[PDF] The Sculpture Of Yaxchilan eBook

Author : Carolyn E. Tate
Publisher : University of Texas Press
Page : 332 pages
File Size : 12,78 MB
Release : 2013-08-28
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0292739125

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As archaeologists peel away the jungle covering that has both obscured and preserved the ancient Maya cities of Mexico and Central America, other scholars have only a limited time to study and understand the sites before the jungle, weather, and human encroachment efface them again, perhaps forever. This urgency underlies Yaxchilan: The Design of a Maya Ceremonial City, Carolyn Tate's comprehensive catalog and analysis of all the city's extant buildings and sculptures. During a year of field work, Tate fully documented the appearance of the site as of 1987. For each sculpture and building, she records its discovery, present location, condition, measurements, and astronomical orientation and reconstructs its Long Counts and Julian dates from Calendar Rounds. Line drawings and photographs provide a visual document of the art and architecture of Yaxchilan. More than mere documentation, however, the book explores the phenomenon of art within Maya society. Tate establishes a general framework of cultural practices, spiritual beliefs, and knowledge likely to have been shared by eighth-century Maya people. The process of making public art is considered in relation to other modes of aesthetic expression, such as oral tradition and ritual. This kind of analysis is new in Maya studies and offers fresh insight into the function of these magnificent cities and the powerful role public art and architecture play in establishing cultural norms, in education in a semiliterate society, and in developing the personal and community identities of individuals. Several chapters cover the specifics of art and iconography at Yaxchilan as a basis for examining the creation of the city in the Late Classic period. Individual sculptures are attributed to the hands of single artists and workshops, thus aiding in dating several of the monuments. The significance of headdresses, backracks, and other costume elements seen on monuments is tied to specific rituals and fashions, and influence from other sites is traced. These analyses lead to a history of the design of the city under the reigns of Shield Jaguar (A.D. 681-741) and Bird Jaguar IV (A.D. 752-772). In Tate's view, Yaxchilan and other Maya cities were designed as both a theater for ritual activities and a nexus of public art and social structures that were crucial in defining the self within Maya society.

Author : Stephen Houston
Publisher : Getty Publications
Page : 194 pages
File Size : 45,97 MB
Release : 2021-12-28
Category : Art
ISBN : 1606067451

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The first study devoted to a single sculptor in ancient America, as understood through four unprovenanced masterworks traced to a small sector of Guatemala. In 1950, Dana Lamb, an explorer of some notoriety, stumbled on a Maya ruin in the tropical forests of northern Guatemala. Lamb failed to record the location of the site he called Laxtunich, turning his find into the mystery at the center of this book. The lintels he discovered there, long since looted, are probably of a set with two others that are among the masterworks of Maya sculpture from the Classic period. Using fieldwork, physical evidence, and Lamb’s expedition notes, the authors identify a small area with archaeological sites where the carvings were likely produced. Remarkably, the vividly colored lintels, replete with dynastic and cosmic information, can be assigned to a carver, Mayuy, who sculpted his name on two of them. To an extent nearly unique in ancient America, Mayuy can be studied over time as his style developed and his artistic ambition grew. An in-depth analysis of Laxtunich Lintel 1 examines how Mayuy grafted celestial, seasonal, and divine identities onto a local magnate and his overlord from the kingdom of Yaxchilan, Mexico. This volume contextualizes the lintels and points the way to their reprovenancing and, as an ultimate aim, repatriation to Guatemala.

Author : Barbara W. Fash
Publisher : Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University Publications Department
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 28,81 MB
Release : 2011
Category : Copán (Honduras : Department)
ISBN : 9780873658584

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In The Copan Sculpture Museum, Barbara Fash tells the inside story of conceiving, designing, and building a local museum with global significance. The book provides a comprehensive introduction to the history and culture of the ancient Maya and a model for working with local communities to preserve cultural heritage.

Author : Ian Graham
Publisher : Peabody Museum of Archaeology &
Page : 62 pages
File Size : 13,55 MB
Release : 1975
Category : History
ISBN : 9780873657792

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The goal of the Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions is to document in photographs and detailed line drawings all known Maya inscriptions and their associated figurative art. When complete, the Corpus will have published the inscriptions from over 200 sites and 2,000 monuments. The series has been instrumental in the remarkable success of the ongoing process of deciphering Maya writing, making available hundreds of texts to epigraphers working around the world. Volume 1 includes a Spanish translation of the Introduction text and six appendices: sources of sculpture and their codes; list of abbreviations and symbols used in the Corpus series; table of tun-endings between 8.1.15.0.0 and 10.9.3.0.0; a complete Calendar Round in tabular form, giving the position of tun-endings between 8.1.15.0.0 and 10.9.3.0.0; a method for the quick computation of Calendar Round position, by John S. Justeson; and Moon Age tables, by Lawrence Roys.