New Perspectives on Human Sacrifice and Ritual Body Treatments in Ancient Maya Society

New Perspectives on Human Sacrifice and Ritual Body Treatments in Ancient Maya Society PDF Author: Vera Tiesler
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387488715
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 327

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book examines Maya sacrifice and related posthumous body manipulation. The editors bring together an international group of contributors from the area studied: archaeologists as well as anthropologists, forensic anthropologists, art historians and bioarchaeologists. This interdisciplinary approach provides a comprehensive perspective on these sites as well as the material culture and biological evidence found there

New Perspectives on Human Sacrifice and Ritual Body Treatments in Ancient Maya Society

New Perspectives on Human Sacrifice and Ritual Body Treatments in Ancient Maya Society PDF Author: Vera Tiesler
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387488715
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 327

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book examines Maya sacrifice and related posthumous body manipulation. The editors bring together an international group of contributors from the area studied: archaeologists as well as anthropologists, forensic anthropologists, art historians and bioarchaeologists. This interdisciplinary approach provides a comprehensive perspective on these sites as well as the material culture and biological evidence found there

The Sacred Body

The Sacred Body PDF Author: Nicola Laneri
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1789255198
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 293

Get Book Here

Book Description
The human body serves as a symbolic bridge between communities of the living and the divine. This is clearly evident in mythological stories that recount the creation of humans by deities within ancient and contemporaneous societies across a very broad geographical environment. In certain circumstances, parts of selected humans can become an ideal proxy for connecting with the supernatural, as demonstrated by the cult of human skulls in Near Eastern Neolithic communities, as well as the cult of relics of Christian saints from the early Christian era. To go deeper into this topic, this volume aims to undertake a cross-cultural investigation of the role played by both humans and human remains in creating forms of relationality with the divine in antiquity. Such an approach will highlight how the human body can be envisioned as part of a broader materialization of religious beliefs that is based on connecting different realms of materiality in the perception of the supernatural by communities of the living.

Human Sacrifice

Human Sacrifice PDF Author: Laerke Recht
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108687776
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 198

Get Book Here

Book Description
Sacrifice is not simply an expression of religious beliefs. Its highly symbolic nature lends itself to various kinds of manipulation by those carrying it out, who may use the ritual in maintaining and negotiating power and identity in carefully staged 'performances'. This Element will examine some of the many different types of sacrifice and ritual killing of human beings through history, from Bronze Age China and the Near East to Mesoamerica to Northern Europe. The focus is on the archaeology of human sacrifice, but where available, textual and iconographic sources provide valuable complements to the interpretation of the material.

Bioarchaeological and Forensic Perspectives on Violence

Bioarchaeological and Forensic Perspectives on Violence PDF Author: American Association of Physical Anthropologists. Annual meeting
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107045444
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 343

Get Book Here

Book Description
Case studies on violent deaths from the past and present vividly illustrate how anthropologists construct meaning from the victim's bones.

Before Kukulkán

Before Kukulkán PDF Author: Vera Tiesler
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816532648
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 343

Get Book Here

Book Description
"A significant look at Maya life prior to Chichén Itzá during the Classic Period in the Yucatán"--Provided by publisher.

Kukulkan's Realm

Kukulkan's Realm PDF Author: Marilyn Masson
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1492012734
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 756

Get Book Here

Book Description
Kukulkan's Realm chronicles the fabric of socioeconomic relationships and religious practice that bound the Postclassic Maya city of Mayapán's urban residents together for nearly three centuries. Presenting results of ten years of household archaeology at the city, including field research and laboratory analysis, the book discusses the social, political, economic, and ideological makeup of this complex urban center. Masson and Peraza Lope's detailed overview provides evidence of a vibrant market economy that played a critical role in the city's political and economic success. They offer new perspectives from the homes of governing elites, secondary administrators, affluent artisans, and poorer members of the service industries. Household occupational specialists depended on regional trade for basic provisions that were essential to crafting industries, sustenance, and quality of life. Settlement patterns reveal intricate relationships of households with neighbors, garden plots, cultivable fields, thoroughfares, and resources. Urban planning endeavored to unite the cityscape and to integrate a pluralistic populace that derived from hometowns across the Yucatán peninsula. New data from Mayapán, the pinnacle of Postclassic Maya society, contribute to a paradigm change regarding the evolution and organization of Maya society in general and make Kukulkan's Realm a must-read for students and scholars of the ancient Maya and Mesoamerica.

