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Pre-Columbian Architecture in Mesoamerica
An authoritative and magnificently illustrated survey of Mesoamerican architecture from pre-Olmec times to the Spanish conquest. Pre-Columbian Architecture in Mesoamerica is destined to become a standard reference for the serious student and an intellectual delight for the interested amateur. This authoritative yet accessible study begins with an overview of the aesthetics, meanings, functions, and techniques of Mesoamerican architecture, and then proceeds to survey the historical development of the builder's art in each of the region's cultural areas. As readers travel from the the Maya heartland of Guatemala and the Yucatan to the Aztec stronghold of the Valley of Mexico, and all the way t...
Architectural Heritage Revisited
By improving our understanding of how the tangible and intangible dimensions of heritage are correlated, we could develop a relationship with heritage that goes beyond the mere act of conservation. This book argues that we need to recognize the historic monument as a tangible aspect of a holistic expression of culture that is rooted in specific spatio-temporal conditions. However, since the latter are constantly changing, it is vital to identify an implicit contradiction with the goals of conservation. As the intangible dimensions are more dynamic, driven by the transmission, reception, and advancement of knowledge, the reliance of the prevailing treatment of heritage today, conservation, os...
Made to Order
The ancient city of Teotihuacan, North America’s first metropolis, flourished for nearly eight centuries in central Mexico until its demise in 650 C.E. Known primarily for its massive architecture and monumental wall paintings, the city—and its dazzling artwork—inspired awe in its time, and continues to do so today. Made to Order, the first systematic study of more than 150 painted portable artworks produced in Teotihuacan, offers a unique, deeply informed perspective on the cultural practices and artistic techniques of the largest urban community in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica. The painted vessels Cynthia Conides considers—featured here in finely reproduced full-color photographs—con...
Wearing Culture
Wearing Culture connects scholars of divergent geographical areas and academic fields—from archaeologists and anthropologists to art historians—to show the significance of articles of regalia and of dressing and ornamenting people and objects among the Formative period cultures of ancient Mesoamerica and Central America. Documenting the elaborate practices of costume, adornment, and body modification in Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Oaxaca, the Soconusco region of southern Mesoamerica, the Gulf Coast Olmec region (Olman), and the Maya lowlands, this book demonstrates that adornment was used as a tool for communicating status, social relationships, power, gender, sexuality, beh...
Sculpture and Social Dynamics in Preclassic Mesoamerica
This book examines the functions of sculpture during the Preclassic period in Mesoamerica and its significance in statements of social identity. Julia Guernsey situates the origins and evolution of monumental stone sculpture within a broader social and political context and demonstrates the role that such sculpture played in creating and institutionalizing social hierarchies. This book focuses specifically on an enigmatic type of public, monumental sculpture known as the "potbelly" that traces its antecedents to earlier, small domestic ritual objects and ceramic figurines. The cessation of domestic rituals involving ceramic figurines along the Pacific slope coincided not only with the creation of the first monumental potbelly sculptures, but with the rise of the first state-level societies in Mesoamerica by the advent of the Late Preclassic period. The potbellies became central to the physical representation of new forms of social identity and expressions of political authority during this time of dramatic change.
Rethinking Zapotec Time
In 1702, after the brutal suppression of a Zapotec revolt, the bishop of Oaxaca proclaimed an amnesty for idolatry in exchange for collective confessions. To evade conflict, Northern Zapotec communities denounced ritual specialists and surrendered sacred songs and 102 divinatory manuals, which preserve cosmological accounts, exchanges with divine beings, and protocols of pre-Columbian origin that strongly resemble sections of the Codex Borgia. These texts were sent to Spain as evidence of failed Dominican evangelization efforts, and there they remained, in oblivion, until the 1960s. In this book, David Tavárez dives deep into this formidable archive of ritual and divinatory manuals, the lar...
The Beast Between
The white-tailed deer had a prominent status in Maya civilization; it was the most important wild-animal food source at many inland Maya sites and also functioned as a major ceremonial symbol. Offering an in-depth semantic analysis of this imagery, The Beast Between considers iconography, hieroglyphic texts, mythological discourses, and ritual narratives to translate the significance and meaning of the vibrant metaphors expressed in a variety of artifacts depicting deer and hunting. Charting the progression of deer as a key component of the Maya diet, especially for elites, to the coupling of deer and maize in the Maya worldview, The Beast Between reveals a close and long-term interdependence. Not only are deer depicted naturalistically in hunting and ritual scenes, but they are also ascribed with human attributes. This rich imagery reflects the many ways in which deer hunting was linked to status, sexuality, and war as part of a deeper process to ensure the regeneration of both agriculture and ancestry. Drawing on methodologies of art history, archaeology, and ethnology, this illuminating work is poised to become a key resource for multiple fields.
Substance of the Ancient Maya
Substance of the Ancient Maya: Kingdoms and Communities, Objects and Beings collects twelve essays by top scholars that highlight what is new in research pertaining to the ancient Maya. Subjects range from updated political histories of major kingdoms in the southern Maya Lowlands to explorations of the nature of Maya writing and materiality. These essays were inspired by the scholarship of Stephen Houston and celebrate his transdisciplinary commitment to research in anthropological archaeology, epigraphy, and art history. The contributions in this volume are organized into two sections that respectively reflect different scales from which to approach the substance of the ancient Maya—from...
Anthropomorphizing the Cosmos
Anthropomorphizing the Cosmos explores the sociocultural significance of more than three hundred Middle Preclassic Maya figurines uncovered at the site of Nixtun-Ch'ich' on Lake Petén Itzá in northern Guatemala. In this careful, holistic, and detailed analysis of the Petén lakes figurines—hand-modeled, terracotta anthropomorphic fragments, animal figures, and musical instruments such as whistles and ocarinas—Prudence M. Rice engages with a broad swath of theory and comparative data on Maya ritual practice. Presenting original data, Anthropomorphizing the Cosmos offers insight into the synchronous appearance of fired-clay figurines with the emergence of societal complexity in and beyon...
Unseen Art
An examination of how ancient Mesoamerican sculpture was experienced by its original audiences.
