A Maya Universe in Stone

A Maya Universe in Stone PDF Author: Stephen Houston
Publisher: Getty Publications
ISBN: 1606067451
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
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.

A Maya Universe in Stone

A Maya Universe in Stone PDF Author: Stephen Houston
Publisher: Getty Publications
ISBN: 1606067451
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 194

Get Book

Book Description
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.

Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya

Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya PDF Author: Carla McKinney Brenner
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Central America
Languages : en
Pages : 20

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Book Description


Art and Myth of the Ancient Maya

Art and Myth of the Ancient Maya PDF Author: Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300207174
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Note on Translations and Orthography -- Introduction -- 1 Image and Text -- 2 Pictorial and Textual Sources -- 3 Mesoamerican Cosmogony -- 4 The Maiden -- 5 The Grandmother -- 6 The Sun's Opponents -- 7 The Sun -- 8 The Perfect Youth -- 9 The Father -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Illustration Credits -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z

Secrets in Stone

Secrets in Stone PDF Author: Laurie Coulter
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780439518451
Category : Mayan languages
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description


A Forest of Kings

A Forest of Kings PDF Author: Linda Schele
Publisher: William Morrow
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 564

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Book Description
The recent interpretation of Maya hieroglyphs has given us the first written history of the New World as it existed before the European invasion. Now, two central figures in the massive effort to decode the glyphs, Linda Schele and David Freidel, make this history available for the first time in all its detail. A Forest of Kings is the story of Maya kingship, from the beginning of its institution and the first great pyramid builders two thousand years ago to the decline of Maya civilization and its destruction by the Spanish. Here the great historic rulers of Precolumbian civilization come to life again with the decipherment of the writing. At its height, Maya civilization flourished under great kings like Shield-Jaguar, who ruled for over sixty years, expanding his kingdom and building some of the most impressive works of architecture in the ancient world. Long placed on a mist-shrouded pedestal as austere, peaceful stargazers, the Maya elites are now known to have been the rulers or populous, aggressive city-states. Hailed as "a Rosetta Stone of Maya civilization" (Brian M. Fagan, author of People of the Earth), A Forest of Kings is "a must for interested readers," says Evon Vogt, professor of anthropology at Harvard University.

The Mayan and Other Ancient Calendars

The Mayan and Other Ancient Calendars PDF Author: Geoff Stray
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0802716342
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 68

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Book Description
The only small, popular book on the important subject of ancient calendars. The study of heavenly cycles is common to most ancient cultures. The ancient Egyptians, Chinese, and Babylonians all tried to make sense of the year. But it fell to the later Mesoamerican Maya to create a series of calendars that could be cross referenced. In doing so, the Maya discovered many strange numerical harmonics. Their lunar calendar was extremely accurate-far more so than the Greek Metonic cycle; they tracked Venus to an accuracy of less than a day in five hundred years and their tables could have been used to predict eclipses seven hundred years in the future. This book will provide a much needed compact guide to the Mayan calendar systems as well as covering the essentials of calendar development throughout the world.

Reading Maya Art

Reading Maya Art PDF Author: Andrea Stone
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 0500051682
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Lavishly illustrated, fully cross-referenced and indexed: an invaluable book for anyone wishing to see and understand Maya art through the eyes of ancient scribes and artists. The art of the ancient Maya may be considered their most singular cultural achievement. Yet despite a surge of popular interest in these remarkable people, few are fully aware of the richness of their artistic legacy, unique in all of pre-Columbian America. Maya art is a rare combination of linear elegance and naturalism blended with dazzling symbolic complexity. Decorated objects, ranging from painted vases and carved jade and shell ornaments to towering stone monuments and building facades, bear the traces of a symbol system that, while fascinating, can make an understanding of these images elusive to the uninitiated. Presented here for the first time is a compendium of one hundred hieroglyphs that are also the building blocks of ancient Maya painting and sculpture. Organized thematically, the symbols touch on many facets of the Maya world, from the natural environment—animals, plants, the heavens—to the mental landscape of gods, myths, and rituals. Using hundreds of line drawings and photographs, Andrea Stone and Marc Zender show how to identify these signs, understand their meaning, and appreciate the novel ways they appear in art. In addition to providing a basic introduction, the authors also offer many new and exciting interpretations.

Palenque

Palenque PDF Author: David Stuart
Publisher: Thames and Hudson
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Two leading Maya scholars tell this story of the rediscovery of the queen of Maya cities--Palenque--deep in the forest-clad mountains of southeastern Mexico. 150 illustrations.

The Fallen Stones

The Fallen Stones PDF Author: Diana Marcum
Publisher: Little a
ISBN: 9781542022859
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
On a butterfly farm in the Maya Mountains, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of the national bestseller The Tenth Island finds enduring hope during cataclysmic times. Atop a hill in the rainforest of Belize, next to the ruins of a fallen civilization, a butterfly farm raises the brilliant blue morpho. What starts out as the worst vacation ever turns into a quest to learn more about the first-of-its-kind farm when journalist Diana Marcum inadvertently discovers this wildlife sanctuary, which is supported by an international live-butterfly trade. She quickly becomes acquainted with Clive, the whimsical British millionaire whose childhood passion created an industry, and Sebastian, the Maya farm manager whose stern expression belies a soft heart. Before long Diana and her partner, Jack Moody--new to being a couple--have moved into a long-empty jungle house, cohabitating with bats, scorpions, toucans, iguanas, and the vulnerable but resilient butterflies. Just ahead, although they don't know it, are a hurricane and a global pandemic. This warm, funny tale of finding a way forward when the world seems to be falling apart is filled with the beauty of the natural world and a heartfelt cry to protect it--beginning with butterflies.

Maya Archaeology

Maya Archaeology PDF Author: Charles W. Golden
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780982133316
Category : Archaeology
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description