Children and Childhood in Bioarchaeology

Children and Childhood in Bioarchaeology PDF Author: Patrick Beauchesne
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 0813052289
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 413

Get Book Here

Book Description
As researchers become increasingly interested in studying the lives of children in antiquity, this volume argues for the importance of a collaborative biocultural approach. Contributors draw on fields including skeletal biology and physiology, archaeology, sociocultural anthropology, pediatrics, and psychology to show that a diversity of research methods is the best way to illuminate the complexities of childhood. Contributors and case studies span the globe with locations including Egypt, Turkey, Italy, England, Japan, Peru, Bolivia, Canada, and the United States. Time periods range from the Neolithic to the Industrial Revolution. Leading experts in the bioarchaeology of childhood investigate breastfeeding and weaning trends of the past 10,000 years; mortuary data from child burials; skeletal trauma and stress events; bone size, shape, and growth; plasticity; and dietary histories. Emphasizing a life course approach and developmental perspective, this volume's interdisciplinary nature marks a paradigm shift in the way children of the past are studied. It points the way forward to a better understanding of childhood as a dynamic lived experience both physically and socially. A volume in the series Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past: Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives, edited by Clark Spencer Larsen Contributors: Sabrina C. Agarwal | Patrick Beauchesne | Tina Moffat | Tracy Prowse | Dan Temple | Marla Toyne | Haagen D. Klaus | Siân Halcrow | Raelene Inglis | Rebecca Gowland | Sophie L. Newman | Jessica Pearson | James H. Gosman | David A. Raichlen | Tim Ryan | Tosha L. Dupras | Lana J. Williams | Sandra M. Wheeler | Carl Henrik Langebaek Rueda | Melanie J. Miller

Of Rocks and Water

Of Rocks and Water PDF Author: Ömür Harmanşah
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1782976744
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Get Book Here

Book Description
People are drawn to places where geology performs its miracles: ice-cold spring waters gushing from the rock, mysterious caves which act as conduits for ancestors and divinities traveling back and forth to the underworld, sacred bodies of water where communities make libations and offer sacrifices. This volume presents a series of archaeological landscapes from the Iranian highlands to the Anatolian Plateau, and from the Mediterranean borderlands to Mesoamerica. Contributors all have a deep interest in the making and the long-term history of unorthodox places of human interaction with the mineral world, specifically the landscapes of rocks and water. Working with rock reliefs, sacred springs and lakes, caves, cairns, ruins and other meaningful places, they draw attention to the need for a rigorous field methodology and theoretical framework for working with such special places. At a time when network models, urban-centered and macro-scale perspectives dominate discussions of ancient landscapes, this unusual volume takes us to remote, unmappable places of cultural practice, social imagination and political appropriation. It offers not only a diverse set of case studies approaching small meaningful places in their special geological grounding, but also suggests new methodologies and interpretive approaches to understand places and the processes of place-making.

Alternative Voices

Alternative Voices PDF Author: Oliver Freiberger
Publisher: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
ISBN: 364754017X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 349

Get Book Here

Book Description
When scholarship presents the histories, belief systems, and ritual patterns of specific religious groups, it often privileges victorious and élite fractions of those communities to the detriment and neglect of alternative, dissonant, and resurgent voices. The contributions in this volume, which include case studies on various religious and academic contexts, illustrate the importance of listening to those alternative voices for the study of religion.

Re-Creating Primordial Time

Re-Creating Primordial Time PDF Author: Gabrielle Vail
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 145718429X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 534

Get Book Here

Book Description
Re-Creating Primordial Time offers a new perspective on the Maya codices, documenting the extensive use of creation mythology and foundational rituals in the hieroglyphic texts and iconography of these important manuscripts. Focusing on both pre-Columbian codices and early colonial creation accounts, Vail and Hernández show that in spite of significant cultural change during the Postclassic and Colonial periods, the mythological traditions reveal significant continuity, beginning as far back as the Classic period. Remarkable similarities exist within the Maya tradition, even as new mythologies were introduced through contact with the Gulf Coast region and highland central Mexico. Vail and Hernández analyze the extant Maya codices within the context of later literary sources such as the Books of Chilam Balam, the Popol Vuh, and the Códice Chimalpopoca to present numerous examples highlighting the relationship among creation mythology, rituals, and lore. Compiling and comparing Maya creation mythology with that of the Borgia codices from highland central Mexico, Re-Creating Primordial Time is a significant contribution to the field of Mesoamerican studies and will be of interest to scholars of archaeology, linguistics, epigraphy, and comparative religions alike.