Author: Suzanne W. MilesPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Indians of Central America
Languages : en
Pages : 108
Book Description
The Sixteenth-century Pokom-Maya
Author: Suzanne W. MilesPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Indians of Central America
Languages : en
Pages : 108
Book Description
The Sixteenth Century Pokom-Maya
Author: S. W. MilesPublisher:
ISBN: 9781258087722
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 52
Book Description
Transactions Of The American Philosophical Society, V47, Part 4, November, 1957.
The Sixteenth Century Pokom-Maya, a Documentary Analysis of Social Structure and Archaeological Setting. S. W. Miles,...
Author: S. W. MilesThe Maya
Author: Njord KanePublisher: Spangenhelm Publishing
ISBN: 1943066043
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 354
Book Description
Definitively tracing the evolution of the Maya civilization from the arrival of migrating 'first peoples' to the end of the Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican World with the Spanish Conquest in the 16th century AD. A span of some thousands of years are concisely covered in one volume in a thorough study of the evolution of a complex Maya society. A new world of understanding about the ancient Maya civilization has opened up from new archaeological discoveries and studies. The mystery of 'Maya Blue' revealed and an understanding of Maya Arithmetic presented in simplified ways to quickly understand the Maya system with a method to count and do math calculations using a Maya abacus or only using four fingers on each hand. Easy to read and very interesting, providing first an overview, then a chapter by chapter journey through major events in Maya history, concluding with a separated portion of highlighting major aspects in Maya knowledge and ancient ways.
The Neighborhood as a Social and Spatial Unit in Mesoamerican Cities
Author: M. Charlotte ArnauldPublisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816599513
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 357
Book Description
Recent realizations that prehispanic cities in Mesoamerica were fundamentally different from western cities of the same period have led to increasing examination of the neighborhood as an intermediate unit at the heart of prehispanic urbanization. This book addresses the subject of neighborhoods in archaeology as analytical units between households and whole settlements. The contributions gathered here provide fieldwork data to document the existence of sociopolitically distinct neighborhoods within ancient Mesoamerican settlements, building upon recent advances in multi-scale archaeological studies of these communities. Chapters illustrate the cultural variation across Mesoamerica, including data and interpretations on several different cities with a thematic focus on regional contrasts. This topic is relatively new and complex, and this book is a strong contribution for three interwoven reasons. First, the long history of research on the “Teotihuacan barrios” is scrutinized and withstands the test of new evidence and comparison with other Mesoamerican cities. Second, Maya studies of dense settlement patterns are now mature enough to provide substantial case studies. Third, theoretical investigation of ancient urbanization all over the world is now more complex and open than it was before, giving relevance to Mesoamerican perspectives on ancient and modern societies in time and space. This volume will be of interest not only to scholars and student specialists of the Mesoamerican past but also to social scientists and urbanists looking to contrast ancient cultures worldwide.
Quiriguá Reports, Volume III
Author: Edward M. SchortmanPublisher: UPenn Museum of Archaeology
ISBN: 9780924171192
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
From 1973 through 1979, the University Museum sponsored investigations at Quiriguá, a major lowland Maya site in eastern Guatemala, in order to document the basic chronology, determine the nature and pattern of structures, and test hypotheses concerning the origins, location, and demise of the city. This monograph reports the findings of the survey and excavations carried out in the lower Motagua Valley. Providing a regional context for Quiriguá, this volume focuses on wider-valley centers with monumental architecture, examining their chronology, function, and regional and interregional contacts. University Museum Monograph, 80
Maya Sacred Geography and the Creator Deities
Author: Karen Bassie-SweetPublisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806185198
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 383
Book Description
The K’iche’ Maya creation story preserved in the sixteenth-century manuscript Popol Vuh describes the origin of the world and its people in a setting long assumed to be the Guatemalan central highlands. Now a scholar with a deep knowledge of Maya history shows that all of these mythological events occurred at specific locations and that this landscape was the template for the Maya worldview. Examining the primary Maya deities, Karen Bassie-Sweet links geographic features to gods and beliefs. She reconstructs key elements of the Popol Vuh to argue that the three volcanoes around Lake Atitlan were the three thunderbolt gods and that the lake was the center of the world. She also shows that the Maya view of the creation of humans is centered on corn and examines core beliefs about the corn cycle to propose that the creation myth was established much earlier in Maya history than previously supposed. Generously illustrated, Maya Sacred Geography and the Creator Deities is a detailed ethnohistorical analysis of Maya religion, cosmology, and ritual practice that convincingly links mythology to the land. A comprehensive treatment of Maya religion, it provides an essential resource for scholars and will fascinate any reader captivated by these ancient beliefs.
