More on Mesoamerican Cosmology and City Plans

In a recent comment Michael Smith argues that the cosmological interpretations of Maya urban layouts proposed in an article by Ashmore and Sabloff are vague and unconvincing. He also summarizes some other comparable studies in order to show that arguments for the cosmological significance of archaeologically recovered urban patterns are, in general, subjective and lack methodological rigor. I argue that his view is an unwarranted generalization and that his references to some archaeoastronomical interpretations do not adequately reflect the advances in this field of research and its relevance for the understanding of ancient city plans. I summarize the results of several studies in Mesoamerica, focusing on Teotihuacan and the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan discussed by Smith, to show that rigorous methods not only have been applied in archaeoastronomical research but also have resulted in explicit conclusions about specific aspects of worldview and political ideology underlying Mesoamerican architecture and urbanism.