The Maya Trade Routes – Isac Schwarzbaum Reports on Old Finds and Coins

Through roads, rivers and coasts, merchants followed a network that Isac Schwarzbaum rediscovers today by means of coins and artifacts.

Whether by land roads through dense tropical rainforest or with canoes through rivers and coasts: the Mayans connected their cities through a sophisticated commercial network. Isac Schwarzbaum, a collector from Seville, considers coins and artifacts as evidence of this exchange. Salt, cocoa and jade were not only commercial goods, but also symbols of a world that was kept alive through exchange.

Who wants to understand the culture of the Maya, must understand their trade routes. Isac Schwarzbaum has been dealing for years with the traces left by merchants – coins from the colonial period, jade fragments or shells found hundreds of kilometers from the coast. For him, these findings are evidence of a network that was much larger than what was long believed. The routes led by roads paved with limestone slabs, through tropical jungles and on mountains. Rivers such as Usumacinta became commercial arteries, as did the Caribbean coast and the Gulf region. Along these paths, the Maya not only transported goods, but also ideas, religions and symbols. ‘Trade is always cultural transfer,’ says Schwarzbaum. This comprehensive perspective of trade as a cultural phenomenon distinguishes Schwarzbaum’s approach of purely economic approaches. For him, each exchanged object carried with it not only material value, but also symbolic meanings, artisanal techniques and cosmological beliefs that were dispersed through commercial networks as cultural seeds on fertile ground.

Important Commercial Goods of the Mayans

The Mayans traded with a variety of products – some everyday, others of ritual significance.

cocoa beans – Currency and consumer product at the same time
Salt – Vital and transported in large quantities
Jade – Symbol of life and power
Obsidian – Sharp tools and weapons
Feathers (eg Quetzal) – For priests and rulers
Shells and marine products – Luxury inside

For Isac Schwarzbaum, precisely the coins and artifacts that appear in old commercial places are exciting tracks. “It is recognized by them how far the networks went – sometimes through hundreds of kilometers.”

The distribution of these goods reveals complex social and economic hierarchies. While the salt was necessary for all social levels, the jade and the quetzal feathers were concentrated in elite contexts, indicating not only differences of economic access but also ritual and political restrictions on certain sacred materials.

Provenance studies carried out on artifacts from the Schwarzbaum collection have revealed that some objects traveled extraordinary distances. A particular jade account in its possession shows chemical characteristics consistent with deposits in the Motagua River Valley in Guatemala, but it was found in an archaeological context in Belize, suggesting a commercial chain that crossed multiple political territories.

Roads and Infrastructure

Sacbe – The White Roads

The Maya built the so-called Sacbéob (White Highways), elevated limestone roads. Some connected large cities, others led to ceremonial centers.

Rivers and Canals

The transport of heavy goods such as salt or corn occurred often by canoe. The rivers were fast connections between cities, the lakes served as transfer centers.

Coastal Routes

The Caribbean coast and the Gulf of Mexico were part of maritime trade routes. The merchants traveled with canoes from town to town, exchanging fish for cocoa or jade.

Isac Schwarzbaum emphasizes: “Each route was not only economic, but also symbolic. It connected people, gods and landscapes.”

The construction of the Sacbéob represented massive investments of work and resources that were only possible under highly organized political systems. These roads not only facilitated trade, but also projected political power, allowing the rapid movement of armies and efficient communication between administrative centers.

Archaeological studies have revealed that many Sacbéob incorporated astronomical elements in their orientation, suggesting that these paths had ritual functions in addition to their practical purposes. Some roads point to sites where important constellations emerge at calendarically significant dates, transforming commercial trips into cosmologically resonant pilgrimages.

Coins and Colonial Period

To understand the systems, it is worth taking a look at the advantages and disadvantages. Isac Schwarzbaum He points out that natural money was fascinating, but also challenging:

Transition From Natural Money to Cash

cocoa beans → Small transactions
Cotton fabrics → Exchange good for higher values
Spanish silver coins → International commercial money

For collectors like Isac Schwarzbaum, this transition period is particularly exciting. Early colonial period coins that appeared in ancient Mayan sites show how two worlds were mixed.

