The Burden of the Ancients

The Burden of the Ancients PDF Author: Allen J. Christenson
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477309977
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Get Book Here

Book Description
In Maya theology, everything from humans and crops to gods and the world itself passes through endless cycles of birth, maturation, dissolution, death, and rebirth. Traditional Maya believe that human beings perpetuate this cycle through ritual offerings and ceremonies that have the power to rebirth the world at critical points during the calendar year. The most elaborate ceremonies take place during Semana Santa (Holy Week), the days preceding Easter on the Christian calendar, during which traditionalist Maya replicate many of the most important world-renewing rituals that their ancient ancestors practiced at the end of the calendar year in anticipation of the New Year’s rites. Marshaling a wealth of evidence from Pre-Columbian texts, early colonial Spanish writings, and decades of fieldwork with present-day Maya, The Burden of the Ancients presents a masterfully detailed account of world-renewing ceremonies that spans the Pre-Columbian era through the crisis of the Conquest period and the subsequent colonial occupation all the way to the present. Allen J. Christenson focuses on Santiago Atitlán, a Tz’utujil Maya community in highland Guatemala, and offers the first systematic analysis of how the Maya preserved important elements of their ancient world renewal ceremonies by adopting similar elements of Roman Catholic observances and infusing them with traditional Maya meanings. His extensive description of Holy Week in Santiago Atitlán demonstrates that the community’s contemporary ritual practices and mythic stories bear a remarkable resemblance to similar cultural entities from its Pre-Columbian past.

The Burden of the Ancients

The Burden of the Ancients PDF Author: Allen J. Christenson
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477309977
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Get Book Here

Book Description
In Maya theology, everything from humans and crops to gods and the world itself passes through endless cycles of birth, maturation, dissolution, death, and rebirth. Traditional Maya believe that human beings perpetuate this cycle through ritual offerings and ceremonies that have the power to rebirth the world at critical points during the calendar year. The most elaborate ceremonies take place during Semana Santa (Holy Week), the days preceding Easter on the Christian calendar, during which traditionalist Maya replicate many of the most important world-renewing rituals that their ancient ancestors practiced at the end of the calendar year in anticipation of the New Year’s rites. Marshaling a wealth of evidence from Pre-Columbian texts, early colonial Spanish writings, and decades of fieldwork with present-day Maya, The Burden of the Ancients presents a masterfully detailed account of world-renewing ceremonies that spans the Pre-Columbian era through the crisis of the Conquest period and the subsequent colonial occupation all the way to the present. Allen J. Christenson focuses on Santiago Atitlán, a Tz’utujil Maya community in highland Guatemala, and offers the first systematic analysis of how the Maya preserved important elements of their ancient world renewal ceremonies by adopting similar elements of Roman Catholic observances and infusing them with traditional Maya meanings. His extensive description of Holy Week in Santiago Atitlán demonstrates that the community’s contemporary ritual practices and mythic stories bear a remarkable resemblance to similar cultural entities from its Pre-Columbian past.

The Epigrammatists a Selection from the Epigrammatic Literature of Ancient, Mediaeval, and Modern Times by Henry Philip Dodd

The Epigrammatists a Selection from the Epigrammatic Literature of Ancient, Mediaeval, and Modern Times by Henry Philip Dodd PDF Author: Henry Philip Dodd
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 768

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Project

The Project PDF Author: Jeffrey Chapman
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595097359
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Get Book Here

Book Description
CONTROL Set in the distant future, an influential corporation called the Exploration Company is digging into human history. The goal, to research past events, to gather lost facts, to logically deduce its affects on the present and to statistically predict how it would affect the future. IS By adjusting the present, the future can be controlled. This control could benefit all but if in the wrong hands could be devastating. POWER Little did any one know what was going to be unleashed, a powerful force that would either enslave or liberate all sentient life in the galaxy.

The Life and Epistles of Saint Paul

The Life and Epistles of Saint Paul PDF Author: William John Conybeare
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 1034

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Life and Epistles of St. Paul

The Life and Epistles of St. Paul PDF Author: William John Conybeare
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 932

Get Book Here

Book Description


A Forest of Kings

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

Get Book Here

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.

Dark Ghost

Dark Ghost PDF Author: Christine Feehan
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698180534
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 396

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this captivating novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series, a wounded warrior and a woman on the run find salvation, passion and unimaginable danger in the ghostly darkness of the Carpathian Mountains… Monk. Bounty hunter. Vampire slayer. Andre Boroi has spent centuries battling the undead, holding out against the dark with honor. But now, gravely wounded by master vampire Costin Popescu, Andre will be easy to track. His only chance is to disappear into the gray mist of the Carpathians. To wait. To hope. In the mountains in search of a precious crystal, geologist Teagan Joanes suddenly finds herself hunted by those she once trusted. Then she comes across the warrior—wounded, wanting and irresistible. Andre has been craving her for an eternity: his lifemate. Her warmth envelops him. Her scent pulsates. And with every beat of her heart, Teagan surrenders to a passion she can’t possibly comprehend...

An Historical Disquisition Concerning the Knowledge which the Ancients Had of India

An Historical Disquisition Concerning the Knowledge which the Ancients Had of India PDF Author: William Robertson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : India
Languages : en
Pages : 630

Get Book Here

Book Description


Substance of the Ancient Maya

Substance of the Ancient Maya PDF Author: Andrew K. Scherer
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
ISBN: 0826366570
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Get Book Here

Book Description
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 hand-held objects to entire kingdoms. This dichotomy reflects the breadth of questions central to current research on the Maya. It also illustrates how certain themes, such as the relationship between the living and the realm of the supernatural, are fundamental to both thinking by and about the Maya at all scales. A diversity of methods is not only embodied by this assemblage of essays but is also spread equally across the two sections of the book, illustrating that archaeologists, epigraphers, geographers, and art historians can equally contribute to the substance of kingdoms and communities, as they can to objects and beings. Collectively, these contributions show how the objects and beings that composed the Classic Maya world were both literal and sacred substances that mediated relations not only among living people but with gods and ancestors. A final chapter by Stephen Houston reflects on unfinished projects of the ancient Maya as a metaphor for all of the work yet to be done to move forward in our studies of the past.

The Liberty of Ancients Compared with that of Moderns

The Liberty of Ancients Compared with that of Moderns PDF Author: Benjamin Constant
Publisher: Good Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 30

Get Book Here

Book Description
This is an essay by Benjamin Constant. In this essay, Constant contrasted two views on freedom: one held by "the Ancients," particularly those in Classical Greece, and the other by members of modern societies. He investigates the dangers of attempting to impose ancient liberty in a modern context, as well as the risks associated with each type of liberty. The danger of ancient liberty was that men, preoccupied with securing their share of social power, might place too little value on individual rights and pleasures. The danger of modern liberty is that we will give up our right to participate in political power too easily, absorbed in the enjoyment of our independence and the pursuit of our particular interests." Constant believes that the two types of liberty must eventually be combined.