ABSTRACT
Storage, the setting aside of food and goods for future need and investment, was of critical importance to ancient Maya political economies. Because the growing season was not year-round in the tropical Maya lowlands, limited by rainfall and periodic but unpredictable drought cycles, the Maya state had to rely on the storage of foodstuff s to fi nance the economics of political administration. Th e way the Maya state organized storage is closely related to Maya political structure, especially during the Late Classic period (AD 600-900). Th is chapter distinguishes diff erences in storage strategies, how and where goods were stored, and how stored goods were administered, as a way to reconstruct political structure among the lowland Maya.
