Chama

Chama is a small Late-Classic Maya highland site, situated in the Chixoy River valley of the Alta Verapaz department of Guatemala, some fifty kilometers north-west of San Pedro Carchá [1]. Small-scale excavations were carried out in the early twentieth century by Robert J. Burkitt of the Pennsylvania University Museum [1]. The site belongs to the periphery of the lowland Maya kingdoms [1]. It has been argued that Chama was colonized from the lowlands somewhere at the beginning of the eighth century and then developed its characteristic, but short-lived Classical ceramic style [1]. Chamá-style cylindrical vases have black-and-white chevron motif bands painted around the rim and base, with a bright white, and strong red-and-black palette [1]. Rather than with scenes of courtiers and warriors, they are often decorated with humanized animals, deities, and mythological scenes [1]. The anthropologist Elin C. Danien produced studies of the Chamà vases in the Penn Museum [1].