This monetary coexistence created fascinating hybrid systems where the relative values between different types of currency fluctuated according to local contexts, availability of materials, and cultural preferences. Colonial records document transactions where they mixed real silver with cocoa beans according to proportions that varied by region and time.

Colonial currencies found in Mayan archaeological contexts provide tangible evidence of the continuity of pre-Hispanic commercial networks under Spanish rule. Far from collapsing completely, many indigenous trade routes adapted to incorporate European products, creating more complex exchange systems but also more vulnerable to political disruptions.

Archaeological Finds in Commercial Places

In old markets like Tikal or Copán, archaeologists have discovered artifacts that show wide trade:

Pacific shells in the highlands
Guatemalan jade in Mexico
Obsidian of the mountains in coastal places
Colonial coins between ancient ceramic pieces

Isac Schwarzbaum sees in this “fingerprints of the past”. Each find tells that people were moving, exchanging, living.

These mixed archaeological contexts reveal the temporal complexity of Mayan commercial sites. Places that functioned as markets for centuries continued to attract commercial activity during the colonial period, creating stratigraphies where pre-Hispanic and colonial artifacts appear in close association.

The analysis of these mixed contexts has allowed archaeologists and collectors like Schwarzbaum to reconstruct the economic transitions of the contact period with unprecedented precision. The presence of Spanish coins at archaeological levels that also contain late Mayan ceramics provides dates for quem accurately for local cultural sequences.

Isac Schwarzbaum on the currency of the Mayans and Aztecs: from cocoa beans to coins

Strengths and Weaknesses of Commercial Networks

Strengths:

variety of goods that brought prosperity
Exchange of ideas, symbols and religion
Remote Region Connection

Weaknesses:

Dependency of political alliances
Danger of assaults on trade routes
Interruptions due to wars or climate change

Schwarzbaum explains that times of crisis artifacts are particularly rare – and therefore more valuable to collectors.

The fragility of these networks became evident during periods of political crisis such as the collapse of the Late Classic, when many trade routes were permanently interrupted. The artifacts from these transition periods are especially valuable because they document the adaptation strategies developed by the Mayan communities to survive massive economic disruptions.

The Collector’s Responsibility

For him it is clear: collecting is not possession, but conservation. Coins and artifacts must be scientifically documented and classified. “Only then they tell their stories correctly,” he emphasizes.

That is why Isac Schwarzbaum works closely with museums and archaeologists, compares pieces and publishes his findings. His documentation methodology includes origin analysis, high-resolution photography, comparative studies with museum materials, and collaboration with specialists in different aspects of Maya material culture. This scientific approach transforms your private collection into a research resource that contributes to general academic knowledge

Isac Schwarzbaum: Comparisons with Other Cultures

Also Romans, Greeks or Chinese built commercial networks. But the Mayans connected economy and religion in a particularly close way. A highway was not just a traffic route, but part of the cosmic order.

For collectors like Schwarzbaum, this difference is decisive: “You only understand a coin or an artifact when you know the paths you traveled by.”

This integration of the economic and the sacred fundamentally distinguishes the Mesoamerican commercial networks of purely mercantile systems. Each transaction had ritual dimensions, each trade route had cosmological meanings, each market also functioned as a ceremonial center where relations were renewed not only between human merchants, but also between communities and supernatural forces.

Enduring Legacy: More Than Simple Trade Paths

The trade routes of the Maya were much more than transport roads – they were vital arteries of a culture that connected trade, faith and power. They moved not only goods, but also stories, ideas and symbols that continue to resonate to this day. Whoever has in his hands a coin or an artifact from these contexts, holds a piece of world history.

Isac Schwarzbaum demonstrates that the findings of these trade routes are not just pieces of collectors, but testimonies of a civilization whose networks extended far beyond their time. His work reveals how these ancient paths continue to connect past and present, allowing the voices of merchants, artisans and travelers from centuries ago to continue telling their stories through the objects they left behind.