{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.01815352697095436, 'fraction_numerical': 0.011929460580912862, 'mean_word_length': 5.387417218543046, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
The Ontology of Being and Spiritual Power in the Stone Monument Cults of the Lowland Maya

Thanks to a new generation of studies on Classic Maya art and inscriptions, researchers are now poised to delve more deeply into the system of metaphysical thought that underlies Maya spiritual belief and practice than would have been conceivable only a decade ago. Since the 1980s, numerous contributions have greatly expanded our knowledge of the mythology, world view, and complex array of ceremonial behaviors that are evident in the archaeology and monumental record of the Lowland Maya during the Classic period (a.d. 199-909). In addition to resolving specific epigraphic or art historical problems, many discoveries have revolutionary implications for understanding ancient Maya concepts of being, space, and time. Among the findings that raise new questions in this area is the identification of a class of supernatural called "ways," companion spirits that permitted the souls of Maya lords to interact on an otherworldly plane during dreams and other altered states of consciousness (Houston and Stuart 1989; Grube and Nahm 1994).1 Studies of toponymns naming what appear to be supernatural locations have generated new understandings, and new questions, about the sacred geography of the Maya universe (Stuart and Houston 1994). The insights these discoveries disclose offer scholars an opportunity to broaden their disciplinary perspectives on the ancient Maya and to move back from studying the particular interpretation of glyphs, architectural settings, and visual symbols to address the more general philosophical constructs that underlay Maya conceptions of reality. Cosmology has long been of interest to Mesoamerican researchers, but the possibility of addressing a fuller set of questions, including the study of ontology, or the definition of being, has begun to emerge as a consequence of these recent discoveries.