Olmec Art at Dumbarton Oaks
Author: Karl A. TaubePublisher: Dumbarton Oaks
ISBN: 9780884022756
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
Olmec Art at Dumbarton Oaks presents the Olmec portion of the Robert Woods Bliss Collection of Pre-Columbian Art. It illustrates all thirty-nine Olmec art objects in color plates and includes many complementary and comparative black-and-white illustrations and drawings. The body of Pre-Columbian art that Robert Bliss carefully assembled over a half-century between 1912 and 1963, amplified only slightly since his death, is a remarkably significant collection. In addition to their aesthetic quality and artistic significance, the objects hold much information regarding the social worlds and religious and symbolic views of the people who made and used them before the arrival of Europeans in the New World. This volume is the second in a series of catalogues that will treat objects in the Bliss Pre-Columbian Collection. The majority of the Olmec objects in the collection are made of jade, the most precious material for the peoples of ancient Mesoamerica from early times through the sixteenth century. Various items such as masks, statuettes, jewelry, and replicas of weapons and tools were used for ceremonial purposes and served as offerings. Karl Taube brings his expertise on the lifeways and beliefs of ancient Mesoamerican peoples to his study of the Olmec objects in teh Bliss collection. His understanding of jade covers a broad range of knowledge from chemical compositions to geological sources to craft technology to the symbolic power of the green stone. Throughout the book the author emphasizes the role of jade as a powerful symbol of water, fertility, and particularly, of the maize plant which was the fundamental source of life and sustenance for the Olmec. The shiny green of the stone was analogous to the green growth of maize. This fundamental concept was elaborated in specific religious beliefs, many of which were continued and elaborated by later Mesoamerican peoples, such as the Maya. Karl Taube employs his substantial knowledge of Pre-Columbian cultures to explore and explicate Olmec symbolism in this catalogue.
Spanish Central America
Author: Murdo J. MacLeodPublisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292788258
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 622
Book Description
The seventeenth century has been characterized as "Latin America's forgotten century." This landmark work, originally published in 1973, attempted to fill the vacuum in knowledge by providing an account of the first great colonial cycle in Spanish Central America. The colonial Spanish society of the sixteenth century was very different from that described in the eighteenth century. What happened in the Latin American colonies between the first conquests, the seizure of long-accumulated Indian wealth, the first silver booms, and the period of modern raw material supply? How did Latin America move from one stage to the other? What were these intermediate economic stages, and what effect did they have on the peoples living in Latin America? These questions continue to resonate in Latin American studies today, making this updated edition of Murdo J. MacLeod's original work more relevant than ever. Colonial Central America was a large, populous, and always strategically significant stretch of land. With the Yucatán, it was home of the Maya, one of the great pre-Columbian cultures. MacLeod examines the long-term process it underwent of relative prosperity, depression, and then recovery, citing comparative sources on Europe to describe Central America's great economic, demographic, and social cycles. With an updated historiographical and bibliographical introduction, this fascinating study should appeal to historians, anthropologists, and all who are interested in the colonial experience of Latin America.
The Gifted Passage
Author: Stephen HoustonPublisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300230176
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
In this thought-provoking book, preeminent scholar Stephen Houston turns his attention to the crucial role of young males in Classic Maya society, drawing on evidence from art, writing, and material culture. The Gifted Passage establishes that adolescent men in Maya art were the subjects and makers of hieroglyphics, painted ceramics, and murals, in works that helped to shape and reflect masculinity in Maya civilization. The political volatility of the Classic Maya period gave male adolescents valuable status as potential heirs, and many of the most precious surviving ceramics likely celebrated their coming-of-age rituals. The ardent hope was that youths would grow into effective kings and noblemen, capable of leadership in battle and service in royal courts. Aiming to shift mainstream conceptions of the Maya, Houston argues that adolescent men were not simply present in images and texts, but central to both.