workshops, and possible evidence of cash-cropping cacao as well as a long occupation from the Preclassic through to the Postclassic period.
The site at Baking Pot is unique in that it had a large population during the Terminal Classic while other sites in the Belize River Valley were declining, and occupation continued into the Postclassic whereas major Classic Period sites in the southern lowlands were by then abandoned. After the Classic period site cores in much of the Belize Valley were abandoned, but at Baking Pot “survey and excavation of house mounds and plazuela groups immediately outside the site core suggested that Postclassic occupation there is more substantial and prolonged than in the site core”. The abundance of Tayasal-associated Augustine Red ceramics at Baking Pot, along with the association of these ceramics with a different organizational and settlement pattern suggest that there was an intrusion of people from central Petén during this time. Researchers like Aimers favor a gradual abandonment of the site at a much later time period than other sites in the region.
In the late Preclassic, Baking Pot had a small population with little public architecture. In the Early Classic, the site experienced a construction boom. Two architectural groups were built, with Group A to the north and Group B (containing the largest structure at Baking Pot) to the south. This north-south orientation is similar to nearby Xunantunich. Earlier excavators like Ricketson, Gordon Willey, and Bullard and Bullard describe these groups as Group 1 and Group 2. These major complexes make up the center of Baking Pot and are connected by a causeway (or sacbe). In the Late Classic, the population increased to approximately 3000 people. Toward the end of the Classic period the local elite left and the palace complexes in the city center were abandoned. In the early Postclassic, people were still living on a portion of the site but rarely used the ceremonial center and there was very little new construction. Much of the people living at Baking Pot were farmers; being close to the Belize River the site has fertile soil in an alluvial valley and is primarily associated with agricultural production.
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