Ancient Maya Teeth

Vera Tiesler is a leading bioarchaeologist and a research professor at the Autonomous University of Yucatán, where she heads the Laboratory of Bioarchaeology. She is the author of The Bioarchaeology of Artificial Cranial Modifications: New Approaches to Head Shaping and its Meanings in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and Beyond.

Preface and Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. Introduction: Taking Stock of Physical Dental Embodiment

1.1. Permanently Inscribed Body Modifications of the Past
1.2. Mapping Dental Decorations from Kirchhoff’s “Grandiose” Mesoamerica
1.3. This Volume


Part I. Crafting Maya Teeth (Thematic Section)

Chapter 2. The Teeth of Dead People: Reconstructing Ancient Dental Works

2.1. Basics in Human Dental Morphology and Cultural Intervention
2.2. The ABCs of Traditional Dental Works
2.3. Scoring Dental Shapes in Mesoamerica
2.4. Contoured Dental Arches
2.5. Dental Drilling Procedures


Chapter 3. Mouths as Portals, Teeth as Jewels: Dentitions as Indigenous Sociocultural Constructs

3.1. The Body in Mesoamerican Thought
3.2. Meanings of Traditional Dental Display, Lost and Found
3.3. Mouths as Portals
3.4. Teeth as Jewels
3.5. Contoured Dental Arches
3.6. Jeweled Teeth


Chapter 4. The Life Cycles of Embellished Smiles

4.1. Social Age and Dental Work
4.2. Modeling Children and Sculpting Infant Teeth
4.3. Crafting the Teeth of Youngsters
4.4. Cutting into Teeth as Ritual Consumption
4.5. The Life Cycles of Modified Dental Portals




Part II. Tooth Modifications across the Maya Landscapes (Regional Survey)

Chapter 5. Dental Crafts during the First Millennium AD

5.1. Mesoamerican Tooth Sculpting before the Onset of the Classic
5.2. Maya Dental Crafting in the Course of the First Millennium AD
5.3. Crafting Teeth across the Maya Landscapes
5.4. Teeth beyond the Maya Lowland Corridor and the Role of Merchants


Chapter 6. Dental Work, Gender, Community Building, and Distinction

6.1. Dental Work among Men and Women
6.2. Living on the Fringes of the Maya World: Multiethnic Dental Embodiment in the Copan Valley
6.3. The Precious Smiles of Royals
6.4. Ch’ok Rituals and the Mouth Portal of Janaab Pakal of Palenque


Chapter 7. Tooth Decorations after the Maya Collapse

7.1. Teeth in the Maya Lowlands after the Collapse
7.2. Dental Works in the Wake of the European Conquest
7.3. Teeth and Culture in a Multiethnic Cemetery Population from Early Colonial Campeche
7.4. The Colonies and Beyond


Chapter 8. Conclusions: Ancient Maya Teeth from a Cultural Perspective


Appendix 1: Maintaining a Precious Smile: A Dentist’s Perspective on Maya Inlays and Fillings. Marco Ramírez, Patricia Quintana, Gloria Hernández, Vera Tiesler, and Elma Vega

A1.1. Putting Drilled Tooth Cavities into Clinical Perspective
A1.2. Toothache and the Health Burdens of Incrusted Teeth
A1.3. Therapeutical Properties of Cements and Fillers
A1.4. Patient Charts of Inlaid Dental Records


Appendix 2: List of Documented Resources in the Data Survey for This Volume

A2.1. Mexico
A2.2. Belize
A2.3. El Salvador
A2.4. Guatemala
A2.5. Honduras
A2.6. Costa Rica
A2.7. Ecuador
A2.8. Peru


Notes
References
Index